06:56 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Seth Jayson of Motley Fool offers some wonderfully wicked words about Apple's latest two products. An excerpt: "Oh yeah, the famously opinionated CEO derided the need for a display and visual user interface on this model, saying that it would be too small to be useful. Need I point out the irony in that point of view? It comes from a guy who expects people to pony up $500 or $600 for the privilege of squinting at their photos on an iPod screen that's smaller than a credit card."

Very funny read and definitely recommended to every Apple stock holder!

07:51 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Msmobiles.com reviewed the latest incarnation of AvantGo and came to the conclusion that "contrary to common beliefs, AvantGo is a very effective way of browsing information in mobile device and it is possible to browse (not just synchronize) web page fully wirelessly."

While I don't share the very positive sentiment of the author -- I find AvantGo way too slow and restrictive for my every day use -- I am still grateful for the review which offers a lot of screenshots

01:03 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

iPod2PC is a small Windows tool that enables you to copy MP3 songs from your lovely iPod back to a PC's harddisk.

You can download a trial of the latest beta which is crippled by copying only ~50% of your checked songs.

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

Ok kids, time for the weekly roundup of what we've covered this week:

Announcements
Wanted: MR Editors

Avantgo
Just out: AvantGo 5.7 build 35!

Current E-Books Trends
Pain threshold on e-book prices
Readers turn towards e-books

E-Book Readers
FlatLrf: Web-to-Librie conversion tool

E-Book Webstores
Free at Fictionwise: SciFi novel "Time Ablaze"

General Chat
ClieSource (Clie) -> 1Src.com (Palm) -> All Tech!
Fitaly vs. Atomik - PDA text layouts compared
Handango forcing activation models upon developers!
Low Tech "Hipster" PDA (Humorous)
Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle; iLife '05, iWork
Sammy on why he prefers Palm OS to Windows Mobile
Time of evil: a brief history of mobile malware

Link Swap
Yahoo! Finance News through RSS feeds

Other Readers
Overview of CHM readers for Pocket PC

Palm
Handango freebie: Passwords Plus for PalmOS

Pocket PC
BetaPlayer 0.096 RC unstable released
Handango freebie: SlashPhoto for PocketPC
Illium NewsBreak RSS reader reviewed

Portable Audio/Video
iPod Shuffle - the iPod juggernaut will roll on

Smartphones
First Windows Mobile 2005 Smartphone from LG?
Wear a Pendant Cellphone
Worlds Fastest 3D Gamer Phone

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.40 released
Sunrise 0.40 scheduled for January 17th

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
A dream come true: 802.11g (54Mbps) WiFi for handhelds

09:30 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Msmobiles.com runs a story this morning that made me practically climbing up the wall: "Handango does not allow a trial software to contain a link to the developer's web site (e.g. for trial activation), and they want the trial version to only provide a link to handango.com for purchase of the full product. Links to the developer's website in the product activation dialog are now forbidden."

In other words, if developers do not want to offer a handangonized version of their trial software, they have to remove the download link of the trial from Handango. Now have a close look at the photo depicting the vice-president of Handango (thanks to Msmobiles for revealing his face). Is this person out of his mind when he asks developers to use an activation system for their software that can only be used by Handango?

Handango please tell us: are you ready to pay the thousands of dollars of damage claims in the potential case someone is cracking your standardized activation method?

03:50 PM by PaulJManoogian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The new pendant-sized phone from Pantech&Curitel is a mere 56 mm wide and 67 mm tall. The PH-K2500V can supposedly be worn around one's neck, just like a pendant!

It features TTS (Text To Speech) functionality, which converts a text message into voice messages for the receiver. When in "speak mode", it will read incoming text messages with it's own voice. It extends this functionality to the phone's menu, phonebook, and the unanswered calls list.

The PH-K2500V can play MP3's and lets you control the music from buttons on the outside of the phone, without opening the device. It also comes with a 1.3Mpix camera and an OCR (Optical Character Reader) function which can recognize text from JPEG files. It supports the recent business card scanning craze, going on these days. The information from the business card can then be saved as text.

Another feature of the phone is a 34,000 word (with definitions) electronic dictionary, with memo and highlight tools.

The phone is available in blue, red, or silver.

Picture courtesy of 3G UK
Source: [ Textually.org ]

03:36 PM by PaulJManoogian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Electronics and cellphone manufacturer LG Electronics has unveiled what they claim to be "the worlds fastest 3D game phone." Their latest 3D Game Phone is equipped with a 1M polygon graphic accelerating chip, running 5 times faster than its competitors; according to LG.

Other features of the phone include it being equipped with an acceleration sensor to enable users to control their games by moving the headset up and down. I suppose this is similar to Samsung's latest idea: they've designed some kind of dialing system where by the phone is swung around to make the numbers "in the air" and the ability to answer or hang-up the phone by just shaking it. Can you image how stupid this is going to look?

The game development company Nexon has currently developed some games for the device, and a greater number of games will be "offered soon."

Source: [ Telcoms Korea ]

10:06 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Sammy Mclouglin explains in a thought inspiring editorial at PalmAddicts today why he personally prefers to use a Palm powered device compared to a Windows Mobile device. His is a very personal writing, and I am convinced many of you will agree or disagree with him. I am somewhere in the middle: I believe Palm is indeed the better organizer OS; it is fast, doesn't use as much battery, and has the better and more advanced tools (Datebk5 is still my favorite). But in regard to playing games and using multimedia applications, well, the Pocket PC is far far superior. And reading e-books on a 640x480 display... yummy! Heh, that is just my personal opinion! You don't have to agree with me...