10:34 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Residents of Savannah, Georgia will be happier than ever to hang out in downtown parks now. The non-profit group, Savannah Spanish Moss, has created the city's first-ever free public wifi hot spots. The technology promises to turn public parks into public libraries, foster economic development and create new ways for downtown businesses to reach visitors. After the G-8 Summit, the wireless network available along River Street and in Reynolds Square will remain, and, hopefully, expand to other squares, Forsyth Park and City Market.

The same fever has hit the nation's capital, where the Open Park Project, a non-profit group touting "hotspots for democracy" has placed an open Wifi router at the SupCt, and will be placing routers around The National Mall within a year. OPP hopes to reach tourists, protesters and tech junkies alike.

10:22 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

According to a new survey, many consumers are opting for smartphones over handhelds. Additionally, Nokia has overtaken PalmOne as the top seller of "mobile computers" for the 1st quarter of '04.

Nokia's ascent comes from sales of its smartphones which, like handhelds, offer personal organisers and can be loaded with different types of software. Nokia sold 1.67 million smartphones, up from 900,000 a year earlier. The total market grew by 41% to 5.93 million units, while global shipments of smartphone products more than doubled. Shipments of handheld computers made by the likes of PalmOne and Hewlett-Packard remained virtually flat, with PO holding a substantial share advantage over HP.

Until about 18 months ago, Nokia only participated in the mobile computing market with its bulky Communicator, but its Series 60 software has brought advanced software and features to much smaller and lighter models.

Having recently obtained a smartphone myself, I can honestly say that I'll never give up my pda. The availability of software for smartphones is stifling, and data input is difficult at best. The draw for me was the deal I got from my wireless carrier -- I made $75 for upgrading my phone and switching providers.

05:05 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

New York Times (free registration required) talks about e-book pirates today: "While the music industry's effort to quash the trading of pirated songs over the Internet has attracted far more headlines, the unauthorized sharing of digitized books is proliferating in news groups, over peer-to-peer networks and in chat rooms."

Pirated e-books include best-steller titles like "The Da Vinci Code" and "The South Beach Diet." I actually remember summer last year, when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) came out, it took e-book pirates less than 24hours to deliver a properly scanned e-book in any format you can think of (txt, html, pdf, prc, lit).

Main sources for illegal e-books, the article continues, are peer-to-peer file sharing systems (emule), the IRC (#Bookz), and newsgroups (alt.books.*).

Welcome to the Digital Age.

03:50 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

A day after its No. 2 client, Sony, delivered bad news, PalmSource announced that two Chinese companies may license the Palm OS. PalmSource said on Wednesday it is talking with mobile phone maker Ningbo Bird and an arm of TCL about licensing its Palm operating system for handheld devices.

According to research company Gartner, handheld computer sales in China were forecast to hit 475,000 units this year, up from an estimated 442,000 last year. The forecase, an almost-10% increase in sales, doesn't sound dramatic, but it might be the best kind of market PalmSource can come up with for now.

03:45 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

British-based Aventure Mail offers a 2Gb (Gigabyte) free email service with quick signup, no advertisement, no attachment restriction sizes, spam and virus protection, and soon also with SSL encryption.

I already signed up and saved an email address for myself. I am not sure for how long they can offer free signups, so better hurry - it is still free!

02:34 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

According to AppleInsider's most reliable sources, the 4th generation iPod is due September 2004. Rumored features:
- 2-inch color LCD screen
- dock connector with video-out capabilities
- an improved operation system
- 50Gb hard-disk

Today also spread another news, namely that Toshiba is planning to launch a 60Gb version of its 1.8-inch hard disk drive in the coming months and has already received an order from Apple.

60Gb of MP3s - is it even possible to listen to that much music??

09:54 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Cliesource.com and Palmonecity.com have merged to become 1src.com. 1src.com brings news and discussion of everything that is Palm-powered related.

Good luck, guys!

07:26 PM by sUnShInE in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Imagine this:

You're shopping at your local grocery store. You walk in, with your handy little shopping cart. You walk over to the info kiosk and grab a small handheld. You scan a barcode with the handheld from a card in your wallet, unlocking it for use, and you're off.

You begin shopping. As you pull items off the shelf, you scan them with the handheld and plop them into your cart. If you decide against the item, you delete it from the unit.

Suddenly the unit beeps, alerting you that if you buy the larger size box of the cereal you just put in your cart, you'll save $2. As you're deciding on whether or not you'll eat that much cereal, and you start scrolling through your itemization on the handheld to see how much you've spent, you get a message that your prescription is ready at the pharmacy for pick up.

Not sure where the pharmacy is located? No problem. The handheld has a map to direct you. But first you want to grab some specialty cheese, and you wonder if the store carries it. You type your search into the handheld, and it pops up the product information, pricing and location for you.

After you pick up the prescription, you head off to the check out. You opt for the speedy aisle. You place the handheld into a machine, swipe your credit card, and walk out the door.

Sounds pretty futuristic, huh? American grocery chain Food Lion will be testing this wifi-based system in five pilot stores in the Charlotte, N.C. area by the end of the year.