11:34 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The most distinctive feature of a PDA is its touch-sensitive screen. In contrast to many portable computers, a PDA (usually) does not not contain a traditional, large "QWERTY" keyboard (which would make it less portable). Instead, you use a stylus to tap on-screen for entering and accessing data. Although stylus handwriting recognition doesn't take long to learn, it has been one of the biggest issues many people have with PDAs. To overcome the limitations of stylus input and to remain fully portable, HP's engineers came up with a new - patented - idea: simply attach a "QWERTY" keyboard to your handheld!

The keyboard, which has a size and shape similar to the PDA, is divided into two separated sections, which are pivotally connected to the body and rotationally move between a closed and open positions. In a closed position, two keyboard sections are stacked on top of the body and can function as a protection cover. In the open position, they move together into a full alphanumeric keyboard which can then be used as an alternative to stylus input.

For a better illustration, have a look at the five attached images from HP:

Figure 1 depicts a perspective view of a PDA with the keyboard in an extended open position;
Figure 2 depicts a perspective view of a PDA with the keyboard in an open position;
Figure 3 depicts a top view of a PDA with the keyboard in a closed position;
Figure 4 depicts a bottom view of a PDA with the keyboard in a closed position;
Figure 5 decpits a side view of a PDA with the keyboard in a closed position.

08:46 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Diesel eBooks, one of the newer and most promising e-book stores, has a new feature which allows e-book newbies to download encrypted "test" e-books (available in Adobe Reader, Microsoft Reader and eReader format) before making a purchase. Excerpt from the press release:

L. Scott Redford, President of Diesel eBooks http://www.diesel-ebooks.com, states, "Downloading an encrypted ebook for the first time can be intimidating. While this fear has been a barrier to some in expanding their reading collection to ebooks, our hope is this free tool will take the fear out of the equation and create confidence in a smooth transaction."

Alexander Turcic, editor of the popular online community Mobileread https://www.mobileread.com, welcomes the new feature by Diesel eBooks: "In a perfect world, publishers would choose to distribute their best-sellers without DRM protection, and all customers would behave themselves and never pirate copyright-protected material. As long as we haven't reached this state yet, Diesel eBooks DRM simulator is a fast and effective alternative helping newbies to learn more about the advantageous use of digital books."

Scott is an active Mobileread visitor who listens closely to the comments and wishes of our other members.

07:57 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Sammy e-mailed us about the latest rumors of palmOne's T6 - or what could be known as the Tungsten 2005:

The unofficial announcement of the Palm developers is that the new (T6) will be called Tungsten 2005 and should have the following features:

I highlighted the most interesting features. So if this information is correct, we will have the new killer PDA by the end of next month! Damn, it really does look sweet!

06:53 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

According to ITBusiness, Computer Dealer News is reporting the following:

HP prepares to launch BlackBerry killer

3/15/2005 3:05:50 PM - HP will release a handheld later this year offering buyers push e-mail capabilities competitive with Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices, executives told the company's first Mobility Summit.

More info at http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?t...anner=Wireless

02:34 PM by doctorow in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Not sure when they launched this beta, but Google Personalized allows you to personalize results by creating a profile of your interests.

http://labs.google.com/personalized

Perhaps worth a try.

11:38 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This presentation by David Nagel is available as a webcast for all to see. Usually these things provide some hints of where the company is headed or most interested in pushing ahead. It's always interesting to hear a bit of what the CEO is thinking and how he chooses to say it.

Here's a portion of the press release..

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PalmSource Inc., provider of Palm OS(R), a leading operating system powering next generation phones and mobile devices, today announced that David Nagel, president and CEO of PalmSource, will present at the B. Riley Annual Investor Conference in Las Vegas, Nev. on Thursday, March 17 at 12:55 p.m. PST (3:55 p.m. EST).

A live Web cast and archive of the presentation will be available on PalmSource’s Web site in the investor relations section at http://www.palmsource.com/about/ir.cgi?action=events.

10:36 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Reading and Management

Free PPC-based Plucker document viewer Vade Mecum 0.6.3 has been released. This is mainly a bugfix release aiming to fix the problem of settings disappearing on restarts.

Vade Mecum (pronounced "VAY-dee MEE-cum", which is Latin for "go with me") is the first-ever Plucker document viewer for the Pocket PC. It is a complete redesign and rewrite of the original PalmOS version of the viewer, and includes many features that do not exist in the PalmOS version.

09:42 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Peter released a GUI for his BookListGen app, a booklist generator for the Sony Librie e-book reader.

The GUI is written in C#/GTK# and runs under the mono platform on Linux, as well as MS .NET on Windows. You can download V0.4 from here; the package contains the sources (GPL) as well as a Linux binary.