05:49 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Netronix

Chinese company eRead has finally launched its STAReBOOK STK-101 e-reader to the rest of the world. Previously only available direct from China and Taiwan, the reader can now be purchased from their first international online shop opened in New Zealand. While New Zealand is probably no closer than the Far East to (most of) you, it's still nice to see the company expanding. A eRead representative told us that the new shop is still under development, but that it is already accepting international orders (the STAReBOOK costs $450 USD, with a flat shipping rate of $50 USD at this moment).

My only wish is that in time they'll go down with prices to be more competitive with other E Ink-based e-readers.

04:37 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | HanLin eBook

MobileReader LVD posted the first details of the upcoming lBook (aka HanLin) eReader V3. The juicy specs:

• Dimensions 184mm(L) * 120.5mm(W) * 9.9mm(H)
• Weight: 200g
• OS: Linux
• CPU: Samsung 2440 Arm 9 (200 MHz)
• Screen: 6" 800x600, 4 levels of grey (E Ink)
• Memory: 32Mb SDRAM, 2.0Mb ROM, 512Mb (Flash Disk)
• Expansion: SD/MMC (up to 4Gb)
• Connectivity: WiFi (optional, planned)
• Touch Screen: WaCom Pen (optional, planned)
• Interfaces: USB 1.1, headphone
• Supported Formats: FB2, PDF, TXT, DOC, HTML, MP3, WOL, JPG

According to LVD the V3 is going on sale in the Ukraine in July 2007, at relatively low 240 Euro. Availability in the US is scheduled for September or October 2007.

10:04 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Is this for real? Hard to tell. But according to HandCellPhone, it's supposed to be a black market Windows Mobile phone that has "a big 3.0-inch LCD Touchscreen, 1500 of GameBoy and GameBoy Color classic games that you have to spend 4 years to finish playing if you just play one game a day, external game controller that your gaming experience way better than 2 , 4, 6 8 keys on your cell phone pads, 1.3-MP digital camera, and MP3 player with bunch of nice features like EQ and so on."

Regardless of whether it's real or not, I found the pictures alone to be interesting. I'd like to see 1500 old video games ready to go for any smartphone, even if the controller was a separate bluetooth device. Maybe that's a great retro package to offer for the new UMPCs?

Thanks to Alan from PhoneDiscuss.com for the story.

01:24 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

This Sunday, in case you didn't know, is Mother's Day, so if you haven't found a decent gift for your mom yet, how about sending her a heartfelt shiny new Sony Reader? Fresh into our tattle box, we received a new ad for the Reader scanned from today's USA Today (sorry for the bad quality - if you have a better one, please post). The ad:

Why give Mom one book, when you can give her dozens?
The Reader. From Sony.

Holds about 80 ebooks at a time. And with more than 13,000 titles available, Mom can enjoy everything from Great Expectations to the latest Michael Crichton on a revolutionary paper-like display. Carrying around all her favorites was never this easy. sony.com/reader

Get Mom's Summer reading started on us with $149 worth of eBooks!

I like it. For the newbie, it's easy to understand the benefits an e-reader, plus it's very well targeted. Of course, to give away a Reader and not keeping it for yourself - without breaking your heart - that is another story.

Related: New Sony Reader Ads: "Fit 80 books in your carry-on"

12:03 PM by NatCh in E-Book General | News

SillyFD-AA Worm Moves By Flash Drive

The more things change the more they stay the same. In a bout of rampant nostalgia, some worm writer (apparently going by the handle of "1BYTE") has gone old school, mimicking the methods used to spread viruses via floppy disks, only now it's USB flash drives.

The approach is simple enough, the worm consists of a simple autorun.inf file, on the drive. When the drive is connected, the file -- you guessed it -- autoruns, installing the worm on the computer. It seems this one doesn't actually do much, aside from propagating itself to other USB drives, the only reported effect is to add a message to the Internet Explorer title bar that reads "Hacked by 1BYTE." Reportedly, most anti-virus software will keep it from doing even that much. However, there's not really anything that stops the approach from being exploited by those who mean actual harm, rather than just a bit of annoyance.

Since a USB drive has no write-protect notch to cover with tape, the recommendation is to turn off Windows' autorun feature -- for those who have not long since done so.

For a few more details, along with a discussion of how bad people's "USB hygiene habits" are, see the full article.

12:32 AM by memobug in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

I know it's been reported earlier that the Sony Reader was featured on Security Now podcast, but I'm not sure folks are aware that Laporte featured the Sony Reader on the Daily Giz Wiz podcast, Netcast #292 on April 19th.

Regards,

Matt

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Another week, another steady stream of mobile goodness here on MobileRead. Our authentic roundup of what's been going on:

E-book Devices, iRex iLiad
FBReader 0.8.2b for the iLiad released
Mobipocket new release (with iLiad support) on May 3rd
iRex iLiad rumored to hit Switzerland

E-book Devices, Sony Portable Reader
Template & extended font support at Feedbooks (poll)

E-book Devices, Which one should I buy?
Engadget ponders on e-reader choices

E-books, Book Recommendations
Peter Watts' Behemoth released under CC

E-books, Elsewhere on the Net
Could DC Library fire serve as a wake-up call for e-books?

E-books, News
PVI develops color E Ink display for Intel Metro Notebook
Avoid glare and you won't go blind reading e-books
PalmAddicts: E-books or conventional books?

E-books, Reading Software
Sumatra PDF 0.6 released

Miscellaneous, Announcements
FTP access open to new developers

Miscellaneous, Lounge
P-Book Swapping Sites?
How karma at MobileRead works

Mobile Devices, General Talk
American Airlines Begins Offering In-Flight Personal Media Players

Mobile Devices, Handhelds and Smartphones
CorePlayer Mobile Version 1.1 coming May 14, 2007
A new network for Cell Phones: WiFi!

Mobile Devices, Others
PDA247 reviews the E Ink-based MotoFone F3

12:02 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

This question has been raised many times before, and the answer is about as obvious as the next combination of numbers in the Powerball lottery. PalmAddict editor Jonathan Winter contemplates whether the e-book stands a chance to replace good ol' Gutenberg's invention.

I have spoken many times in my editorials about a wide variety of topics, I was thinking to myself about what I could take about this time. I was sitting at home in front of the fire reading one of my favourite books, and it was at this precise moment that a realisation hit me. And without a second’s thought I realised that I was performing an activity that may possibly soon become exceedingly rare and out of date!

Link to the full editorial