06:46 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Today David Beers has begun what is hopefully going to be a series of interviews with developers in the mobile computing world. His first installment highlights Marty Fouts, a Linux kernel developer who was with PalmSource until earlier this month serving as technical representative to the open-source community.

He discusses some very interesting topics, although many specifics are off limits because of a non-disclosure agreement with PalmSource that is still in effect.

Here are some interesting excerpts to whet your appetite...
-- "PalmOS is pretty much a dead end now."
-- "I still think the two players to watch are Access, with NetFront, and Nokia with Maemo." By NetFront he means "the existing Access product and their model of using a web-like interface as the GUI for all applications"
-- "Linux isn't really special as a mobile device OS. In fact, it needs a lot of work to become a good OS for constrained devices."
-- "BSD was technically very superior to Linux"
-- "In the end, you either have to have a single dominant Linux-for-embedded distribution, or no one will be able to make money selling linux."
-- "... a 'smartphone' or any other PDA-like device isn't a "real" embedded system. It's just a general purpose computer that's been shrunk."

Granted, these comments might have a bit more shock value when taken out of context like this, but surely it gives you plenty of incentive to read the full interview! Kudos to David and Marty for some great material.

By the way, Software Everywhere -- David Beers on Mobile Computing is an excellent blog with a heavy dose of Palm related information and speculation. David himself describes the blog as "Thoughts on mobile technology, software development, and the future of computing from veteran Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Java developer David Beers."

Other recent articles discuss topics like integration of PalmOS and Access' NetFront, and Hacking Linux onto Palm devices. It a site well worth bookmarking or adding to your RSS feed list.

David has been an excellent participant in many great discussions on PalmOS in various forums and it is very nice to have people like him in our mobile computing community. And, of course, we are also proud of the fact that he is also a fan of MobileRead!

11:42 PM by Zire in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

3D Mines

http://toyspring.com/3dm/

The new dimension of MineSweeper!

* 3D minefields of various sizes and shapes
* View the playing board from any angle
* Beginner, Medium and Expert difficulty levels
* Keeps track of your best times for each board and level
* Both "Long tap" and "Button tap" can be used to mark a mine

# How To Play
# Tap quickly to open a field
# Tap and hold to mark a mine (or: tap while holding the up/down button)
# Tap and drag to rotate the playing board
# Use menu to access more shapes and difficulty levels
# Wrong tap? Slide the stylus off the field to cancel
# In many cases you can rotate the board to gain a better view of the desired region
# You can adjust the sound volume in the system Prefs application (3D Mines respect the Game Sound settings)
# Adjacent fields are automatically highlighted while playing the Beginner level

Folks...all I have to say about this game is wow!!! I bought it right away. At only $7.77 it is a bargain...Try it you will definately like it.

What is so great about this game is the eye candy it is minimal but it just works.

Please comment and tell me what you think.

03:44 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

A laptop is not exactly the most mobile of personal music players, but now with Pandora music it's at least a very personal way to listen to music on the go with any broadband connection.

From the site FAQs here is a description. "Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the music universe."

I was a little skeptical when I gave it a try, but was amazed to find that it really works well. No commercials yet, but they are coming. You do have the option to subscribe for a commercial-free experience at a cost of $12 quarterly (i.e. for 3 months) or $36/year.

If you put in "Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow", for example, then it will do a Christmas theme. You get to pick the version of the song you like and it will generate a custom station for you.

I tried "Carpenters" and "Dean Martin" and sure enough it came back with music I loved, both from known artists and ones that I've never heard of before. You can continue to fine tune the choices by giving a thumbs up or down to what you listen to, and you can (with some limits due to contractual obligations) pause or skip forward to the next song if you don't like the one that's playing.

It's only available in the US right now, but is a very impressive service. I don't see any signs of support for pdas yet, but you only have to be Flash 8 or 9 compatible, so I suppose a wifi Pocket PC will be compatible as soon as the current version of Flash for Pocket PC rises to 8 or 9.

You can try it out for yourself and make your own streaming radio station at www.pandora.com.

01:46 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Mobile Gazette has released their list of the best and worst mobile phones for 2005.

As a Razr owner, I disagree wholeheartedly. But make up your own mind. My next phone will be the Nokia N90... asa it's at a price point that won't make me start mortgaging my plasma.

10:34 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | iRex

Creating the perfect e-book reader device is no walk in the park, but iRex Technologies nearly reaches the market with its Iliad e-book reader ER 0100. Yes, that's the "iRex reader" we've been so feverishly talking about in the last few days. Thanks to Henrycat and our savvy readers we digged out some more tantalizing details for you. We already knew the Iliad would come with a reflective 8.1-inch XGA E Ink-based display; what's new is that the screen is touch-enabled thus accepting user input with a stylus. Other features include support for external SD/MMC and CF II memory cards, USB 1.1, wired (10/100mbit) and unwired (802.11b) Ethernet connections, and - this is the final death blow for the Sony Librie - support for various (audio-)e-book formats (Pdf, xhtml, txt, mp3, other formats in the future). The Iliad is powered with an ARM-based 400MHz Intel XScale which should be more than fast enough for snappy page turns. It comes with available 64MB RAM and 224MB Flash memory. Dimension: 155x216x16mm, weight: 390grams.

More information in the product specification (PDF).

We hold our breath for this to come true, but according to iRex, e-book fans will be able to buy this device in April 2006 through their web store.

Related: iRex next-gen e-book reader based on e Ink (discussion), iRex new eink device (Henrycat's hi-res image of the Iliad)

09:26 AM by Brian in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

2005 could go down as the year mobile video started to gain traction due to numerous product announcements and content distribution deals. The most notable of these announcements was in October, when Apple released the new video-capable iPod combined with the availability of popular TV shows at the iTunes Music Store. Since Apple's announcement, news of competing mobile video distribution deals has been coming fast and furious.

An article at iMedia Connection entitled Mobile Video: Present and Future takes a look at mobile video and mobile-TV, detailing many of the challenges that the mobile entertainment market will face both near and long term:

• Bandwidth issues
• Competing technologies
• Streaming vs downloadable content
• Control: Content providers vs wireless operators
• Apple vs everyone else
• Consumer ambivalence
• Pricing

Notably absent from this list was the mention of Digital Rights Management (DRM), which will inevitably play a major role as content providers attempt lock down and control how, when, and where consumers use their content.

Read the full article here.

[iMedia Connection via MocoNews]

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

Here are the highlights from the past seven days of MobileRead:

Current E-Books Trends
E Ink launches support portal and community forum
Google was not interested in Project Gutenberg

E-Book Readers
Cybook e-book reader with free WiFi card
iRex next-gen e-book reader based on e Ink

E-Book Webstores
Current eReader e-book discounts
eReader's Winter Promo RSS feed
More free eBooks at eReader (Starting Friday)

General Chat
Chuzzle game for PalmOS and Windows Mobile
Touch User Interface for paper
Vista (the next Windows OS) graphics moved out of kernel
Wikipedia may be more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica

Other Gadgets
cPC: handheld with both Windows Mobile and Windows XP
Nokia 770 Arstechnica review
OQO reviewed by PalmAddicts

Palm
Beware of the Treo thumb
FontSmoother 1.50 released (major revisions under the hood)
Letter from Access to PalmOS developers
Rumor: Palm to equip DirecTV technicians
Treonauts hands-on with the Treo 700w
WSJ says Palm is poised for a comeback

Pocket PC
BrickGenius - new game for Pocket PC
NetFront 3.3 Technical Preview 1.03 available
PPC Port of Wolfenstein 3D & Spear of Destiny released
TCPMP V0.71b adds native AVC decoder

Portable Audio/Video
"The Ricky Gervais Show" is top podcast

Sunrise
Sunrise XP alpha 1 released

05:18 PM by Brian in E-Book General | News

A company called Somatic Digital has announced a whole new graphical user interface called Touch User Interface (TUI). Unlike conventional graphical user interfaces, TUI is design so that the reader of a printed paper page can launch digital content and applications represented as an icon or link embedded in a printed page on a computer, DVD, CD or website. From the Somatic Digital website:

Touch User Interface – or TUI – technology ensures a revolution in printed books, supplements, workbooks, and texts. By pressing the surface of the printed page the reader immediately connects to digital content stored on the computer, websites, DVDs, and CDs. The TUI is to paper what the graphical user interface (GUI) is to computers.

You can read more about the technology behind Touch User Interface, try it in a demo, and see it in action here. TUI appears to be aimed primarily at education, allowing content publishers to create interactive workbooks for students, but it also has some serious implications and revolutionary applications for e-commerce and advertising in print publications.

While this technology promises to marry real printed paper pages and our ever expanding digital world, one has to wonder if recent advances in e-ink and e-paper will make this technology obsolete before it ever makes it to market. The eCommerce applications of this technology could also give the term "impulse buying" a whole new meaning!

[Podcasting News via TUAW]