12:16 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Mobile Sites

The free mobile-friendly Web proxy Skweezer has been nominated in the Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Utility category of the 2005 Mobile Star Awards. The awards honor and promote the best companies and products in mobile and wireless technology.

My best to Monica from Greenlight Wireless and good luck with the nomination!

11:02 AM by doctorow in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Just received this discount info from eReader.com:

Punch in this week's Promo Code IDEAS to receive a 10% discount off each book that you purchase. Offer good through September 6th, 2005 on all books priced more than $3.00. Cannot be used in conjunction with other special offers.

08:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

After last weekend's disappointing Axim X51 fake which was originally from a Gillete deodorant ad (*gasp*), we must alert our readers to use the following information with care. Apparently an Aximsite user had a chat with a Dell tech rep who told him that the X51 series will hit markets sometime in October. Even better, he sent him some specs.

Assuming the specs are legit, the X51 series will also consist of three devices: X51 416MHz, X51 520MHz, X51v 624MHz. That's new: Consumer IrDA, scroll dial (!), 256MB ROM (only the X51v) and Windows Mobile 2005 (which will be also offered as an upgrade to existing X50 customers). Overall X50 owners can breathe a sigh of relief because there is no reason yet for them to upgrade the hardware (fine, I wouldn't mind the 256MB BIS).

06:16 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Received the following mail from PalmGear and Fossil today:

Attention Palm OS(R) software developers! Imagine your application on the world's first and only Palm Powered wristwatch. The Wrist PDA(R) is the only Palm Powered device that can give information at the flick of the wrist. The software opportunities are endless for this unique platform. Please visit the Wrist PDA(R) Developers Area to download the latest Wrist PDA(R) SDK and learn more about creating applications for the Wrist PDA(R) platform.

You can get a discount on the watch if you call 866-974-7873, select option 1 for sales, and inform the rep that you are a developer who wants to purchase the Abacus Wrist PD (AU5005) for $59.00.

Although this could mean that the Wrist PDA is still alive, we rather tend to believe that this is Fossil's way of clearing their inventories to make room for new products.

05:54 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Audiobooks that you check-out from a US library will automatically go dead after the lending period, thanks to Microsoft Media DRM.

A patron with a valid library card visits a library Web site to borrow a title for, say, three weeks. When the audiobook is due, the patron must renew it or find it automatically "returned" in a virtual sense: The file still sits on the patron's computer, but encryption makes it unplayable beyond the borrowing period.

21 million iPod users will stay empty-handed for as long as there is no official support for encrypted MS Media files.

[via CNN via Slashdot]

05:20 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Just when we had hoped to celebrate the success of e-books this year, we are confronted by David's dismal discovery that the number of e-book titles published actually has declined by 39% in 2004:

I ran across the numbers tucked away in the just-mentioned Arizona article in the Book Standard, and similar numbers appear in Inside Higher Ed News, which says: "the 23 publishers that responded to a survey made $9.62 million in revenues in 2004, a 31 percent increase over 2003, even while they chose to publish 4,351 titles, down from 7,138 in 2003."

04:39 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The Guardian has a fun quiz which classifies mobile user profiles as types of birds (apparently that's from a serious Motorola study).

According to the quiz results, I am a pigeon, a "common, garden-variety user," who "still can't quite work out how to download ringtones." How true. That's why I usually transfer them directly via Bluetooth to my handset.

[via Textually]

04:24 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It hasn't been easy for dedicated Palm fans lately. Although it's true that Palm company is still healthy with strong quarterly earning, many critics argue that Palm fell out of its place of dominance in the market and lost its innovative edge. Yes, we should not forget how revolutionary they were in their heyday; though if you scan recent gadget news, whether at Mobileread or Engadget or Gizmodo, you'll notice a disturbing trend towards Windows Mobile-oriented news. Coincidence?

Related: Check out Sammy's forum thread over at PalmAddicts, where he asks the same question: What keeps you using a Palm device?