01:02 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

In a surprise bit of news out of PC Magazine, the rollup displays we have mentioned previously are apparently ready to roll out right on schedule.

According to the article, "The Readius appears to have the slickest design of any e-book reader yet—straight out of Minority Report. As shown, the flexible display folds up like a scroll; when you're not reading, it's as pocket-friendly as a pack of gum.

Sony will have the jump on Philips, though, as the two gadgets square off. Third-party designs of the Readius won't ship until the summer. If these two products don't herald the age of e-books, nothing will."

Could this new era in e-books really finally be here?

Related story: Rollable color OLED prototype display (where Brian first made the Minority Report connection!)

Via TeleRead. (Wonderful source of e-book news!)

02:59 AM by Chaos in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

Akibahara News has a quick piece on the new Sharp Zaurus SL-3200. In the past the Zauri have been interesting, unusual, and often the first to implement some feature (such as the hard drive in the SL-C3000, or the hidden thumb-board in the old SL-5500). But it seems that Sharp is slipping somewhat...

So, what's new (vs. the SL-C3000)? A 6GB hard drive. No wifi, no bluetooth... Just a simple hard drive size-bump, in the more-than-a-year since the C3000's release.

The slightly-sarcastic (is that 'Enlish' really a typo, or a subtle comment?) news puts it this way:
Ok, the HDD gets a bump from 4 to 6GB, you get a ton of software to learn English in collaboration with the (very bad) Enlish school called NOVA so that you can improve your TOEIC score (the one that increases if your English gets worse). So yet another disappointing release by Sharp, that see their pocket computers, release after release, transformed more and more into an oversized dictionary.

If Sharp wants to remain any sort of valid competitor at all I think that they'll have to pull their act together... Wifi and bluetooth would be a good start, I think.

03:04 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Guess what? E-paper is (still) coming soon. Yeah, I know it's been on the verge of widespread use for quite a while now. But this time they're (still) really serious.

Get a good look at the soon-coming technologies from Japan at NE Asia Online.

Via Make.

10:20 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Okay Microsoft. It may be a corny advertising scheme, but you've got us interested. Especially now that leaked pictures are coming out that are a lot more realistic than those goofy looking devices in the leaked teaser videos.

A bigger version of the picture is attached. (Click on this article to see the full post, and then click on the thumbnail to see the bigger image.)

Related: Microsoft's "Origami Project" is..., Microsoft lets Origami secret slip

Via Origami Portal.

10:13 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This is not for the feint of heart, so I'd call it more like a proof of concept at this point. But nevertheless, someone has figured out how to remotely control a PC from a Nintendo DS portable game device.

The neat thing is that the dual screen is really a great bonus that's perfect for this sort of application. You get the "big picture" on one screen, and a closeup on the other screen for whatever you are currently working on. Very neat.

If you really want the dirty details of how to do it, take a look here.

Via Make.

05:41 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

This morning I returned from my brief trip to Oahu, Hawaii. Despite the torturous travel time (25 hours total), a scary incident on the airplane, and a few too many rainy days, visiting this island was definitely worth it. I put together some photos that you can look at if you wish.

http://www.4dots.com/hawaii/

I'd also like to take the time to thank everyone here at Mobileread for running the show so well without me. In fact, some of you - Bob, do you listen? - did such a great job that I am now considering early retirement. Also my best regards to Sammy of Palm Addicts for his continuous support of our site. Thank you guys!!

02:39 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Custom ringtones are something that has been somewhat of a mystery to me even though I own a Treo 650. While I hadn't researched how to do it, I figured it couldn't be that hard. Well, a fan of the TV show "The Office" has provided instructions for all of us, using that theme song in the example.

The process is simple...
1) Acquire an mp3 file of the ringtone audio
2) Convert it into a small .wav file. Probably fairly low quality is good to keep the file size small

If you have bluetooth on your computer, then
3) Send it to your Treo using Bluetooth. It will automatically go into your Treo sounds collection.
If you don't have bluetooth, then there are instructions to
3') use Versamail after you copy the file to your sd card.
And if you don't have Bluetooth on your PC or use Versamail on your Treo?
3'') Well, I'm not sure yet. I guess there's a bit more research to be done.
Update: See the rest of this thread. I've added additional information on how to do this using other common programs like Blazer or Resco Explorer!

To enable the ringtone, you simply finish up this way:
4) Select the file in Prefs...Sound & Alerts...Tones

The full instructions are available here.

But I'd sure love to hear how to make a .wav file on the sd card into a sound that you can choose as a ringtone without resorting to Bluetooth or Versamail. Any Treo experts out there with suggestions?

11:05 AM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Just in case you haven't heard or read by now: Settlement ends Blackberry case (from BBC News)

The maker of the Blackberry e-mail device has reached a $612.5m (£349m) settlement to end a dispute that could have closed the service in the US.

Looks like the reports of the Crackberry's death were greatly exaggerated.