11:39 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Sony seems to have started a new viral marketing campaign on the tail of the very successful Microsoft Origami marketing efforts.

The video is on the US Sony site, so it's likely the new product will be available for US consumers. And James Kendrick points out that it has a label of "ar_ux_teaser" on the URL, which can't help but make one wonder if that's some kind of tie to the UX PDAs of the past. More likely we would think it would be along the lines of recent rumors about a new Sony UMPC, as some kind of extension of the Vaio line. The final screen says "New from Sony VAIO... Is your finger really the gatekeeper?" That might refer to the difference between a UMPC and a Tablet PC, because you can use your finger with a UMPC, but Tablet PCs require a battery powered active sylus so you can't use your finger to control it.

To get a feel for the Vaio line, you can take a look at this artistic overview video of the existing product line at the Sony site. I've also attached a picture of an interesting UMPC model with built in EDGE for cellular data with Cingular coverage.

As of today, the final screen also says, "Come back tomorrow for more." I think I will!

Via JKOnTheRun.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Another week, another steady stream of mobile goodness here on MobileRead. Our authentic roundup of what's been going on:

Elsewhere on the Net
E-books most "trendy" in Asia says Google
Palm Addicts e-book coverage continues
Scanning books from your own library

Feedback
User contributions are always welcome!

In the News
Academic library eBook usage surging
Bankcard powered with SiPix e-paper technology
Books-On-Mobile Publisher wins Red Herring 100 award
Bored with white e-paper displays? Try black!
Electronic libaries are hard to browse
Electronic paper gets palaverous
Flexible E Ink in 2008 says Plastic Logic
Microsoft reinvents the electronic annotation
Next Sony Reader in color and with moving pictures
Reading is different for men and women
Research firm optimistic about OLED and e-paper displays
What WSJ thinks web readers want in a news site

Mobile Sites
YouTube adds mobile uploads

Other Readers
Haali Reader V2.0b257 released

Others
Hitachi surprises with Albirey e-paper display
Newspapers on demand for UMPC devices

Palm OS
Broken Treo 650 replacement: Part 1
Broken Treo 650 replacement: Part 2
Some news from a few friends of MobileRead
Sprint Treo 700p to be released on May 28!
Treo 700p vs 650: some projected differences

Windows Mobile
New PPC freeware site and mobile news portals

05:55 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

I had way too much time on my hands today and gave Google Trends a whirl. My first startling discovery: places searching the most for e-book related terms are predominately Asian countries like India, Viet Nam, Pakistan, and the Philippines. And my second discovery: ebook wins over e-book (well I kinda knew this already, but it still surprises me to see by how much. Don't worry, we'll continue to keep the hyphen).

Find out for yourself: E-books in Google Trends

If you come across something particularly interesting or amusing, let us know.

12:15 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

One of the great pleasures of being associated with a site like MobileRead, is the chance to meet (in the online sense of the word) so many really nice people. So many are members right here posting in the MobileRead forums. But if you don't follow all the talk around the web community associated with mobile devices, you may not have had the chance to see the broader community and what great people are working for Palm and Microsoft and PalmSource/Access, for example. Or how dedicated and extremely generous are almost all of the handheld software developers. Or what a delight the folks are who work at other mobile-related web sites. It's a great group of people with very similar interests and passions, and people are remarkably kind and helpful. We've got a great thing going.

Continue reading entry »

11:38 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

I came up with some ideas regarding scanning of paper books and will discuss them in this article. It will discuss this and that.

Continue reading entry »

07:42 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Over in the land of the rising sun plain electronic paper is so yesterday. The guys from Toppan Forms, a division of Toppan Printing, developed a paper-like product that not only includes many characteristics of paper (it's flexible and ultra thin), but which can also record and play back sound. Before you get too excited (assuming you even get excited about a talking piece of paper), note that so far this technology has only been applied to postcards being sold for about ten bucks in Japanese department stores, and with just enough room to hold up to twenty seconds of audio.

[via Web Japan]

12:36 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There is a very nice list from 1src of the expected differences (other than the main specs we have covered before) between the new Sprint 700p and the existing Treo 650 device. Both are PalmOS, but there are some pretty impressive improvements according to this list in the form factor and functionality, above and beyond the obvious camera resolution and EV-DO high speed data access.

Bear in mind that this is reported to be a rumor as it is sent in from an anonymous source. But, specifically, when the product is announced/released we might be seeing: "

1) Web browsing via EV-DO is like going from dialup to broadband. This is worth the price of admission right there.
2) 62 MB internal RAM
3) Comes with a bunch of nice apps - ptunes 3.06 is one
4) You already know about the bigger keys and much more functional 5-way button thingie. Considerably easier to use, I'd say.
5) Battery life is supposed to be improved. (as if that ever was an issue).
6) Sound quality seems better and louder without VolumeCare
7) Much faster display due to faster CPU - has a noticeably peppier feel.
8) Camcorder and Camera much nicer - improved resloution
9) Camera optics are a little smaller (take up a little less real estate on the back)
10) Beaming opening is about 50% smaller
11) Side switches are flat, not curved. I like them.
12) Speaker grill is bigger (square) instead of roundish
13) No software compatibility issues encountered in testing
14) Very stable. Currently in 8th firmware rev
15) Power cycling (removing/replacing battery) remembers previous operational state - if phone was on, it will turn on automatically.
16) Time syncs with (more accurate) time server, rather than network - I noticed about a 20 second difference between my phone and the 700
...
I should add that the signal strength indicator has six little bars instead of the current four. The engineer said that the 700 uses a different chip for signal reception, which is more sensitive than the 650."

I'm on the edge of my seat and unless I see an unexpected shortcoming with the new Sprint 700p, I hope to grab one this month myself!

12:22 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

A quick post to make note of a few interesting sites that were noted in Jim Karpen's Web Guide:

* Purely Mobile
"...a new Pocket PC-friendly directory that provides a searchable directory of the most popular and new PDA sites in the UK and around the world. All sites are tested and approved before inclusion in the directory in order to ensure a scroll-free browsing experience for users."

* News For Mobile
"another portal ... the categories go beyond news and include areas such as entertainment, knowledge search, and shopping."

* Freeware for Windows Mobile Pocket PC
"...a new site that claims to have the largest listing, with some 5,700 titles. I thought that I saw demos among the listings, but the site’s owner says it’s all freeware and that the demo designation is a vestige of Handango’s former system of putting freeware under trial folders."

* SocialText Personal Wiki
A "miki" is a mobile wiki. From the SocialText web site... "Socialtext Personal, which is free for five users, gives you a private wiki as notepad in your pocket. Simply bookmark your miki in your mobile web browser to quickly take notes that you can access and edit anywhere. A workgroup of five, for example, could have one common wiki and five private personal wikis, all for free."

And if you're not familiar with the site, check out Smartphone and PPC Magazine, which has such a nice news site that it convinced me to subscribe to the print edition also.