06:09 AM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

palmOne Finally Officially Announces the Treo 650 (Brighthand)

palmOne has just taken the wraps off what has to be the most anticipated new smartphone of the season: the Treo 650.

The predictions were pretty much dead-on: hires, OS 5, Bluetooth, swappable battery, better camera, flash memory. Even though this is just an incremental update, I can see this model becoming a big success. Bluetooth is pretty much essential here in Europe (often cited as one of the reasons why the Treo 600 has not been as successful as it has been in the US). I hope PalmOne will have the manufacturing problems sorted out, so they can supply them in greater numbers.

Anyone planning on buying the 650? Or are MobileRead members allergic to SmartPhones? Personally, I will hold off until SmartPhones with OS6 arrive next year. Apparently, Samsung is working on one, but I hope PalmOne will also come out with their upgrade.

03:33 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Good and bad news. PalmGear has finally a new look, probably due to the name change of its parent company PowerByHand to Motricitiy (a weird name, that is my opinion). If you haven't heard about it before: PowerByHand has recently raised $27 million in venture capital funding. Enough money to allow for another name change and to redesign a couple of its affiliated sites. This is the good news.

The bad news is that my feed creator script breaks due to the layout changes of PalmGear. You will now receive the message

FeedLiquifier/2.00: parsing failed. Contact me at Mobileread.com with the name of the feed and the time it occured.

when trying to parse either

https://www.mobileread.com/feeds/pgupdated_rss20.xml or
https://www.mobileread.com/feeds/pgnews_rss20.xml

I promise I will have them updated in a couple of hours, after I have done some other important things.

01:53 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

iNDUSTRY Entertainment informed us that they have just released a MAJOR update of Jack or 100 Ways to Barbecue.

The new version 1.5 includes new features and enhacements such as: 100% ARM optimization, digital music and sound effects, optimized versions for a variety of screen resolutions (160x160, 240x240, 240x320, 320x240, 320x320, 320x480, 480x320 pixels).

Btw, Jack is also available on Microsoft PocketPC and Smartphone platforms.

08:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

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

Book Reader Hardware
Cybook E-Book Reader reviewed

Book Reader Software
TomeRaider 3 is Final now

Emerging Technologies
20GB portable video player with WiFi
iRiver PMP: DivX movies in your hands
OQO in-depth review at handtops.com
Run your iPod for 22 hours

General Chat
All PDA reviews in one place
Cash-cow Handango
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMMY!

General Palm Discussion
Agile Messenger (Freeware)
Astraware up-to-50%-discount offers

General PPC Discussion
Medieval Folk Healer 1.1 Major Update
PDAMill: Buy one - get one free!

Plucker
Sunrise 0.36 released

03:13 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

iRiver has formally introduced its Linux-based Portable Media Player (PMP) family in the UK.

The PMP-120 and PMP-140, each equipped with a 20GB and a 40GB 1.8in hard drive, respectively, provide MP3, ASF, WMA and WAV audio playback, along with MPEG 4, AVI, DivX and XviD video support. There's still photography storage and slide-show features, too, and the machines also provide an FM radio and voice recording facilities.

Available now, the PMP-120 retails for around £400, the 40GB version for £450.

Linux is the way to go!

Read the full story at The Register.

02:15 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

We already reported that it was possible to replace your iPod battery by yourself. Not only is it cheaper than Apple's $100 battery-replacement program, but also does it allow you to pick a high-capacity battery which can double the life of an original iPod, granting an amazing 22 hours of continuous play!

Wired tested a $40, high-capacity, 2,100 mAh replacement iPod battery from Newer Technology and confirms that

Replacing the battery yourself is the way to go. It's half the price of getting someone else to do it, and very easy to do.

05:09 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Medieval Folk Healer has undergone a major update with all new graphics and an all new interface! Medieval Folk Healer combines history and fiction to create a business game in the healing arts of yore. The full version costs only $9.95 and a trial version is available for download. More information can be found at the Trisystech website: www.trisystech.com. You can also see some more screenshots in this this thread.

Thanks for JongJungBu for informing us.

09:25 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

I read in a press release today that Handango has made into the Inc. 500 list:

Today, Inc. Magazine announced that Handango was chosen as one of the 500 fastest growing privately-held companies in the United States. In its first year of eligibility, Handango ranked #273 on the list with 132.2 percent net sales growth over the past four years. Handango's revenues are derived predominantly from sales of mobile content through a network of more than 100 sales channels, including some of the largest brands in the mobile industry.

You can read the rest here.

Now this is slightly annoying to me. Remember the discussion on the ESD Monopoly? Well it appears nothing has really changed much since then. Handango makes it into some silly ranking list and can still celebrate its ESD margin of 40% or greater.