06:04 PM by Brian in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

If you're looking for a list of the best free downloadable tech/gaming shows currently available on the internet, Tech Shows is a great place to start. Many of the shows listed on the site are viewable on your Palm OS or Windows Mobile device using a media player like The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP). Channel 9, NerdTV, macTV, and Digital Life TV are just a few of the shows listed on Tech Shows. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here.

[via Smart Mobs]

Related: NerdTV now officially on the air

05:59 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

I'm not good when it comes to regularly upgrading software for my handheld. Often 2-3 months behind, I find the process of upgrading annoying and often not without difficulties. I guess I live by the old saying "Never change a running system" (or, in other words, "Move your butt as little as possible"). Well, after having experienced two nasty crashes in iSilo this week, I decided that today would be the perfect day for bringing my handheld up-to-date:

• iSilo V4.25 -> V4.28
• Resco Explorer 2003 V5.10 -> 2005 V5.21
• Softick CardExport II V2.02 -> V2.04
• TVGuide V0.6.0.127 -> V0.6.2.142
• NewsBreak V1.0 -> V1.1
• GSPlayer V2.15 -> V2.22
• TCPMP V0.65y -> V0.66e

So far everything works fine and I don't regret any of these updates. But I'm curious: How regularly do you update software for your handheld?

10:41 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Jeff Hawkins saw that there would be a future for handheld computing devices and so he founded Palm Computing back in 1992. Over the course of ten years, more than 38 million devices running the PalmPilot software were sold. Read more about the fascinating early days of the handheld in this article from Braeburn: The Birth of the Pilot.

[via OSNews]

10:35 AM by Brian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

HowardChui.com has the first review of the much-awaited Nokia 770 internet tablet.

At a glance, most people see the Nokia logo on the 770 and assume that it's a funny looking PDA phone. However, 770 is actually neither a PDA or a phone. It lacks basic PIM functionality like a phonebook, calendar and to-do list and there's no IMEI or ESN number on the back!

In fact, the 770 Internet Tablet is just that - an internet tablet. You use Bluetooth or wifi to get connected so you can surf the web. Besides surfing the web, the 770 can playback music and video, read RSS feeds, check email, view pictures and read PDF's.

You can read the full review here.

[via Internet Tablet Talk]

Related: Nokia 770 gains FCC approval, Does the Nokia 770 have sex appeal?

09:38 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Dell has posted the data sheet of the forthcoming Axim X51. Nothing new here and it really looks exactly like the X50 (size, specs), except for power consumption where the X51 seems to use more at maximum CPU usage but less in sleep mode.

Meanwhile on a Chinese forum, someone posted screenshots of the X51 running WM 5.0. At least to me they look very legit.

Thanks to Marquard!

09:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

VGA demystified is an amazing tutorial put together by Menneisyys, who this time teaches us step by step how to enable and configure the 640x480 mode on VGA-capable Pocket PCs. Although it's very technical, I recommend every proud owner of a VGA device (e.g. the Axim X50v) to digest his lessons in full! I am sure there's this or that bit even the geekiest among us didn't know about before.

09:20 AM by Brian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

According to an article at the NewScientist.com, NEC and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan have created new software for camera phones that will allow entire documents to be captured by simply sweeping the phone across the page.

Using the new software with a 1-megapixel camera held at least 20 centimetres away, an A4 sized page takes about 3 to 5 seconds to scan. This produces between 21 and 35 images which the software merges together to extract the text and record any images.

In Japan, camera phones with less powerful capabilities are already creating problems for bookstore owners as users grab pages from books and magazines to read later on the train, according to the article. With the new technology which won't be commercialized for the next three years, perfect digital copies will be possible, leading to copyright issues. In order to alleviate this problem, whenever a document is captured the software will sound an audible alarm that can't be overridden.

08:45 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

At least according to this BargainPDA editorial, despite shrinking sales numbers the handheld market isn't dying yet.

Any smartphone worth the name is far more a handheld computer than it is a cellular phone. To say that smartphones will replace handhelds is like saying that two-door sedans will replace cars. Even if, tomorrow morning, every device shipped with a cellular radio, the handheld computing market would still exist. It might look a little different. But then again, it might not.

And it would be so easy: to "rescue" handhelds all we'd have to do is to abolish all artificial categorizations differentiating between handhelds and smartphones.