06:28 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Freescale Semiconductor is a major supplier of processors for mobile phones. According to LinuxDevices, "Freescale ranked 368th on the Fortune 500 last year, with sales of $5.8B. Another well-known semi-conductor vendor, AMD, ranked 367th."

The company was bought by a consortium of buyers, "led by The Blackstone Group, and includes The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds, and Texas Pacific Group." This would seem to be good news because it continues the competition for providing mobile computing processors, rather than consolidating them with another big producer.

Interestingly, Palmsource has them listed as a Palm OS Ready partner. Their description of Freescale say that "Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL, FSL.B) is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets."

It will be interesting to see what industry analysts have to say about any potential impact on smart phones, handhelds or e-reader devices.

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

This is a bit unusual, but there is a conference coming up in Austin hosted by SXSW. A technical writer from Texas, Robert Nagle, has proposed the inclusion of "a panel on ebook technologies [called] 'Designing for the Sony Reader and other E-ink Technologies.'"

He is asking that you go to the SXSW site to vote for the Sony Reader/E-ink panel.

I can't say that I know much about the conference, but I do like the idea of the Sony Reader and e-ink getting some more publicity, so how about joining in the vote to show an interest in the topic? I've put in my vote, and I did have to give up my name and email address, but nothing intrusive.

12:33 PM by Stuart Young in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

News fresh off the wire, Lexar has officially launched is new 1GB and 2GB memory stick dubbed The Mecury. What's so special about it? Well for a start it features an E Ink display showing you the memory status.

Lexar Spiel says ..

New level of convenience:
Load vast amounts of data and easily gauge storage space at a glance.

Sleek Innovation:
The first of its kind to leverage innovative electronic paper display technology from E Ink® Corporation, Lexar JumpDrive Mercury boasts a paper thin, low-power capacity display that is controlled by embedded software and functions independently of the host computer.

Safety and Security:
Enjoy peace of mind that all your data is safe when using JumpDrive Mercury, which includes free Secure II advanced security software. Create multiple password-protected areas called Encrypted Vaults and use the File Shredder feature to securely delete files so they can never be recovered.

Features & Benefits

* Easy to read 10-bar capacity meter.
* Includes Secure II software to encrypt and shred digital files
* Ultra small, ultra portable
* 1GB and 2GB storage space for vast amounts of data
* Take digital documents, photos, MP3 files, and video clips wherever you go.

Offiical Lexar product page here

Original post via pocket-lint.co.uk here

03:58 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

CNET Asia has a short article teasing us with the expected upcoming release of the e-ink Sony Reader.

Some highlights:

• "As part of the Japanese manufacturer's efforts to test new markets, the Sony Reader has high hopes to revolutionize the literary world."
• "Sony Reader is likely to retail for between US$299... and US$399"

03:11 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Sometimes it takes a radical move to bring awareness to the winds of change. In the world of academic publishing until recently, there has been nearly complete control by the established academic journals and the associated review process. But that has been challenged by a now-famous mathematician, Grigory Perelman, who has shunned the traditional method by publishing one of the most exciting proofs in modern mathematics on a web site, and with very little fanfare.

Here's how it normally works. A mathematician (or other academic researcher) produces some results that he feels are important. He then submits the results to a journal. Usually, the best research is submitted to the journals with the best reputation, and which only publish the top papers. Once submitted, the journal's editors find subject area experts, who anonymously review the papers and either accept/reject the paper, or maybe accept it with changes. For example, maybe a portion of a mathematical proof is not deemed clear enough to be accepted unless the steps are more clearly demonstrated.

The paper is then published in the journal which usually is available in both paper and searchable electronic form. In fact, it turns out that libraries are finding that people prefer the electronic form because of the search capabilities. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the papers are printed when they are to be studied because there is something satisfying about being able to handle the paper for this sort of task. (On the other hand, with the new e-ink electronic readers, we might find that everything is completely turned on it's head, and people may very soon prefer the e-ink versions for study because they are easy on the eyes and easy to carry.)

So what is so astounding about Grigory Perelman? Well, he has proved one of the most famous conjectures in math, and he basically thumbed his nose at the traditional academic institutions by publishing it on the web. Basically, a conjecture like this is a mathematical statement that is expected to be a fact, but hasn't been proven to be true. Most often, there are special cases that have been proven, and there are lots of reasons why it "feels right" to mathematicians, but nobody can prove it completely. In Perelman's case, he is a Russian topologist who proved something called the Poincaré conjecture, which people have been trying to prove for many decades. It is easily one of the most familiar conjectures in all of mathematics, along with some of the others from the past like the Four Color Theorem (which had a groundbreaking proof because it was done by computer) and Fermat's Last Theorem (which was mentioned in a couple of Star Trek episodes, and was especially intriguing because Fermat claimed to have a proof, but wrote that it didn't fit in the margin of the book in which he made the note).

At any rate, this proof by Perelman was quite an achievement, and yet he posted the results on http://arxiv.org/, an e-print service, just like all of his previous significant work. But knowing that peer review by other experts is the only way to really validate a complicated proof, he sent a few emails out to guarantee that the work would be evaluated properly.

And yet, maybe he will be even more famous throughout history because of the next spectacular and radical decision he made. After being awarded the Fields Medal in mathematics for his work, he turned it down. In fact, someone representing the award even visited him in person before the award was announced, hoping that they could persuade him to accept it. There is some interesting discussion available on the web about that discussion, including this article. (By the way, the Fields medal is the equivalent of the famous Nobel prize in other subjects. But there is no Nobel prize in mathematics. I had always been told that it was "his wife had an affair with Mittag-Leffler [a mathematician]." However Wikipedia says that is not true.) At any rate, he did refuse the Fields award, completing his snub of the establishment.

Traditional academic publishers may not exactly be shaking in their boots quite yet, but the world of electronic publishing and self-publishing is certainly going to change the rules. And the peer review process has been shown to not be the stranglehold on academic publishing that publishers thought it would be.

We are seeing in the present times that changes in publishing are not nearly determined by the technology alone. As the technology has advanced, we see that there is a power struggle involving publishers, consumers, technologists and even politicians that have a lot to say about the future of publishing and e-books. It's all still up for grabs, and it will be interesting to see where everything lands. I just hope that in the end, we haven't left the people doing the reading with the short end of the stick.

Via Future Of The Book.

11:32 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The DearAuthor site presents an interesting top 10 list of reasons why an e-book reader can save you money, and it even finishes off the list with a reason it can save your marriage also!

While financial gain is certainly not the primary motivation for buying an e-book reader, it might surprise you how many ways an electronic reader can save you money. In fact, maybe this list will be just what you need to justify buying that new E Ink reader that you've had your eye on!

Via TeleRead Blog.

11:13 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There's a short interview of Jeff Hawkins available at Poder PDA.

Here are some interesting excerpts from Jeff's answers:

• "At Palm we think the future of personal computing is handheld computing."
• "Every person with a mobile phone will eventually have a smart phone."
• "[S]ome of the exciting areas we see for building better products: WiFi, GPS, very large amounts of memory, video playback and streaming."
• "In addition to PDAs and SmartPhones, Palm also has ideas for other types of mobile computing products. The list never seems to end."
• "My ideal PDA is my Treo 700p. I am looking forward to making it better.."

Via Palm Addicts.

06:12 AM by Stuart Young in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Interesting article over at ARStechnica documenting the history of the GUI aka 'Graphical User Interface' and the guy who came up with the concept Douglas Englebart

Original article by Jeremy Reimer here