05:16 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Adobe has released an updated version Adobe Reader 2.0 for PocketPC.

New features include mobile data entry, which allows you to submit form data using handheld devices over a wireless connection; wireless printing; slide show viewing; downloading of digital editions of your favorite e-books in PDF format.

I am curious to hear if anyone of you is actually using the Adobe Reader. I've never become friend with its too bloated and too slow interface.

03:18 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

An update for the navigation software TomTom Navigator is available for download here. The update will be automatically installed over your current version. You will not need to re-activate your software.

What is new in TomTom Navigator 4.40?

- Points Of Interest (POI) management
- Several quality changes and improvements

02:55 AM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Major disappointment: it's running OS 5.4. (And no WiFi either.)

Tungsten T5 specs

07:14 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Simply participate in a weekly online poll at eReader.com and receive a 20.04% discount on any e-book title!

Or, use these (my thanks to freepolls.com):

10/01/04 - 10/07/04: VOTE2004
10/08/04 - 10/14/04: 2004ELECTION
10/15/04 - 10/21/04: POLL2004
10/22/04 - 10/28/04: ROCKTHEVOTE
10/29/04 - 11/05/04: OVALOFFICE

06:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Textware Solutions, maker of the Fitaly alternative keyboard, announced the Dom Perignon IV Speed Contest, starting October 1, 2004 and ending November 6, 2004. The contest seeks those who can enter data the fastest on a Palm or Pocket PC, using a stylus. The Grand Prize winner in each category – Palm devices and Pocket PCs – will be awarded a prestigious bottle of Dom Perignon.

Past contest participants cruised at an average speed of 50 WPM, with contest winners approaching or even surpassing 80 WPM, and repeatedly providing a factual demonstration that doing fast text entry on a PDA is a realistic proposition.

Thanks to Michael for submitting the news.

08:30 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Ever wish you could write on a pad of regular paper during a meeting without a laptop around, and then magically send the results to your computer?

Check out the NexConcepts Mobile Note Taker web site to see a flash animation and specs of a device that claims to do just that. It runs for about 100hrs of continuous note taking before the pen's battery needs to be replaced. And it has an LCD screen that shows you what you're writing as you write it, so you know it's being recorded.

Previous solutions have required a special tablet to write on, or a computer to attach a base unit to. Now you can do the same thing on the run with just a unit that clips to your pad of paper and a special pen.

One of these days, maybe tablet computers will be cheap and as easy to write on as paper. In the meantime, it's good to see alternatives.

Source: PC Magazine October 19, 2004

10:18 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

When we discussed Violano's (VP of eReader) view on digital right management (DRM) yesterday, I had the idea to make a flowchart of how eReader DRM appears to work.

You can find the chart attached. I hope it sheds some light...

Some important notes that I have also mentioned in the chart:
- the hash function applied is a one-way function: the generated output (hash value) is not dependent on the input (credit card number) in any discernible way. Plus, given a hash value, it is computationally unfeasible to find a pre-image (credit card number) that hashes to that value.

- the decryption process is continuous; the eReader software doesn't decrypt the entire e-book at once (this would take too long, and total memory twice the size of the e-book). Instead, only blocks of a fixed size are decrypted as the user turns the pages of his book.

- the flow chart doesn't show additional steps such as inflating (decompressing) of the e-book. eReader e-books are compressed to reduce the final file size. The inflating process happens on-the-fly after the decryption.

- the credit card number is not stored for later decryption; only the computed hash is needed since it is the actual key to the decryption process.

- even though the credit card number is not stored on your device, it is stored on ereader.com's database server. A potential hacker may thus obtain this number by hacking the server (in other words, your card number is not 100% safe!).

09:27 AM by Laurens in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Just noticed there was a 0.5 release of Vade Mecum, the Plucker-compatible viewer for PPC.

I don't have a PPC so I can't try it out. I did look at the change log in the CAB file and for v0.5 it says "added support for continued text records". This means you can now view JPluck-generated documents, which rely on the viewer supporting this feature. It doesn't seem to support multi-images, though, but you can disable these in JPluck's Preferences. This way JPluck generates images that can still be viewed by readers that don't support multi-images.

Just wanted to let you know.