06:51 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This is great news for all WiFi warriors among us! Wireless-expert SyChip today announced its WLAN 6100EWB Embedded Module providing IEEE 802.11g connectivity for handheld mobile devices including smart phones, feature phones, PDAs, gaming devices and media players.

According to SyChip, the WLAN 6100EB Embedded Module supports various operation systems, including Nucleus, REX, Palm, Linux, and Windows Mobile. It is optimized for handhelds through advanced power save functions (with an ultra low power sleep mode), security features (in compliance with IEEE 802.11i), and Quality of Service (QoS) traffic prioritization features critical for VoIP and multimedia applications. Its small form factor-the module takes up an area of 90 square millimeters and a height of only 0.9 mm, making it one of the smallest, complete WiFi solutions available today.

Now can anyone tell us how long it takes to integrate this kind of chip and to deliver it to the PDA retail market?

06:22 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Handango is being more generous this week by offering Passwords Plus by DataViz for free. Passwords Plus allows you to store your PINs, usernames, credit card numbers, web logins and more securely on your PalmOS device. Use Passwords Plus on your PC , Mac, Palm OS or Pocket PC handheld and don't let your secure personal information fall into the wrong hands.

Note that this free PalmOS offer also includes the desktop component (a USD $29.99 value).

06:14 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This week's Handango freebie is SplashPhoto for Pocket PC. SlashPhoto offers is a smple, fast, high quality image viewer, with and includes a desktop catalog system for further image editing. BargainPDA has reviewed Slashphoto.

While not my favorite (I prefer Resco Photo Viewer), you surely cannot beat FREE! (with a USD $29.95 value).

05:58 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Does this mark the upcoming end of the Palm platform? The folks at 1src.com decided to move away from being a Palm-dedicated forum to a "all-tech" place for basically everything tech-related such as Audio/Video, Cellphones, Digital Cameras, Gaming, Gadgets & Gizmos, Non-Palm OS PDAs, PCs/Laptops, Tech Web.

Good luck guys! I hope you are not trying to cover too much ground.

05:46 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

FlatLrf is a free Java application which allows you to recursively download Internet webpages to your Sony Librie e-book reader. Very nice!

At one time the Sony Librie e-book reader only allowed you to read a limited choice of commercial e-books available only to the Japanese market. Then in November txt2lrf came out, the first hack attempt by 'scythic' to convert your own text files to the Librie's LRF format. It was followed by MakeLFR and finally Sony's own official add-on tools allowing you to save your own reading material to the Librie.

FlatLrf is yet another valuable tool that should have been released by Sony the very first day it put the Librie on the market!

10:50 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Ever feel like paper and pencil is better than screen and stylus, but that it doesn't live up to geek status? Well, now you can get the best of both worlds with the Hipster PDA. It's simply a stack of low-tech index cards, but just for fun the author discusses settings and preferences, David Allen's Getting Things Done and gives tips on how to organize your Hipster PDA.

Technology is amazing, but good 'ole paper is pretty amazing too!

[Edit: See also this article from the USC Faculty Forum Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device; trade-name: "BOOK" ]

07:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Welcome to another digest entry of MobileRead, where we transform the profound into the bite-sized.

Announcements
New Mobileread RSS feeds - Pick and mix!

E-Book Webstores
20% discount for books from 'Diesel eBooks'
Fictionwise Free Nebula Nominees

General Chat
6 more Gmail invites
Bill Gates -- Supports Strong Intellectual Rights Laws
Engadget Awards 2004 Winners
Gadgets are no longer just for geeks...
Praise for PalmAddicts
WM2005 better but not enough? - and other predictions

iSilo/X
iSilo/X V4.2 released

New Links
PdaMobileWeb - mobile web index

Other E-Book Resources
Metacritic Books reviews
Read e-books through RSS feeds

Other Gadgets
Another Pocketable Screen Projector
Benchmark test of new 2GB SD cards
Hi-Speed Internet For Your Car
Hitachi's "Mikey" and "Slim" miniature drives
Sony introduces Memory Stick Pro with 4GB

Pocket PC
Egress V2.01 RSS-client for PPC released
IM+ Instant Messenger for free at Handango
Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 released
New BetaPlayer 0.095d test build available
Solitaire for Pocket PC
Windows Mobile 2005 aka Magneto insider news

Portable Audio/Video
Archos PMA400 video player debuts at CES'05
iPod Flash player days away

Smartphones
BenQ's "Treo-Killer" P50 will appear this spring
Mobile phones with Toshiba harddrives?
PDA and Phone Convergence - Consumers don't really want it
Pocket PC and Smartphones Will Merge

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.40-pre4 released
Sunrise 0.40-pre7 released - more bugfixes

11:45 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We're always on the lookout for better ways to read on the go. Current pocket devices are much better for reading than you might think, but the idea of a full-sized page on the go from a pocket device is pretty exciting.

The latest news about portable display technology comes from the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology in Germany, where they have developed a tiny projector capable of 320 by 240 resolution. It uses a tiny micromirror with springs to draw the picture pixel by pixel. Very fast, of course. The technology will be limited to monochrome display until color lasers become cheap.

See also a previous example of this kind of technology from a US lab... Video Projection with PDAs!

(via www.gizmo.com.au)