08:57 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Libraries as public institutions have become integral with the fabric of modern society. They provide public accessibility to books and other resources such as audio and video. But they are at risk with the new politics of DRM.

"The British Library's Chief Executive, Lynne Brindley, is warning that DRM systems are creating unintended consequences that affect how digital material can be stored and disseminated by libraries, which have traditionally been protected by special exceptions under IP law."

Content in this digital age comes with strings. "'Digital material generally comes with a contract, and these contracts are nearly always more restrictive than existing copyright law and frequently prevent copying, archiving, and access by the visually impaired', said Brindley."

Lawmakers now have the power to determine the future of the library. But the outcome is far from certain. Will the digital age be their downfall, or allow libraries to prosper? Time will tell.

From geek.lisnews.org and Pocket-Lint.

07:02 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

My goodness, is it Sunday again? Well, for those of you who've missed the highs and lows of MobileRead over the past seven days, this is your one-way ticket to catch up:

Announcements
Reminder: MobileRead RSS feeds for every taste

AvantGo
AvantGo formally announces support for RSS

Elsewhere on the Net
"Dear Author" list of e-book publishers and vendors
BookDrive DIY - A low cost scanning station for the rest of us?
Free e-book: The Wealth of Networks

In the News
AppleBerry in the works?
Cell phones make kids sweat
Deja vu: Palm and Xerox may meet again
E-book: hype or not?
French publisher sues Google for e-book piracy
Industry researcher predicts growthy market for flexible displays
Palm to be added to the S&P MidCap 400
Paperlike display running for 12 years and still going strong
Tower of eBabel: Why e-books are such a mess

iRex iLiad
Heise gives iRex iLiad a thumb up
Revised iRex iLiad specs indicate change in internal software

Lounge
Farecast private beta invites here

Mobile Sites
Free Mobile RSS for WAP2.0 phones
Listen to CNN on the go
PDA-friendly Amtrak site

Others
Can't get an e-ink device yet? Try a UMPC.
Didigo USB stick with bistable display now available
The historical future of e-book devices

Palm OS
1-0 for Palm Treo 700p vs. Moto Q, says WSJ

Portable AV
Six awesome things you didn't know Pocket Tunes could do

Sony Reader
Sir "Sony" Stringer is in love with his e-book reader

Windows Mobile
NewsGator for Windows Mobile beta released
Nvidia introduces MultiMedia Platform for Windows Mobile

11:33 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Mobile Sites

Amtrak, the US passenger train system, has provided a site that is just for connected handhelds such as the Treo or Blackberry.

"You can now access your Amtrak profile, make a reservation or check train status while you are sitting in a taxi or sitting in the park.

There is no need to work with technologies such as JavaScript or Flash. With a customized content interface for each device, use of the screen space is maximized and the content is organized for handheld devices and mouseless navigation.

Easy to view. Easy to book… It's the nation's railway system in a convenient, handheld package."

Thanks to Jason Taylor of Usable.net for the tip.

11:00 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

According to the Atiz website, "BookDrive DIY is a highly productive scanning solution that enables you to easily scan books at 1,000 pages an hour." And it turns pages for you automatically. Price is about $5,700 (about $3,500 if you supply your own cameras), and their own numbers put productivity at more like 818 pages/hr, but that's still very impressive. I can't tell what form factors are supported, or if paperbacks can be scanned.

Let's put it into some more practical terms... In one hour, you can scan that novel you just bought as a paper book (probably for less than the price of an e-book) and take it on vacation with you to read on your handheld or iPod!

By the way, have you done a double take yet? Yes, I said it turns pages for you automatically. Again, from the web page, it is said to be "the world’s first and only desktop-sized, automatic page-turning scanner that eliminates manually copying and scanning documents. As a cost-effective solution, BookDrive enables businesses worldwide to automatically digitize content such as books, bound documents and magazines."

"BookDrive DIY is a platform. You bring your own Canon digital SLR cameras and lenses. The combination is a low-cost, highly productive book scanning station. [It] comes in a box [and] contains all components required to create an ideal book scanning station...

1. Base and structure
2. specially designed lighting set
3. height-adjustable camera mounts
4. USB hub
5. Book cradle
6. Transparent platen
7. Keypad
8. Software"

All in all, they claim that "you will be able to start scanning within one hour from unpacking." I don't know how well it works, but wow would I like to get my hands on one of these!

So are we reaching the point at which the most obsessive of us will actually start scanning our libraries? Disc and optical media is getting cheaper and better. And if you tend to collect books, think how much space around the house, garage and attic you can save by digitizing your books. You could probably even hire a high school student to do the scanning, organizing and media preparation for you at a reasonable price.

Michael Mace talks about the tipping point that will move paper to e-books and make them widely used. That's still out there a bit, even if it's now squarely in our sights. But how about the tipping point where we see the first pioneers and early adopters going all digital for their libraries? How close do you think we are? Or should I say, "How crazy do you think the early adopters are?!"

Note: I have been in awe of this machine since I heard about it in May, but just now have been able to post. However, that timing also brings the opportunity to point you to more coverage of this device over at TeleRead Blog. If you follow the comments, you'll see a nice discussion of BookDrive versus flat bed scanners, including comments from Art Sarasin of Atiz!

07:35 PM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

You say, "the what!?"

I'm talking about a list of previously proposed e-book devices that Teleblog refers to as an online museum of (proposed) e-book devices. Some really interesting pictures make the page a lot of fun to look at, even if it's not in English.

04:59 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

NewsGator is a desktop online feed reader option that has made quite a name for itself. Now they have a beta version for Windows Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs. Might be worth a try if you are looking for mobile RSS reader software.

Kevin Tofel did a bit of digging and also determined that it's from the acquisition of SmartRead. "A little less than three months ago, we announced a couple of new mobile RSS readers that were in the works. One of them was a reader for Windows Mobile devices called SmartRead, which was under development by Kevin Cawley. Now christened NewsGator for Windows Mobile Devices, the product has entered public beta, and is available for download..."

From JKOnTheRun.

03:58 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's always fun to watch two companies fight over outdated technologies. Today, a federal appeals court ruled that a US district court judge erred in ruling two elements of a Xerox patent around Palm's Graffiti system invalid, and remanded the case for reconsideration. The suit dates back to 1997 when Xerox filed suit against U.S. Robotics (then acquired by 3Com, then broken off into its own Palm division) saying that the company had infringed on a handwriting-recognition software patent that it had been awarded in 1993. After seven years in court, Palm has won the suit when a judge invalidated the Xerox patent, putting Graffiti in the clear.

[via Palm Addicts]

02:20 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

You know nothing screams geek like a USB stick attached to your key chain. So why don't you add one to this by getting a Didigo USB SmartDrive, which not only offers up to 1GB of storage, but also sports a bistable cholesteric display (ChLCD) that can show a number of information, from a pie chart of the remaining disk space to the drive's volume name. The display can be easily read even in direct sunlight and it stays on when power is removed.

Kent Displays recently opened their own retail store, which currently offers the Didigo stick in three different sizes, 256MB, 512MB and 1GB, for $29.95, $39.95 and $59.95, respectively.

Related: Didigo SmartDrive DD01 with BCD screen