01:45 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Update: There's a related conference call at 1pm EST.

You have to ask yourself what Research In Motion has done wrong to anger so many inventors. Just when the company ended the four-year legal dispute with NTP by shelling out more than $600 million last March, it's now facing another company, Visto Corp., who filed a suit against the BlackBerry maker, claiming that the BlackBerry service "infringes three patents on software allowing mobile access to data."

"We're asking for our rights to be respected,'' Visto co-founder Daniel Mendez said today in a telephone interview. "I wouldn't go as far as to say we want to see them shut down.''

You can read more about over at Bloomberg. RIM stock is currently down three percent.

12:46 PM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

While I am sure you're not going to be disappointed about the hi-res photos of the iLiad attached to this post (and if not for the reader itself than at least for Gisele Bündchen), make sure to also check out Henrique's ongoing hands-on review. He is providing some excellent details about the iRex iLiad which should help you decide if it's going to be worth your bucks (once it's available).

07:28 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Well, we're not talking here about some new sleek'n'sexy skin protector for your iPod. A team of researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York has developed a new process to make "nano-skins", with organized arrays of nanotubes embedded throughout, that would conduct electricity for applications like bendy electronic displays, electronic papers and sensors. Nanotube arrays normally are held together by weak forces that don't always maintain their shape when transferred, but the team has developed a new procedure that allows them to transfer arrays of nanotubes into a traditional polymer matrix without disturbing the shape, size, or alignment of the nanotubes.

Just what we need, another prospective candidate to provide us the necessary material to commercialize our much sought-after electronic paper.

07:44 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Please notice, we are currently restructuring the forums. If everything goes smoothly, you shouldn't feel a thing.

Update: We're half done and should be able to finish by tomorrow.

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

Previously at MobileRead:

Current E-Books Trends
How limited supply may (not) relate to e-book pricing
Liquavista mixes oil and water to produce a new display technology
Newspapers put E Ink readers on trial
New York Times on the dim future of e-textbooks
NYT gets in bed with Microsoft to deliver e-content
Palm Addicts has a wealth of e-book stories
Scholarly publications better in electronic form
Should mobile e-books be different than regular books?
Stop squinting - eyestrain problems caused by small screens
Washington Post on E Ink devices

E-Book Readers
Hands-on with the iRex iLiad
iRex iLiad availability delayed to May 2006
Presentation on iRex iLiad trial with more photos
Sony Librie killed by a notebook

E-Book Webstores
eReader 10% discount through May 6th

FBReader
FBReader 0.7.3c adds support for OpenZaurus

General Chat
A library location that might not be safe for e-book readers
Is mobile device adoption being held up by security concerns?
Laplink ShareDirect Basic Edition is now free
New ".mobi" domain names are coming in May 2006
Prison Break heads to cells instead of TV
Tell us about your handheld repair stories
Yahoo! turns your PC into a DVR

iSilo/X
iSilo V4.32 beta 1 released

Link Swap
Fresh quotes to your handheld via RSS
Get a Yahoo Mail beta invite - here is how to

New Links
PocketOptimized provides list of mobile-friendly sites
Wampad gateway to mobile web

Other E-Book Resources
Overview of available e-book software

Palm
How Palm took off the crown from HP
Is Palm OS losing its Mojo?
Palm Addicts reviews Proporta handheld accessories
Sprint Palm Treo 700p sighted again

Pocket PC
Microsoft confirms WM 5.0 successor "Crossbow"
Minimo CE 0.015 released

Portable Audio/Video
Free SciFi audiobooks from James Patrick Kelly
Free tool to convert DVDs for handheld viewing
Musical freedom by mixing Pandora and Squeezebox
Will major content become mobile-only?

Smartphones
Consumers want more from mobile phones

12:52 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

If you are new to e-book reading, you probably want to check out this post from Henry over at Palm Addicts which has a general overview of software you can use to read e-books. He includes my personal highlights such as iSilo and eReader.

12:38 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | iSilo/X

Although it's been quiet about iSilo of late, Darren hasn't stopped developing this very popular e-book software. Last week, he released the first beta of iSilo V4.32 which is mainly a bug fix release for V4.31.

Jump ahead and download the latest iSilo beta and iSiloX beta. If you haven't heard of iSilo before, check out this thread for more info.

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.