12:25 PM by Brian in E-Book General | News

Traditional news outlets and the print media are experiencing declining subscription rates and circulation as more people personalize their news online. Blogs and popular news sites are drawing readers and viewer away from newspapers, magazines, and TV news.

In an effort to attract the highly desirable "lost generation" of 18-34 year olds and help news outlets, the Associated Press will launch their asap service on September 19th, nearly 2 years after the project's inception. AP calls asap "AP's service for a younger audience".

asap is AP’s new multimedia service featuring original content designed to appeal to under-35-year-old readers, a coveted but elusive audience, and to connect with them – on their terms.

The exclusive content is unlike any you have seen before. A diverse team of AP reporters and editors produced original material with a fresh voice, style and presentation. In addition, asap taps the smarts and talent of AP bureaus around the world to offer a global perspective and on-the-ground coverage in ways nobody else can.

You can watch a promotional video about asap here (58 MB Quicktime download).

[via PaidContent.org]

12:04 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Who doesn't remember the basic lesson from Marketing 101, the four Ps - which I don't even need to enumerate? It seems at one point - the promotion of products - Palm must have been sleeping in class. A PalmAddict reader submitted some interesting thoughts on how Palm company missed the chance to convince us of the superiority of their handheld devices.

I just think its sad that a company (Microsoft) with unstable, not well thought out products (Windows Mobile & Windows Smartphone) uses their money to do some decent advertising and that a company like Palm just sits there. I'm forced to think about Linux. Microsoft didn't give a crap about linux until people started to here about linux from advertising through companies like RedHat, Dell, IBM, Suse, Novell, etc. Now Microsoft is scrambling around with their Get The Facts (aka: smear the little guy) campaign so as to not lose market share. Palm could be like linux. They could have Microsoft running scared and trying not to lose market share in the smartphone industry. Instead, it seems like Palm is just sitting around making new devices and focusing on their branding. Some advertising would go a long, long way.

An honest editorial, make sure you don't miss the rest over at PalmAddicts.

11:01 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The term Wi-Fi is mainstream these days. Panera Bread, Starbucks, Kinkos and many more locations now have available Wi-FI, some free and some for a cost. On the surface, it seems like mobile nirvanna. But ComputerWorld says that "For many business travelers, public Wi-Fi hot spots are proving to be not all that hot for making remote connections to the Internet and corporate systems."

What's the alternative? For a laptop, you could try something like Verizon's broadband access card for about $100 and $60/mo in the US. The editor in chief of ComputerWorld, Don Tennant, likes this services and tells us about it here.

There's no doubt that connectivity will be around more and more in one way or another, but clearly we have a way to go before it's meeting user needs.

06:49 AM by Brian in E-Book General | News

LibriVox is an open source community project in which volunteers read and record public domain literary works in order to create free audiobook versions.

LibriVox is an open source audio-literary attempt to harness the power of the many to record and disseminate, in podcast form, books from the public domain. It works like this: a book is chosen, then *you*, the volunteers, read and record one or more chapters. We liberate the audio files through this webblog/podcast every week (day ?). LibriVox is a VOLUNTEER project: if you have problems with the quality of a recording, get busy and make another one; If you wish to listen, please enjoy; if you wish to record, please contact librivox.

Check out LibriVox if you're looking for a good source of free audiobooks. If you think you have a great voice for the spoken word, sign up as a volunteer!

[via Make]

05:37 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

A few days ago Colin reported that Access was test-driving the next release of NetFront for Pocket PC. Now you can also download the English version of the V3.3 preview release. Changes since V3.2 include:

• VGA Support: The new version formally supports VGA LCD display on the machines with Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition software for Pocket PC.
• Smart Frame Operation: You can operate easily the contents with frames on small displays for Pocket PCs. By collaborating with Smart-Fit Rendering, this feature makes browsing operation more comfortable.
• RSS Support: By supporting RSS and Atom Feed, file types for content distribution using XML, you can view update information of blogs and news sites.
• Web Data/Password Manager: This feature provides unified management of username/password information entered by a user.
• Popup Block: This feature prevents popup windows users do not want to see, such as advertisements, from appearing.
• Page Translation.

10:12 PM by Brian in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Skyworks Solutions of Woburn, Massachusetts has introduced the Lynx L9100, a 3-chip solution for next-gen multimedia wireless handhelds, with features that include a high-resolution camera interface, MP3, and MPEG capabilities.

Technical Details

The L9100 represents the first system in the platform series and provides 2 megapixel camera plus ISP, USB 2.0 OTG, MMC/SD, and IrDA interfaces, along with support for Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and other peripherals. The Lynx(TM) L9100 is available now and currently sampling to qualified customers worldwide.

According to the Skyworks Solutions website, they currently supply OEMs including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony/Ericsson as well as emerging ODMs and contract manufacturers such as BenQ, Chi Mei, Compal, Flextronics and Quanta.

08:15 PM by Brian in Miscellaneous | Lounge

More good news for Sony PSP owners:

Sony has announced that 2GB Memory Stick Pros and Duos are coming at the end of the month. The full sized 2GB Memory Stick Pro will retail for $169.99 USD while the more diminutive 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo used in the PSP will be priced at $199.99 USD. The 1GB Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Pro Duo currently retail for $119.99 USD and $124.99 USD respectively. Sony's pricing of the 2GB Memory Sticks will make them more competitive with other memory card formats in a cost per Gigabyte price comparison.

The new 2GB Memory Stick Pros are currently available for pre-order from the SonyStyle online store.

For more information about the myriad of Memory Stick formats and device compatibility, see Sony's Memory Stick Product Compatibility page and memorystick.com.

Related: Sony's new DVD Burner/DVR puts recorded shows on your PSP

[MobileTechReview via PalmAddicts]

05:20 PM by Brian in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Sony has just announced the RDR-AX75 dual-layer DVD burner with a 250GB Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for Japan. This home theater component sports a MemoryStick Duo slot which will allow PSP owners with version 2.0 firmware to record shows in MPEG-4 format and copy the content to MemoryStick for viewing on the PSP. This will give PSP owners a convenient and desktop-free method for getting personalized content on their devices. Currently, PSP owners rely on applications like PSP Video 9 or iPSP to put video on their handheld consoles, or download a limited selection of videos from Sony's official PSP Connect website.

[via Engadget]