11:44 AM by hacker in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Thanks to a note from Alexander.. I've taken the EFF's Legal Guide for Bloggers and hand-transcoded it into Plucker and iSilo formats. This is not simply a conversion of their online version, lots of pages were added, split up and other usability elements were added (you can see this in the screenshots below). The physical content remains identical, it was just reorganized and restructured for PDA display on smaller screen devices.

All of the internal links work, and external links are not included but are kept visible in the document (many link to pdfs and very large websites). This means you can cut-n-paste the "offsite" links and read them on your own, without having to have a monstrous document on your PDA.

Please take the time to read this document in full and share it with everyone you know that cares about blogging and the legal implications of blogging.

Please don't forget to Support the EFF and their efforts! They've done an outstanding job on many fronts (including defending us against several companies violating the license of Plucker).

Enjoy everyone!

09:12 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

There's a new combination of various technologies that are making something called "Roadcasting" possible. Imagine storing content on a hard drive in your car and listening to a playlist. If you choose to, you're broadcasting to other cars within range all the while. So instead of turning on the radio, or listening to their own playlists that they are now bored with, they can tune into your playlist!

Check it out at TechnologyReview.

08:57 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Mobile Sites

Comics Strip Snagger allows you to select your favorite comic strips and to have them output in a quite mobile-friendly way. You can use it with any mobile online or offline browser.

For instance, if you want to download your favorite strips using iSilo, first use a desktop browser to select your desired strips (hold the CTRL key to select multiple comics), and then write down the resulting URL in iSilo. For instance, I am using this link in my web clip collection.

04:06 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

HP has picked up former palmOne CEO Todd Bradley to run its PC and gadget business. Bradley will serve as executive vice president under the newly independent Personal Systems Group (PSG), which includes the company's notebook and desktop PCs, handhelds, monitors, workstations and related support services. The news is already all over the Net, and here are some hand-picked links:

• HP Names Todd Bradley as Executive Vice President of Personal Systems Group (Press Release)
• HP separates PC group again, names new boss (C|Net)
• HP Splits PC and Printer Units, Hires Exec (eWeek)
• Former palmOne CEO to Head HP Handheld & PC Unit (PalmInfocenter)

03:33 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Formats | Workshop

It's rumored that there are people who not only listen to their iPods, but also use them for reading e-books - disregarding the fact that the iPod has a tiny screen and a really bad backlighting. Now Phillip Torrone from Make published a step-by-step guide how to transfer text and html documents to your favorite MP3 player. You don't have to pass an ophthalmic exam to guess what this could do to your eyes.

11:52 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

MobileRead.com is very pleased to present this exclusive interview with two of the key leaders at PalmSource… the Chief Competitive Officer, Michael Mace, and the Director of Product Marketing, John Cook, who were kind enough to sit down with me at the recent PalmSource Mobile Summit and DevCon 2005 in San Jose, CA to share their views on the direction and future of PalmOS.

We hope that this interview, as a supplement to the ongoing information and news that we provide on our site about the mobile device market, will serve to increase awareness of what looks to be a promising future for Palm devices, and to promote a better perspective on what PalmSource is trying to achieve.

The interview will be presented on MobileRead this week as a five-part series, and it begins with this first installment, covering PalmOS on phones and the freshly-revealed “Project Rome.”

MobileRead: We've heard a lot here in San Jose about PalmSource going after the phone market, and feature phones have come up a lot. PalmSource is looking to make PalmOS the platform of choice not just for the smart phone and for traditional PDAs, but for feature phones also. What will it take to make it ready for the feature phone market?

Michael Mace: Here's the trick. You ask people in the industry what a feature phone is, you get 15 different answers. So I'm actually trying to stay away from terms like feature phone and smart phone. They don't actually mean anything. If you want an example, look at the debates between IDC and Gartner about how do you define these segments.

The real way to look at it is that there are people that are willing to pay extra to get a value-added device, whether it has a phone in it or not. And there are people that want to do something extra with data whether it's entertainment or whether it's extra communication functions, or whether it's managing information like a doctor would do. Those people may go for a smart phone or they may go for a handheld depending on the exact mix of features that they want, and what's the right product for them. But they're in the market for something that has an OS and has advanced features. On the other hand you have a lot of people, the majority of phone buyers, who just want voice, and who really don't want to pay extra for anything else.

So the real issue is supplying PalmOS as a software for people who want to go after this value added thing - for people that want a platform. But then also can we supply software for the majority of those phone buyers who are pretty much after voice. They'll take other features if those things are given to them, but they're not going to go out and pay two hundred dollars extra to get a more souped-up phone.

We're trying to provide software for both types of users. PalmOS is the main emphasis for getting to those value added users... the people who pay extra for data functions. And what we're doing with the former China MobileSoft, the company that we bought in China, is the center of what we try to do for what I would just call phones. Forget about feature phones, smartphones, whatever. It's for phones. And especially for those phones that move to 3G. They need more sophisticated software to go into a phone. And so what we're trying to do is build both of those things eventually on top of a Linux foundation. So PalmOS is going to be based on Linux. I think there is going to be feature phone stuff, which may not even necessarily be called PalmOS, because it's not necessarily going to be running third party applications. It's more just like embedded software, but that too will be based on Linux. And we're trying to cover both markets over time.

MR: Do you see PalmOS as being different products supplied to phones that are primarily voice, but with a few features, versus more robust phones?

MM: We're going to work with the phone companies. So we're going to do a great platform with PalmOS and we're going to do a great embedded Linux, and we're going to let them pick what's appropriate for a particular phone that they're trying to build. It's really going to be up to them. We'll have both and we'll see how it goes.

John Cook: I think the point is that you need a range of technology solutions, and one size does not fit all for this market very much. And what people have been defining as our niche, if you will, I think we want to grow out of that in technically moving to Linux because it gives us more scalability if we do that.

MR: We heard yesterday from Larry Slotnick [PalmSource Chief Product Officer] about an exciting next generation user interface which will be coming out of Project Rome. Can you tell me more about that technology and what its significance is?

MM: The context is that a lot of these phones that we're talking about are going to be are going to be non-touchscreen one-handed devices, so you need another interface for that. It's a different way of using the devices, so we've been working on concepts around how you would control a one-handed non-touchscreen device and how you would interact with it. It's very different.

JC: This is still kind of early in the development phases, but Larry alluded to this... the point being that with traditional style Palm devices, you want something done quickly, you probably run away from it, the device is with you more often. It's very interrupt driven. So what kind of paradigms do you want set up? A lot of the work that we're doing now is like the odd chart that he put up on the screen. If you look at the center starting point and all the different potential paths you can go it looks kind of confusing. The trick, and this is where our user experience or UX team is working now, is that I don't want to give you all those choices. I want to give you "the" choice that makes a difference to you when you're ready to go after that task. So it's thinking through all the use cases, and it's going through a lot of prototyping. Then at some point you get some migration path that says if you want to optimize for this one-handed phone with your software with no touchscreen, you might want to go this direction. I just heard a discussion that David Feder [Dir. Developer Services] was doing on talking about selling to phone devices. Don't think of the touchscreen as your primary thing, think of the one-handed navigation as being the most common aspect of the UI. But he says if you have a touchscreen, take advantage of it. So it's not totally either/or. With Rome the concept was to think very clearly.. if you have small screens, different paradigms, how do you want to rethink the metaphors you want to use for the user experience.

MR: So would you envision more Rome techniques being applied to the simpler phones because of their increased dependence on one-handed operation?

JC: I think that's where they'd start. Even more limited real estate, so smaller screen size and one-handed navigation are both going to play major roles about how you want to think about your software.

----

This interview will continue with the remaining installments…
<Part One>
..Part Two
..Part Three
..Part Four
..Part Five

Special Note: We are keeping this forum thread open for comments, and we encourage a lively discussion of these topics from all sides. But we will moderate heavily if necessary. All we ask (and require) is that all posts remain polite and on-topic so the discussion remains profitable for all. That has been a trademark of MobileRead’s short history thanks to all our great readers, and we will make every effort to maintain that civility as we move forward.

11:05 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There is a delightful thread at AllAboutPalm currently going on with participation by Michael Mace, Chief Competitive Officer at PalmSource. It is planned for last two weeks, and began today. I'm going to dive into this one myself as a very interested spectator, and keep a watchful eye on it.

It's great timing also, because starting late tonight/tomorrow morning, we are going to begin posting at MobileRead an exclusive interview conducted at the recent PalmSource Mobile Summit and DevCon with Michael Mace and John Cook (Dir of Product Marketing), to be presented in five parts. You won't want to miss it. I can tell you right now that you will enjoy hearing their perspectives on PalmOS and the mobile device market. Michael and John speak with both authority and creativity of thought.

I hope that not only will you enjoy the interview here at MobileRead, but that it will give you ideas for participating in Ewan's thread with Michael Mace over at AllAboutPalm. This is a great chance for the mobile community to be blessed by this kind of communication from PalmSource, no matter where it appears or who happens to be hosting it at the time.

Unfortunately, I'm see that poor Ewan has already been challenged as he works to make the forum a polite and considerate aptmosphere for discussion. All credit goes to him, though, for making it happen anyway! We will work very hard at MobileRead to do the same -- to ensure a polite forum for discussion of the MobileRead interview with these key PalmSource leaders, giving them the respect and appreciation they deserve as they make efforts to be a part of our online community.

08:53 AM by doctorow in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Tachyon.Net is a free astronomy software for Pocket PC. From their website:

TachyonNET for Pocket PC .NET is an extremely sophisticated and detailed astronomy software for handheld devices. It was developed to be a companion in your night cosmic adventures. It is by far the most complex and advancing astronomical software for those fantastic and small gadgets. You will not find anything like that. This is not a toy, it is an advanced astronomical companion that is indispensable for your next Star Party. Forget that bulky power hungry notebook. Put the sky in your pocket.

Check out the VGA screenshots - they look unbelievably great!