03:19 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Yesterday I read the amusing yet disturbing article Apple to iPod owners: "Eat shit and die" at BoingBoing. It appears Apple is trying everything to stop you from moving your OWN music data stored on your iPod back to your computer. This is what you get when you "upgrade" to the latest iTunes V4.7.

Remember when Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer stated that most iPod users were thieves using stolen music? The Apple fan community was aghast and had certainly no nice words left for Balmer:

This from a company that knows nothing about "Fair Play".

Balmer is trolling and is also a ****ing retard. Monkey Boy.

This is very typical from Microsoft. They think that if you competitior is doing better than you, you should buy them. If you can't buy them, create bad publicity.

I have a couple of words to say to Mr. Balmer. Unfortunetly, MacRumors' filter would turn them into a bunch of *s.

Microsoft must be ashamed.

Can we say "Inferiority Complex" or "Why didn't we steal that too?".

How ironic, in retrospetive Balmer was perhaps trying to make some bad press about his competitor, but Apple is now the one who is, in BoingBoing's words, devoting time, money, and lawyer- and engineer-hours to breaking your iPod and selling it to you as a "fix." I feel sorry for all loyal Apple lovers, who must feel like being stabbed in the back! (not without a big smirk in my face)

02:40 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Earlier today PalmSource (PSRC) was downgraded by Needham & Co from Buy to Hold, because of the company's decision to port its Treo handheld computer product line to Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. Needham said it thinks the current valuation of PalmSource reflects the potential upside of license fee revenue from rising Treo sales that could be lost to Treos running on Microsoft's platform. The broker left its financial estimates for the company unchanged for now, because the timing of the product's introduction is still uncertain.

As a result, PalmSource shares slumped more than 9 percent today.

The fact that the Treo is supposed to be ported to Pocket PC makes all my alarm bells ring. Did you hear about that before? I try to read all the news, but somehow it must have slipped me that PalmSource (or is it palmOne?) wants to step into the realm of Pocket PC. What do you make of it?

09:32 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

According to the Associated Press, a new standard for multimedia messaging has been adopted by the wireless industry, allowing customers from different wireless companies to exchange photos, video, and audio just like e-mail.

While the standard has been adopted it will take some time for companies to change and integrate everything. Until then, multimedia services will remain more like the current status of instant messaging, where users of services from AOL, Yahoo! and MSN still cannot chat directly.

The lack of interoperability has been a huge stumbling block for wireless carriers and their capabilities. For example, most cell phones today have cameras, but users wouldn't or couldn't share their pictures because their friends and family do not use the same wireless service. At a base-level short messaging service, or SMS, enabled a common standard of interoperability.

The establishment of a new multimedia message standard will encourage the exchange of photos and other multimedia content no matter what wireless company or technology a customer may be using. This will drive wider use of the technology and could lead to expanded multimedia services from wireless providers.

Cingular will be using a company call Mobile 365. VeriSign also announced an inter-carrier multimedia messaging service that wireless companies can take advantage of.

09:38 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Was reading about smart phones and it hit me one more reason I don’t like the growth of smart phones over traditional PDAs (besides the compromise of the PDA specs and screen and battery issues, like we’ve all discussed before.)

As an analogy, remember how before the internet you used to control your own PC. No big worries about being exposed to evil stuff out there. When you did something on your PC it was basically handled locally. Then Microsoft IE and the Windows upgrades and all kinds of other programs started trying to make things “seamless.” Basically, they took matters out of your hands and you didn’t really know when your computer was talking to the internet and why. You didn’t know exactly what ActiveX controls were going to do under the covers. You lost control. And look at the result. We’ve been forced to accept levels of blind trust relative to internet communications that we never would have accepted in the beginning, but Microsoft and others ramped it up for the more valuable purposes like Windows upgrades and you really didn’t have any choice. You got accustomed to letting them control the terms and methods of your interaction with the web.

Now think about PDAs. True, we have WiFi and Bluetooth in traditional PDAs and they have a level of exposure to internet villains. But now with smart phones you see the game changing already again. Now smart phone makers and wireless carriers are bending the rules of play according to their own wishes, not according to the best interests of us customers. Bottom line is they want to sell downloads and content and wireless minutes, whether data or voice. That means that all the core software is tailored to their plans. They want hooks into their distribution systems. They want to get you on their data plans. They want you running their software for monitoring and controlling the way you connect in this new interconnected world. (I bet some of our readers that are already using smart phones can give some real-life examples of this, or alternatively they can dispute this viewpoint.)

I’m sure there will be great benefits and features, but I’m not so sure I am comfortable being forced into doing things in new ways designed by the people trying to take control of how I spend my money. Some of the things I might not feel comfortable with right now are probably going to become commonplace soon. Just watch… you will see more and more the wireless carriers are going to steer OS development for smart phones and we’re going to be doing things according to their best interest. We’re going to lose control of how we interconnect. We’re going to be paying through the nose for wireless data plans and published content. It's going to have such strong DRM that it's useless except on your smart phone. And we’re going to be upgrading both for phone technology and for PDA technology.

I think, for now, I’ll stick with my traditional PDA. And maybe we’ll see growth of some WiFi-like technology until it is a ubiquitous alternative to wireless carriers. Am I concerned for no reason? Too early to tell, I guess, but the future will be interesting, and there's some very talented people out there trying to determine the future of mobile computing on our behalf... or at least on someone's behalf.

And a general MobileRead thought as a postscript--
If you have an idea or opinion on this or any topic, please share it! We enjoy the participation and feedback, and as always are looking for ideas for improvement.

In addition, please feel free at any time to private message any of the editors at MobileRead if you have suggestions for increased participation in the discussion. We really appreciate both the frequent and occasional posters here that make MobileRead such a great place to discuss mobile computing and technology!

07:20 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

MailWave provides wireless access to IMAP4 and POP3 enabled servers. Advanced features such as Inbox synchronization, and calendar and task viewing provide the mobile worker with valuable information while on the road.

The e-mail client supports multiple networks, email servers, and wireless devices providing a very flexible wireless email solution. MailWave is a powerful wireless email access solution with advanced features such as push style message delivery, stylus free operation, and attachment downloading. Deploy MailWave to a single user or the entire enterprise quickly and securely using over the air activation.

Price: $9.95/month (that doesn't come cheap ).

For more info and download instruction read at mytreo.net or visit the author's homepage.

01:34 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

Announcements
Happy Birthday Ignatz!
MobileRead Mobile for offline-readers, update
Under Attack ;(

Book Reader Hardware
Sony Librie - download all BBeB encrypted e-books
To good to be true: Sony Librie finally cracked!

Emerging Technologies
Delphi XM MyFi - radio via satellite
Flexible Liquid Crystal - the answer to our display problems?
iPod Mini challengers - and how they fail again
iPod Photo - now officially on Apple's site
MP3 Photo Jukebox
OpenZaurus 3.5.1 - alternative Zaurus OS
Sandisk release new fast and small card readers
Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 converted to English!

General Chat
Add MobileRead to MyYahoo!
E-books for your mobile phone
eBayFeed 1.11 - eBay USA fixed
Got Gmail? Perhaps you are already hacked!
It is true: palmOne is losing its market share

General Palm Discussion
PalmGear - Mobile
PalmGear - RSS Feeds working again!
PalmGear with a new look - breaks PalmGear RSS feeds!
PDA Sales Dropping
Treo 650

General PPC Discussion
eReader selected as "Best e-Book Reader" for PPC
visNotes-encrypted memos

03:06 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Google's Gmail is vulnerable to a security exploit that might allow hackers full access to your email account simply by knowing your username, according to Nana Netlife Magazine:

"Everything could get publicly exposed – your received mails might be readable, as well as all of your sent mail, and furthermore – anyone could send and receive mail under your name", thus reveals Nir Goldshlagger, an Israeli hacker, on an exclusive interview with Nana NetLife Magazine. "Even more alarming", he explains, "is the fact that the hack itself is quite simple. All that is needed of the malicious hacker, beside knowledge of the specific technique, is quite basic computer knowledge, the victim's username – and that’s it, he's inside".

Google admitted to the security flaw and is working on a fix.

One tip for Google: Stay beta forever, then you don't have to bother with legal claims at the end.

12:34 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Gateway has now announced its own MP3 player with photo capabilities. The Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox has a mere 4Gb of storage, and will street at US$249.99. The Photo Jukebox uses Windows Media Player 10 to synch up music and photos from a PC to the device, comes with a 1.6-inch vibrant color screen, and weighs 3.4 ounces.

Humorously, Gateway is also taking shots at Apple saying, "The new Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox will make anyone currently on a waiting list for other mini-digital music players think twice". They're also boasting that the Photo Jukebox's battery can go for 8 hours and, more importantly, can be removed and recharged "unlike most other digital music players."

Gateway is only taking pre-orders right now, with shipments expected in mid-November.

Read more from the Gateway press release.