06:32 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

Issue #1 of the new speculative fiction magazine, Helix is now available. "Issues are published in January, April, July, and October. Helix does not accept advertising in any form or offer paid subscriptions. The sole financial support is derived from voluntary donations."

What's speculative fiction? I don't really know. But based on that wikipedia entry, it sounds like it's "sort of scifi" but with more freedom to be creative about alternate views of reality. I guess we'll have to read some to see what it's all about.

Via Shaun at PDA247.

04:25 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Designer Hugo Danti seemed obviously inspired by the closeup of a peacock's tailfeathers when he created the Nokia Open concept phone for the Nokia 4G mobile concept competition 2004. When the phone is closed, it looks like a Bluetooth handset. Opened, it may also remind you of a traditional Japanese hand-fan. The design incorporates an E Ink-like, scrollable and touch-enabled LCD screen, which could be used as a picture phone, video conference appliance, or even Internet navigation unit. The phone would only have one hardware button, with most features being accessed on-screen.

While this will probably never be made (at least not while e-paper technology is in its infancy), it's still an interesting concept to wrap one's mind about.

[via Yanko Design]

05:00 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | HanLin eBook

Roland "CommanderROR" Rohde and TaKir managed to take a few close-up shots of the HanLin V8 e-book reader, which is, as some of you may not know, the Chinese equivalent to Sony's forthcoming Sony Portable Reader. The HanLin is also based on E Ink with similar specs such as a 6-inch 800x600 display with four grey scales. It has a Li-ion 760mAh battery that's supposed to be sufficient for 10'000 page turns.

As you can see from the screenshots, presentation of HTML content is still somewhat problematic - I noticed that line feeds are not always properly translated. Roland is also pointing out ghosting effects (which was already an issue with first-gen E Ink devices such as the Sony Librie). I personally cannot detect those here, but why don't you decide for yourself. Edit: Follow the thread for more screenshots added by Roland and TaKir, which (unfortunately) clearly depict that there is a slight after-image on the screen, even in the case of the more advanced E Ink display of the iRex iLiad.

Finally, I am not a great fan of the console font, which shouldn't be a problem though if the HanLin software supports other fonts as well (confirm?).

02:27 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The NY Times has announced that online revenues are growing. Significant online revenues for major media player are essential to the ongoing availability of free content. While the NYTimes reports almost half a million subscribers (with more than 1/3 of those being online subscriptions, rather than as a benefit to the home delivery subscriptions), the best results seem to be coming from advertising revenues.

It is still not clear what the business model will be for the major online news organizations. As much as we may be frustrated by the major news organizations and news bias, Blogs and amateur content providers will probably never fill their role completely. The reputation of a major news organization holds them to standards of accuracy that may not be perfect, but are definitely higher standards than the average news blog. We need news sources that we can trust at some level. And it would be a shame if the model shifts to pay subscriptions.

Well, unless there is some kind of revenue sharing agreement that makes a wide selection of content available cheaply... say $10/year, with revenues being distributed based on what content is being viewed. Privacy issues aside, such a scheme might both support availability of stories from the best media, and also keep costs down for the consumer. Of course, once the concept of payment for a service is accepted, there is a tendency with monopoly power for that price to skyrocket.

But who knows? Maybe something like that could work for music and video also. At any rate, everyone is still looking for that perfect solution. The unfortunately thing is that the perfect solution for publishers may not be the same as the perfect solution for consumers. Let's see who wins, and by how much.

Via Poynter Online.

01:25 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Mobile Sites

Have you ever been listing to the radio and wonder what song is playing? Now you can see what is currently playing on your favorite radio station with any WAP browser (i.e. the web browser on a typical cell phone, and also compatible with most smartphone browsers.)

Surfing to Mobile YES will let you pick a city and then a radio station. Then it will show the song that is currently playing. Not every radio station is covered. In fact, they have about 2,500 stations, which should include the major broadcasters, but that is only about a fifth of all stations.

There's a regular web version at YES.com for those of you looking for information from the desktop.

Via Wap Review.

08:43 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Pennovate Notes allows you to write on your PalmOS device screen like you would use a paper notepad. It's rather luxurious in it's features. Not only can you manage your resulting note files easily, and control the type of line you draw, but there is help to compensate for that tiny little screen on your handheld.

What you get is a customizable split screen display that shows both the active portion you are writing on, and another window that let you navigate the virtual page of paper. That's the key to making the note taking work on your handheld screen. The virtual page is much bigger than the screen size and Pennovate Notes lets you navigate around that page easily. It's a great combination, and a very well exectued program.

And I have been delighted to discover that with the Treo 700p, the responsiveness and accuracy is better than ever.

I highly recommend this program as a very basic tool for every PalmOS user. You can test drive it to see if it is a good fit for you and your specific device with the free 15-day trial version.

08:43 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The third Palm Addict VideoCast is now available for your viewing pleasure. In it, Sammy demonstrates MobileWrite, a software program for PalmOS which allows you to use Graffiti 1 for text entry, and in which he also makes a brief mention of MobileRead.

Hmmm.... MobileRead.... MobileWrite. Our long lost twin? Nah. But it's a program that I've noticed many times before and sort of dismissed as not helpful. Having seen this demo, I will have to reconsider as it looks very nice, and might even help prevent the so-called "Blackberry thumb."

08:21 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

A "lite" version of the popular PPC e-book reader µBook is now available for the Palm OS crowd. While it still has some pivotal features missing, such as a search function and bookmark capabilities, judging from the screenshots µBookLite looks like a promising alternative to eReader, Mobipocket Reader and the rest. Features already included:

• Support for PDB and PRC (not secure) ebook (in HTML, TXT or PML format)
• Support for embedded images (BMP, GIF, PNG and JPG)
• Hyphenating, auto-scrolling, font packs

You can download the trial of µBookLite here.