10:11 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There is a very nice survey of operating systems for mobile phones over at Linux Magazine. Obviously, they come from the viewpoint that Linux is in the best position for the future, but they acknowlege the strenth and improvement of Windows Mobile, and the leverage of PalmOS as an application support layer (providing a set of APIs) that happens to run on Linux in it's next incarnation as ALP.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of work to be done. But the next generations of feature phones and smart phones are going to be very interesting, and capabilities should explode quickly after the current foundational work has progressed a bit further.

06:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Tom Cruise aka Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible would have falled for this. Xerox scientists have found a way to make content on an electronic paper transient, that is to erase it after a period of time. UK-based PC Pro writes:

Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours.

The paper is composed of a polymer-based photochromic material which has reversible imaging properties. The problem in general with photochromic materials is that, until now, they have failed mainly due to limited life spans and poor image stability under ambient light and heat. But Xerox promises to spend more time into research to find a way to preserve the content if the user desires.

[via Slashdot]

05:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Mobile Sites

Props to the Digg folks for launching DiggRiver, a service to make latest digg news easily available to mobile web browsers. To track a particular topical area, check out the about page for the appropriate bookmarks.

And if you don't like DiggRiver, there is still unofficial Digg mobile.

[via Download Squad]

05:29 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

While the United Arab Emirates are known around the world for their rich oil reserves and for luxury hotels, they are probably less known for being official supporters of the e-book movement. Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid (who has also good taste in boats btw), the "e-Zayed book" was launched in Dubai this week - a flash memory disk that contains study material of various subjects, including physics, chemistry, biology, math, and Arabic and English languages, taught in public schools. According to Sawsan Al Rahma, director of the project,

"We have to find ways to exploit technology to motivate students to read and learn. Unfortunately, the Arab world is known for spending more time in eating than in reading."

Wise words which can be applied universally to every rich countries around the world.

04:47 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The engineers at Toshiba's labs must have been inspired by the Nintento DS, for the idea of a dual-screen gadget is not new. Dubbed the "Dual Display PDA (e-book)", the concept device looks anything but a PDA, but more like an ultra portable notebook where the keyboard has been replaced with a second screen. It sure catches attention, though I doubt that with the draining force of two displays battery life would win any marathon there. Arving USA provides us with some more photos shot during the IFA 2006 exhibit.

[via David at TeleRead]

01:03 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Mobile Sites

Whether you're at home or on the go, it's always a pleasure to use a Web-enabled handset for continuous news coverage from Online source like The New York Times. And the latter has just released an updated version of its mobile site which you can admire at http://mobile.nytimes.com.

With access to the full 7-day archieve and to member-only content (with TimeSelect subscription) this is a great step forward to providing full and not just crippled content in mobile format.

[via TeleRead]

12:46 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

When Microsoft got threatened by a lawsuit from Adobe in June this year, the Redmond company walked the Buddhist way and removed PDF export from Office 2007. But since it would've been a shame to dump the already written code, the company now decided to release a free add-on which brings back the functionality to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats.

You can download the add-on from here if you have a genuine Office installation.

[via BetaNews]

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

A group of researchers at Philips Research have developed light-emitting textiles that can carry dynamic advertisements, graphics and constantly changing color surfaces. Dubbed "Lumalive textile products", this relatively new technology is based on flexible arrays of colored LEDs fully integrated into the fabric, without compromising the softness or flexibility of the cloth.

Thanks to MobileReader Falk "DaNDeE" who sent us this link to a YouTube flick demonstrating Philips' fashionable (or not) Lumalive textile at this year's IFA exhibit.