11:25 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Seiko has developed a wristwatch using E Ink's electrophoretic paper technology and presented a prototype at the BASELWORLD 2005 exhibit in Switzerland. The watch, which not only displays the current time but also a constantly-altering mosaic pattern, is supposed to be launched in Japan within FY2005.

I cannot believe they are putting this wonderful technology into a watch. While we are still waiting for a decent e-book hardware reader, these people are only thinking of watches. Grrrrr.

[via Gizmodo]

11:15 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Sanyo and IBM Japan presented a hybrid battery system that uses Methanol to power an IBM Thinkpad notebook. The system, which looks almost like an IBM docking station, weighs 2.2kg without the fuel cartridge; one cartridge lasts long enough for approx. 8 hours of heavy-duty work on the computer. Click here for a streaming video of the presentation.

[via Akihabaranews]

05:18 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

T-Mobile Sidekick II fanatics among us should head to Steven Frank's latest observations and read why the palmOne Treo 650 is more fun to use than the Sidekick.

So, as with any comparison of two phones, there are pros and cons. In this case, for me, so far, the pros seem to be far outweighing the cons. I am quite happy with my Treo after the first week, and I don't see myself returning it before Cingular's trial period expires. I feel almost sad (but not too sad) about leaving my Sidekick behind. I hope T-Mobile and Danger get their acts together, because it has so much unrealized potential. It's also important to note the price difference between the two phones -- about $250 for the Sidekick (with activation) vs about $450 for the Treo (with activation). So, I suppose you do get what you pay for.

04:43 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Brighthand's Ed Hardy is running the story this morning that despite all recent rumors, palmOne is not planning to release a palmOne Zire 73 device. But fear not, according to Ed, palmOne has something much better up its sleeve:

palmOne's next consumer-oriented handheld is going to be the LifeDrive, a model that bears almost no resemblance to its predecessors. This device will get really serious about multimedia. It will include a large screen, a 4 GB microdrive, and multiple kinds of wireless networking. The Zire 72 can play audio and video that has been converted on a PC and them moved onto the device. Please forgive me for using a cliche, but that's so 1990s. The LifeDrive will be able to play audio and video streamed directly from a web site, without users having to go to the hassle of converting it to a new format.

You can read more about his LifeDrive praise here. With all the joy let's not forget that Pocket PCs have been able to play native audio and video files for quite some time - even streamed from the Web or a shared network drive.

04:43 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Police are using IPAQ Pocket PCs to write speeding tickets in Richland Hills, TX. The unfortunate motorist signs on the touch screen, and the ticket is printed in a separate small printer. Turns out that it saves 10 mins on each stop over the old method.

Read all about it at the Star-Telegram article, where they say "Within minutes, drivers are on their way and officers are back on patrol."

Just what we need... more time to hand out more tickets for everyone. I hope I'm not using one of those things myself anytime soon!

02:20 PM by maceyr in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There's a new free Media Player (currently in beta) that can play videos that seems to rival that of MMPlayer. The Core Pocket Media Player, or short TCPMP, is developed by the same programmer who created PPC's Betaplayer and so far, it's got great responses.

You can download the first pre-alpha (!) version of TCPMP from here.

[via Brighthand]

10:59 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmAddicts is beyond doubt the best Palm-centered blog on the whole planet, keeping its 25k+ daily visitors busy with bustling minute-by-minute updates.

If you are interested in knowing how PalmAddicts works behind the scenes and how Sammy is managing 300-500 e-mails per day, make sure to read his recently published Q&A sheet. It comes without saying that I am very delighted to hear that MobileRead is among Sam's favorite websites!

09:04 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Did you know that 20 years ago it was Motorola who introduced the world's first available mobile phone? On 6 March, 1983 the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X phone became the first commercial portable cellular telephone; the company had invested fifteen years of research and $100 million in the advancement of cellular technology. The "brick", as it was also called, weighed 28-ounces, had an LED display, memory to store thirty "dialing locations," and enough battery life for 30 minutes of talk time and eight hours of standby. Retail price - a mere trifle: $3,995.

ABC News (via AP) has a write-up on its lead designer, the now 74 years old Rudy Krolopp.

"Marty [former general manager for the systems division at Motorola] called me to his office one day in December 1972 and said, 'We've got to build a portable cell phone,'" Krolopp recalled. "And I said 'What the hell's a portable cell phone?'"

Even 30 years later, this is an intesting question. What exactly is a cell phone to you? Simply a type of wireless communication device? How does it differ from a WiFi-enabled PDA? We all know that PDAs are not just for list making, but also for sending email, getting stock quotes or checking baseball scores, and even for wireless communication. Do you consider the BlackBerry and the Treo cell phones?