05:43 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

The New York Post is reporting that the electronic form of the Wall Street Journal has "profit margins at least 20-fold higher than print". The publication is losing some customers, but many are moving to the less expensive online version, which is a big part of its future.

While I doubt that total profit figures of the online version are anywhere close to the overall print numbers, it is unlikely that the profit margins will be ignored.

After so many years, we finally see multiplying signs that the ebook industry is about to explode. It's about time!

(via Slashdot)

08:01 AM by hacker in E-Book General | News

In a sudden sharp turn of direction for Amazon, they appear to be moving strong in the direction of the Copyright EBook market, head-on. They've recently purchased Booksurge, an on-demand book printing company, and also purchased... are you sitting down... Mobipocket! (details here).

This could be good news for the EBook market, as well as developers of EBooks and EBook software and readers, whether supporting Copyrighted EBooks or otherwise.

Definately interesting times ahead!

04:41 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We are almost stifling a yawn this time around, but yet more rumors have turned up of the forthcoming palmOne flagship device. We want the damn thing to finally come out! Anyways, according to Brighthand, there won't be a palmOne LifeDrive. Instead, the correct name is now rumored to be palmOne Tungsten X. Is palmOne perhaps suffering from schizophrenia?

04:19 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

In a press release Korean-based Neolux announced today that Microsoft will use its Ink-In-Motion motion-based POP displays to promote future XBOX games. Developed by E Ink and featuring E Ink's proprietary electronic ink technology, Ink-In-Motion incorporates the display features most requested by marketers: clear, crisp, custom fonts and graphics; a thin, flexible form factor; and long battery life.

Bioware's Jade Empire, hitting stores this week, will be the first XBOX game promoted with Ink-In-Motion.

02:47 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Here is a little tool that I've been waiting for ever since I've had my Pocket PC: a replacement for wceload.exe, the built-in manager to install .CAB files on your Pocket PC. CabInstl by SK allows you to choose the directory where you want to install a program without being forced to use the path that the developer of the software has chosen.

What is this good for, you ask? To install a program on a memory card, for example, an impossible thing to do if you try installing the .CAB file with the built-in manager.

V1.03 adds some UI changes, and allows you to create new folders before the installation starts.

Click here for download. It's freeware!

11:48 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's natural to become sentimental when the future is uncertain. That's no less true for those with an interest in PDAs. So in honor of this time of transition, why not take a glimpse of Palm history by checking out this "official" article at http://www.palmone.com/us/products/palmpilot/.

Or, even better, read the book "Piloting Palm" by Jeff Hawkins. You can see a nice review by Mike Cane at Palminfocenter. It's also available as an e-book from eReader.com, and they are hosting an excerpt.

But we're interested in more than just the history! Most of us want to understand the future. PalmOne and PalmSource are at this very time, in a season of transition that may be greater than anything yet seen. We've reached a crisis point.

There's a word for crisis in the Chinese language that is made up of a combination of two symbols. One means "danger" and the other means "opportunity". That's exactly what we're seeing with Palm right now. Everyone can see the danger, but do we give as much attention to the opportunity? Much of the vision is surely held quietly and secretly by the leadership at PalmOne and PalmSource, but there is also a lot of publicly available information and speculation that is worth a look.

For example, PalmOne has now charted a course towards smartphones as a large part of their business. And according to rumor, they have more up their sleeves than just putting phones and PDAs together. They are moving towards the LifeDrive concept with persistent 4gig storage and the hope of even better things to come. That rumor is backed up by the reality of the new memory architecture of both the T5 and Treo 650. It may just open the door for future devices with very large amounts of storage that could revolutionize the devices, and their use. Imagine carrying around your video and audio collections, your library, and all your relevant photos and documents in a book or wallet-sized form factor without having to be a geek to manage it all.

Add wireless communication, bright clear e-paper displays, and new generations of applications and you may have a revolution on your hands that can put a PDA-like computing device back in vogue. Specialty devices may be the ones relegated to niche markets rather than the PDA! In fact, due to the simplicity of interface, you might even find the PDA eventually doing tablet PC better than a tablet PC can! This could certainly cause them to gain much more widespread appeal for the general public and bring a revival to the market.

PalmSource has come out with the Cobalt OS ("Palm OS6"), which has been ready for manufacturers for quite a while. Yet despite new versions being released, we have not seen it in the marketplace on a device. There are rumors of incompatibility and performance issues, as well as the expected bugs that come with any large new software venture. And there are even mumorings from devoted Palm fans that maybe it's never going to see the light of day.

But there is also great hope, because PalmSource also has dropped clues of its new direction. A PalmOS Cobalt with a Linux core which promises more compatibility and community support as well as more business acceptance. It won't look like Linux. It will still run just like Cobalt. But Linux supporters and coders are surely salivating at the possibilities of full-fledged Linux running along side PalmOS. And they have acquired a company that makes smartphones based on Linux, which gets them Linux expertise and a fast tie to the smartphone technology and market. Revenues are down, so maybe they'll just sell their own smartphone software in China and kickstart the market.

This must be coming from a blind Palm fanatic, you say. Well, yes I like Palm and want them to succeed. But I'm more of a mobile computing fanatic than a Palm fanatic. I appreciate them and may jump back on board one day, but Microsoft PPC has won my heart for now.

This Palm transition period is turning out to be hard not just for Palm, but for us consumers who keep hoping the next PalmOS killer devices are just around the corner. We've been waiting a long time! All the while, PPC devices are getting better and better. Windows Mobile devices keep me happy and have a bright future. But don't count out Palm.. they may still yet turn this crisis into a wonderful future!

06:28 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The Register is reporting this morning that in the face of strong protest from GSM operators and handset manufacturers, the MPEG Licensing Authority (LA) have slashed their proposed rates for the mobile anti-piracy system OMA DRM 1.0.

The companies, including Sony Corp and Philips Electronics, said they would cut the proposed tariffs for anti-piracy technology by one third to $0.65 per mobile phone or other electronic gadget.

Unfortunately for the customer the DRM implementation means forking out for a mandatory feature that actually makes the customer worse off, for example the DRM measure will likely limit the customer's ability to transfer music from a phone to their PC let alone to CD or other portable devices. Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM!

05:59 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Microsoft Watch scored a scoop that Microsoft was working on a prototype of a new device - described by their sources at Microsoft Redmond campus as a type of hybrid Tablet PC/e-Book reader. The mini-Tablet, allegedly one of Bill Gates' pet projects, measures about 6x8 inches and features a digitizer like a regular PDA. During an interview this February Gates was directly referring to this project:

"I am meeting with our tablet people about the idea of carrying text books around. They'll have just a tablet device that they can call up the material on. That's been a dream for a long time, we're making progress there. So review of the software projects and encouraging them in terms of what they are doing well and telling them who else they need to work with."