03:27 PM by Skibum in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

GreenSoftware released an update to its superb open-source MP3 player GSPlayer.

Chancelog only in Japanese (anyone care to translate?); there is a standard and a "high quality" version available for download. Beside MP3 playback, the player also supports Ogg Vorbis, Wave, HTTP streaming, and Shoutcast.

[Edit: moved to the frontpage. Player is highly recommended by the MR team!]

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Just in case you've missed anything, here is the list of our frontpage news this week.

Announcements
Absence/surgery

Current E-Books Trends
PDA soft and e-book vending machine - soon to replace the kiosk next door?

E-Book Readers
PlayStation Portable - an e-book reader
Sony Librie EBR-1000E on sale - successor soon?

E-Book Webstores
eReader $5 discount on any e-book
Fictionwise 40% on all 2004 bestsellers

General Chat
Handango freebies - this week's
More Rojo invites for our members
Rojo invites for Mobileread members
Should big firms be allowed to censor news content?

Palm
palmOne's house of horror
Recommended: Tam Hanna's Palm OS Blog

Pocket PC
BetaPlayer 0.5 Stable released
Dell Axim X50v A02 ROM update
Pocket Mechanic contains malicious code!
Spb Clone - clone your Pocket PC
SynCE adds support of PPCs on *nix systems
TVGuide for PocketPC 0.6 released

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.41 released

07:25 PM by TadW in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

After reading this thread at Aximsite where users complain about hard resets invoked by Pocket Mechanic I thought to shed some light on Anton Tomov's crude ways of dealing with software pirates.

I understand that Tomov is upset about people using illegal codes for his software. But does this give him the right to forcefully wipe-out someone's PDA? Isn't that highly illegal as well?

That's right. Use a pirated or blacklisted serial with Pocket Mechanic, Pocket Mechanic will detect it, and send your PDA with all its lovely content to Nirvana land. I don't know what Tomov is thinking, but I can only recommend everyone do not buy any of his products. What if a bug sneaks into his code enabling his hardreset routine even if you are a legal buyer? Who is going to pay for your damages? Mr. Tomov, would that be you?

Technicals:
The hardreset routine Tomov uses looks like the following:

#include <windows.h>
#include <winioctl.h>
#define IOCTL_HAL_REBOOT CTL_CODE(FILE_DEVICE_HAL, 15, METHOD_BUFFERED, FILE_ANY_ACCESS)
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport)void SetCleanRebootFlag(void);
extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) BOOL KernelIoControl(
DWORD dwIoControlCode,
LPVOID lpInBuf,
DWORD nInBufSize,
LPVOID lpOutBuf,
DWORD nOutBufSize,
LPDWORD lpBytesReturned);

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
SetCleanRebootFlag();
KernelIoControl(IOCTL_HAL_REBOOT, NULL, 0, NULL, 0, NULL);

return 0;
}

Perhaps someone should write a small utility that traps calls to KernelIoControl when the IOCTL_HAL_REBOOT flag is set. I cannot understand why Microsoft makes it so easy for virus programmers and people like Tomov to hard reset someone's PDA.

04:36 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Dell has finally decided to release a system update for its Axim X50(v) PDAs. The 22-24MB big A02 English ROM image (X50v download, X50 download) includes various fixes and enhancements:

1. Improved SD and CF read performance.
2. Updated wireless button usage scenario to avoid enabling / disabling wireless accidentally.
3. Allow the WLAN auto power-off feature to be enabled and/or disabled in the WLAN utility.
4. Added feature in the power applet to change the color of the battery power bar to reflect the battery capacity.
5. Associated the .dbk files with the Data Backup program.
6. Improved GAPI performance.
7. Improved touch panel performance and sensitivity.
8. Enhanced the video driver to be more robust.

Don't we love it when companies actively support existing products? Two thumbs up, Dell!

11:33 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

I am happy to announce that we have -five- more invites to share with our dear MobileRead members. From the previous announcement:

What is Rojo? Corie Lok at MIT Technology Review describes Rojo as "the first company to combine RSS aggregation with social networking." Rojo is currently available by invitation only: "As of press time, a limited number of invited users were testing Rojo’s website, which was launched in October [last year]."

And now you can have your own invite from MobileRead. We have -five- invites to share with you.

The rules: You have to be a registered MobileRead member and actively participating in our discussions (by that we mean no new joiners who are eager to just grab the invite and disappear again). As always, we'd appreciate if you had something nice to say about us (suggestions are also welcomed!). Simply reply to this post. First-comes-first-serves!

11:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

As a special one-time promotion, eReader is offering $5 off your first e-book purchase using the code: NEWBIE.

[via PDA247]

09:19 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

So now it is Todd Bradley, CEO of palmOne, who is going to leave the company's executive house of horror.

Jun'04: Judy Bruner, former palmOne CFO, left palmOne to join SanDisk Corp.
Jan'05: Angel Mendez, still senior vice president and head of the company's Global Operations, is going to leave palmOne to join Cisco Systems.
Jan'05: Todd Bradley, still palmOne CEO, is going to leave palmOne in May-June '05.

What is going on inside palmOne? While they call it a Leadership Transition, the terms Leadership Leave-Taking seems more appropriate to me.

CEO Todd's leave will cost palmOne and its shareholders dearly, as The Street reveals:

palmOne will give Bradley a severance check for somewhere between $2.4 million and $2.8 million, according to a regulatory document filed on Thursday. Additionally, the company will accelerate the vesting of all of Bradley's restricted stock and an undisclosed portion of his outstanding options when he leaves the company on June 3. [...] Bradley's stock and options holdings could turn out to be another boon for him. As of July, he held some 403,688 options, of which some 215,052 had an average exercise price of $11.20 a share, according to regulatory filings. The company awarded him another 150,000 options in October, according to the filings, but did not disclose the exercise price of those shares. At the time of that grant, the company's stock was trading at about $30 a share. As of last month, Bradley held at least another 31,760 shares of restricted stock.

Just do the math.

06:19 AM by Alexander Turcic in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Here is a very cool development from Japan. Apparently refurbished devices of Sony's first-generation e-book reader, the Librie EBR-1000, are on sale. Now available for 29,800 JPY (~ USD 290.984) - not a bad price considering that Japan export dealers still ask for USD 439.00 (down from USD 489.00).

Could this mean Sony is silently phasing out the EBR-1000 before announcing its successor?

The EBR-1000 went on sale in Japan in April 2004, and never made it to oversea countries. It utilizes Philips' remarkable electronic ink (E Ink) technology offering a truly paper-like reading experience. Alas, two of its biggest obstacles are a slow screen refresh and the hideous DRM format - bought e-books would self-destruct after 60 days (later 'scythic' published a hack allowing you to convert your own e-book content).

We hope that Sony has learned from the past and will come up with a more sensible DRM policy for the successor model.

[news on sale via Akihabara News]