03:00 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Remember Orb Streaming Media which had first sounded like a marvelous idea, but then failed - at least in our opinion - due to the use of some proprietary software? Although you are still required to run the Orb Windows application, at least there's now an add-on API (updated: released under a Mozilla Public License) allowing developers to write their own DLL libraries to extend (PDF) Orb's media streaming capabilities.

Well gee, this certainly seems like a good idea. For next, why don't you simply release the tool as open-source?

[via Downloadsquad]

08:03 AM by Laurens in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Pretty sharp editorial at The Register: the "secret" product line that Jeff Hawkins has been talking about is... the LifeDrive!

Let's look at the evidence. For a start, Hawkins refers to his company as PalmOne, which suggests the interview was conducted some time ago, before the firm became Palm again. Newspaper feature deadlines being what they are, it couldn't be entirely beyond the bounds of possibility that the PBJ talked to Hawkins before the LifeDrive was announced, when quite clearly he wouldn't be able to say too much about it.

05:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Knowing that mobile search engines have the potential to become the killer application of next year, it comes as no surprise that search engine companies continue to expand their offerings in the mobile search space. Barb of Engadget has gathered a list of current mobile search resources.

Among my favorites is MSN Mobile, which does a great job for local searches, map displays and driving directions.

[via PalmAddicts]

07:19 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Seeing Korea as a "what's to come" indicator, we have finally good reason to believe that e-books are gaining acceptance. Sales have doubled and are expected to almost triple over the coming year. One of the main reasons of those growth numbers is a lower sales price compared to the dead-tree variety:

Readers feeling the recession can buy books that would cost over W10,000 in hard copy for 40-50 percent of the money. In the case of "49 Things You Should Do in Your Life" (Wisdom House), which sold 800,000 copies this year, the print edition costs W8,800 and the e-book just W3,600. The book was downloaded 50,000 times in the first half of the year.

Bottom line, are we seeing a postive trend towards increase in e-book sales here? Bet your pants we are.

[via if:book]

08:59 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There's a nice post at Palm Addicts today with lots of info about why you need to do backups even though you have a hotsync, and it even includes many freeware options. Personally I use BackupBuddyVFS with a daily automatic scheduled backup to move everything in memory to my SD card, and then I move the SD card backup to my PC every week. (More often if something significant changes on the device. I also keep a full backup when I install new programs just in case they cause conflicts, or don't get removed properly when I delete the app. So far, this approach has made my device quite a bit more stable and reliable, so it's been worth the extra effort.)

02:54 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

My desire to keep up on the PDA world is enough to drive some of the people around me to frustration sometimes. I'm sure other MobileRead readers have frustrated some of their friends and family also!

So what do you do when you are so pressed for time that you can't read up on all the good news for a season? Well, there's no substitute for keeping an eye on all your favorite news sources, but when you are short on time you really learn what sites you depend on.

In the Palm world, we are very fortunate to have Palm Addict, which really was like a life saver for me recently, in the sense that I could keep up with all the best Palm news in just a few quick moments a day. If it's important to me, I can be pretty sure that Sammy and the gang over at Palm Addict towers will catch it. Not only do they have their eyes on all the news, but just like MobileRead they have the help of all their great readers to find the news that everyone wants to hear. The Palm world is all the better because of their great work, which extends far beyond the site itself. Sammy is always anxious to be a help to others in the mobile computing world his generosity toward others.

We're very fortunate in the mobile computing world because there are so many great news, tech, blog sites full of great material and editorial content. And it keeps getting better and better all the time. While I can't list every great site here, there are a few of the most entertaining that I try very hard to visit pretty much every day... MobileRead, Palm Addict, PDA 24/7, Pocket PC Thoughts, Palm Focus (where I just recently bought an awesome Pocket Tunes skin made especially for easy non-sylus use), Engadget and Slashdot. They're sort of the meat and potatos of my info-junkie lifestyle. If you haven't visited them, be sure to give them a look!

02:28 PM by TadW in Miscellaneous | Lounge

As you've maybe already heard, some people were able to load OS X on standard Intel IV machines. Here is a good resource to begin with, I am not sure how long it is going to last so have a look if you are interested!

http://www.strengholt-online.nl/osx_howto/index.htm

Plus try these informative links:

http://osx86.classicbeta.com/
http://osx86.classicbeta.com/forum/
http://www.concretesurf.co.nz/osx86/
http://www.research.gwgaming.net/

12:50 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Well, I'm certainly not exaggerating when I say that this is the news story of the day. Following a report by Sunday Business today rumours are spreading fast that US networking hulk Cisco (worth $123bn) is considering acquiring Finnish phonemaker Nokia (worth $71bn). So here we have the world's largest maker of (fixed) infrastructure equipment (Cisco) interested in converging with the world's second-largest provider of mobile network infrastructure (Nokia). Makes sense, doesn't it?

Cisco and Nokia refused to comment. Ok, it's Sunday, I would've been surprised if they did.

[via Pocketfactory (thanks guys!!)]