04:13 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

The title says it all. From the press release:

On April 23th 2007, iRex Technologies (Pres. Hans Brons, located in the Netherlands, http://www.irextechnologies.com/) and East Co., Ltd.(Pres. Kazuo Shimokawa, located at Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo Japan,http://www.est.co.jp) agreed that East provides sales and technical support for the iLiad electronic paper device for reading of amongst others digital books and newspapers in Japan.

Comment of iRex Pres. Hans Brons
"With East, iRex has found a partner of choice to service the Japanese book and newspaper publishing markets with iRex' solutions. Through this partnership we expect to generate real momentum in the uptake of electronic paper based devices and a breakthrough in electronic news distribution in Japan. We expect this partnership to be longstanding and of great benefit to our customers and prospects."

Comment of East Pres. Kazuo Shimokawa
'My first encounter of this kind of device was Go!'s PenPoint in 1992. I assisted in a positive way the Rocket eBook in 1998 and the Panasonic SigmaBook and Sony LIBRIe in 2004. I have felt strongly the need of such handy reading devices and this time I am very pleased to be able to introduce iRex's leading edge device to the Japanese people.'

09:03 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This is big news. With the increased mentions of Jeff Hawkins recently, one has to be convinced that Palm's new third line of business really will be announced in May.

But for now, just a friendly appearance on a Palm Addicts videocast with Sammy McLoughlin is big news. I'm excited to see it myself... gotta go download and transcode that Quicktime video to watch on my Treo tomorrow!

You can find the video at Palm Addicts on the PATV82 page.

08:28 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The online RSS feed reading wars are on! Both of these tools offer feed management and reading from a browser, which allows you to have everything in sync wherever you read from. That's a feature I need, but the disadvantage is that you do have to be online to do your reading. Recently many people seem to be jumping ship from Bloglines to Google Reader. I've been watching this happen, but felt so comfy with Bloglines that there was no sense in looking at alternatives. Until last week, that is.

You see, I found that some of my feeds were delayed before being updated in Bloglines. This seemed unacceptible if there was a good alternative out there, so I decided to do a quick, but unscientific, head to head comparison of the two.

I was interested in three factors:
- Ease of use
- Timeliness of feed updates
- Usefullness on mobile devices (specifically my PalmOS Treo 700p)

Here are the results...

EASE OF USE

Category Winner: Bloglines (by a large margin)

For me, there was no comparison. The slightly old-fashioned interface of Bloglines is comfortable for me, and it's very natural and efficient. I don't have to wonder what is going to be marked as read, and it pretty much does what I want.

Both readers were slightly less responsive when loading lots of feeds, but neither was too annoying.

One problem I had with Google Reader was that it mixed all the feeds toghether in the content pane (the left pane is sort of like a feed navigation tree in both tools), so instead of reading things that fit together, I had a mish mash of items which was harder to get through quickly. Another problem I had with Google Reader was that it kept adding more items as I scrolled down, so I was never sure if I was done. And if I was done, I wasn't sure if the screen scrolling jumps has caused me to miss a page or not.

Google Reader also has a funny way of choosing what to mark read. It could be an advantage for some users to manually mark things read, but for me it was annoying. There is an option to adjust that, but for me the whole thing was just confusing and I was unsure exactly what it was going to do. With Bloglines, if I did display some feeds and not read them, I had the other problem - there was no button to mark everything unread so I could come back to it later. There is a facility to "Keep unread", but that's sort of a permanent thing, so when you come back to display it again, you would have to specifically unmark the feeds. The best option seems to be just to requery the feeds you didn't read for a specific length of time (e.g. last hour or last 24 hrs or whatever). That works pretty well for me.

Both readers have a nice way to mark posts to keep them for later. In Google Reader you tag them, and in Bloglines you clip them. Each has simple access when you want to look at the marked items.

TIMELINESS OF FEED UPDATES

Category Winner: Google (by a small margin)

This is the issue that caused me to consider dumping Bloglines in the first place after using it happily for so long. I felt my feeds were coming in delayed. So I used both readers side by side and my little experiment seems to show that both readers experience some delays with the feeds being updated. Google seemed better in the feeds I paid attention to, but there really wasn't much difference. I have about 275 feeds, so maybe this only applies to high feed volume accounts. I'm not sure.

I do still worry that on occassion Bloglines has update issues, but I have no evidence or facts. It's just a feeling I get after using it.

USEFULNESS ON MOBILE DEVICES

Category Winner: Bloglines

This was quite a surprise to me. I expected the Google reader to be outstanding on mobile devices. But on my Treo, at least, I found the same user interface confusion extending to the mobile version, and it took me a lot longer to read the Google feeds with all the small screen requerying from the server. Bloglines plops a lot of stuff there and it's simple to look at a story, then hit the back arrow to get back to the list of posts. It's very natural.

CONCLUSION

Overall Winner: Bloglines

It's no contest for me. I'm sure there are reasons to like Google Reader better, but I haven't found them. If speed up updates is critical, then maybe it's worth it, but the interface is slower and more confusing to me. Maybe new Google Reader users just haven't tried Bloglines? Or maybe I'm just not using Google Reader properly. I don't know.

For the look of the interface, though, I think I saw a story in one of the feed readers about using a style sheet in IE or Firefox (with an extra add-in to enable it). Apparently, that gives it a nice new shiny look. Also, I should point out that Google Reader is probably still in beta. By the time Google is done with it, my impressions may be completely different. Or even after I watch a pro using it, I might learn a thing or two that turns me on to it.

But for now, Bloglines is my solution, and I'm happy with it. No switch to Google Reader for me. Tell us about your own experiences with online RSS feed readers.

Update: I should mention one more item that is important to mobile users. Bloglines is tightly integrated with Skweezer, which optimizes sites for mobile devices. Should you prefer to not use Skweezer, it can be turned off in the options. In my opinion, this is a big plus for mobile use, and serves a wide range of devices well.

02:57 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

You may have been born with 802.11 in your mouth, but you're going to want to get prepared for that next trip when a wireless network is not near by. MobileReader drazvan hacked some astonishing ueber cool code allowing your iRex iLiad to communicate with a 3G/HSDPA modem attached to its USB port. Sounds crazy? I think so too. And best of all, it seems to work great for general use.

The usbserial module has been recompiled to allow for higher speeds (the "maxSize" patch). I've managed to download at around 1Mbps with it.

Jump to drazvan's original post for the necessary instruction, the code, and discussion.

06:07 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Last week, my boss approached me with an ad that he stumbled on in the May's print edition of The Atlantic. What's remarkable about the ad is that it worked to make him (an avid reader) aware of the Sony Reader for the first time. What's less remarkable, at least in my inexperienced opinion about marketing, is that Sony picked an EMPTY gate seating area suggesting no one is actually using the Reader (which is hardly what they must have had in mind). Sure, the passengers could have boarded the aircraft already, but then, why depict the empty seats? I just don't get it.

If I was in charge of marketing, I would pick authentic Reader fans from MobileRead and run a series of ads featuring real life scenes, such as this one by MobileReader LaughingVulcan.

A hi-res image of the ad is attached to this thread.

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

Have something interesting to say about mobile computing or reading? Join our forums and share your view on topics like the ones discussed at MobileRead this past week...

E-book Devices, Future E-Book Devices
Amazon Kindle "this spring" for "above $400"
Fujitsu FLEPia - world's first e-reader with color e-paper

E-book Devices, iRex iLiad
History of iRex Technologies reflects company's unique position
emelFM2 Iliad Release (File Manager)
Telegraph Blogs gives iRex iLiad mixed grades

E-book Devices, Sony Portable Reader
RasterFarian V2.5 Beta for Sony Reader released
MobileRead offers hand formatted Sony Reader e-books (public domain)
Rumor: Sony Reader in Canada on June 1st?
Sony Reader highlighted on the Giz Wiz Biz podcast
Finally - A really energetic Sony Reader review!
Visit the Sony Reader team at UCLA on April 28-29, 2007

E-books, News
IDPF invites input on new e-book standard file format (OPS 2.0)
Harry Potter goes digital (at least a preview of him)
Hands-on with the E Ink-equipped Intel Metro Notebook
SII and Nemoptic plan to deliver color e-paper in Q2 2007
Nemoptic worked in "stealth mode" on e-paper / initially no e-books
May 2nd conference call on the new IDPF e-book standards
Giving away paper books to sell e-books

Mobile Devices, General Talk
iPhone Subsidies?
Intel Announces "Centrino Junior" Processor for UMPCs

Mobile Devices, Handhelds and Smartphones
Bees And Cell Phones Don't Play Well Together?
Nokia Announces WiMax Phones in "Early" 2008

Web to Mobile, General Talk
Internet radio gets possible death blow after a strong start

Web to Mobile, Mobile Sites
ComputerWorld Mobile Site

12:23 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

We've probably all heard about giving away podcasts or e-books for free in order to sell paper books. Today, I read this interesting note from author Darrell Bain on the Yahoo e-book community group, which turns the whole thing upside down again:

"I'm doing something right now sort of the opposite of giving away e-books. Each month from my web site newsletter (www.darrellbain.com) I give away five free trade paperback books as promotion for my e-books and print books both! This works fine for me at present since I have a surplus of some of my books and does appear to increase sales, particularly of my e-books."

It's actually a much more traditional merchandising approach, if you think about it. The really cool thing is that his stated goal (to this e-book audience, anyway) is to sell e-books. And, by the way, Darrell is not just some hack trying to learn how to write - he's the Fictionwise 2005 Author of the Year and Double Eppie Award winner 2007.

If you want to enter this month's free paper book giveaway, you simply have to be one of the first five to send the Darrell an email with the book's name (Hotline to Heaven) in the subject line. Details are available in the April newsletter. But as I've already sent in my request, I guess that leaves a maximum of four books left.

09:32 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Might your business or industry be affected by the new IDPF e-book standards? Nick Bogaty, the Executive Director of the IDPF has asked us to share the following information for those that are interested...

"On Wednesday, May 2nd at 2pm EST/11am PST, the IDPF will host an hour long teleconference call to discuss two new eBook standards and how these standards will affect your business and our industry. You do not have to be an IDPF member to participate in this call.

The two specifications are OCF 1.0 (OEBPS Container Format) and OPS 2.0 (Open Publication Structure). OCF 1.0 was officially approved by the IDPF membership in October 2006 and OPS 2.0 has just been submitted to the IDPF output process by the OPS Working Group.

The teleconference will be led by OPS Working Group Chair, Garth Conboy of eBook Technologies, who will provide details to answer the following questions and more:

* What is OPS 2.0 and OCF 1.0 and what is the relationship between the two?
* What is the relationship between "OEB" and OPS 2.0?
* Are OPS 2.0 and OEB compatible? Can I do both at once?
* What are the conversion and distribution implications for publishers (and conversion houses) to produce OPS 2.0 and OCF 1.0 files?
* What does it mean for a software company/reading system to adopt OCF1.0/OPS 2.0?
* What do OPS 2.0 and OCF 1.0 mean for consumers?

Detailed information on the specifications can be found at www.idpf.org/forums.

The teleconference call will be limited to 50 participants to manage the call effectively and we ask that you RSVP your accepted attendence to nbogaty<AT>idpf.org by Thursday, April 26th. Attendence will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. The call will last up to an hour with 30 to 45 minutes from Garth and questions. If we exceed our attendance limit, we will schedule an additional alternate date(s). After we receive all RSVPs, we will forward dial-in information and an agenda for the call."