09:29 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Have you ever wanted to explain to someone how to set up a PDA desktop companion program on their PC? A lot of portable devices and PDAs are used in conjunction with a multitude of desktop software titles. And we have all spent a lot of time trying to communicate how to set them up or use them via email or phone. But there's a better way.

It turns out there is an easy and free way to do this. Take a look at this PC Magazine article which describes how to use free Microsoft Windows Media Encoder software to create a video tutorial.

And please add your thoughts to this discussion if you have found alternative ways to do this, or have Mac/Linux solutions.

09:10 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PDAmill has just released Arvale: Journey of Illusion for Palm OS, an epic role playing game, with over 20 hours of gameplay, six continents with 280 maps to explore, 200 different monsters to fight against, and over a hundred different items, weapons, and magic spells to use.

A free trial version (limited to Level 10) is available from PDAmill Arvale and the full version costs $19.95.

08:28 AM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palmloyal is carrying an announcement that Texas Instruments (TI) will be showing two devices (presumably smartphones) running Cobalt on TI's OMAP processors. Encouraging news, but there is little mention of the devices themselves in the article. In fact, the only way that one would know they are smartphones is in the headline... They are supposed to be at a demo in France next week, so with luck we'll get some pics after that. [originally posted on PalmAddicts]

UPDATE: Brighthand is carrying a similar article dated two days earlier. Their article makes ita bit clearer to me that these are just reference designs and not actual saleable devices. A reference design is, I suppose, just a proof of concept model that is available for other companies to emulate? A bit less exciting, but at least there's a device out there running Cobalt...

02:15 AM by hacker in E-Book Formats | Workshop

As promised over here, I've taken some time to clean up and cannibalize part of a spider I use daily for Plucker, and modified it to allow you to run it and spider MapQuest to build yourself a World Atlas with images, country data, and lots of other bits.

The whole script is only 87 lines of actual code! (161 with comments and liberal spacing for readibility) I prefer writing clean, tight, well-commented code. My code is my business card, and this is no exception.

The script is written in Perl, my language of choice, but all modules used are either in core, or available via CPAN (perl -MCPAN -e 'install "Module::Name"'). It should be easy to run and figure out. I've commented it where required.

Unfortunately, I cannot redistribute the completed version of the maps in mobile format, because that would violate MapQuest's copyright and Terms of Use, but you can see how good it looks in the screenshots below.

The entire script is attached below. Just grab the script and run it in an empty directory. It will spider and fetch the 238-or-so separate pages from MapQuest's World Atlas pages, strip out the unnecessary HTML, Javascript, stylesheets, and other non-visible bits, and write each country to its own file. All of the external links to country data is rewritten to reference the local copies. The only pieces fetched remotely are the images themselves.

When the spidering is complete, it outputs a top-level index file for you to point your mobile creation tool towards, so you can then spider the content yourself, and convert it to the format of your choice.

Hopefully many users will find this useful. Enjoy!

02:12 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

One of the greatest technological limitations that hinders the adoption and growth of mobile devices is the slow improvements of battery and power technologies. Battery weight and size is a large part of mobile device weight and size. With ever increasing power needs, the batteries are increasingly the weak link in the devices.

Quite a bit of research has been done in this area, and fuel cells are a very promising technology. Now combined with nanotechnology, it seems we may finally be on the verge of a breakthrough that would affect almost every facet of life.

The Washington Times is reporting that

Developments are under way that could wipe batteries off the face of the Earth. Researchers at the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), a consortium of Oregon educational institutions, say they have made significant breakthroughs in a power source that essentially turns 20 pounds of batteries into 8 ounces of fuel the size of a cigarette lighter.

In the next 3-5 years, a working prototype is expected. It will be a fuel cell that is part of a portable air conditioner for soldiers which should be the size of a paperback book, and weight less than 4lbs!

The full article is available at Teeny, Tiny Tech but requires a free registration.

09:35 PM by PaulJManoogian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

i-mate has made some in-roads with Skype, and have announced the first wireless mobile handsets which will be preloaded with the ever-popular Skype internet phone software. The PDA2K (pictured) from i-mate, along with with the PDA2 handsets will be released with Skype ready to run on the start-up of the device.

Both models boast the dual-mode GSM/GPRS standards and are equipped with wireless LAN functionality. Skype software will also be included on the new i-mate JAMs, as well. All of the i-models are based on the Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition platform.

With the growing market of Voice over IP, industries and individuals are looking for better call pricing. This is where i-mate customers have a choice - they can make calls over the internet, or through their standard service providers.

i-mate is said to be hosting a press and industry briefing on February 14th (Valentines Day) during the 3GSM World Congress about their new agreement with Skype.

i-mate's global headquarters are in Dubai, with offices in Australia, and a recent expansion into the UK and Italy, and with plans underway for the US i-mate launch.

Via [ GeekZone ]

05:11 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

There is an excellent article by Lance Wehrung at 1src which is all about converting a DVD to be viewed on a Palm or Pocket PC. I haven't tried it myself, but it provides step-by-step screenshots of the entire process with lots of supplementary information.

The article appears to be in response to the following question

Lance: I have been in search of the simplest and easiest way to take a DVD and make a video that is viewable on a portable device, such as a Palm OS5 device or a Pocket PC device. So far in my search, I have come across a very simple way to take a DVD and make a video that is viewable on a handheld that only requires approximately 242 MB.

All the required software is indicated and is freeware except for the MMPlayer that you can get for $14.95 for Palm. Of course the freeware authors would appreciate your support if you decide to use the software.

My current approach is to use the commercial product DVD Studio, which has a version for both Palm and PPC, and when you register you get licenses for both versions. But I've had some problems with gaps in the audio track, so I'm working with the support team to resolve. It's a great program if I can get things to work as advertised.

Give us your thoughts about any method you use to watch DVDs on your PDA.

10:48 AM by ignatz in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Engadget has an article by Ross Rubin dissecting the "ailing PDA market". In some ways it's more of the same that we've seen before, but it's still worth reading. A worthwhile snip:

The PDA paradox is that, ignoring cell phones for a moment, consumers should be more willing to gravitate toward a multifunction portable device than a dedicated one due to the space constraints of mobility. But since the introduction of the original PDA, there’s been a mini-explosion of portable devices free from carrier oversight. But for a hard drive, PalmOne could have developed the iPod or Portable Media Center. Instead, we see companies such as Archos taking portable video players and co-opting PIM functionality. ... Perhaps, beyond the PIM features, PDAs have simply suffered from the jack-of-all-trades problem.

I'm not sure how I feel about what he's saying. I don't think that PDAs are really "dying" so much as transitioning. With the flourishing of new portable tech it's inevitable that there will be a rise and fall of devices. I do think that we may be closing in on a saturation point with the current crop of portables. I also think that the market forces are much too harsh for some very useful devices. (Not every portable device can be an ipod.) But where will we be in 2-3 years? 5-7 years?? Put a 20 gig hard drive in my Palm and make it open like a book and let me make phone calls on wifi and cell networks. I don't think that there will be a "jack-of-all-trades problem" then. In fact, in the end, once the tech matures, I hope that there will be a jack-of-all-trades solution!

I think that all the predictions of the "death of PDAs" are completely overblown. These devices are much to useful to disappear, even with the threats from media players and smartphones.