10:18 AM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | iRex

iLiad owner "b_k" has created a Windows script for use with converting comics for reading on the iLiad.

Comic2iLiad "is a AutoIT-Script1) to generate HMTL-based content for the iRex iLiad. It is not a very small script and it is probably poorly written but it works. So far, it is good enough for me, however I’m always open for ideas to make this thing better."

There are some caveats, however. This script might not something that a computer newbie would want to use, and it looks like it's only for Windows. From the site:

* AutoIT has no UTF-8 support, so the HTML-pages are encoded in ANSI (should be no problem I think), as is the manifest.xml (this has to be converted to UTF-8 manually). So far, there is no sort of visualization of the on-going progress of the copied files or the generated HTML-files.

* The images you want to have processed should already be sorted by the filename. Something like YYYYMMDD.png or XXX.png (001.png, 002.png,....) should work. But there is nothing to sort the images before processing, it has to be done by yourself.

Thanks to Doctorow for bringing it to our attention in a forum post. (No, he's not "the" Cory Doctorow. Just a fan.)

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

Tolltech announced last month a Linux phone, the Greenphone, with a Qtopia SDK. Rather than the typical target market of consumers and businesses, they are targeting developers. At least for now, but maybe after establishing a software base, they intend to expand their plans.

"What separates the Greenphone from other handsets is its user-accessible application storage memory, allowing coders to install apps, test them and re-install the code after any glitches have been fixed."

Highlights of the specifications are:
* 240 x 320 touch-sensitive display
* 312MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor
* 64MB RAM
* 128MB of Flash memory
* Linux/Qtopia
* 1.3 megapixel camera
* MiniSD slot
* Bluetooth
* GSM/GPRS networks
* 10.7 x 4.9 x 1.6 cm size

The device costs $695, and has a $195 fee for development on the phone. The fee, however, is waived for open source developers.

Via The Register.

09:35 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Sometimes we just never seem to get to all the great stories surrounding e-books and mobile computing. One great source of information is the TeleRead Blog, and here's some of the stories you may not want to miss:

<<Oops. Seems the formatting didn't carry over too well to the front page. Mismatched tags in the truncated teaser and all that. But make the jump to the full article, and you'll find it looks much better.>>

• Boing Boing e-store: DRM-free PDFs
  In the coming days and weeks, look for songs, albums, comics, novels, videos, and anything else that can be delivered digitally.
• Eternal DRM as a copyright extender
  What a great compromise this would be, for the consumers at least. DRM that expires after, say, 5 years. That would make a DRM'd e-book purchase a real purchase, it would end the concerns about being able to read the books if technology changes.
• Free Mobipocket Creator software for publishers signing up with Amazon
  Amazon owns MobiPocket now, and wants to make it a primary e-book standard. And they certainly know that the more publishers with content for their unannounced Kindle e-ink reader, the better.
• High mortality among e-book firms
  This is a double whammy for e-book lovers. First of all, the more successful the e-book sellers are, the more content that will be available and the more economies of scale will kick in. Maybe just as important is that a lot of content is locked up in proprietary DRM schemes. When the e-book sellers go out of business, the support of that content on new reader platforms is lost, and the purchased e-books eventually become worthless. Not generally a big problem for novels, but a huge problem for reference works.
• If your library doesn't offer the e-books or databases you want?
  It's not common knowledge, but you don't have to be a New York resident to use the electronic resources of the New York Public Library. For about $100 a year, you can also gain access. Although some resources might be limited a bit - I have free out-of-county access to the Carnegie Library electronic resources, but the online audio and e-book selections seem to be different. Still, it can be a great alternative that is often overlooked.
• Free Creative Commons comic book on public domain issues
  According to the Bound By Law book itself, it "provide[s] a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture."
• What's the point of OpenReader?
  This article continues to champion the OpenReader e-book format.
• What's the point of OpenReader? Part 2
  This is part 2 of the previous article.
• Librarian Megan Fox upbeat on e-books in Computers in Libraries talk
  I'm not so sure that publishers want to continue the library paradigm into the e-book future. But for book lovers, and for the good of the world community, it seems like a no-brainer. Even DRM might not seem so bad for the consumer if it was reasonably implemented across world libraries and if we had some successful standards. With confidence that libraries will continue to provide a wide range of books that are compatible with a wide range of reader platforms and software, it could be book utopia for readers!

09:41 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

We recently reported on the failure of the Connexion wifi service for air passengers. Many travelers were quite disappointed that it wasn't going to be a thriving service. Fortunately, there's good news on the horizon...

Panasonic may take over where Boeing Connexion failed. According to Inflight Online, the service is very close: “We have a complete system designed, developed and ready to go,” strategic marketing director David Bruner told Inflight Online at the WAEA show in Miami Beach last week. “But we’re determined to avoid one of the things that brought Connexion down – lack of an initial fleet big enough to assure acceptable pricing for the airlines.”

“We’re intent on learning from what happened to Connexion,” said Bruner. “9/11 lost them their start-up fleet, and after that they were always struggling to catch up. Our onboard equipment is lighter and cheaper, and our approach to buying transponder capacity is altogether more economical. We think these advantages will persuade the airlines and that in a couple of months’ time we’ll be ready to go ahead.”

It all depends on whether or not they can hit their goal of 500 airplanes signed up for the service. Let's hope they have a terrific sales force!

06:42 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

While regular e-books are still looking to find their feet in the marketplace, LG has come out with a phone that does the reading for you.

Put an e-book on the microSD card, stick it in the phone, and it will read the e-book for you. Of course, you could just put the audio (even from Gutenberg audio) on the microSD card, but that's no fun!

The phone also has bluetooth and can work as a walkie-talkie.

Interestingly, there is probably software out there already for PalmOS and Windows Mobile to read text. Knowing the creativity of gadget lovers, I wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere has actually used that method to read an e-book on a pda.

Via Kevin Tofel at JkOnTheRun.

06:31 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Mobile Sites

Yep. If you register and sign in at the Portable Film Festival, you can view and vote on over 60 films made specially for mobile devices.

Here's their own blurb:"The Portable Film Festival is an international festival of short films just for portable devices. Sony PSPs, iPod videos, 3G phones, laptop screens, you name it. Films compete through an open vote by punters who review, argue and score the films online. And it’s all free. Sign up now to download and vote or submit your film for screening."

06:20 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Microsoft is marching forward with it's embedded operating systems. Win CE (which is what Windows Mobile OS is based on) is launching a new version 6.0 on Nov 1, 2006.

According to the blog of Microsoft's Mike Hall, "CE 6.0 Launch Date has been announced... for November 1st 2006 8am PST - note that this... is an online event, partly 'live', with a keynote given by Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer, Microsoft and then a number of 'On Demand' sessions and labs."

Win CE 6.0 was code named Yamazaki because ,"at Windows CE 4.0 the o/s team and tools teams merged together to form a new, combined team - the codenames for the operating system and tools also changed at this time from trees/tools to <drumroll>Whiskeys</drumroll> - so the codenames for Windows CE 4.0 onwards are as follows.

* Windows CE 4.0 - Talisker (Jan 2002)
* Windows CE 4.1 - Jameson (Jun 2002)
* Windows CE 4.2 - McKendric (Apr 2003)
* Windows CE 5.0 - Macallan (Aug 2004)
o Windows CE 5.0 Network Device Feature Pack - Tomatin (Apr 2006)
* Windows CE 6.0 - Yamazaki (Sep 2006)"

Pocket PC Thoughts says the Windows Mobile group is probably ready to incorporate this into a future release, and that it will help prevent out of memory problems, provide better performance by moving some processes into the kernel, and a different kind of driver model. This is just the plumbing, of course, and all the really splashy features will only show up when we see the next version of Windows Mobile.

More information is available at the launch site and the Windows CE Home Page.

01:20 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Mobile Sites

Bloglines users are getting an interesting message now about what looks like a great combination of the mobile RSS web page and the skweezer service which does page optimization for mobile viewing. This might be one more reason to choose Bloglines as your primary RSS feed reader. I haven't tried it yet, but here's their release message for Bloglines users:

"Puttin' the Skweeze on Bloglines Mobile

For those of us who rely on and love Bloglines Mobile while on the go, here's another reason to dig it. Bloglines has now integrated Skweezer technology to optimize web pages for your personal handheld mobile device's viewing pleasure.

When you click on a link while reading a blog post in Bloglines Mobile, Skweezer will compress and reformat the content so you get it faster and better looking on your small screen. As you surf, the content will continue to be skweezed. Hints & bonus features:

* Click on the "Hide Images" link at the bottom of the page and skweezed content will load even faster.
* At the bottom of the skweezed page, you'll find links back to the feed you were reading and a link back to your feed list.
* If you run across any pages that are not in your native tongue, Skweezer will translate to more than a dozen languages.

So if you've been wary of venturing beyond your Bloglines Mobile on your fancy new Blackberry (or Treo or other smartphone), free yourself from those inhibitions and click away!

- The Bloglines Team"