11:28 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We know it sounds crazy and honestly don't know what to make out of this rumor, but supposedly Sony did not completely abandon the Clie series and is in fact planning to introduce a Clie with OS6 to the market this year. At least this is what some guy from Mexico claims to have heard from his Sony contacts. We would be very surprised if that was true since Sony had made it quite clear in the past that it would not be part of the PDA game anymore.

Perhaps it was misunderstood and Sony is in fact planning to release an OS6 device, though not based on a PDA but on the Vaio entertainment line?

Thanks to Sammy from PalmAddicts for the heads up and for making me post this in the middle of the night.

09:41 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

BetaPlayer, which many mobile video fans consider the best video player for Pocket PC (rightly so!), is available in a new version! You can download BetaPlayer 0.5b unstable from Picard's private test server. There is no official changelog, but never fear Mobileread is here to tell you what Picard has planned to implement until the final 0.51 release:

New features since 0.50 will include:
+compaq aero1500 support
+asf marker support (chapters)
+screen aspect ratio options
+audio/aacp content-type added
+Dutch translation by PiLotCoptEr
+matroska aac audio support
+nero mp4 chapter support
+HP Bluetooth Stereo Headphone button support

Bug fixes since 0.50 will include:
-more ati imageon options in settings
-modified intel xscale video driver
-mpeg4 b-frame bugfix
-rounding bugfix with h.263
-chapter hour bugfix
-mulaw audio format detection bugfix
-fixes for supporting grayscale devices
-asf comment reader fix
-wmv fix of width non multiply of four pixels
-aspect ratio bugfix with less rotation tearing
-dropped frame counter fix for hard frame dropping

06:53 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

PDA247 is reporting the following indication that a new eReader version may be coming soon for Pocket PC and PalmOS. This scoop is based on correspondence between someone named Tony, and eReader customer service.

If this is true, it seems the new versions would be following soon after the new version of eReader for Symbian just released. I'd expect the Pocket PC version to at least include that VGA support so long waited for.

From Tony- "I have been having a few problems with my ereader.com account and whilst sorting it out I took the opportunity to ask some questions. Like when a new version was due and if the features that those of us that have left Palm miss( like screen orientation).

These are the answers I got.

We are releasing a new version of ereader for the PocketPC that will hopefully be our best yet. Stay tuned to www.ereader.com for more details

I know that they have been hard in development for the newest version of ereader for some time, but I have no ETA for that release at this time."

I was told a week ago that a possible new version is being made for Palm OS as well- can this program get much better???

Very encouraging news because it was starting to feel a lot like development had been abandoned for Palm and Pocket PC!

08:32 PM by hacker in Miscellaneous | Lounge

In doing some research on mobile reading trends (ebook as well as news and static websites available for mobile devices), I've been noticing a few "camps" of devout readers.

I'm curious to see what kinds of mobile reading most readers are doing these days... so here's my poll to answer exactly that.

06:47 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

E-book software eReader 2.6.0 is finally available for Symbian smartphone devices. I grabbed this news from jkOnTheRun. As usual, there is a freeware version and a more enhanced Pro version available. According to eReader.com, the following Symbian devices are supported: Nokia 6260, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6670, Nokia 7610, Nokia 3600, Nokia 3620, Nokia 3650, Nokia 3660, Nokia 7650, Nokia N-Gage, Nokia N-Gage QD, Sony Ericsson P800, Sony Ericsson P900, and Sony Ericsson P910.

Now it is time for eReader.com to work on the established platforms again; it has been some time since the last PPC update, and eReader still doesn't work properly on WM2003 SE VGA devices ;(

05:26 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Sammy, THE guy for the best heads up, sent us the news that palmOne / Sprint PCS have released an update for for the Treo 650. The "Treo 650 Updater 1.08 (Sprint PCS branded version)" features various performance and reliability enhancements, such as:

• Overall voice quality improvements, including fix for voice "choppiness" some Sprint PCS customers experienced
• Internal setting modification to allow correct access to Sprint Affiliate roaming partner networks (previously released as Sprint PCS Treo 650 Roaming Patch)
• Non-Volatile File System improvements that optimize memory handling and free up more memory
• TTY (also known as TDD or Text Telephone) optimizations and improvements
• Optimizations for data calls
• Includes VersaMail 3.0c which provides greater stability and improvements
• Bluetooth Carkit drivers are now included in ROM (previously released as Carkit Update for Treo 650)

You can download the updater free from here.

03:38 PM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Jeremy Wagstaff's blog has a great entry with a list of programs that are designed to be run from USB flash drives. A valuable one (and one I think has been mentioned here before) is Portable Firefox. There are also IM programs (inc. a Trillian version), crypto, word processing, and even email. This is a great resource for students, travellers, and others who work from many different computers.

03:27 PM by Diesel eBooks in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Okay round two. We've made some tweaks on the Diesel eBooks mobile site based on feedback from the last test (thank you very much). Long story short, the site is limited to just palm/eReader titles for now. They're the only format we carry that has placed focus on this part of the technology. Through internal tests, we can navigate, browse, purchase and download through a handheld. "Everything" works, though, in an internal test. If you get a moment, please go to the site on your handheld, download the "test" palm/eReader ebook on the homepage and let me know what happens. When you get to the point where you're prompted to key in the "purchasers name" and "unlock code", the test is over and is successful. If the PDA version doesn't come up, please also let me know as you should automatically be taken to http://pda.diesel-ebooks.com/. When you’re there, you’ll notice in the footer at the bottom of the page some light colored text that lists several different browsers. Can you please include that and your handheld type in the feedback. You can either post your feedback here or email me directly at scott [at] diesel-ebooks [dot] com.

Thanks. We really appreciate your help.

Scott