04:30 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

1SRC features an interesting editorial by Jeff Kirvin called "The Once and Future Palm": There's been a lot of "Palm is dead" doom and gloom out there in the last week or so. Even sites focused on Windows Mobile have grabbed this meme and run with it. I have to admit to being partly at fault myself. I was too grim in last week's 1SRC podcast and declared Palm OS dead before I really broke down and analyzed the situation.

Good read and I agree in many points, except when Jeff says, "conventional wisdom is that the jump in clarity from 320x480 to 480x640 isn't worth the corresponding drop in battery life and the amount of software recoding that would need to be done; HVGA is "good enough" on a 3.7in screen." If you have ever seen in action a Pocket PC with VGA resolution and a 3.7" screen (such as the Axim X50v), you'll know that the addition of twice the amount of pixels (320x480->480x640) is a huge jump in screen clarity and it definitely makes it worthwhile if you consider using your PDA for anything else besides organizing your personal calendar.

Also, I am not sure if Jeff is right about what he says regarding Palm OS and multitasking capabilities. Seems like some people believe it does offer multitasking, or at least some kind of it (Jeff), while others believe the contrary. In a similar discussion here at Mobileread, Dianne Hackborn of PalmSource pointed out that multitasking is a required feature also for handhelds nowadays:

I think the key thing is that this isn't really an either/or question. For the kinds of things these devices are doing -- multimedia, all kinds of communications stuff, web browsing, etc -- multithreading and multiple running applications is required. That doesn't mean, however, that you should be forced to use it for things where it doesn't give any benefit, such as in your address book app.

03:16 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Rowling's sixth novel about the young wizard is not scheduled to be released until Saturday, but a Vancouver grocery store accidentally sold 15 copies of the book last week, reports CBC. Raincoast Books, who distributes the books in Canada, managed to win a court injunction barring the buyers of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" from disclosing the plot and also ordering them to return all copies to Raincoast:

"It is not the intention of Raincoast to penalize the small group of fans who have innocently purchased a book in good faith. We look to them to ensure that the excitement and mystery of the story is preserved for fans around the world until July 16th by cooperating with us and observing the terms of the court injunction."

06:43 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The beta of the Odeo podcast service is now open to the public. It's a great place to browse and search for podcasts and sync them with your favorite audio player. From their website:

So...we've opened the doors. After months of hard work, we're proud to welcome you to Odeo. We're still very much in beta, so we appreciate your feedback (and patience). But please look around, listen to some stuff, subscribe...have fun.

06:30 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Good news for all e-book lovers. Matsushita demonstrated at the Digital Publishing Fair 2005 in Tokyo last week the next generation of its Sigma e-book reader.

According to eBookSpot, the new Sigma reader, which is sold under the Panasonic brand, will come with only one screen panel instead of two, and it will be powered with a color LCD display. Previous models used monochrome LCDs based on Kent Displays' Cholesteric Technology (chLCD). No information on price and date of availability yet.

04:39 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Creating mobile-specific top level domain names will soon be possible with ICANN's recent approval of the controversial .mobi domain. At PalmAddicts (via BBC News) we read: Soon it could be much easier to browse the net on a mobile phone. Approval for a .mobi domain has been given by the organisation that oversees the net's addressing system. Websites that use the .mobi domain will be created specifically for mobile devices such as handsets and handheld computers to make them easy to find and browse. The first websites using the new .mobi domain are expected to appear by late summer next year.

02:49 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

This is always a hot topic so we're always glad to pass on more info to those that are interested. The newest entry into the analysis is "eugenia" with a post at TuxTops. If you just can't get enough articles about advantages and disadvantages of each, this one is just for you!

(via Slashdot)

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you missed our frontpage news at any point this week, here is the best way to catch up:

E-Book Conversion
Using Publish eBook to Create PalmDoc Books

E-Book Webstores
eReader Promo RSS Feed reminder

General Chat
BatteryUniversity practical battery knowledge
Do we depend too much on PDAs?
Fingernails: Your Newest Storage Media?
Mobile GMaps brings Google Maps to your phone
Photos from my holiday - want to see more?
Woot 2.0 is Coming Sunday! (Tomorrow)

iSilo/X
ClipMe iSilo plugin for non-IE browsers!
iSilo 4.27 and iSiloX/C 4.27 released

Link Swap
IYHY mobile Web proxy

Other E-Book Resources
How To Read eBooks: A Beginner's Guide

Other Readers
Foxit PDF Reader for Windows

Palm
Backup Buddy VFS Pro 3.1 Upgrade Is Available on PalmOS
FontSmoother 1.45 released (with Quick Make Font)
Is PalmOS Dead?
LG is the New PalmSource Licensee

Plucker
Plucker e-books on the Nokia 770 platform
Plucker e-books on the Nokia 770 platform - update

Pocket PC
3D Chopper Fight optimized for the Dell x50v
Comparing PalmOS and Windows Mobile
The Core Pocket Media Player V0.66 released

Smartphones
Motorola E790 Apple iTunes phone leaked

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.42a released

11:13 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

EPublishing Blog has an article pointing to a beginner's guide to reading ebooks. If you're looking for some basic information about ebooks, this would be an article worth reading. It talks about the basics like ebook readers, where to get ebooks, DRM, etc. all in language suitable for a beginner.