09:09 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

There's some interesting new survey data about how people use their cell phones. And it breaks down the old stereotypes of cell phone users as people that just want to make phone calls without the complexity of other functions.

According to a recent national study on cell phone usage, people want to use their phones to do more. They want to watch video, listen to music, play games and even buy movie tickets.

Some of the sample statistics show that only 6% of cell phone users play music on their phone, but 19% want to do that. Only 2% watch video, but 14% would like to. That would seem to indicate a huge market opportunity.

Via Yahoo News.

08:35 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Mobile Sites

We're always glad to see more collections of mobile-friendly web site links. Here's another one for you at PocketOptimized. It's available in three languages including English. I'm not sure what the other languages are, but I'm guessing "de" might mean German. I'm clueless about what language "pl" refers to, but if it's of any use to you, I'm sure you know what language it is.

A corresponding mobile version can be found here.

There are also a great many links available here at MobileRead in our forum threads, and we're also working on a comprehensive list, coming soon in wiki form.

Via PDA24/7.

04:23 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Last year, as you may recall, Princeton University was one of the first schools to announce the availability of e-textbooks backed by a pilot project from MBS Textbook Exchange. Under the initial version of the project, textbook downloads were sold for 33 percent off the cost of a new, printed copy, but would only be usable for about five months. It didn't take an economics degree to see where antipiracy efforts had gone too far. Shortly after the launch, most of the publishers involved decided to get rid of the expiration date issue. Nevertheless, as the New York Times reports today, e-textbooks have thus failed to gain acceptance:

Few students have warmed to electronic textbooks, despite their increasing flexibility and much cheaper price - typically 40 percent less than a new textbook and 20 percent less than a used one ... MBS Direct, which sells some 700 college textbooks in digital form, started the program at 10 campuses last fall and 31 this spring. Interest has been modest - about 5 percent of the total sales for a given text - but that's encouraging enough to expand to more than 300 campuses next semester, says Dennis Flanagan, chief executive of MBS Direct.

Publishers still haven't learnt the lesson about being open and inclusive with their customers. While we applaud all that's been accomplished to date (the availability of e-textbooks in general, the removal of expiration dates in particular), remaining DRM obstacles (only 100 pages can be printed a week, copies can only be transferred to identified computers, e-textbooks cannot be resold) will prevent the venture from ever becoming successful.

11:41 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Michael Mace, former CCO of PalmSource, has a personal blog, and it's always entertaining to read his accounts of events in the world of mobile gadgetry. The following comment, which he made after walking the busy halls of CTIA, clearly underlines the strong integration between Palm and Microsoft that has ripened ever since Palm jumped in bed with Windows Mobile.

Palm and Microsoft, sittin' in a tree...
Palm is doing an extremely good job of leveraging its relationship with Microsoft. The Palm booth was in a very visible spot, right next to Microsoft, and they were featuring each others' products. Meanwhile HP, the single largest licensee of Windows Mobile products, was stuck some distance away in an obscure booth overshadowed by another pavilion. Even after I found HP's spot, there were almost no mobile devices on display. CTIA underscored how far behind HP has fallen in the phone market.

More over at Michael's blog.

11:04 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Last week, the first twenty-five readers of the Belgian financial newspaper De Tijd received a trial device of the iRex iLiad reader, enabling them to download and read the most recent e-paper edition of the title through bluetooth, wireless or by hotspots. Another 175 readers will soon follow the three-month trial. Meanwhile, according to the International Herald Tribune, other newspapers are keeping a close eye on the new paperless technology:

• New York Times plans a trial of 300 devices.
• International Herald Tribune is in discussions to make subscriptions available this year.
• Les Echos (parent of The Financial Times) plans to trial the Sony Reader with as many as 500 readers, however it will offer a customized version of its newspaper with a different look from the traditional paper format (remember the Sony Reader has a lower resolution than the iRex making customized layout almost inevitable). Other reader devices are also under consideration.
• French Le Monde, La Parisienne and L'Equipe are also to offer trials.

Related: Last year the eNews initiative was brought to life to promote e-paper technologies and to bring publishers and technology companies together. The participating publishing members are: Bonnier/Expressen (Sweden), De Telegraaf (the Netherlands), Edipresse Publications (Switzerland), Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. (Germany), New York Times Company (U.S.A.), Nordjyske Medier (Denmark), Orkla Media (Norway), La Parisienne (France), PrisaCom/El Pais (Spain), Rheinische Post (Germany), Sanoma Corp. (Finland), Schibsted/Aftonbladet (Norway and Sweden), Stampen/Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden), Styria Medien (Austria), Tamedia AG (Switzerland), Telegraph Group (U.K.), Tribune Interactive (U.S.A.), Voralberger Zeitungsverlag und Druckerei (Austria), Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan).

07:51 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

It's always refreshing when mainstream media picks up on stories that seem kind of old now. The Washington Post ran a story today titled, "New Digital Books Offer Better Readability." In this article, Chris Barylick talks about the future potential of dedicated e-book readers.

Perhaps most comparable to an iPod for books, e-book readers -- a breed of upcoming devices designed to hold thousands of text files and display them at the same resolution of a printed page -- could change the landscape of how books are both purchased and read.

He talks a bit about the advantages of E Ink technology and about the two most prominent e-book reader candidates, the Sony Reader and the iRex iLiad. He then goes on talking about the potential of selling e-books online with a similar business model to that of selling digital audio files online.

Like I said, most of this is old hat for you by now, but think about all the people holding the Washington Post in their hands today reading about e-books for the first time in their life. A Slashdot reader once asked the question, " When Will E-Books Become Mainstream?" The public interest in e-books has been picking up speed since the beginning of the year, and with mainstream media coverage such as this, we cannot be too far away from the answer. Don't you agree?

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

Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.

Announcements
MR becomes official forum for Vade Mecum

Current E-Books Trends
E-books from Sony Connect vs. Amazon
Fujitsu pushes color e-paper technology
HarperCollins slaps Sony in the face with own e-book plans
Hitachi joins the league of e-paper manufacturers
iRex to present the iLiad reader at Artec in Portugal
Philips spins off Liquavista to start yet another e-paper venture
Quantum Paper claims to revolutionize electronic display/paper industry

E-Book Readers
iRex iLiad delay due to technical webstore issues
iRex iLiad rumor mill continues to spin
Sony Reader supports more e-book formats natively than we thought

E-Book Webstores
eReader this week's 10% discount on e-books
Unofficial FAQ: Sony's CONNECT e-book store

General Chat
Mobile Web surfing on the rise says Face of the Web
Reminder: Sign up with us via RSS
Seiko E Ink watch available on eBay for $3200
Will ads pay for cell phone bills in future?

Other E-Book Resources
Gmail circumvents protected Adobe PDF documents

Palm
"Hollywood" Treo will hit Vodaphone in July
A simple trick to play .wmv files on PalmOS
How do you use your Palm device?
Palm pulls Treo 700w Updater
Palm pushes Treo 700w with latest update
Palm Treo 700p for Verizon Wireless spotted

Pocket PC
Dell may be leaving the PDA market

03:18 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palm Addicts has a nice tip from "Kenny" for watching .wmv movies on PalmOS devices without any additional conversion software other than what you use with your Palm desktop.

More accurately, it's a slick trick for converting the file to .avi. "On your desktop, drag your .wmv file onto Quick Install - it will run an in-built converter and swap the file to .avi, which TCPMP or MMPlayer can handle."

One caveat is that it's probably more appropriate for short files because of the time it takes to hotsync a large file. Or you could probably speed it up by using the trick to convert, and then moving the file to an sd card before you hotsync.

It's not clear if it would work for non-Windows users either.

Some have claimed to have success natively watching some .wmv files with TCPMP and the right codecs, but I haven't had much luck. It probably depends on the way the .wmv file is coded.