01:24 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Believe it or not, the men's world record for throwing a mobile phone is 94.97 meters (more than 100 yards), set by Mikko Lampi from Vilppula, Finland during the 2005 Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships. The women's winner, Marke Krok, threw it a still impressive 41,42 meters.

Think you can do better? You can compete at the 2006 World Championships. These contests started in 2000, along with a recycling program.

But, if you have a particular phone you want to throw, you'll have to do it on your own. The competitors don't get to choose, and must throw what they are given.

So what's next? May I suggest a World "Slam The Smartphone Into The Wall Because It Crashed Again And I Didn't Have a Backup" Championship?

Via Textually.

03:01 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The BumpTop desktop interface prototype is one of those technologies that makes you go "Wow!" If you follow that link, you'll find a video available as Quicktime or WMP or YouTube formats, or you can just click play from this Lifehacker article. It's only a few minutes, and it's worth your while to take a look.

I'm not convinced it's ready to be used for several reasons, however. First of all, it's in prototype stage, so we shouldn't expect it's ready for prime time. But also, I think they are headed in the wrong direction. Instead of making it a supplemental interface for virtual desktops that work in conjunction with the regular Windows desktop and file system, they are trying to build a "full blown desktop replacement that can be installed on any machine."

Some of the most obvious features also seem to be missing, at least from the presentation. For example, you don't seem to be able to have the document title with the document icon. Maybe that's just a demo thing to keep it looking clean. I don't know. But I do know that I wouldn't like being forced into a choice between this and a regular desktop paradigm, and I really need the text names to go with the documents.

But it's an amazing technology that sounds very promising if applied correctly. And with enough trial users, I'm sure they can work out the kinks, and figure out the right context for it. I say bring it on. I'd love to organize my e-book library using this!

Via Lifehacker.

09:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

E-book veteran Henrycat was so kind to make some hands-on videos of his iRex iLiad in action. You can download them packed in a RAR file from RapidShare, or directly from us (if RapidShare doesn't work for you).

Don't miss our ongoing discussion, with talk about the videos starting somewhere around page four.

07:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

It sounded too good be true. Remember last year, when I reported live from a flight from Frankfurt to Chicago? I had the rare opporunity to sit in one of the first airplanes equipped with Boeing's Connexion service, which allowed me to surf the Net in high-speed during the flight. Now it looks like the venture hasn't been as successful as many of us had anticipated. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, Boeing is considering selling Connexion or shutting it down altogether.

The Chicago aerospace company has reached out to a number of commercial-satellite operators and other potential suitors who might be interested in buying the business or becoming a major partner, these people said. If Boeing can't reach a suitable deal, said one person familiar with the talks, the company is prepared to pull the plug on the service, even though it works as advertised and is being used by a handful of international airlines on long-haul flights, including Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and others.

The articles cites various reasons for the alleged failure of Connexion:

• lack of interest among U.S. airlines
• little interest of passengers to pay the access fee ($10-$27)
• many airlines lean toward a much-cheaper technology with less capacity that relies on traditional cellular networks.

Satellite operator SES Global is rumored as a potential buyer of the service, which has cost Boeing approximately $1 billion since its start in April 2000. Some industry experts say Connexion today may not be worth more than $150 million.

07:30 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

We have no way of authenticating whether or not this is true, but according to a PDA247 reader, eReader for Symbian may no longer be supported.

I have stopped purchasing any more books at eReader, even though in the past I have bought dozens. The reason? When I asked them if they planned to upgrade their Symbian reader to support all the new S60 v3 devices coming out, they said they had no plans to do any further updates for Symbian devices.

If it's indeed eReader's plan to abandon the Symbian platform, this would be an extremely disturbing development, since, at least to my knowledge, there's no other software solution available to read e-books in encrypted eReader format. If you happen to be a loyal eReader customer with a Symbian device: dump your phone and get something real, like a Palm Treo, or abandon your personal bookshelf with all the eReader e-books you've purchased for "lifetime".

Yet another example why closed DRM in the long run isn't going to help anyone, last and least, the customer.

Related: eReader.com Vice President on DRM and its obstacles, eReader DRM Flowchart, DRM: The bigger they are, the harder they fall

07:01 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

It was the week that was. Here's what MobileRead's been talking about since last Sunday:

Elsewhere on the Net
Free e-book: "55 Ways to have Fun with Google"

HanLin eBook
Close-ups of HanLin V8 e-book reader posted

In the News
Are e-books trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?
How much purchased content is locked up in proprietary e-book formats?
Industry adopts new e-book standards
Nokia design concept features flexible LCD screen
NY Times online division revenues are growing
Paper books fight back

Mobile Sites
ESPN FIFA World Cup Mobile
With WAP, see what song is playing on the radio

Other Readers
µBookLite V0.1b for Palm released

Others
Orchestra plays concert using e-music reader
TeleRead gives Pepper Pad 2 a half thumbs-up

Palm OS
Handwritten notes on your PDA made even better with the Treo 700p
Palm Addicts VideoCast #3 available
PalmPDF 1.3 released

Recommendations
Helix: Free online speculative fiction magazine

Windows Mobile
See what's new in Excel for Win Mobile 5.0

10:59 AM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Why just read books and listen to mp3s on an e-book reader? Now you can use a mobile reading device for sheet music.

The device is the MusicPad Pro which is a dedicated tablet PC which is 13.3" x 9.9" x 1.8" (just over 4 lbs) and with:
• 12.1" TFT LCD back-lit, color display
• 1024 x 768 resolution
• 64MB Flash memory, 128MB RAM
• 64MB Flash memory module
• Audio & Video out
• 2 USB ports (1 host, 1 device)
• Built-in jack for foot pedal

Some of the things the seller claims that this device will allow you to do:
• Store your entire music library
• Download nearly 50,000 digital music scores already formatted for the MusicPad Pro Plus from www.sunhawk.com
• Scan your music library into a computer and then convert
• Annotate with zoom in and zoom out feature feature while writing
• Add or erase rehearsal marks and notations
• Personal on screen color notes
• Use an extensive library of notation symbols
• Text annotation via a virtual keyboard

The California State University Long Beach Symphony Orchestra played a concert using this device. You can tell how this is still cutting edge technology by the fact that they boast the trial was "successful" and it was an event done once. If we were talking about a mature technology, there would be no need to even mention success, and the talk would be about the numbers of symphony orchestras already using it for every concert. But first things first.

"The concert, on April 28, 2006 was the first where all the musicians of a symphony orchestra performed using this new technology...The implementation of the product in a full symphonic concert environment is a part of FreeHand’s product marketing plan and helps confirm the validity of the concept of digital sheet music."

Via WorshipLeader.

10:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

"You probably use Google everyday, but do you know... the Google Snake Game? Googledromes? Memecodes? Googlesport? The Google Calculator? Googlepark and Google Weddings? Google hacking, fighting and rhyming? In this book, you'll find Google-related games, oddities, cartoons, tips, stories and everything else that's fun. Reading it, you won't be the same searcher as before! No programming skills needed. (From the author of Google Blogoscoped.)"

As Philipp Lenssen's e-book is Creative Commons-licensed, it's free to share and to reformat. Download from here.