12:11 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Looking for a good alternative to Pocket Internet Explorer? Ever heard of Minimo CE, the trimmed-down Mozilla fork for Windows Mobile devices? The latest version 0.015 is out and it addresses the following items:

• 14% disk footprint reduction
• Password manager support
• "Set as Default Browser" support
• Support for some Google Widgets (via a XSLT wrapper)
• Intergration of a Amazon lightweight query shopping app
• Adding "Open Frame in New Tab" support.

As usual, you can download the binaries of Minimo CE as an installer, zip file, or cab file.

10:28 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Here is a tantalizing piece of news from the New York Times, reporting that the newspaper will partner with Microsoft to work on the Times Reader, an e-book software that will make reading news digitally a lot more like flipping through a paper. According to CNet,

The new software, which uses the Windows Presentation Foundation engine built into Vista, maintains the look of the New York Times' print edition using the same fonts, but aims to capture some of the flexibility that software can enable. The software allows for the inclusion of hyperlinks within the text, as well as the ability to play multimedia or annotate a story with comments. The content can be stored on the PC for offline viewing, but can also be updated continuously when a computer is connected to the Internet.

The software won't be limited to the New York Times. By end of summer, other newspapers and magazines will be able to download developer kits to work on their own Vista onscreen reader editions. It's only too bad that most dedicated e-book readers wouldn't run Windows Vista.

Related: TeleRead's take on how this partnership notches up the battle between Microsoft and Adobe. Also, check out this speech transcript when Times Reader was announced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

09:24 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

Reader Henrique "Henrycat" Catarrunas got his hands on the iRex iLiad reader during a conference at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar in Portugal, and he was kind enough to send us a picture of his new baby. From the picture (attached to this post) it's obvious how much better the 1024x768 screen (with 16 grey scales) works for e-content compared to the 800x600 screen (with 4 grey scales) of the now slightly outdated Sony Librie.

Some nifty features of the iRex we didn't discuss before:

• Native support for PDF documents loaded straight from a CF card or even from a USB pen.
• Auto conversion of color pictures to grey scale.
• HTML documents are displayed as one page, which you can "flip" down.

For those miserable about the delayed launch, Henrique was able to get some more information about this too. As we mentioned before, there's a problem with the iRex Web store which doesn't seem to be quite ready yet (according to Henrique, problems are related to processing and authorizing payments). But there are also still some unsolved software issues. The company who does the embedded Linux OS hasn't delivered a final version yet. The software reader, apparently called Apabi Reader and made by a Chinese company (check out this flash presentation) renders PDF documents too slow, which can perhaps be solved by precaching content. Meanwhile iRex is building up stock and expects more iLiad devices to arrive by the first week of May 2006.

Henrique, since you were granted the iLiad as a "permanent loan" (no comment!), please keep us updated as we are all craving for more photos and information!

09:21 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Seeing the recent post about a broken Sony Librie reader screen leads me to ask the following questions:

• Have you ever had a handheld device that needed repair?
• If it was under warranty, how fast and easily could you get a replacement?
• If out of warranty, what were your options?
• Did you get it repaired or throw it away?

My only experience was with a refurbished Toshiba e405 Pocket PC that I bought on Woot.com. It stopped working completely. I believe it was completely unusable and would freeze up, but I can't really remember the details anymore. (You can probably find my complaints if you search the forums.)

I contacted the main number at Toshiba, and they were very nice about it, and it was still under warranty. Even though they had already exited the PDA business at the time, they were still very helpful. They sent me a replacement device, and a FedEx account number to use to ship the defective one back to them at their cost. They took my credit card number to guarantee that return.

It was almost just that easy. Almost. Everything was fine except that even after returning the defective device, they charged my credit card. It was a bit of a battle, but I finally got to someone that could help me, and it was finally resolved. Again, I don't remember all the details, but I do remember it was a pain in the neck. But all in all, I was very pleased with Toshiba's handling of the matter and I would consider them in the future for, say, a UMPC.

I also have a Treo 650 now with a finicky connector. Most of the time I have to wiggle it to hotsynch, and sometimes that's really annoying when on some days it's hard to get the connection. I'm tempted to get a bluetooth adapter for my PC to avoid that completely, but then I would have to end up turning on and off bluetooth just to sync (as I don't want the extra battery drain if that's all I'm using it for). I have a coverage plan with Verizon but I haven't checked yet to see if it covers this and how long I would have to be without a device. I'll have to check soon if that 700p shows up in May, because I may just be switching.

Other than that, everything has worked well for me. I did wear out the up/down switch on my old Clie from overuse, but it wasn't completely broken so I never did anything about it.

And I did have an SD card that stopped working from Lexar. I think it was caused by a bad USB card reader device, but I didn't figure that out until after it was replaced under warranty. They were very gracious and efficient about the whole thing, and simply asked that I return the defective SD card. Lesson: If you are using an older model card reader, make sure you have the current firmware upgrades.

So that's my story. Now tell us yours...

Note: The picture is from this poor fellow. But at least he had a happy ending!

04:31 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

You know that most gadgets are extremely fragile by nature, and the Sony Librie e-book reader is no exception. Hence we feel genuinely sorry for Mathieu from Australia whose Librie got crushed by a heavy notebook. You can see some photos of the immediate aftermath posted here on Flickr. And what's Mathieu's wish for his next e-book reader?

I've had the opportunity to experience ePaper - this experience hasn't turned me off it. I'll just have to make sure that my future eBook has a stronger protective case for the screen. I believe the iRex iLiad has a glass cover. The Sony Reader which will sell in Borders book stores across the US has a...? This makes me wonder whether Sony equipped the paper with anything more than the leather cover?

Anyone cares to speculate?

03:30 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Our good friends over at Palm Addicts have had some really interesting information and thoughts about e-books and mobile content over the last few days, which is well worth pointing out. Plus they have additional stories about dictionaries, translation aids and so forth. If you love Palm news and discussion, you owe it to yourself to keep an eye on Palm Addicts. If you do, I can promise you'll never miss out on any big Palm news.

Some of the more interesting recent stories related to our favorite topics are:

• E-book sales growing, but price is still sucking the life out of the market
• E-books should not be interactive
• Is Palm missing the multimedia boat
• UMASS Nursing Students Gain Confidence, Experience with Skyscape Medical References for PDAs
• E-Books are going to be more and more popular as time goes by

And last, but not least, if you want to read your e-books near water, be sure to check this one out!

• Aquapac Phone Case is a new review over at TreoCentral

11:39 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Everyone is starting to get interested in digital video recorders. Tivo and other cable DVR boxes are becoming a "must have" item. It's surprising to me that they are so popular when they require not only an initial outlay, but usually a significant monthly programming guide subscription fee.

So what's the next obvious step? Turn your computer into a DVR. It may not become the average person's first choice until it's easier and quieter (computer fans are still more annoying in the den than in the office while working at your desk).

One famous Linux option is MythTV, which has some pretty neat features. For Windows, there's the Windows Media Center edition which is apparently becoming very popular. According to ZDNet news, "Microsoft said recently that its Windows XP Media Center software is outselling the standard edition of the software, and Hewlett-Packard announced last year that it is developing technology to let high-definition televisions directly access digital content from home computers." Pretty impressive.

Well there's another approach available in beta for Windows users from a household name -- Yahoo! And "The Yahoo Go for TV software works in conjunction with many of Yahoo's other Yahoo Go media products, such as Yahoo Launchcast, a radio and music subscription service, and Flickr, Yahoo's photo-sharing site. In addition, Go for TV lets people view photos from any online service and to listen to music from CDs or digital-music libraries already stored on the linked computer."

Yahoo Go for TV provides the listing information. It requires a decent Windows PC with lots of free disc space, plus of course a tuner card and A/V connections. A remote control (with the tuner card) is recommended.

I looks pretty interesting, and you can check out the beta software here to get started.

11:22 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The demand for e-books on mobile devices, especially phones, is growing. And in Japan it appears that it's bigger than in the U.S., with the BBC reporting that "Stunned by the seemingly huge untapped demand, traditional publishing houses and mobile content providers alike have been scrambling for a piece of this novel mobile action." In fact, "Today there are a number of sites, where for a subscription of $10 to 15 (£5.70 to £8.70) a month you can download every genre imaginable to your heart's content."

But whether we are talking about mobile video or mobile games or mobile e-books, it never fails to bring statements from the industry about how we should tailor the content to mobile devices and make it shorter. The experts seem to feel that you consume in tiny bits on a mobile device so the content should be created that way. The argument seems so logical on the surface, but let's dig a little deeper because I think it's mostly a fallacy, and I want to propose a much better approach.

The best way to see what I mean is to imagine MP3 players on phones. How successful would it be to hire a bunch of hacks to write short songs aimed at the mobile population? Not likely to be successful at all. That's because quality is essential. People want the real stuff, not just a song that fits their favorite song form factor. About the only way I see this working is if famous artists write ring tones or special purpose jingles. (Mariah Carey has been hired to do just that, by the way.)

Same thing with e-books. Are good quality short stories likely to do well? Sure. But if you start writing e-books just for mobile devices, you had better either get really famous quality authors with an interesting topic, or do something like a romance novel where quality doesn't matter anyway. Bite size books may become part of the landscape, but they will never replace people's desire to choose their reading materials from among the best selling books.

And don't even consider special 2 minute content as a main diet for mobile viewers. Maybe it has a long shot chance, but most likely it will always be low quality, so the only hope is if people want a dose of their favorite hot actor or show, like the cell-versions of 24 and Prison Break.

Besides, there is a better approach for bite sized video. It's already done for TV to incorporate commercials. Simply package the best TV shows in bite sized pieces as if you were doing a commercial every five minutes. (But leaving out the commercials themselves, I hope!) We're used to commercial breaks, which leave a show broken up into 15-20 min segments. Why not make them 5 min segments. If you want to watch more, you just jump on the next segment. You might need to improve the playlist functionality, but that's sure to come soon anyway.

For e-books I see the same solution. Don't create separate junky content for mobile readers. Simply consider improving the bookmarking system, and maybe create a few artificial subchapters.

With this approach to both video and e-book content on mobile devices, not only have you solved the problem of bite sized users, but you have both a huge amount of available content and also a great way to repackage and resell content by adding value instead of resorting to DRM that makes the consumer rebuy material just to continue to have access! People are a lot more likely to want to buy material if it's actually serving their purposes.

Via PDA 24/7