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.

09:16 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Astraware has lined up twelve of its latest titles and put discounts of up to 50% on each of them! ... these offers only run until the end of October.

Bejeweled is still one of my favorite games out there. So if you haven't had a change to buy it yet, you can do it now!

09:08 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Last week we mentioned an available beta of TomeRaider 3. Now you can download the final version of this often underrated e-book reader software.

I don't think much anything has changed from the last beta, so this here is new since TomeRaider 2: Categories/Filters for database queries, image support, accelerated full text searches, better and faster compression, full html support, DRM and encryption.

TomeRaider is optimized for large text files and dictionary lookups. For instance, you could convert the Wikipedia database to a highly optimized, searchable .tr3 file.

07:47 PM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

aRMiTaG3 has a cool illustrated hands-on review of the Cybook E-Book Reader (available at Bookeen).

As sad as this sounds, but the Cybook is still not the perfect e-book reader we've been waiting for (disqualifies because of: lousy screen, outdated software, high price). And thus our search continues...

07:37 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

What a beauty! Korean Jace offers a 20GB Portable video player, where the display can be flipped up. Besides supporting a wide range of video and audio formats (MP3, WMA, as well as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9, DivX3.11, 4.xx, 5.xx,Xvid), it also has a Web Browser, WiFi 802.11b, an FM tuner, JPEG-support, Video-out, USB2.0 and a Compact Flash slot.

First found at DAPreview.com.