11:06 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Excellent article at the Teleread blog. David Rothman shares some of his exasperation at the Tower of DRM Babel in the ebook world, and tells us that there are no plans to port MS Reader to the smartphone platform.

(Via JKOnTheRun)

05:50 AM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Jeff makes many good points, effectively summarizing some of the discussions that have been happening here on the oft-foretold "death" of the PDA. However, he also carries over into some new territory. Overall a very insightful must read.

...while I object to the funeral dirge tone to some of the recent articles on the late, lamented PDA, I can't argue with the facts. The standalone PDA, the digital organizer that we all know and love, doesn't have much of a future.

The PDA is dead. Long live Palm OS.

03:46 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

If you sign in to Gmail using a browser that isn't fully supported, like the mobile Pocket Internet Explorer, you'll automatically be directed to a basic HTML version, which is compatible with almost any browser. You might notice that some features aren't available in the basic HTML version, including filter creation, settings, spell checker, keyboard shortcuts, and address auto-complete.

To celebrate this new Gmail feature, Mobileread has 150 more invites for you one - click away. Go here and browse to post #38 for the latest invites.

10:39 PM by Bob Russell in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

A new eBook reader, the SmartBook G168A , is available in Asia. It features an 800x480 7" display.
More at JKOnTheRun and Akihabara and Engadget.

10:29 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

For quite some time now we have been saddened by news of all these gadgets that are Europe only (e.g. all those cool smartphones), or Asia only (like Sony portables and Sharp Zaurus products).

Well, maybe we'll see more emphasis soon from Sony, at least. The new chairman and CEO of Sony is expected to be an American, Howard Stringer.

Check out the story at Engadget and the New York Times.

03:29 PM by Francesco in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Jeff Kirvin explains why Fitaly rocks (and how to master it):
Fitaly Virtual.

02:10 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Robert Scoble, a "Technical Evangelist" at Microsoft, has gained quite a following with his very interesting blog called Sobleizer where not only does he have some great discussion about bloggers, podcasting and other interesting tech topics, but he also has access to people in the know at Microsoft. That means he can provide the inside scoop at times when most bloggers can't.

Recently he posted a very nice entry about PDAs. The Dell x50v, in particular, but what he has to say applies to pretty much all modern PDAs. In a nutshell, he says that he was amazed at their value. He had been under the impression that his smart phone was all he needed, but learned that there's really a lot going for the PDA platform that gives it a lot of additional value, even over the portable media centers.

I thought that all I really need is my SmartPhone. After all, that plays audio, video, does text fairly well.

I assumed that for people who wanted to play more video, or that wanted a screen that they could actually see some detail in the video that a portable media center would be the ticket.

I'm now convinced I'm wrong. I'm convinced that the PocketPC form factor is the better way to go. Here's how Josh convinced me:

First, it has a VGA screen. 640x480. That doesn't sound impressive, but when you see this screen your eyes will pop out. Ken Levy showed me a Toshiba that also had a VGA screen. I didn't understand the benefits when Ken showed me his, though, cause Ken didn't show me video playing on his

Very interesting was his additional observation that not only can it do RSS and video, but that it is a great fit for the new videoblogging and podcasting trends.

Check out both this article and his blog in general.

The more he learns about PDAs, the more he'll get wowed! Hey, maybe he'll start evangelizing PDA technology heartily also!

06:01 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

E-Book Readers
eBookWise eb-1150 hands-on review
On the Future of Readers (just rambling)
Philips 'paper-like' display can be rolled up when not in use
Sharp prototypes color e-book reader

E-Book Webstores
Fictionwise's "Buy 1/Get 1 Free" special
Ubibooks - new multilingual e-book store

General Chat
Alex speaking from Flight LH 432 follow-up
Infoworld's 10 hot handhelds for the road warrior

Other Gadgets
The Next Killer PDA App?

Palm
Editorial: Palm Down, But Will Be Back!
Hurdles mount for palmOne
No Cobalt Treo; Sprint ROM upgrade in the works; and more
Palm Font Collector now freeware
Reuse your old Palm as an external LCD display
Zodiac photo shoot contest!

Pocket PC
Boatloads of Pocket PC Software for $429
Mini-Mozilla for PPC - download a sneak peak!!
Myst May Be Coming To PPC
UK Can Phone Free

Portable Audio/Video
Stream TV Remotely to Your PPC for Free

Smartphones
No fuel cell powered phones from Nokia yet

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
WiFi hotspot on German high-speed trains