05:08 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Research In Motion's Blackberry E-mail pager service came closer to being blocked in the U.S. after the company lost two rounds in the long-running patent lawsuit. US District Judge James R. Spencer yesterday rejected RIM's argument that a March draft settlement with patent-holder NTP was final. He also refused to delay the suit and told lawyers to prepare arguments on blocking U.S. BlackBerry service and on how much Research In Motion should pay NTP for infringing its patents.

We know Christmas should be a time of love, but it seems unlikely anyone at RIM feels like celebrating this year.

More over at ZDNet

04:34 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Better late than never, thought Ars Technica, and put theirs hands on Palm's LifeDrive Mobile Manager. Their conclusion:

Really, if you're thinking about getting a LifeDrive, you have to ask yourself how much it would benefit you. If you can afford a supplemental computer like this, would having everything in one place make a difference for you? There are also more practical considerations. It's not something you can stick in your pocket, so how will you carry it around with you? If you're going to carry around a backpack or a briefcase to keep it in, why not just carry around a laptop? At its price, it's getting dangerously close to laptop territory anyway. It's a good piece of hardware, but for me, I can think of more effective ways to spend $500.

Pros: Excellent syncing software, everything works like you expect it to, solidly constructed
Cons: Included software should be full-featured, pushes limits of Palm OS, pricey

[Full review]

04:21 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Immersive, atmospheric, enthralling-pick an affirmative adjective and it'll likely stick to Seiko's "Future Now" watch like a magnet to steel. Wealthy technophiles can now hope to get their hands on one of the limited 500 eInk-based watches which were first demonstrated in Basel, Switzerland earlier this year.

Price tag for the Seiko SVRD001: 1900 EUR

[via Akihabara]

08:10 PM by cbarnett in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Gowerpoint have released a new version of µbook, the excellent multi-format ebook reader (and my personal favourite!).

Fixes and additions in this update include (and there's a few ):

- Added Cursor Moves through arrow keys (in menu, text, links and skin)
- Added Lock Screen mode
- Added Previous Page / Next Page split screen mode
- Added Cursor Mode key loop keys (forward / backward) as Button Mappable on Handlheld units. Tab and Shift Tab on PC version. Loop: Normal Mode -> Skin Mode -> Text Mode -> Links Mode or Image Mode -> Divided Screen Mode -> Lock Screen Mode -> Normal Mode
- Added 'Back' as Button Mappable on Handlheld units
- Added Export to/Import from/Sync with between Annotations and an external file. (*.ubd)
- Added replay of external Annotation file (*.ubd -> i-Book)
- Added Menu on slide-show page, for cell options
- Added Automatic creation of cell, columns and/or strips
- Added Option to enlarge images up to x% (slide show and *.ubd)
- New Windows.usk skin
- Major speed-up of text selection when image(s) on page.
- Major rewrite of stream handling, reducing quantity of code (but not size of executable?!) before code rot starts... stream rewriting is required for exporting/importing of Annotations (especially to images) for allowing access to images inside and outside compressed folders from the same input text. (i.e. IMG="im1.jpg" IMG="a.zip/im2.jpg" IMG="../a.zip/b.zip/im2.jpg" etc...)
- Change boot-up procedure to be faster by removing invisible splash screen -- which in turn brought up a visible splash screen?! and disabling extra load of uBook.ini when getting skin flags
- Replaced Low Quality icons by a higher quality with same memory use (i.e. a quanticized 8 bit palette)
- Do not hide cursor when any dialog is up
- Fixed problem with extracting text for Text Quality Analyzer
- Fixed font height issue(s)
- Fixed bolding problem with Sharp fonts
- Fixed endless paginating of some non-zipped files
- Fixed multiple-redraw of cover while paginating
- Fixed First Image Highlight that didn't draw the drag rectangle
- Fixed table of illustration image labels
- Fixed zoom arrows for handheld versions
- Fixed filtering of tabs by RTF parser
- Fixed bug with last image line truncation
- Fixed uninstall to remove uBook_images.ini
- Updated Francais.ulg
- Updated Help Manual

If you haven't tried µbook before, now might be the time.

06:07 PM by pruss in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

After months and months of testing, PalmBible+ 3.2.0 has been released at http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net/

Here are some of the things we put into this release, as compared to 3.0.0:

• Improved text search speed
• Full boolean search
• Improved card search logic and speed
• Text to speech (with external software)
• Many aspects of memory management revamped
• Lightspeed overclocking support for searching
• Prev/next book shared action
• Zlib compression for cross-references and Bibles.
• Faster cross-reference lookup for Bibles in VFS.
• Auto-scroll support.
• Auto-off can be set within Bible+
• Highlighted bookmarks on color devices
• Adjustable maximum number of bibles
• Tapwave rocker support
• Vocalized Hebrew support
• Book picker for more than 74 books
• Lots of bug fixes. This is the most stable release ever, I think.

06:43 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We are glad to present an update on Michael Mace, former PalmSource CCO and friend of the mobile computing community. "Rubicon Consulting, Inc, a leading provider of go-to-market strategies for the software and high-tech industry since 1999, today announced the expansion of the firm’s practices and principals. Noted market and competitive executive Michael Mace joins Rubicon as a Principal, and the company will expand its consulting practice to include early product definition. Mace, former Chief Competitive Officer of Palm Inc., has held leadership roles at a variety of high tech firms." [Rubicon]

You can also check out his blogs at MapTheFuture and MobileOpportunity

(Via Palm Addicts )

Related Story: Former PalmSource CCO speaks out!

03:47 AM by Laurens in Archive | Sunrise

Subject says it all.

The Linux and Windows releases have been updated with this new attached version.

04:01 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

There has been a lot of talk about the value of smartphones. You hear about streaming audio and video. There are live traffic camera applications, on-the-go downloads, mobile blogging, email, web browsing and many more applications that are sold by people in the smartphone business. You would think that a smartphone is worthless without the data network, or if you don't use all those fancy wireless applications.

But, on the other hand, I have a smartphone and yesterday I cancelled my data plan. I love my smart phone -- even without a data plan. (My phone is a Treo 650 which is a fantastic device and I really like it. My comments are not due to the particular phone I have, they are about the data network usage. )

Now, technically, I am still on a plan. But it's a pay as you go, and I'm not planning to use it. And it saves me a bundle every month on my Verizon bill. I am willing to not have email for a savings of $25-$50/month, depending on whether I use the small data plan or the unlimited plan. Web browsing is slow and painful. And the other applications may sound slick, but personally, I have no particular need for them, and it's not even worth the memory footprint and time to mess with them. That's not true for a lot of people, but it's very true for me.

But a smartphone is great for me because I have a phone with me and a pda, but I only have one device in my pocket. The camera is cool. And the device works great. I don't need the data network.

So why do we continue to hear that the smartphone is all about mobile data and content? I think there are two basic reasons for this. Number one, I agree that the data network is a big part of the future. But the adoption curve is too high in terms of hassles, customer support, device capabilities, service limitations and especially the high costs. Right now, it's just not worth the downside.

Number two, we have to remember that we are being sold on data services because service providers and the associated industries are after our wallets. Data network providers don't want to become a simple provider of bandwidth and lose all their ability to make money. They want, instead, to control every piece of content going over the network and how we see it. Microsoft and Bill Gates have set their best minds on how to structure desktop and mobile OS in the future to extends and encourages the reach into the "pay for every touch" paradigm. And they are especially working on ways to beef up the amount of data you need to pass over the networks, and that you are charged for. He's said as much publicly. Because that's where all the revenue is.

But that's not because Microsoft is evil, it's because of the business they are in and the desire to work with the wireless network providers and content providers. We'll see the same things from other platform developers. Compromises by the consumer will be forced even by Palm. Not because they want to do it, but because the business environment requires it.

So, bottom line, be reminded that smartpone and wireless network capabilities are in their infancy. Some killer apps like email are becoming less expensive and more user friendly. But don't let anyone sell you the line that smartphones are only for the data network. They're not. They can be great devices even without that data network.

You may just find that you are among the masses that find one device in your pocket is the primary benefit. And for many it's well worth the expense and design compromises to get that benefit. In time the data services will be more important and cheaper and easier. But for now, I can wait.