08:01 PM by cbarnett in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

SFR have released a utility for the PPC and Palm, visNotes.

This is an alternative memo/notes program that encrypts the note with 128bit encryption. The basic version is free.

Not a bad idea for those who may not already be using ewallet software to encrypt sensitive data on their devices.

Craig.

07:52 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

According to a study from global market analyzer IDC, the mobile device market (smartphones and PDAs) in Western Europe grew by 38% during the third quarter of 2004, with over 1.8 million units shipped during 3Q04 compared to 1.3 million units in 3Q03. This steady increase was mainly driven by Blackberry and smartphone sales.

The interesting part of the paper is a table showing how individual mobile device vendors were doing in Q3. All of them (that includes Nokia, HP, Sony Ericsson, RIM) exhibit a growth in market share - on the expense of palmOne, who saw shipments drop by 16% year on year to 138,900 units.

And there remains a gloomy outlook:
IDC believes that palmOne will continue to struggle during the final quarter of 2004 with strong competition from white-box Pocket PC vendors. In Europe palmOne's converged device the Treo 600 remains a niche product unlikely to appeal to the majority of consumers and failing to become recognized as a true enterprise-class device. While the Treo 600 does have some operator support, IDC does not believe that it is currently being promoted to its full potential.

07:41 PM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Apparently some sleepless geeks are still trying to break the nasty DRM protection that made the Librie fail of becoming a star.

Today I stumbled over the instruction how to download any secure BBeB book from Sony's e-book distributor TimeBookTown. The books will still be encrypted, but it is nice to have a few copies for "closer inspection."

Here is the instruction, originally from the Librie group at Yahoo:
1) go to http://www.timebooktown.jp/Service/
2) every book image is also the name of a book, ex: CBJPPL1B00794001
3) copy paste this string to the end of the following URL:
http://www.timebooktowns.jp/contents/
4) add the .LRX extention to the end of the URL & press enter

Example: http://www.timebooktowns.jp/contents...1B0090900Z.LRX

Let's count the hours until they will notice and pull the plug.

07:40 PM by cbarnett in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Geekzone have an interesting article about Sandisk's new card readers. They are very small, plug straight into the usb port (USB 2.0), and the card plugs straight into the reader.

Two versions are available, one for SD/MMC and similar cards, the other for memory stick and memory stick pro cards.

These are a great idea. They are small enough to carry around in your pocket, and are a lot faster when you want to transfer many or large files to or from your cards.

Craig.

05:30 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Thanks to Sunshine for the news! Apple made the iPod Photo come true, as everyone can now see on the Apple homepage. It features a "razor sharp" LCD display that lets you see your photos in vivid color — 65,536 colors, to be exact. And with its built-in backlighting, you’ll be able to admire those photos indoors or out.

Battery has also improved. The iPod Photo offers up to 15 hours of music playback, and up to 5 hours of image slideshows with music (the standard iPod brings it up to 12 hours).

Another nice feature: composite video and audio, allowing you to plug your iPod to an external video source.

Only drawback: it is slightly bigger (thicker to be exact) than its monochrome brother.

10:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Azom reports that HP Laboratories Bristol has developed a prototype of a display that is bistable, color, plastic and is made by imprinting and lamination processes that eliminate the expensive vacuum deposition and photolithography used to make today’s flat panels.

Does this sound like a real alternative to E-Ink's E-Paper (as used in Sony's monstrous Librie)? You bet!

Paper-like display technologies are beginning to emerge, but so far many developments still need active matrices and have focused on reflective, black-and-white displays.

“More and more content is produced in color. New display technologies cannot afford to ignore that if they are ever to compete with books, art, magazines and posters,” said Adrian Geisow, manager of Displays Research, HP Laboratories, Bristol.

Unfortunately it can still take a few more years of further applied research to properly develop and assess the commercial potential of this technology.

Thanks to Teleread for the link.

10:02 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

E-book reader eReader has been selected as "Best e-Book Reader" in Pocket PC magazine's 2004 Best Software Awards.

"We are honored to be selected as a winner in Pocket PC magazine's 2004 Best Software Awards," said Ryan Wuerch, Motricity's chairman and CEO. "It is a great industry validation for Motricity, our products and the expanding popularity of eBooks. This award further validates our strength and presence in the eBook marketplace and we are pleased that eReader is the software of choice for avid eBook enthusiasts."

Other finalists were: Mobipocket Reader, TomeRaider
Other candiates were: Tiny eBook Reader, uBook

Interestingly, only commercial PPC e-book readers using proprietary formats made it into the final round.

07:42 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Conics.net offers the new Zaurus Sl-C3000 converted to English at no extra cost. You can preorder the device now for $749 USD and have it delivered overseas after November 10th, 2004.

There are also some wonderful screenshots of the device after its OS was converted to English.