01:34 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Slashdot is reporting that the Supreme Court has ruled...

"One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright ... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses." The promotion is the key part of that statement.

What this means is practical terms is not obvious to me as I need someone more knowledgable to interpret. But as a novice podering the topic, it seems clear that any information relating to activities not clearly legal will not come from any source associated with a P2P service!

Also of interest would be what consequences this would have on software like Fair Use Wizard or DVD Decrypter (already hit by legal issues) or DVD Shrink, etc. In fact, even signal enhancement devices used to stabalize a signal from a VHS tape might be dependent on a ruling.

I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about the fallout over the next few days.

For now, here are a couple of early articles that I plan to read myself as soon as I get a few minutes...
San Francisco Chronicle Article
EFF Article

If you have any good links or discussions about this case and the fallout (especially those with nice summaries and easy to read for the lay person) please post them as replies here so we can continue to learn what this all means.

02:08 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Do you think e-books are the future or will traditional book reading remain to be the name of the game, is the question asked in an interesting forum discussion started over at PalmAddicts.

I believe that p-books and e-books will always co-exist. There is no reason to abandon p-books, unless we run out of trees. Both have their intrinsic advantages and disadvantages and it always depends on the situation whether you prefer one over the other.

01:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Just to let everyone know, I am currently in Dubrovnik and very much enjoying myself here (i.e. growing lazy and fat). Since Google recently updated their satellite database, you can now find Dubrovnik in Google Maps as well:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=42....1952&t=k&hl=en

Trust me, it is even nicer than the map suggests!

01:33 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Dana of Pocket PC Dubai leaked information regarding the previously rumored Motorola RAZRberry device, now codenamed "Franklin". Specs and features include Windows Mobile 5.0, quad-band GPRS/EDGE, 128MB/64MB Flash/RAM, Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera, MiniSD slot, and a 2.4" 320x240 65k color screen. So apparently no integrated WiFi.

The download link to a Dangaard PowerPoint presentation didn't last for long - it has already been removed by Microsoft.

01:19 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

ozLooxSpeaker is a free utility by Oleg Zakharov allowing FSC PocketLoox 710/718/720 owners to utilitze the dedicated top VoIP speaker. Normally, this feature is only accessible to selected developers with access to the software development kit. From the project page:

There is no installation or deinstallation app. You need to do it yourself, at least for now... But, on the sunny side - it's not that hard . All you need to do is to unzip this file ozLXSpk.zip and put its contents to the root (\) directory on your PDA. You'll have 3 shortcuts in your Programs folder that you can map to hardware buttons - you also can run ozlxspk.exe directly - it will show you some GUI to turn bottom speaker on and off.

For those of you who want to tweak or turn off notification - you are welcome to edit shortcuts as you wish. There are 3 possible command-line switches:

* /Volume - (save & restore volume)
* /Set: - set on/off/toggle and exit immediately
* /Notify:[!] - use notification icon for n seconds, ! - means use notification bubble as well

Enjoy!

02:52 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The following news was submitted by PDATopSoft. It looks useful for those who need to review presentations or maybe even develop that quickie presentation at the last moment while on the road.

Pocket Slides - save 30% from PDATopSoft.

Pocket Slides is a fully featured presentation tool for Pocket PC and Handheld PC 2000 enabling users to create, edit, view or give presentations using a mobile device. Pocket Slides enables users to employ presentations on their mobile device by viewing and giving presentations, and is the only product on the market that permits the creation and editing of presentations on the mobile device. Existing presentations from Microsoft® PowerPoint® can be transferred from the desktop to the device using Pocket Slides’ Conversion software.

Pocket Slides 2.0 improves upon earlier versions by increasing the overall product strength—adding seven global languages, broader support for VGA hardware and remote controls, sound and music support. The four main uses of presentations—creation, viewing, editing, and presenting—have all been improved and expanded with Pocket Slides 2.0.

08:03 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

If you own the Cybook e-book reader and always wanted to read PDF documents on it, you can now try the first beta of their forthcoming PDF viewer. Check out this message on the Cybook group for details.

David from Teleread isn't entirely impressed with the present beta (there's no zoom feature yet and the software runs rather slow), but at least this is an honest attempt to continue support for an excellent e-book reader.

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

Here are the highlights from the past seven days of MobileRead:

E-Book Readers
New English firmware patch for the Sony Librie
Sony Librie Language hack (step-by-step guide)

E-Book Webstores
eReader 'Everyday in July' Promotion
Paperback Digital returns to e-book business
Stephenson's "The Cobweb" with 100% Micropay rebate

General Chat
Do You Have a PDA Love Hate Relationship?
Mobile accessing your PC while on vacation
On cleaning LCD screens
The most battery in a smaller size

iSilo/X
iSilo 4.27 and iSiloX/C 4.27 enter beta2

MobiPocket
Mobipocket V4.9 released

Other E-Book Resources
Cory Doctorow's third novel for download

Other Readers
TomeRaider for PPC 3.1.13 adds P2P client

Palm
CanalPDA chosen as "Best new weblog of 2004" in Spanish
Dinky TV for PalmOS
Palm Addict Forum Contest
PalmOne patents illuminatable buttons
Palm OS ROM update step-by-step guide
PDAs at Wimbledon
Three Palm Podcasts for today
Trip Boss Updated
Tungsten XX leaked pics and specs
Why PalmSource May Be Right About Multitasking

Pocket PC
Core Pocket Media Player 0.65y for Pocket PC
Dell to release Windows Mobile 5.0 in October 05
Lygea HP-calc emulators now VGA-aware
Mini-Mozilla for PPC 0.006 released
NetFront 3.2 for PPC English released
Total Commander 2.0 for PocketPC (free)

Portable Audio/Video
Free Audio Books
Podcasting Hurts My Ears!

Sci-Fi & Fantasy
The Best of the Best of Fantasy Literature

Smartphones
I Hate Convergence. No wait!... It's Really Nice!

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
British Airways says Bluetooth YES but WiFi NO
Connexion by Boeing Sweepstakes