01:49 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

"This one caught me by absolute surprise. Here is the background. For some time now, I and several other analysts and IT managers have been telling Microsoft that the separate Tablet PC edition idea was a bad one. This is because the last thing IT wants is another operating system to manage. After lots of pounding, Microsoft agreed to look at this issue. In two presentations at WinHEC -- Microsoft's recent hardware conference for developers -- Matti Suokko, the Mobile Platforms Division manager, and Darin Fish, the Business Development manager for the Mobile Platforms Division at Microsoft, both indicated Microsoft is considering a new direction.

You would think the result would be a sigh of relief from analysts and media. Instead, the articles that resulted generally concluded that the Tablet PC is dead. Folks got to this opinion by taking the obvious shortcut of tying the platform to the unique OS and concluding that if the unique OS is gone, so is the platform -- despite the fact that pictures of tablet computers were liberally sprinkled through both presentations, including the future road map sections."

So the Tablet PC is dead - another dispelling misconception about Microsoft?

06:28 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

New Zealand researchers have developed a way to overlay detailed animations and images on textbooks, children's picture books and any other title that uses illustrations.

The viewer resembles a pair of spectacles on a stick or hi-tech opera glasses and is held in front of the eyes while a book is read or paged through. "You can get God's eye view if you want," said Dr Billinghurst, "or you can go in and be part of the scene."

02:06 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

The Guardian reports the winner of the 2004 Arthur C Clarke award for British science-fiction writing: Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.

Quicksilver, an opener to a planned trilogy, is a massive and complex historical novel set in the 17th century. It explores the notion that modern cyberculture has its roots in the curiosity of Renaissance alchemists.

06:37 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Do you think that one of the newer Clies or Palms would have the power to run Windows? Well, if you own a PPC, you can be ready for some kind of experiment...

PocketGamer is carrying a story on the successful emulation of Windows 95 and Windows 98SE on the Pocket PC. This was made possible by a Pocket PC port of Bochs, a DOS emulator.

If you're keen to try this on your own Pocket PC, you'll need a minimum of a 256MB memory card (or stream the image over a wireless network) and you'll need a program like Nyditot Virtual Display to increase your screen resolution. Oh, yes, and you'll also need the emulator.

05:45 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Download the latest version of Plucker now.

More news that you even can imagine:

- i-mode support (Dave Maddock)

- The 5-way support in the library has been changed. (Michael Nordstr.m) New behaviour:
If the list of documents is only one page then the fiveway will be activated from the beginning; If the displayed list of documents includes the last accessed document then the fiveway will be activated; The select/centre button will activate the fiveway and the initially selected document will be the last accessed document or if that document isn't visible the document at the middle of the page will be selected. When the fiveway is activated the select/centre button will open the selected document; The up/down button will either scroll the list one page up/down (when the fiveway isn't activated) or select the previous/next document in the list (when the fiveway is activated); The left button will deactivate the fiveway or if the fiveway isn't activated it will exit the viewer. When the list of documents is only one page pressing left will exit the viewer instead of deactivate the fiveway; The right button will display the popup list with different actions for the selected document (when the fiveway is activated). When the fiveway isn't activated the right button will not result in any action.

- The following preferences have been removed:
"Enable dynamic scrollbar"; always disabled; "Enable visual aid"; always enabled; "Click sound for links"; always enabled (i.e. it uses the setting for "system sound").

- Faster rotation. (Alexander Pruss)
- Faster anti-aliased fonts on 68K. (Alexander Pruss)
- Support for (slow) colored anti-aliased text in 8bpp. (Alexander Pruss)
- Anti-aliased fonts now work with colored backgrounds. (Alexander Pruss)
- Support for font remapping via font package. (Alexander Pruss)
- Italic font support. (Alexander Pruss)
- Kerning for antialiased fonts. Requires version 0.70+ of PalmFontConv. (Alexander Pruss)
- Font packages can be put on VFS either in /Palm/Launcher/ or in /Palm/Programs/Plucker/Fonts/ (Alexander Pruss)
- You can now tap on a word to either put the word in the search form or to look it up in a dictionary. (Alexander Pruss)
- Added Plucker Plugin Interface (PPI) to configure the interface with third-party dictionary programs. (Chris Hawks)
- Added Catalan translation (Albert Cuesta)
- Added Norwegian translation (Geir-Tore Lindsve)
- Added option to select whether the sort by date should use only the date or if it should use both date and time (faster, but could make the list look 'unsorted'). (Michael Nordstr.m)
- The external card support will be disabled when the device detects a low power situation to avoid errors when trying to access the card through VFS. (Michael Nordstr.m)
- External bookmarks support in viewer. (Dave Maddock)
- When the library is sorted by name, you can select a document by entering the first couple of characters. (Alexander Pruss)
- The parser when using the Python Imaging Library will now automatically reduce the depth of black-and-white images to 1-bit, thereby decreasing file size. (Alexander Pruss)
- Drop-in transliteration module support added, and built-in transliterations removed. (Alexander Pruss)
- Full support for DIA on Handera, Sony and PalmOS 5.2+ units, including landscape if the hardware supports it. (Alexander Pruss)
- Full support for Dana AlphaSmart wide and tall modes. (Alexander Pruss)

This looks very promising! Only wish they would also spend more time on the desktop parser - I am not a great fan of Python, the memory-eater.

12:18 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Paying it by Michael A. Burstein

eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: When science fiction writer Carl Lambclear's death is announced, a young fan visits his webpage and decides to send his idol one last email. But a reply from the deceased writer leads to an odd mentoring relationship ... and the question of just exactly what has happened to Lambclear.

06:42 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

A bomb scare occured on an America West passenger plane in Phoenix Arizona this week.

"An MP3 player wrapped around a soda can sparked a bomb scare at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport Wednesday morning, said an official with the Transportation Security Administration. The can was found in the cabin of America West Airlines flight 44 from Phoenix to Washington, D.C. The bomb squad was called in and a bomb-sniffing dog was taken aboard the plane. All 117 passengers were safely evacuated. They will all be re-screened before they are allowed back on a plane to continue on to Washington."

So, next time you leave the plane, don't forgot to take your Coke and iPod with you.

06:30 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

The new iPod will not be much different in form and function from the current models, but the primary difference is the color screen. Confirmed, 100% accurate, and without any doubt - says Macosx.com

No news on the rumored video output capabilities yet.