03:06 AM by Stuart Young in Sony Reader | Sony Reader Dev Corner

Home of much geek goodness 'Gizmodo' has an interesting tale of the Sony Reader who was destined to become unscrewed, dismantled and laid bare to the world.

Full story with nice pics here I wonder if the device was mantled again. (is re-mantled even a word

02:40 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

For quite a while we've been longing to hear more about the secret project that Jeff Hawkins has revealed some time ago. He has a great track record, so we have every expectations that it will be another success. It is probably the rumored "third line of business" that would complement PDAs and smart phones.

According to Michael Mace, "Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, gave a talk this morning. Afterward I asked him if we'll see next year the secret project that Jeff Hawkins has been working on. 'Yes,' he said, and moved immediately to another question." One can appreciate the pent up desire to see his next project, when the simple acknowledgement of it being revealed next year is news!

More is available at MobileOpportunity.

06:29 AM by CommanderROR in iRex | iRex Developer's Corner

In an unexpected move, iRex today opened the Iliad to user-created applications. Those users who would like to use the improved PDF viewer our valued member Scotty1024 created or want to play Chess on the Iliad, send and receive emails or do many of the other things that make life so much more worth living and are possible thanks to the tireless efforts of our mobileread.com developer team can now visit the iRex developer site and "order" a special iDS update that makes it possible for users to run .sh applets from their Iliad devices.

Go here to apply for this update and join the discussion here to tell us what you think!

10:13 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There is a relatively new NFL Mobile service from Sprint that provides live NFL information to certain phones. The 700p had not been compatible until just recently. I'm happy to report that it now seems to be working on the 700p.

It provides live NFL scores and game progress, information about your own fantasy players, and more. And it all free, although a Sprint data plan is probably necessary, as well as a compatible phone.

According to the Sprint web site, "NFL Mobile from Sprint can be downloaded by texting NFL to 7777 or via the Vision or Power Vision home deck." It also appears you can go to this site directly to dowload it.

I'm delighted to see this available with a good portion of the season remaining. Kudos to Sprint for this free service.

Update: Seems that there is a minor bug... on reset the Treo starts up the NFL Mobile app instead of going to the phone app, like it should.

Via TreoCentral forums.

10:00 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

After a little digging, it's clear that there are some patterns which seem to characterize how the pricing generally works at the Sony Connect online e-book store. Some of thie following information was also gathered from general publishing information and Sony sources. Hopefully, while it may not satisfy everyone hoping for lower e-book prices, this information will help take some of the mystery out of the pricing equation.

First of all, let's consider how "List Prices" work with the publishers – it's a bit of a tricky business. For example, when a new hardcover comes out, most are roughly $25-$30. Each major publisher has a different strategy for discounting the list price to Sony Connect. Remember that it's basically the publisher that sets the pricing. Simon & Schuster seems to be the most aggressive, sometimes discounting the list price up to 45% from the print list price. That means that Sony is giving maybe 20% off the list price as a further discount. In other words, a book with a hardback list price of $25 might have an e-book list price of $15, and then Sony Connect might further discount that to about $12.

Sony gives a portion of the sale back to the publisher, and 20% back to the consumer to try and keep the price down as much as possible and make a business. But until the publishers get their list prices down further, there's not going to be any significant changes in e-book pricing from a retailer to the consumer. Bundle pricing helps, but doesn't solve pricing across the board, which still can have a tendency to appear too high to the average consumer.

Here are some examples:

* State of Denial by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster). Print List = $30. eBook List = $16.99 (45% discount). Sony Connect Price = $13.59.

* The Mission Song by John Le Carre (Hachette – formerly Time Warner). Print List=$26.99. eBook List=$17.99 (33% discount). Sony Connect Price = $14.39.

* The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (Random House). Print List=$25. eBook List = $17.95 (28% discount). Sony Connect Price = $14.36.

* Freakonomics (Rev Ed) by Stephen Levitt (Harper Collins). Print List=$27.95. eBook List= $19.95 (23% discount). Sony Connect Price = $15.96.

Then there are other major publishers like Penguin and Holtzbrinck who do not discount at all between their print and e-book list prices. Over time, as the e-book market heats up, hopefully there will be some more competition for customers that will move other publishers towards and beyond the more aggressive e-book pricing discounts.

As we have heard from many sources, attractive pricing in the the e-book market is critical for the market to expand. Especially with the current DRM restrictions and issues with format compatibility. Fortunately, the Sony Reader has really make a big step forward for the reading device side of the equation, and Connect offers competitive pricing for the e-books. They still have a way to go to resolve pricing anomolies, increase available titles, and improve the store functionality, but it's encouraging to see this significant step forward. With increased success will come increased visibility of the e-book market, more titles and more reasons for publishers to reconsider pricing to attract more customers.

07:26 AM by CommanderROR in More E-Book Readers | HanLin eBook

The Chinese manufacturer of ebook devices Jinke just opened their online Forums. Under the heading of "Developer Forum" they invite registered users to talk about the Hardware and Software of their current and upcoming ebook devices.
The subforum "SDK Download" which is still empty at the moment (just like the rest of the forum) could prove to become a very interesting section for all our coding members. Maybe Jinke will do a better job of harnessing the community power than iRex did so far...

Visit the forums here and help the ebook/eink market grow with your feedback!

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

If you missed our frontpage news at any point this week, here is the best way to catch up:

E-book Devices, Future E-Book Devices
IBM secretly working on an e-book device

E-book Devices, HanLin eBook
Jinke reveals upcoming product line of E Ink e-book readers

E-book Devices, iRex iLiad
The De Tijd-iLiad e-paper trial - has it been a failure?

E-book Devices, Sony Portable Reader
Sony Reader reviewed by MIT Technology Review

E-books, News
Swedish design study of future e-paper

Mobile Devices, General Talk
Live TV, music, video and pictures on your mobile device with Orb
MobileRead Exclusive: Ian McCarthy's insider view of MyCasting and content everywhere

11:26 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Let's face it: E-paper does not deserve to be called e-paper unless it can be folded and you can swing for a fly with it. Students of the Halmstad Media IT came up with the design study of an highly portable e-paper that looks like it could win our hearts. The following three videos show how this e-paper might be used one day:

http://media-it.hh.se/Movies/KARIN_SV.mpeg
http://media-it.hh.se/Movies/OLIVIA_SV.mpeg
http://media-it.hh.se/Movies/%D6ZGUR_SV.mpeg