05:59 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

One of the questions that our readers regularly ask us is if there was a way to filter out specific content from our main RSS feed. What you may not know yet is that we offer feeds for individual categories of our site, including one feed which only tracks MR's frontpage news. Feel free to subscribe to only those sections which you're most interested in!

01:15 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Joe Attardi at Palm Addicts tells us about a free e-book offer at eReader.com...

"Noticed in my eReader newsletter today a special coupon code for eReader.com with which you can get Stephen King's new book The Colorado Kid for FREE. Just apply the coupon code COLORADOKID at checkout."

01:05 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Skype is, of course, the voip phone service that even has Pocket PC clients available. Now there's more talk about availability of video skype for internet video calls.

"Skype for Windows version 1.5 public beta tests certainly will be broadcasted next months (during November 2005). The final 1.5 stable version will be proposed on December 2005. The adapted versions for Mac and Linux will be launched at the beginning of 2006, probably during 1st quarter."

Nothing about pda versions yet. I guess that will take quite a while. But certainly it's an intriguing mobile computing possibility with a laptop.

10:20 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The engineers at Feedster must have been inspired by the whole podcast hype as they've just announced their podcast search:

You see Podcast search in Feedster has two flavors: Show (the default) and Episode. Its the distinction between finding something to listen to and something to subscribe to. But, from his perspective, they're both Podcasts and they both need play links -- and he's right. So you'll now see a "Play Latest Episode" link whenever you do a Podcast Show search on Feedster.

Example: Latest Pocket PC-related podcast

At least for me the search performs a bit sluggish at this time, but I'm sure they will solve this issue once the beta is more mature.

05:41 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

In a letter today to Palm developers, Palm President Ed Colligan wrote to restate that the Windows Mobile Treo announcement is not a sign that PalmOS support is not going to remain strong.

Ed Colligan says "I'm writing to you today because I'm concerned by the number of posts I've read that suggest that Palm's support of Palm OS is either wavering or short-lived. It is neither.

I thought I had made this perfectly clear with earlier statements, but let me reiterate that our announcement on Sept. 26th that we'll broaden our line of Treo smartphones to include ones made on the Windows Mobile platform is all about growing the Treo market. We want to deliver the Palm experience on Windows Mobile, strengthen our company's ability to deliver ever-more capable solutions and answer current and potential customers' requests for a Windows Mobile-based product from Palm. This is not a zero-sum game! This market is in its infancy, and if we can expand our opportunities by being a strong cross-platform provider of world-class smartphone products, then we should do so. At the same time, this does not mean we need to walk away from our existing products or technology partnerships, like Palm OS."

In this letter, he emphasized that the existing huge market of businesses with a Microsoft infrastructure was too much to walk away from, and that entering that market does not mean that the PalmOS side of the business has to suffer. That makes some sense because the extra effort on the Windows Mobile side of the market could very well be supported by all the extra revenue to expand Palm resources. One cannot help but wonder if the Windows Mobile products would be a distraction that takes away from PalmOS efforts, but it's great to hear that there is still a commitment to PalmOS.

It sounds like more than just a marketing sleight of hand to me, and I think Ed is sincerely speaking about Palm's direction. Some slight doubt, though, will still remain until we see it played out in the next few years. The need to protect near term PalmOS device sales would certainly color Palm's portrayal of their intentions. And his argument to persuade us to believe in Palm's commitment to PalmOS appears to be rather weak... "We have sold more than 30 million Palm OS-based products over the years, and it is not our intent to walk away from such a strong and loyal user base. That's why in May we extended our license for Palm OS, giving us the right to continue to make and market Palm OS-based products until 2010." It doesn't even touch on the potential market shift due to the Access acquisition of PalmSource.

Nonetheless, there is still money to be made in the PalmOS market, there truly is a loyal customer and developer base, and there's every reason to expect a successful PalmOS for Linux which should bring a competitive edge in the fight for share in the market for Linux devices.

Ed, I'm convinced that PalmOS has a strong future and that Palm desires to stay committed to PalmOS in one form or the other. But there are still a lot of question marks that remain.

02:12 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Tablet PC in increasingly becoming a significant player in the mobile computing world. Bill Gates says he has staked his reputation on tablets, and we can surely look forward to smaller sized tablets in the near future for increased mobility.

According to Handango's press release, "Since the launch of Tablet PCs in 2002, more than one million devices have been shipped. According to IDC, Tablet PC shipments are predicted to rise more than 85 percent in the next two years, creating a rich market for Tablet PC software.... "

Now Handango has announced that, in conjunction with Microsoft, they are providing a catalog of Tablet PC titles for download at Handango's site and the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Software Store.

"'As the leader in mobile content, Tablet PC is a natural market for Handango. Handango's strength is in creating marketplaces for digital products, and with our entry into this market, Tablet PC owners now have a single place to discover and purchase great software,' said Randy Eisenman, chief executive officer and president of Handango. 'Our partners in the mobile ecosystem will benefit from this initiative as well. Tablet PC manufacturers now have a way to capitalize on the growth of Tablet PC software by using Handango's platform, Handango AMPP, while developers will gain access to the millions of customers who visit Handango's network of channels on a monthly basis.'"

It becomes clearer every day that mobile computing is the future!

01:37 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

By the end of the year, SlingMedia is planning to have a PocketPC client for their SlingBox product. This means you can watch your own home tv signal wherever you have wireless connectivity and a Pocket PC!

If you are new to the basic idea of SlingBox it's simple:

1) You buy their box for about $250 and hook up any video input to it. Like from cable tv, or your Tivo, etc.
2) Enable it on your wireless network
3) Anywhere you have access to a computer with internet access, inside your home or outside your home, you can receive the streaming video. Apparently, you can even control your Tivo or cable box and change channels remotely.

Currently you need a Windows PC with internet access. But the natural and exciting extension of this technology is to have a Pocket PC client to watch TV on your wifi capable Windows Mobile device.

Apparently they have already demoed the Windows Mobile client, so it's close. In fact, they are reporting in the support knowledge base that "We’ll support the Windows Mobile platform by the end of the year. Watch our website for announcements."

As far as other clients they say that for Mac/OSX "We don’t have any official announcement yet. Watch for news in the next few months." And for other operating systems "We are currently doing research to determine which software platforms we will port the SlingPlayer to. We have requests for PalmOS, Linux, Unix, and even Commodore 64! While we can't promise the latter, we are definitely looking into supporting other operating systems as soon as possible."

The cool thing is you have full control and you get to watch the content you've already paid for. No payment for each show or channel and no monthly subscriptions. The only real limit is that you can only watch on one device at a time. The reason for this is to make sure people aren't buying this product to mass re-broadcast content.

In my opinion, this is the sort of future we should be aiming for with regard to mobile video. To keep content viewing under the consumer's control is protection from price gouging that can happen when the wireless carriers, for example, have enough control over content distribution to make you pay not only for bandwidth, but for every bit of content that you view whether you already have access to it or not.

It's probably a bit early to see this sort of product be overwhelmingly successful in the marketplace, but its glory days may be just around the corner!

10:51 PM by Brian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Time.com has an article from the November 14, 2005 issue of Time magazine about Palm and the future of mobile computing titled PC in Your Palm. Ed Colligan, the president and CEO of Palm, Inc. spoke with Time's Laura Locke about Palm's vision for mobile computing, including:

• Palm's priority on making the Treo more affordable for broader consumer markets
• the importance of mobile search
• the future of portable video using applications like MobiTV
• opportunities to partner with Apple Computer
• Palm's decision to team up with Microsoft to go after the enterprise market

Read the full article here.

Related: New Treos in the works and other Palm rumors