03:47 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

When I read RT's comment "I Was Naive!" at PalmAddict this morning, I felt as if the author was speaking out of my mind. Long before Sony joined the PDA euphoria, palmOne (at that time still called Palm) had been the only big PDA player, and definitely the only one with PalmOS-based handhelds.

Do you remember the Palm V (and later Vx)? For how long had it been Palm's #1 model? I can tell you: for many years - until Sony entered the game! Sony came and slaughtered the market. And henceforth Palm was forced to actually invest some money in new hardware design. The m500/m505 came, and it didn't take long for the T-line to approach.

Then Sony left the spectacle again - and with it an overly disturbed PDA market with dozens of PalmOS-based handhelds called Clie. What a relief for palmOne. Its management probably took the entire research & development budget to spent 6 luxurious months lying on the beach of Virgin Gorda. Then it must have noticed that their wives were running out of money and so decided to refurnish the Tungsten E and call it Tungsten T5.

Competition is the whetstone of talent. When Sony left the PDA market, palmOne lost its talent.

03:26 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Javoedge, the guys famous for making PDA cases, have just released a new slim case fit perfectly for the HP iPAQ rz1700 series. The case is available for $34.95 USD.

Thanks to Javoedge for submitting the news.

03:03 PM by Brian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Don Katz, CEO and founder of Audible.com has written an interesting article at paidContent.org titled Price and Volume in the Emergent Digital Marketplace.

There's also a great article on the history of Audible.com by Don Katz called Going Audible, and I strongly recommend reading all of Don Katz's contributions at paidContent.org if you are a mobile content enthusiast. He has some very interesting insight about all forms of digital content, not just audiobooks. <SUGGESTION>Maybe MobileRead should contact him and see if he'd like to contribute here!</SUGGESTION>

As a long time Audible.com Basic listener, I find many of his comments spot on. In particular, his comment about commuters listening to newspapers and magazines while driving to work is right on the money: I listen to The Morning Read from the Wall Street Journal and MIT's Technology Review. I find it much more mentally stimulating than listening to Imus or Stern .

He touches on some hot topics in the article such as pricing, royalties, ebooks and the paid content model. Steven Levy, a Newsweek writer who interviewed Katz, also wrote another article for Newsweek iPod Nation about the iPod's effect on digital music. Some of his comments in the transcript of a discussion about the article also have some startling tidbits and observations.

Ames, IA: The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill Thursday that would hold technology companies liable for any product they make that encourages people to steal copyright materials. Critics say the bill would effectively outlaw peer-to-peer networks and prohibit the development of new technologies, including devices like the iPod.

Do You Think This New Law Is A Good Idea??

Steven Levy: This INDUCE Act is one more clueless anti-consumer monstrosity coming from Congress, which, in my humble opinion, has been using copyright law to slow down the progess of technology to the detriment of the public, all in the service of special interests. Though presumably this act would affect only peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa, I spoke to Rep. Rick Boucher, one of the few Congress critters who really gets this stuff, who confirmed to me that in theory the iPod would be outlawed if this bill were passed in its current format. You could even make an argument that it would outlaw the PC, as it "induces" people to copy files whether or not they are copyrighted. Feh.

OK people, it's time to join the EFF and contact your Congressmen and Senators if you haven't done so already! Here's a Wired article on the INDUCE Act. It appears to be stuck in Committee, let's help keep it there.

Brian

PS There's a copy of Steve Levy's article at Newsweek available here.

12:13 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Several months ago I reported about a preview of the Cybook e-book reader hardware that was available for order. Now you can order the final version (USA, Germany).

Let me tell you first what I like about the Cybook: support of multiple e-book formats. No matter whether you are dealing with DRM-protected Mobipocket, MicroBook, Boo Reader, HTML, TXT, Winword RTF, PTab XLS - the Cybook supports it. If only Sony had listened to the market and done the same for the Librie, I bet, it would have been as popular as Apple's iPod is today.

What do I not like about the Cybook? The price. 734.90 Euro or USD $744 is just "a bit" too much for what I would be willing to spend on a dedicated e-book reader.

09:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

AME Info Broadcast has an exclusive 4:30mins interview with Palm's regional manager, Stuart Maughan. He is quite taken by the new Tungsten T5

You can access it here.

06:16 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Unesco recently offered a workshop in Bangalore, India depicting the potential of e-Books. Participants from Asia and Europe identified the issues and complexities involved in e-book projects delineating the role of e-Books in education, research and libraries from the perspective of the publishers, distributors and users.

While I believe that the acceptance for e-books has at least somewhat improved, Shalini Urs, who leads a UNESCO e-Book Project Strategy Group, has a more gloomy interpretation of the current market:

"The e-Book industry and market place is a nebulous one with each of the players continuing to test waters and gingerly transiting into the arena. While most of the stakeholders believe in the potential of the e-Books, none is ready to take the plunge – not yet! The e-Book revolution though foretold in the year 2000 is yet to happen."

You can read the full press release here.

05:53 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

The Apple Newton refuses to die. The Worldwide Newton Conference 2004 has wrapped up photos and, thanks to Paul Guyot, there is real hope for an emulator. His talk, titled "Newton never dies, It only gets new hardware," describes and shows the Einstein Emulator, that will eventually allow the Newton OS to be built and run on top of Unix.

Forget Palm for a moment. Forget PocketPC. Will your next Linux PDA boot Newton OS next year?

Source: Slashdot

07:11 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

1src has a new look, and I must say I like it! Good job, guys!