12:18 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There are like three electronic TV guides available for Pocket PC, of which the open-source TVGuide is still my favorite. It's small, doesn't require MS Windows, and is relatively easy to use.

The latest version 0.6.2.142 adds support for zipped data files and the xmltv format. To successfully convert TV listings for TVGuide, you also need vguide-ppc, xmltv, and XML2TVGuide (actually this is optional since TVGuide supports xmltv now).

05:49 AM by shalmaneser in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

A discussion of reading e-books on mobile devices has started on Book2Book, the UK publishing industry's unofficial website: "What does the trade think about this? Would any of you be prepared to read a book on a mobile handset?..."

Somehow I would imagine that anyone with a smartphone or Treo is doing this already. -Alex

05:46 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's not the first time in the wacky world of modern robotics that someone hacked new life into toy robot RoboSapien. Nonetheless, Neil did quite some impressive stuff with his humanoid robot by hooking it up to his Samsung I700 smartphone.

In a nutshell, you can control, see, hear, and talk through the Robosapien from any place or distance via TCP/IP over a cellular network. The Robosapien's robotics are functional, refined, and (most importantly) already assembled. Remote control, eye and brain hardware functions are provided by a Samsung I700 smart phone using Verizon's cell service. An additional cell phone provides the Robosapien’s ears and mouth (using speakerphone).

Finally, my dream of owning a remotely-voice-controlled ball-moving robot is one step closer to reality.

06:31 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Audiobook retailer Audible reported today second-quarter net earnings of $823,869, or 3 cents a share, vs. $236,585, or a penny a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $15.3 million from $8.1 million last year. Total customers totaled 611,000, representing a 61% increase year-to-year. From the press release:

"Q2 was another incredible success for us, as revenue and customer counts continued on their upward swing," stated Donald Katz, chairman and CEO of Audible. "And we believe this is just the beginning. As we continue to invest in new growth initiatives, build out our distribution and escalate our customer focus, we expect there to be even greater things ahead."

You can click here to listen to the archieved conference call of today. Although nothing negative was mentioned to trigger a fall, Audible stock dropped over 4% in the after hours.

06:08 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

Slashdot is reporting that...

OfB is reporting that, contrary to widely-published and discussed rumors, Apple is not including the controversial Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip in its Intel-based Macs. An anonymous registered Apple developer claims that the Apple x86 test boxes do not have DRM or TCPA components.

05:53 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

As you may notice Alex has posted about this event before; never mind this double post though, PA's celebration is good enough to be repeated here.

Our good friends over at Palm Addicts are preparing for their 6th birthday celebration with contests that are already getting under way. And I like that they call it a birthday celebration instead of an anniversary because the site has so much personality, it just seems appropriate.

"Remember we have the first part of an exciting month of contests to celebrate the Palm Addict 6th Birthday. This weekend we are giving you the opportunity to win a LifeDrive by sending us a user thought such as the one's that appear on the front page. Put Birthday Contest in the subject line and send to the usual email address - sammymcloughlin@mac.com"

05:51 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

If you are into moody black and white comics, check out Lovecraft Country: Return to Arkham by Shannon Appelcline.

Lovecraft Country: Return to Arkham is a comic book set in H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham in 1933. Seth Fletcher has just journeyed to Arkham, seeking his brother lost years before, but as he will soon discover, all is not as it seems.

Since the comic has been released under a CC license, you can download it for free as a whopping 55Mb hi-res PDF, or read it on-line.

[via Boing Boing]

05:46 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The following message was sent to us via the MobileRead Networks Contact Us form by Berislav. I love to get a brief and simply expressed item like this, because it means I can get it ready to post in just a few seconds!

"HNS Consulting Ltd. today announced the new version of Confidential Notes, a security product offering PDA users the ability to keep their data private and safe. For more information on Confidential Notes, screenshots and videos, visit www.pocketpcsecurity.com."