Thu September 23 2004
Fall '04 Free eBooks from Fictionwise 2nd Round |
05:20 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No... Fictionwise has just started another round of free e-book giveaways which will be available free through September 30th. This is a follow-up to Bob's earlier news on free e-books from Fictionwise's |
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E-Books on your Cell-Phone |
05:02 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News Audible.com and Sprint PCS have announced a co-marketing program that allows you to listen to audio e-books on cellular phones. As part of the agreement, each new AudibleReady Smart Device from Sprint will include the AudiblePlayer application with introductory audio content loaded into the device ROM. The first such phone, the Sprint PCS Vision Smart Device SP-i600 by Samsung, is already available US-nationwide in various Sprint Stores ($469.99 after savings). Of course, you can also use your Treo 600 to listen to Audible.com content. But I think it is interesting how cell phone technology is heading towards the information-rich online world. |
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Sony throws in the towel and will support MP3! |
03:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video According to CNet News and various other sources, Sony confirmed on Wednesday that it is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players--a major strategy reversal that could help it compete more effectively with rivals such as Apple Computer. So finally, though VERY LATE, Sony listens to its unhappy customers and ends its long-standing insistence on the proprietary Atrac format. Not only does Sony plan to add MP3 support to some of its new flash-based players later this year, but also is it also working on software upgrades, so owners of current models could play their songs in the MP3 format. |
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Wed September 22 2004
nVidia Launches GoForce 3D 4500 - First 3D Wireless Media Processor |
10:27 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones In a press release nVidia yesterday unveiled the GoForce 3D 4500, the world's first 3D Wireless Media Processor (WPA). The graphic chip will be first used in the much anticipated Gizmondo game pad to offer mobile gamers superb 3D video and imaging capabilities. From the press release: The GoForce 3D 4500-powered Gizmondo, runs under Microsoft Windows CE.net platform and features a Samsung ARM9 400Mhz processor. The Gizmondo game pad will deliver arcade-quality 3D gaming, courtesy of the GoForce 3D 4500’s dedicated geometry processor, which offloads the main processor to conserve battery life. High resolution, detailed images are enabled through programmable pixel shaders, bilinear and trilinear texture filtering, texture compression, support for six simultaneous textures and a 40-bit color pipeline. With the NVIDIA GoForce 3D 4500’s horsepower, the Gizmondo game pad can boast a 2.8-inch TFT colour screen, as well as a range of functions including multimedia messaging, an MP3 music player, MPEG-4 support, digital still camera functionality and a GPRS network link to allow wide-area network gaming. The GoForce 3D 4500 also supports early Z calculation to reduce the amount of work done on each pixel in a scene, saving battery life while still delivering a jaw-dropping visual experience. The Gizmondo game pad and GoForce 3D 4500 support standard 3D application programming interfaces, including OpenGL-ES, D3D-Mobile and M3G. The Gizmondo game pad also contains a GPS chip for location-based services and is equipped with Bluetooth for use in multi-player gaming and accepts MMC card accessories. Sounds pretty amazing, doesn't it? |
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ThunderHawk Browser V2.0 for Pocket PC |
10:02 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones Bitstream has just announced the release of its WiFi web browser ThunderHawk wireless V2.0 for PocketPC. New users, as well as current ThunderHawk 2.0 Preview Edition users, can download the 30-day free trial of the product release or subscribe to ThunderHawk for $49.95 per year or $5.95 per month. ThunderHawk 2.0 Pocket PC Edition provides: Thanks to Brighthand for bringing the news first! |
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Sunrise 0.3.3 released |
06:22 AM by Laurens in Archive | Sunrise I just released Sunrise 0.3.3. This version adds the ability to send only the selected part of a web page from your browser to Sunrise. More info: Sunrise News |
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Tue September 21 2004
Book Review: Lose The Laptop by Larry Becker |
11:03 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations Bottom Line Rating: 8/10 Detailed Book Description: As he points out, most users of PDAs never load any software other than what comes with the PDA. This book will really open the eyes of some PDA owners to the kinds of things that are possible, and will give them what they need to pursue it further. For the most part, there is not a lot of dry step-by-step instructions, and where detail is provided it is not intrusive to the flow of the book. He is very careful to organize the book in a fashion that allows the reader to easily jump into just the part that is relevant for his or her skill level and interests. The book includes a lot of information helpful to a beginner with PDAs in addition to the main focus, which is doing basic laptop-like activities on a PDA. There was an impressive amount of material covered even though it all came across as simple and clear. As a relatively experienced PDA user myself, I can't say I learned a lot from the book (and Larry suggested that this would be the case as it's not aimed at PDA-pros), but I still had fun reading it! I think that every Palm fanatic is always thinking about how they use their Palm and trying to figure out better ways to use it. This was a nice way to kind of kick start some ideas in my head. The eReader version I was reading from can give a small delay when turning pages on my older and slower Sony Clie SJ33, but it didn't really hamper my reading. The pdf version would be good if you have a larger display because it would help you see more context as you read and allows you to more easily skip around based on your interests. I'm thrilled to see Larry writing this book. I hope that he continues to devote himself to helping Palm users and smartphone users to better understand the capabilities of their handhelds. The more he can educate, the larger our hobbyist community will grow, and the more business users we'll see in the Palm world. I'd have to say that PalmOne/PalmSource are not exactly the best at marketing the potential uses, so it's really up to people like Larry and us fanatics to spread the word. Larry certainly has my best wishes for continued success with his work. Author: Web Site: Formats: Purchase Cost: Disclaimer: |
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PalmTipSheet Preserved at Rohdesign |
09:36 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones Mike Rohde sent me a note today about the recent takeover of the old "palmtipsheet.com" site by a Microsoft ad. He did sell the site, so they can do as they wish, but he still has rights to the issues that he wrote for the site. He's preserved them at http://www.rohdesign.com/palmtipsheet/ They are available in a variety of formats... HTML, Palm Doc, iSilo and Plucker. When I was first learning about Palm PDAs it was a nice discovery and I found it very interesting reading. Even though some of the materials are a bit dated, I suspect people will still find it interesting to browse. |
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