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

There's been a whole heck of a lot of stuff happening this week. Purvey the below for your pleasure.

Current E-Books Trends
BBC on current e-book developments

E-Book Readers
Belgian newspaper to test iRex iLiad digital version this month
Teleread's hands-on of the iRex iLiad

General Chat
CloneDVD mobile previewed by CD Freaks
Impressive "GeekThing" April Fools Device
Mobile devices encourage exam cheating
Screw DRM says Cambridge-MIT researcher

Other Readers
Adobe Reader "Lite" Enterprise Edition saves disk space

Palm
A Q&A with Palm co-founders Hawkins and Dubinsky
Confirmed leak! Palm creating another Linux "Palm" OS!
Palm Addict Podcast #36 out
Palm Europe offers 10% discount on any item, only today
Palm patents the dual-mode color/monochrome screen
Palm takes a page from RIM's playbook
What Palm Inc's Linux OS might look like

Pocket PC
Minimo CE browser 0.14 released

03:23 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

So here is the scoop: To enhance the battery life of a mobile device, Palm had the ingenious idea to take away the color of your screen when battery power is dwindling down. Before the technocrats among you indulge in sneers and laughter, listen to how US patent 7002569 describes it:

In one embodiment, the electronic device is a hand held computer system with a display device. When the battery level is detected as below a preselected level, a message is generated on the computer display screen. The message informs the user that the display mode of the screen can be changed to enhance the battery life. If selected, the display mode can change from color to monochrome thereby saving power because the monochrome display does not utilize a back-lighting element. In one embodiment, color sequential techniques are used to provide a flat panel color display. Within the display, a transreflective layer provides reflective light for monochrome applications. When the battery energy returns to normal levels, the color display mode can be re-entered automatically. It is appreciated that the display mode changes can also be performed automatically if the battery level falls below certain critical levels.

Attached you find a diagramm which illustrates this invention. As you perhaps know, the biggest drain on mobile devices is the LCD screen; and the single greatest culprit that contributes to an LCD's power usage is the backlight. Every transreflective LCD is backlit by a small, fluorescent (CCF) tube. The brighter you want your screen to be, the harder that tube has to work. The energy it takes to power that tube in what the industry considers a "typical" setting accounts for roughly 75 percent of the total LCD power usage.

This is where Palm's invention comes into play. Once the system detects that the battery runs low, it turns your device's screen from color to monochrome. This effectively reduces battery consumption of the display by up to 75 percent as monochrome screens don't require the backlight to stay on. Once your battery is being recharged and exceeds a predetermined level again, the system automatically places the display back into color mode. One thing's for sure: the monochrome display may not only give you more power to pass the time while you're bored on the subway or waiting for the movie to start, but it will also stir a nostalgic rush of good old memories.

10:51 AM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | iRex

A Blegian newspaper, De Tijd, is about to begin a trial of a digital version that is targeted specifically for the iRex Iliad e-book reader device. The trial begins this month with 200 test users, and will last for three months.

More information can be found in this Ifra article (PDF).

Via Poynter Online.

09:23 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

This seems to be the day that geeks everywhere unite to celebrate their favorite holiday... April Fools Day.

Well, in the midst of all the random humor, we find some gems. In the case of Geeks.com, they have presented a set of shopping pages for a device called the GeekThing All-in-one phone. The joke itself is nicely done, and it's an awesome product that we all wish we could get, and offer it for free with a 2-yr contract, but show it as "out of stock."

But wow, what a neat concept device they came up with. It's well worth the trip over to Geeks.com to see their GeekThing. Quite enough to make any gadget lover drool, even if you know it's not real!

Update - related item: Find a rapidly growing list of April Fools items at Wikipedia.

09:00 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

We hear a lot about how technology and inexpensive computing is already beginning to revolutionize the education industry. Unfortunately, there may be a somewhat negative effect now that students have some pretty powerful and connected computing capabilities in their hands.

There was a time when calculators were banned from test takers. And when they were allowed at test time, even the earliest models of programmable calculators could be used in clever ways to contain help that wasn't allowed by teachers. But now, you pretty much can hold full documents of information and cheat sheets on a typical cell phone. They can be contained in watches and mp3 players and shoes and belts and just about any form factor. You can even instant message people for help, or do a web search for more information. Quite handy, I suppose, for the reckless student willing to cheat needing a date in history or a definition.

According to the BBC, "Cases of malpractice detected by exam boards in England rose by more than a quarter last summer, new figures show." The good news is that "The level of cheating is up but still relatively low." And if you are wondering how they are cheating, it turns out that "[a] third of cases involved plagiarism, collusion or copying work."

But in my experience, those students that really wanted to cheat and were willing to take the risk of being caught, were also the ones that would find a way regardless of the technology. Paper is still doing pretty well in the battle against e-books, and paper is probably also a pretty popular choice for students that are cheating. Clearly, technology is no good or bad in its inherent nature. It's a facilitator... whether for good purposes or bad.

Related Link: One of the sites that seems to frequently pop up on web sites about mobile devices is Handheld Learning, where they currently seem to have some information on how Origami devices may be used in education.

And, finally, lest we be accused of plagerism in this article, here is where you can get all of the original scoop!... BBC News

08:48 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Doug Turner released new binaries of Minimo CE, the trimmed-down Mozilla fork for Windows Mobile devices. It is small, fast and easy to use, and offers many advantages over Pocket IE, such as tabs and spatial navigation. The latest version 0.14 includes international support, a new browsing mode (PAN) allowing you to easily move around the page, easier use of Google XHTML (Google's mobile proxy reduces bandwidth and complexity of pages), and, as usual, lots of bug fixes.

Ensure that you install Minimo CE to the default install location (RAM) as problems were reported when you try to install it to a storage card. Also make sure you've cleared out any older version before.

Download Minimo CE 0.14 as an installer, zip file, or cab file if you want to give it a spin.

04:06 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's time to pump up your iPod again and listen to Palm Addict's latest podcast. This week's edition covers:

• Palm's 10th birthday
• Brighthand/BargainPDA merge
• Low-cost Treo rumors
• iPod Max-Volume update

On a related note, don't miss Sammy's excellent round-up of the latest highs and lows in mobile tech.

09:24 PM by cervezas in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

I just had an email exchange with an analyst I know that is close to Palm and has been privy to their plans in the past. He confirmed my conclusion that Palm is hedging their OS bets by making their own Linux successor to the Palm OS.

Just in case my poor little web server gets Slashdotted into a puddle of molten plastic and metal, here's the text of my my latest blog post on the subject:

Things are getting interesting at Palm Inc., the makers of the Treo smartphones but not (to date) of the operating systems they run on. First, back in November of 2004, there was a source that reported Palm was "exploring partnerships that could let it use a tailored version of the Linux OS to run on its devices ". There was some credibility because this was the same source that first leaked Palm's plans to release a Windows Mobile Treo--correctly as we now know. Other rumors of Linux devices from Palm flew about for a while, but there was nothing tangible. Then Palm went through a spate of hiring Linux engineers that seemed to start around the time they lost their bidding war to acquire PalmSource. Most recently there has been a job description posted on Palm's website for a Linux handset engineer that specifically mentions development of "a new software platform." Now I've received confirmation from someone who actually knows what's going on.

The analyst I communicated with by email has been privy to Palm's plans in the past, so I asked if he could confirm my conclusion that Palm is writing their own Linux OS. He did, and they are. He asked not to be named, but here's what he said when I asked what he knew:

We know about it. Palm has stated on several occasions than 80% of their engineers are software engineers, they are perfectly able to design their own operating system and are working on it. I know they had a prototype of a Linux Treo 650. From my discussions with management my impression is that Palm is hedging their OS risk by developing in-house systems as well as keeping relationships with Palmsource and Microsoft. I know that future Palm models will be coming out with both operating sytems in order to test market reaction.

I asked if he knew whether any of the Treos slated for later this year were expected to run Palm's new Linux-based system. He said they would run Windows and Palm OS Garnet and that the "new operating system will be introduced in 2007 (don’t know if fiscal or calendar)."

So there you have it, folks. It seems that we now have not one but two companies working on a successor to the Palm operating system: PalmSource, the company that Palm spun off in 2003 to continue the development of the Palm OS but which was recently acquired by ACCESS; and Palm Inc. itself, which own's the Palm brand and is therefore the only party that can actually name their platform "Palm OS." It's thought that ACCESS, heavily staked by DoCoMo, will be looking largely to Japan and China for its customers. Meanwhile Palm, dominant in the US smartphone market, has been conspicuously quiet about the announcement of the ACCESS Linux Platform in February. Now we know why.

We don't know anything more about this new OS other than the fact that it has a Linux kernel, but since Palm continues to affirm its strong support for "Palm OS" it's a pretty good bet that the platform will carry forward the renowned Palm OS experience. Since Palm owns the "Palm" brand we can also be pretty sure it will be called "Palm OS," too.