11:33 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

BetaNews reports that Microsoft is preparing a new IM chat client for Windows Mobile-based devices. The new chat client is based on the user interface of Microsoft's forthcoming Office Communicator 2005 (code-named Istanbul). Office Communicator 2005 is an enterprise messenger that integrates communications capabilities (including instant messaging, rich presence, PC-based voice and video, VoIP, and enterprise telephony) with productivity and other communications applications.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile client will offer secure instant messaging and presence sharing across all types of wireless networks, real-time access to business contacts, and a familiar Windows interface.

The first beta release of the client is expected to be released in the second half of 2005.

10:25 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

The Feature is examining various display technologies that are currently on the market. Here is a summary:

LCD type I: a transmissive display, works by shining a fluorescent backlight through a sandwich of glass and liquid crystal material. Fine for use indoors, but when you step outside in the daytime, you have to take your sunglasses off to use them.

LCD type II: a reflective display, uses a frontlight. When the frontlight happens to be the sun, the resulting image is good. But in a low light condition, a reflective display has to use its built-in frontlight, and the quality is worse than a transmissive display.

LCD type III: a transflective display, uses a backlight -- just like a transmissive display -- but can also use bright outdoor light to improve readability. An increasing number of mobile phones are using transflective displays (TFT LCDs) because it offers a compromise between transmissive and reflective displays.

Bistable (aka e-paper): very low power-consumption and excellent legibility in both very bright and medium-light condition; alas very slow refresh rates. Examples: Boston's E-Ink, SiPix in Fremont, California, Dublin's Ntera, Nemoptic in France, ZBD in Worcester, and Kent Displays from Ohio

OLED: organic light-emitting diode, generates light when a current is applied. Better than LCDs on some counts -- such as lower power consumption and a faster refresh rate -- but they do an even worse job than LCDs in bright sunlight, because they don't crank out enough nits to do the job. OLED pigments tend to fade over time, giving them a shorter life than LCDs.

Others: iModD developed by Qualcomm uses iridescence to produce colors - in the the same way a butterfly's wings give off metallic looking hues. Uses reflected light, so it will work well in sunlight, and reduces power consumption.

09:13 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Sorry for the recent downtime (from 04:47:15 to 08:44:51 -0400) today. We had issues with our database server and are still investigating.

The MobileRead Team.

06:24 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Imagine that! A Windows Mobile PDA with a variety of "snap on" keyboards. A small one for minimal size, or a full querty keyboard, or even a pistol grip for scanning.

It's the CN30 from Intermec, and you can expect it on the market third quarter of this year. No price announced, but it has a VGA screen, speaker, mic, wifi, bluetooth, and is targeted to be a revolution in enterprise handhelds, so I wouldn't expect it to be in the typical consumer's budget. Nonetheless, it's good to see some creative design, and the modular concept may still have a place in consumer designs for the future.

Read more at Windows For Devices.

03:41 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Slashdot and the Sun-Sentenial are reporting that the AP is going to be charging for re-purposing it's news on the internet. That may reduce the number of sites that are posting AP news, and may lead to other restrictions on how you get your news. One of the question marks is the effect on news aggregators like Google News, Yahoo News, Ananova, etc. It's not clear what the consequences will be long-term, but for now it certainly is a test case that will help to determine the paradigms for the future.

Note that AP is still providing news, and you seem to still be able to get the RSS feeds free at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/...B&SECTION=HOME. Plus, the sites that do pay the licensing costs (already about 300 customers) will continue to be providing the news.

12:58 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PocketGamer reports that Russian game developers SMK Software have released a new beta of Pocket UFO. Available in English and Russian, the game is a remake of X-COM Enemy Unknown (Ufo Defense). Minimum requirements are: Pocket PC, ARM XScale > 150MHz, 8Mb storage and 4Mb program memory.

Click here for the download.

12:41 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Russ has tested Orb Streaming Media, a free streaming services for connected devices. Although I am not a fan of proprietary software - why do companies always have to do reinvent the wheel and make things incompatible - Russ is quite fond of Orb:

Cool stuff. Seeing this work in person definitely makes you think that IDC's numbers might be a bit off. I think at least half of the mobile users in the U.S. will be using this stuff for real in just a few years, 30m is too low.

Click here to read his full account.

11:54 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Sony has silently released an upgrade of LIBRIe LE for Windows 1.2, the companion software to the Librie e-book reader. The major news is that it now allows you to download BBeB-protected e-books not only from Timebook Town but also from other e-book webstores (that support BBeB).

[via eBookSpot]