10:20 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

PalmAddicts reports that Microsoft's Live Search has gone mobile. I wanted to check it out, and so signed up, only to be confronted with an ugly yellow message box saying "Wow, we must have really messed up and are currently down. Please come back later." You go, Microsoft!

09:22 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

This probably won't impress opponents to Google Print, but Google decided to rename its service to Google Book Search in an attempt to convince everyone they are on the right side of intellectual property law.

"One factor was all the comments we got about how excited people were that Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit," explained Google marketing manager Jen Grant. "We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal."

Read more at Betanews.

07:07 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palm lovers, put away your hankies. Your time is not over yet. Few days ago we reported rumors of Palm's product pipeline for 2006. And as we just heard from Sagio why we should all invest in Palm stock, the same report outlines some more (unconfirmed) details on the upcoming Treos which we are likely to see next year:

• January 2006: Treo 700w (WM 5.0, ED-VO) exclusively from Verizon
• January 2006: Treo 700p (Palm OS) exclusively from Sprint
• March-May 2006: "Hollywood" - fancier 3G/GSM smartphone without external antenna to appeal to European customers; in US likely to be launched by Cingular
• March-May 2006: "Lowrider" - a sub-$300 device and entry-level PDA, compatible to previous-generation network radios

06:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Despite what people say about financial analysts and their (in)ability to read the tea leaves, it makes one always feel great to hear good news about the value of one's company. In a recent 12-page research report (PDF), investment firm Sagio stipulates that Palm company is a bargain with hidden beauties. Their reasons are varied:

• Based on their valuation model, P/E is below 10
• PDA business is still very profitable and Palm is gaining market share (according to Garter this month, Palm sold 36% less handheld yoy, and market share declined to 13.9% (26.2% last year))
• Palm has innovation edge -> first hdd-based PDA (LifeDrive) (under the assumption that the Sharp Zaurus never existed)
• Palm has a "quasi monopoly" on Palm OS handhelds (is that a good thing? is that why they've just announced their first WM Treo?)
• Palm is closing in on smartphone business only behind RIMM and Nokia
• Palm is growing faster than the overall market
• Treo 650 is leading smartphone today (let's forget about the BlackBerry for a moment)
• Demand for "data enabled devices" will grow tenfold by 2008
• Microsoft-Palm "Treo 700" deal will help Palm to gain market share in Europe
• Push e-mail technology may soon become available to Palm (too bad Nokia just snatched away Intellisync)
• Palm has a promising product pipeline (some more insight please? Few details are known)
• Next-gen Treo "Hollywood" to be introduced in May 2006 (now, that's valuable insight!)
• Analysts are wrong, because of: incorrect estimates on Treo sales, wrong margin estimates

06:01 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

My goodness, is it Sunday again? Well, for those of you who've missed the highs and lows of MobileRead over the past seven days, this is your one-way ticket to catch up:

Current E-Books Trends
Google to enter e-book biz (rumor)
Sony brings the e-book to the PSP

E-Book Reviews
Top 20 geek novels

E-Book Webstores
eReader 10% discount coupon
Submit and promote your free PDF ebook

General Chat
Consortium is to set standards for Linux-based smartphones
Get dirty with your iPod
How do you organize your reading habits?
How to create a disposable personal organizer
One third ignoring risks of unprotected mobile usage
PDAparts 10% discount coupon
Symbian is still in the driver's seat

Link Swap
Free online interviews with legendary Hollywood stars and moguls

Other E-Book Resources
The Portable Harvard Classics

Other Gadgets
E-book reading on the iPod
Motorola revives OQO Windows XP handheld
Nokia 770 suffers from poor WiFi connectivity
Oki adds live character animation to cell phones
Sidekick III "trustworthy" details reveiled

Palm
Documents To Go adds native PDF support
PalmAddict Podcast 22 available
Palm holds speech at Lehman Brother conference
PalmSource acquired by Japan's Access as of today
PalmSource launches Fall Powered Up Awards
Run Linux on a Palm Tungsten E
Some great Treo tricks

Pocket PC
Dell Axim Windows Mobile 5.0 bugfix upgrade imminent
EzQuote portfolio tracking on Windows Mobile
PDAMill updates with new VGA-optimized game
TCPMP 0.7 released
Windows Mobile 5 Signed Applications Snafu

Portable Audio/Video
Is Taiwan the first to offer DVB-H mobile TV?

09:52 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has joined with Google to present a online archive of in-depth interviews of Hollywood celebrities like Dick Van Dyke. You simply click on the Google "G" next to an interview you are interested in. The archive is growing, but not all interviews are available via Google yet.

As more and more content becomes available online, and it becomes easy to convert existing content you own into mobile-friendly form, one has to wonder how long it will be before almost all content is mobile. Pretty much all audio, video, books are ready for mobile reading, mobile watching, mobile listening. Who knows, maybe even mobile touching and mobile smelling one of these days also!

06:29 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

From one of my all-time favorite ebook resources, the Portable Harvard Classics,

"While complete sets of the Harvard Classics are available on ebay for just a few hundred dollars, the volumes, one and all, carry the same fatal flaw. They are bulky, heavy, unbendable, and, lets face it, made of paper.

The Portable Harvard Classics was born of necessity. I travel extensively, read voraciously, and collect compulsively. I found the Harvard Classics online and I was hooked! But how was I to bring this massive collection with me in my many and varied travels. I needed a solution to this dilema. Thanks to the good folks at www.bartleby.com, practically the entire 51 volume Harvard Classics collection, as well as the 20 volume Shelf of Fiction, are available online. And so was begun the Portable Harvard Classics project.

My plan is to convert each and every tale, history, essay, treatise, poem and volume into plain text. From there, one by one, they are finding their way onto my little Palm m130 for my reading pleasure while on the bus, train or airplane.

And through the goodness of my heart, and at the suggestion of my son, I am making my magnum opus available to all of you. Feel free to distribute these files to all and sundry. There is no copyright on these volumes so give 'em to your friends, send 'em to your family, and distribute them to your co-workers and fellow students through anonymous emails."

A wonderful undertaking that continues to progress through time at a rate faster than I am reading it, so that works out fine. So far I'm on Volume 3 Book 1 at a leisurely pace and loving it.

If you are not familiar with the Harvard Classics, Bartleby's says it is "The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume “5-foot shelf of books” and the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century."

In fact, I believe it all started in the early 1900's when the president of Harvard College put together the collection and said that in those 5 shelves of books were the equivalent of a complete liberal education. It's all the sorts of books that I ignored when I was in college, but find fascinating now. They are significant works of literature and quite relevant to culture and history. All of a sudden I find myself completely enthralled with the idea of getting a glimpse into what these great men have written. It's definitely worth a look if you like to read non-fiction. And if you like fiction, be sure to check out the books from the shelf of fiction also!

Update: The new URL is http://www.portableharvardclassics.com

05:50 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

If you want to know more about Palm and hear reasons why we still have faith in the company, check out their presentation (direct: WMA stream) with Palm CEO Colligan and CFO Brown at the Lehman Brother's Annual Small Cap Conference yesterday.