08:29 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Disregarding the fact that too much wireless noise may eventually turn us into zombies, we congratulate Belkin for its CableFree USB Hub which lets you connect high-speed USB peripherals to a PC without running wires to the computer. The four-port ultra-wideband hub will be available in early spring 2006 for $129.99 ESP.

PalmAddicts has more on it.

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

Bite-sized MobileRead for your weekend pleasure:

Current E-Books Trends
De Tijd and iRex to launch digital paper delivery service
Wall Street Journal bullish on e-books
Washington Times bearish on e-books
Wired on the Sony Portable Reader

E-Book Webstores
Free Nebula Award stories at Fictionwise

General Chat
AdMob delivers pay-per-click mobile advertising
Lawrence Lessig's Google Print presentation
Linkdump 01/15/06: Google Mobile, "Mobile Me", NewtonOS, W-Zero3
PDA247 launches new gadget site
Podzinger -- Searches for phrases within podcasts
ROM matrix for Palm and Pocket PC devices

Other Gadgets
ElekTex Fabric wireless keyboard
Nokia 770 powered by Apple

Other Readers
Foxit Reader PDF Reader for Pocket PC

Palm
Ditch Palm's Tungsten C in favor of the Treo
Michael Mace (former PalmSource CCO) talks about mobile technology
Palm releases Treo 650 update for unlocked devices
Palm Treo instrumental in saving the world

Pocket PC
Hack your own Axim X50/51 ROM How-to
Opera Mobile 8.5 Beta for Pocket PC released
PocketXpdf 0.31 native PDF Viewer for WM
Resco Explorer 2005 V5.35 released
Windows Mobile 5.0 Developer Resource Kit available

07:19 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Benito sent word of this site which keeps track of current patches and ROM updates for all popular Palm OS and Pocket PC (WM 5.0) devices.

Highly recommended if you own several hundreds of devices and want to keep them all up-to-date.

06:51 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Foxit Reader for Pocket PC is a slick utility with a small footprint (1.4MB) that enables you to read PDF documents on your handheld. It's still in beta and as such doesn't support advanced features such as tagged PDF documents, JBIG2 or JPEG2000 encoded images, ICC color profiles, nor does it offer any reflow options to adjust to the small screen.

A free evaluation version is available here.

Alternatives: RepliGo, PocketXpdf, Adobe Reader for Pocket PC, PalmPDF (for Palm OS)

05:06 PM by Brian in Miscellaneous | Lounge

If you've been following the Google Print debate, you might want to watch Lawrence Lessig's presentation entitled Is Google Book Search Fair Use?.

A half hour presentation by Professor Lessig on the application of the Fair Use Doctrine in copyright law to the Google Book Search product. Includes discussion of other technology related fair use cases including AribaSoft and MP3.com.

Besides being a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, a respected author, Chair of the Creative Commons Project, and board member of the Free Software Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge, Professor Lessig's presentation style is widely praised and often imitated.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. This isn't your typical Power Point presentation.

Watch the presentation here (Google Video).

09:56 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

There's been more news in the e-book space over the last few weeks than all last year, and we kind of have to admit it's fun to see that mainstream is finally picking up. While Washington Times writer Fred Reed generally shares our excitement about the Sony Reader, he is less optimistic about the future commercial success of the e-book biz:

Unfortunately, the companies involved seem to see the electronic book as a way to sell downloads, instead of a device to benefit the purchaser. This puts them in a trap. If manufacturers of electronic books make it easy to download free books, they will undercut sales of copyright books or, in the case of Sony, of sales by its own store. But if they insist on high prices for downloads, they may sell neither content nor electronic books.

Read the full article here.

11:23 PM by Brian in E-Book General | News

In an article about the Sony Reader entitled A Hundred Books in Your Pocket, Wall Street Journal writer Terry Teachout sees a bright future for e-books despite a rocky past.

So will it fly? I don't know. Still, I'm certain that something like the Sony Reader will catch on, if not this year then in a short time. The phenomenal success of the iPod strongly suggests that many, perhaps most, consumers are ready to start buying digital books on the Web and storing and reading them electronically.

E-books could also change the way we read, and more importantly, how books are published as lesser known and "Long Tail" niche-market authors self-publish, disrupting the entire publishing industry. With the lower barriers to entry and self-publishing opportunities that e-books provide, lesser known authors can build a fan base and get "discovered" just as EarthCore and Ancestor author Scott Sigler has done with his podcast novels.

Many of these differences will arise from the way in which the e-book encourages self-publishing. Best-selling novelists, for instance, will soon be in a position to "publish" their own books, pocketing all the profits -- but so will niche-market authors whose books don't sell in large enough quantities to interest major publishers.

Are we now in the early stages of an "E-Reading 2.0" era as new e-book readers are about to hit the shelves, publishers are jumping onboard, and newspapers are experimenting with using them for digital distribution? Has the industry learned from the past, and is the mass market now ready to give e-books a second chance?

Read the full article here.

Related: CEO of a top 10 book publisher writes about e-books, De Tijd and iRex to launch digital paper delivery service

10:25 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Wired's Dylan Tweney contemplates whether the forthcoming Sony Portable Reader will shake up the e-book biz.

In the end, whether the Sony Reader winds up kick-starting the e-book market depends more on Sony's marketing and pricing decisions than on the sexy E Ink technology, according to Gartenberg. "The technology looks like it's in place. What it comes down to is if they can deliver enough content at a reasonable price," Gartenberg said. Books have been written on sheets of dried, mashed plants for about five millennia. Paper is a cheap, relatively durable and versatile technology. Sony's new Reader will not spell the end of that long history, but it could be the opening of an interesting new chapter.

[via Teleread]

Related:
Will Sony help the e-book market to grow?
Sony Reader CES roundup
Sony reveals pricing for its Portable Reader PRS-500
Sony's new e-book reader officially announced