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

02:51 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Eric Knorr from Infoworld looks at what he thinks make 10 hot handhelds for the road warrior. Those handhelds are:

Hewlett-Packard iPaq h6315 Pocket PC
HP Compaq Tablet PC tc1100
palmOne Treo 650
palmOne Tungsten T5
Research In Motion BlackBerry 7100t
Research In Motion BlackBerry 7250
Siemens SX66 Pocket PC Phone
Sierra Wireless Voq Professional Phone
Sony Ericsson P910a
T-Mobile Sidekick II (Danger hiptop2)

Read the full article.

02:35 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Finnish phone maker Nokia scrapped plans for handsets to be powered by fuel cells, according to press reports Friday. The company originally had said it was expecting to bring fuel cell powered phones and accessories to the market within a year or two, but the technology is not "mature" enough, Nokia says.

Read the full story at BetaNews.

10:43 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Fictionwise is running a "Buy 1/Get 1 Free" sale on some of their most popular Sci-Fi authors this week, all as convenient Multiformat e-books. To take advantage of these offers, simply add the first mentioned to your cart, the second one will come along for the ride automatically! Authors included in the special: Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, Lois McMaster Bujold, Larry Niven, Nancy Kress, and James Patrick Kelly.

Thanks to the great guys at 1src for pointing us to this deal!

09:48 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

A British Wi-fi hotspot provider has announced that will begin offering free calls with Skype.

Yes, you read that right: Free. No need to pay. Zip.

Have a PPC with Skype and you're just dying to call your girlfriend in Chicago? (Gee, that sounds familiar...) Now you can just pop in to one of over 350 Broadreach Networks affiliated hotspots all over the UK and make that call.

Broadreach can be found in major brands like Virgin Megastores, Eurostar, Travelodge, Moto, Little Chef, Virgin Trains, EAT, Choice Hotels and Quality Inn as well as in major railway stations including all the London terminals. They're also working to bring Wi-fi service to all European train services.

Both companies win. The partnership will allow Skype users in the UK to extend their reach of more than 28 million global users (and growing daily). The new traffic brought in by Skype users will boost usage of Broadreach’s ReadytoSurf hotspots since users will be charged for access to data services like web browsing and email.

Broadreach is the first hotspot operator to have secured a deal of this sort with Skype and is the launch partner in the UK.

Of course you can also use your Wi-fi enabled laptop to use Skype service, but if you really want to do in a truly mobile way, your Pocket PC with Wi-fi can make it happen. (Said the Palm user, "Grrrr!")

Read more from their press release here.

03:59 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

From Teleread.org: Bookeen, maker of the Cybook, has opened up Ubibooks. The new e-book store is starting out with several thousand books with texts available in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian).

And here is my take why this e-book store is going to fail:
1. E-books are offered only in one format, Mobipocket, which is one of the most-restrictive (e-books only run on the device you bought it for) and unusable (incompatible with any other e-book software reader).
2. So-called "best 100 promotions" lure you into buying DRM-infested books that are publicly and freely available DRM-free at Gutenberg.

01:51 PM by rmeister0 in More E-Book Readers | Fictionwise eBookwise

I have written a 5,000 word review on the eBookWise eb-1150 e-book reader, including a discussion of personal content issues. I have also included some photographs to show the size of the book (compared to two other PDA type devices), and some screen shots in normal and large font display.

You can read the online review here.

Feel free to post comments, suggestions and corrections to this thread.