09:35 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

We're asking for your thoughts on voice recognition software in a poll, but first a few thoughts.

November brings the release of ScanSoft's Version 8 of Dragon Naturally Speaking. eWeek writes that the program is greatly improved, especially in terms of accurracy which has improved by over 20%. One reseller of the software says "It really works; it's not an accuracy problem." (Of course, over the years I've heard that sort of comment a lot. Usually it means that a capability is almost there, but not quite yet!) But Chuck Runquist is the CEO of a software evaluation company, and he said "They did a super job in bringing it up to speed, in particular with the accuracy." So maybe there's something to it.

My own interest was due partly to the mention of support for Palm handhelds. It turns out that there is support for both Palm and Pocket PC, but the voice recognition and transcription only happens when you get back to your PC. Not quite enough processing power in your handheld for the full-blown program, but even integrated remote dictation starts to conjure up all kinds of new uses.

For example, imagine taking most of your notes verbally, and keeping them for future reference as text. Or, how about keeping your PDA in front of you during a meeting and catching all your comments for a sort of personal mini-minutes in text form. (I would say you could transcribe the meeting discussions, but I doubt the little mic on your PDA would be sufficient to catch any more than one person's words at best.)

And now things could get really exciting for tablet PCs also, where one would be able to do transcription on the fly!

Please give your opinion of voice recognition in the poll, and check out the full article at Voice software makes strides

05:58 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Xiino is a PalmOS-based online web browser with SSL and javascript support. Funny thing is I have never heard of this browser, so I cannot say how well it works. A 30-days evaluation version is available for download.

11:21 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmSource has released a simulator for its latest Palm OS Cobalt 6.1 operation system. The simulator allows software registered developers to test their programs without actually having a handheld running the new OS.

10:12 PM by cbarnett in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PPC Studios have released a new version (v1.02.13) of the classic Warlords II for Pocket PC. This was a great game on the PC, and is still a fantastic fantasy/strategy game on the PPC.

It's a free upgrade to those who are already customers (yay! ), and is currently on special, reduced from the normal price of $29.95US to $19.95US. A desktop version of the game is also included for free, and it includes many extra scenarios now, which were missing from the previous release.

If you like a good strategy game with some RPG elements, you can't go past this game.

Craig.

06:20 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Someone was nice enough to compile a short (and currently incomplete) reference in english for those struggling with the Japanese-only Sony Librie EBR-1000EP.

I made a PDF file of this reference and attached it for your convenience

12:07 PM by sUnShInE in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Giving the gift of iPod this upcoming holiday season? Better yet, receiving the gift of iPod?

Get ahold of iPodLounge's full-blown 42 page magazine in PDF. If you have even a mild interest in iPods or iPod accessories, you should totally check it out. Better yet: print it out and give it to your family with dog-eared pages.

I have to say that I was moderately skeptical when I opened the PDF, but now I'm whipping out my charge card!

10:12 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Mobile Sites

We bring you the following link which allows you to visit the latest 1src.com forum postings with your offline browser:

https://www.mobileread.com/avantgo/1src_mobile.html

Make sure link-depth is set to 1 in iSiloX.

Just as a reminder, you can also visit us with your offline browser at

https://www.mobileread.com/avantgo/mo...ad_mobile.html

08:47 AM by Colin Dunstan in More E-Book Readers | Legacy E-Book Devices

Quote from the LibrieWiki:
This Wiki serves as a platform to document the Librie's BBeB file format and other features of the device.

People who are interested in reverse-engineering the e-book format used by the Librie should have a close look at the explanation of the BBeB format. Very interesting!

This is a follow-up to our previous post on how the Sony Librie e-book format is being cracked.