10:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

The Belgian newspaper De Tijd has partnered with iRex Technologies to offer digital newspaper content. The trial project starting March 2006 will include 200 participants who can download the content through a wireless Internet connection and read it on the forthcoming iRex iLiad e-book device. On the off-chance that you've spent the last few weeks living under a rock, let me tell you that the iLiad reader boasts an 8.1-inch E Ink display and can be used to read, well, e-books. E Ink is a thin, flexible polymer sheet that rivals real ink on paper for contrast and ease of reading. Buziaulane adds more to the story:

The newspaper is loaded into the tablet and can be displayed as a full page. With a stylo stories can be selected and zoomed-in. Pages can be turned. Here is the nice feature: the screen is only using power, when an action is taken (zoom-in or zoom-out) or a page is turned.

Related:
Sony Reader vs. iRex Iliad e-book reader
More details on the Iliad ER 0100 e-book reader
iRex new E Ink device

[via Teleread]

09:28 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Until now it's been a challenge to deal with PDF files on Windows Mobile devices (well, there's Adobe Reader for Pocket PC if you like to torture yourself with bloated software). With PocketXpdf, suddenly it looks a lot easier. PocketXpdf is based on the Xpdf viewer and allows you to view Adobe PDF documents without the need of converting them first. Features include: VGA and WM 5.0 support, full-screen mode, landscape mode, and a text-only mode.

Only caveat: password protected PDF files are not supported yet.

08:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why someone would want to hack his operation system, but I prefer to stay on the safe side by only telling you that someone managed to extract the live ROM from his Dell Axim X50/51 Pocket PC device, to modify it, and to upload it back without completely trashing it.

If you want to take your chance, check out these links:

The long awaited solution on how to use the SD Image Loader for flashing
How to create your own flash images for your Axim
grab_it - invisible ROM dumper

03:24 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

With the rise of podcasting comes a few bumps in the road, just like any new technology. We are all finding that the best podcasts are great and the rest, well, you might have to really like the topic to make it worth your while.

Because of the time involved in listening to a podcast, one often wishes that you could just zip to the part where they talk about your favorite topic. One way to do that is to look at a table of contents published along with a podcast... many very thoughtful podcast creators supply a list of topics and the time each topic starts.

But now there's another way to jump to content you desire. Using the Podzinger search engine, you can find exactly where your phrase is located in any of its indexed podcasts. From the official site, "PODZINGER is a podcast search engine that lets you search the full audio of podcasts just like you search for any other information on the web...PODZINGER creates a text index of the audio data, using the industry's leading speech-to-text technology from BBN Technologies, to enable search within a podcast, not just within the metadata." Only English language MP3 or WAV files are currently supported.

And if you are a podcast publisher, you can not only add yourself to the indexed podcasts for general searches, but you can also provide your listeners a search capability limited to your own podcasts.

(via ToDoOrElse)

05:39 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Shaun and his crew from PDA247 went full steam ahead in launching their latest gadget site, MoreMobile247. It will focus on ALL mobile technology that does not run Palm or Windows Mobile operating systems and hopes to breath some new life into devices that have started to lose their mass appeal.

All here from MR wish you a happy new start with your fine site!

05:29 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Here's an interesting editorial over at PalmAddicts how Sammy came to ditch his beloved Tungsten C handheld in favor of the Palm Treo 650.

So PA readers, Sammy owns and uses a Treo 650 for his everyday needs and boy I never guessed I would ever say that but in my opinion it's the best Palm I have ever used yet and for sceptics like I was, well I take some convincing but the Treo is for me. My two week period is up and the Treo is here to stay.

Related: PalmAddict's Sammy reviews the Palm Treo 650

01:42 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

It's been a slow weekend, and I've been mainly busy with doing a few tweaks to our server. To keep you updated, here's a list of today's tastiest stories:

• Google Mobile Personalized Home [mobile.google.com] Google personalized homepage for your handheld
• Apple files 'Mobile Me' as U.S. trademark [yahoo.reuters.com] Is Apple taking over Palm after all?
• Palm Cuts LifeDrive's Price [brighthand.com]
• E-book porn: How far have we come? And where are we going? [teleread.org]
• Pocket UFO updated to V1.24 [smksoftware.ru]
• iTunes 6.0.2 - Spyware or not? [safer-networking.org] Related: Is Apple spying on us through iTunes?
• eReader discount [palmaddict.typepad.com] 10% discount valid through January 18, 2006
• Google PDA and Mobile Phone Versions of Palm Addict [palmaddict.typepad.com] MR Mobile - not pretty, but you could give it a try
• NewtonOS on Linux PDA [tow.com]
• E-read all about it [books.guardian.co.uk]
• Mobile TV finally gets moving [news.bbc.co.uk]
• Sharp W-ZERO3 mini-review [engadget.com] Related: Opera Mobile 8.5 for WM 5.0 leaked

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.

Announcements
MobileRead wins multiple 2005 Palm Addict Reader Awards!

Current E-Books Trends
Sony Reader CES roundup

E-Book Readers
CEO of a top 10 book publisher writes about e-books
Sony reveals pricing for its Portable Reader PRS-500

E-Book Webstores
Fictionwise 40% on any 2005 bestseller

General Chat
Are mobile devices the end of boredom?
HoloTouch touch sensitive holographic display technology
Is Apple spying on us through iTunes?
New weather forecaster uses E Ink
Palm Treo smartphone advances while handhelds evaporate
PDA247 celebrates its 4th birthday

iSilo/X
iSilo V4.3 released

Other Gadgets
Scobleizer's coolest CES gadget: Celestron SkyScout
Some pretty amazing TI calculator programs

Other Readers
µBook reader 0.9g beta released

Palm
Demand for Treo 700w above expectations
Interesting developers take on PalmOS
Is a new Palm LifeDrive imminent? (rumor)
Palm CFO to hold presentation today
Synching drug delivery with your Palm handheld

Sunrise
Sunrise XP alpha 2 released

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
Connexion to start airborne Internet TV