05:33 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Linux - just a buzz word, or is there more about this system which could, according to some market observers, become an established force in the mobile world?

From LinuxDevices we learn that a growing need for complex requirements for internetworking between packet-based and other kinds of voice and data networks will put embedded Linux on an increasing number of mobile devices in near future.

It's only been about two years since Linux started becoming a significant factor in mobile phones, an arena that has been dominated by Symbian, Microsoft, and proprietary operating systems. With the burgeoning complexity of mobile phones, feature phones, and smart phones -- plus increasing time-to-market pressures -- there's a clear movement toward off-the-shelf, third-party operating systems based on industry standards, and Linux figures to be a major beneficiary of that trend.

Some companies, such as OpenWave, expect Linux to be a "2006 product story." Recent developments, such as PalmSource's acquisition of China MobileSoft and the adoption of several of its software products certainly make us want to believe this. On the other hand, some analysts are more sceptical. Neil Strother, a senior analyst with InStat/MDR, thinks that while the cell phone market might hold great promise for Linux, the platform will not just walk in and take over. "It's a crowded field," Strother says of the smart phone market. "Linux could struggle just because it has some formidable foes against it. That's not to say it has no future."

Some related links:
Linux for Embedded Systems?
Linux in Embedded Systems - The Windows side of the story
Microsoft Now Leads in PDA, Embedded OS
Embedded Linux becoming 'disruptive force'

My question to all Mobileread readers: Do you believe embedded Linux will become a disruptive force in the mobile world within the next 12 months? Make sure to participate in the poll!

04:15 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Rumor has it that PalmOne will be bundling WiFi Cards with the Zire 72 and Tungsten T5 PDAs. That's about a $130 value, but more importantly it would demonstrate PalmOne is realizing the importance of WiFi capability.

The rumor has popped up on several sites already...
http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmad...ifi_sd_ca.html
http://www.brighthand.com/article/pa..._Wi-Fi_SD_Card
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000333033018/

02:26 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Recent rumors of new iPod devices to hit the market soon were confirmed by Apple today. Regarding the iPod mini, the company lowered the price on the 4Gb model and introduced a new 6Gb version. It also launched updated versions of its color-screen iPod photo device with new slim 30Gb and 60Gb models. The new models should be immediately available at Apple stores.

For a 4Gb iPod mini you will now pay $199 (before $249), while the 6Gb model will sell for $249. For the 30Gb and 60Gb iPod photos you have to shell out $349 and $449, respectively.

05:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

From Brighthand this morning: PalmSource is going to switch to SyncML, a widely used, open standard for information synchronization, according to a report in Computing. PalmSource didn't give a timetable for when the switch to SyncML is going to be made, but it's most likely going to happen with Palm OS for Linux, which isn't expected to be released for some time.

PalmSource is doing it right by embracing open standards. If you've ever had the chance to mess around with MS ActiveSync, you know what I mean: ActiveSync = slow, buggy, and incompatible on non-Windows systems.

12:28 AM by hacker in Miscellaneous | Lounge

During my walkabouts across the Web this week doing research for a client, I stumbled upon a tool called Awasu, that just happened to link to us..

I don't run Windows, so this isn't useful to me, but its list of features and plugin API look pretty impressive (hint to those here who write software for Windows.. take note, hint hint. You know who you are).

Awasu™ is a free Windows news-reader that runs in the background on your computer and monitors these sites for you. When it sees that something new has appeared, it will let you know. Awasu will also keep track of what you have already read which saves you even more time since you no longer need to search through your favorite sites for new stories.

Just imagine. No more surfing the web looking for interesting stuff to read. Instead, Awasu will watch what's happening around the globe and let you know about events almost as soon as they happen. No more trawling through pages full of ads or popups. Now you can get only the stuff you're interested in, delivered to your desktop.

You're not limited to just news services either. You can keep an eye on the current weather in New York, the latest sales data from your London office or which band is playing at your favorite club this weekend. You are limited only by your imagination!

Can anyone download this and give it a try and see how it works? I'd love to see a review here on it. Any takers?

11:38 PM by cbarnett in Archive | iSilo/X

The excellent iSilo and iSiloX have reached beta 2 stage, and are available for download now.

Highlights of the 4.25 release for iSilo include:
- Added color themes feature:
- Ability to create color themes with selectable text
and background colors.
- Added ability to use an individual color theme for each
document to force the text and background colors to those
of the color theme.
- Added Options/Color configuration page/panel and dialogs
for managing color themes.
- Addressing of miscellaneous issues.

A full list is available at http://www.iSilo.com/info/beta/changes.htm

iSiloX changes for 4.25 include:
- Added ability to specify a maximum link depth for off-site URLs.
- In iSiloX for Windows, added ability to specify the character
set when creating Font Silo fonts.
- Addressing of miscellaneous issues.

A full list of these changes are also available at http://www.iSiloX.com/info/beta/changes.htm

Craig.

05:28 PM by hacker in Archive | Mobile Sites

I've been playing around with lots of RSS, RDF, and Atom code lately in a stealth project (major annoucement soon, Alexander has already seen some of the project), and in testing, I came up with some interesting bits of Perl that I think others will find useful.

So in that vein, attached is a small perl script that will take a feed (specified by you) and convert it to a MemoDB record that you can read in MemoPad on your Palm device.

It works like this:

./rss-to-memo --name Plucker --feed http://www.plkr.org/rss.pl

It will either append or create anew, MemoDB.pdb, with the feed of your choice as a record in MemoPad.

It requires a few non-core Perl modules, so you'll have to install those. To do that, just use the following syntax:

perl -MCPAN -e 'install "Getopt::Long"'

The Palm-specific modules (Palm::PDB and Palm::Memo) can be found at the Coldsync homepage. I cooked this up quick, but I could also use the Perl bindings in pilot-link, but I decided not to, because it requires a bit more work to get the pilot-link Perl bindings installed on most systems.

Simple, and all in 33 lines of code!

12:05 PM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

According to a research study, I read at vnunet.com today, more than one in three UK mobile phone users worry that they would lose touch with friends and contacts if they lost their mobile phones:

Over half of mobile users do not have a separate address book, and one in five use their mobile as their only record of phone numbers, according to research commissioned by mobile network services company Intervoice. But the study also claims that over half of mobile users have either lost or had a phone stolen within the past three years, and a quarter have lost two or more phones in the same period.

We all know by now that Paris Hilton doesn't have to worry about losing her contacts; but what about yourself? Do you keep backups of your important contacts?

This is a poll, so please feel free to vote.