05:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Amazon has posted details this morning not only on the palmOne LifeDrive itself, but also on original palmOne accessories for the LifeDrive:

• PalmOne 3218WW Aluminum Hard Case for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $49.99
• PalmOne 3219WW Leather Case for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $39.99
• PalmOne 3220WW Stylus Pen 3 Pack for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $19.99
• PalmOne 3223WW 1 GB Memory Expansion Card $129.99

05:34 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The PalmOne LifeDrive Palm pda with a 4gig internal hard drive is likely to be coming soon, and another sign is a set of leaked pictures on Amazon. A price of $499.88 is reported by Engadget when adding it to your shopping cart. Some specs are given

• Quickly drag and drop files from your PC onto your LifeDrive mobile manager.
• Intel 416MHz XScale processor
• Portrait and landscape viewing
• 320x480 hi-resolution, color display
• LifeDrive smart file management

and the page also shows the following info

Amazon.com Sales Rank: None
ASIN: B0009JMT38
Item model number: 1044NA
Dimensions: 6.50 inches x 6.50 inches x 4.00 inches
Date first available at Amazon: May 18, 2005
Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
This page was created by a seller.

Thanks to Sammy at Palm Addict for the news submission.

08:34 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

One peculiar way of subscribing to RSS feeds is via RMail. RMail is a service for subscribing to any RSS feed via E-Mail. This could become useful if your mobile device doesn't support RSS but offers E-Mail connectivity.

[via Juice Browser]

08:18 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Future Windows Mobile-powered PDA and smartphone devices are likely to be a mix of organizer and multimedia player (Dell already makes the point by using a true video accelerator for its Axim X50v series). To make the integration of audio/video easier and more cost-effective for developers, Texas Instruments is working with Microsoft on a "Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center Software Kit."

The kit is based on a TI system-on-a-chip (SOC), a highly-integrated Digital Media processor targeted specifically for portable applications, capable of supporting QVGA resolution for Windows Media Video 9, as well as up to D1 resolution of other commonly used video formats (it integrates a video encoder and a hardware video accelerator). DSP chips often offer superior performance while minimizing power consumption.

"Portable Media Centers have created new opportunities for people to take their entertainment — video, photos and music — with them anywhere, anytime," said John Pollard, director of Windows Mobile Applications and Services Marketing at Microsoft Corp. "TI's Digital Media processors will help our Windows Mobile-based device manufacturers deliver more choices as the category continues to evolve and expand."

Click here for the full press release

09:02 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

MQP Electronics has provided some nifty eBook creator software. You can now run text files (or html or pdf or rtf) through the converter and create files that give you an ebook on your GameBoy or GameBoy Advance. Pictures seem to even be possible, and there are some pre-made books like the complete works of Sherlock Holmes.

Probably not for the average GameBoy owner, though. There's lots of instructions there, but you do have to program that file onto a flash memory cartridge, and it doesn't seem that there's a lot of help. The instructions simply say

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You will need to find your own solution to obtaining a suitable Flash Cartridge into which to program the electronic books you have made. I do not sell them.[/font]

This amazing piece of news comes to us from Palm Addict. Be sure to visit for your daily dose of Palm news.

07:17 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Larry Page, co-founder of Google, recently spoke at the graduation ceremonies for the College of Engineering. A rough transcript from a student's recording is available here. (it's typed out in the comments. Note that the first comment with a transcript is just the introduction.)

I've iSiloX'd it, as I do with all web articles that look interesting but I have no time to read yet. So there it remains in my pocket until the next waiting time somewhere that gives me a few minutes to read. If you haven't gotten into that habit yourself, you're missing out on the fun!

06:55 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PDAGround has gathered the thoughts of many developers about what they think of "PhonePDAs." Their feelings are kind of like ours:

I love them. I hate them. I love them. I hate them.

On and on it goes!

(via PDArcade)

02:57 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

You've seen the ads before... speed up your browsing by paying an extra $5/month to your ISP for web acceleration. It pre-fetches and compresses sites for you, as well as sending only incremental change data where possible.

Well, you can get it such a product (but in beta) for free now at http://webaccelerator.google.com/, except this one is unique in that it's not targeted at low bandwidth dialup internet connections. In fact they say you might not see much difference with a dialup connection. They specifically say it's "[size=-1]Designed for Broadband[/size][size=-1] – Web pages load even more quickly on DSL and cable connections[/size]."

No benefits for downloads like MP3s, or https:// pages for security reasons. But I think it's really interesting if it ever becomes available for mobile browsing and for low bandwidth connections. But everything is going broadband, so it might be a losing proposition to spend too much development money on that direction.

I really like Google, but don't know that I'm that comfortable with them handling all my data on their servers. On the other hand, they already know everything about my surfing because I search through Google.