Details via Brian at MobileRead and Digital Camera Tracker. Related: Palm Teams With Microsoft for Smart Phone, from Rochelle in LISNews. Also see NYT story. ...

Just when will some philanthropist Get It? The Great Gatsby, perhaps the American novel of the 20th century, needs to be on the Net for U.S. students to read for free. Washington Bono-ized Gatsby out of the current public domain here in the States, but I still keep hoping that a public-spirited business type will understand the possibilities here. I'm talking about fair payment to the Fitzgerald heirs. Bill Gates owns several copies of the paper edition and has called Gatsby his favorite book. Maybe he can read Sheila O'Malley's birthday tribute to Fitzgerald and understand why for years...

Ellen Hage sent in a thoughtful list of features for the ideal K-12 device for e-books and other apps. Nope, it isn't the eBookWise-1150 pictured here. But I can see the eBookWise as a way to bring a wide variety of classics to a budget-starved school in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, from Eric Litwack, comes a 'tudy review of the 1150. "It cost me $107 new off eBay and I like it. It's like something out of my late-80s William Gibson phase... "The resolution is comically low although not as bad as some other devices, the backlight is beautiful,...

What's the best hardware for e-book reading and other apps for K-12? I myself like the idea of a tablet that could be carried in a knapsack and include a detachable keyboard, maybe the fold-up variety. I'm not the biggest fan of laptops, especially for kids. The ergonomics aren't always the best. The ideal distance between eye and screen may clash with the optimal distance from the keyboard. I also think that needs will vary by student and app. One size does not fit all, although an eight- or nine-inch screen might be a compromise. I'd also like to see...

OK, so Mike's joked about the Japanese going blind reading off the iPod nano. But might some brave Americans want to try this anyway? Reportedly the 1.5-inch diagonal screen "is extremely sharp at 176x132 and a dot pitch of 0.168mm. Colors are vibrant and text is sharp, giving a great impression of the Mac's Aqua theme." So can Apple's latest models use the iPod notes format? If so and if you own one, head on over to ManyBooks.net and you'll find a wealth of books there. Let me know what you think. And what's battery life like if you use...

"Today's cool thing is Podscope. Simply put, it's Google for audio. You type in a search term (I tried "slate"), and it searches the actual audio of thousands of podcasts, returning a list of results in which it thinks it heard those words. Then it offers to play for you the relevant sound snippets. " - Slate. Podscope site is here. Hey, it works--sort of. Living in Alexandria, VA, I searched for the name of my hometown. No such luck in the way I intended. I did run across an interesting interview, however, where Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive...

"The U.S. military may seek an end to soldiers' Web logs, the Internet communication tool Hamburg Township's Paige Gabel calls a 'lifeline' for allowing her and her daughters, Malia and Makena, to keep tabs on their husband and father, U.S. Army Maj. Jeff Gabel." - Livington County Daily in Michigan....

Details from the BBC, via Bill Christie. Find Alice and much more at the Turning the Pages site. TeleRead e-book reviewer Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, who's working on a book about Lewis Carroll, should be thrilled. Related: eBooks worm their way into the reference market, in eContent, via BobR at MobileRead. ...

Most people aren't sold on e-books yet, so I cheer when PDA makers come forth with low-cost models. They reduce the size of the gamble for book-oriented buyers. Via Mobile Review, here's an enticing news item about a forthcoming model from Palm: The Z22 is the first PDA with a colour screen and the price about 100 USD. First, it will cost approximately 130 USD, and later the price will fall to the level of 99. No rivals compete with the price... Mainly the device is targeted at middle-aged women (a young mother which holds not only a list of products...

Houston blogger Robert Nagle (aka idiotprogrammer) writes about the oncoming hurricane Rita. Thursday morning I was determined to avoid the inconveniences of Hurricane Rita by fleeing to San Antonio (and visiting friends & family in the process). As a city 60 miles from the coast, Houston won't be going underwater, but the eastern parts are prone to flooding, and the entire area experiences random wind damage and power outages lasting 2-3 days. Not fun. Residents will anxiously await the return of hot showers, air conditioning (temperatures in September here...

Says Mike Cane: "Can you believe it?! Japanese to read EBOOKS on that Nano screen?!" Details here. Quoted headline from Mike. Thoughts from Colin at MobileRead. Also in MobileRead: BobR's Podcasts are a waste of time. ...

Details here. "With PSP Hacks, you can accomplish a whole lot more than good gaming on the PSP. You'll quickly learn to surf the Web with a PSP, chat in IRC, and use the PSP to read web comics, ebooks, and RSS feeds. Other expert tips and tools allow you to sync an address book to your PSP, watch UMD movies, fool iTunes into thinking the PSP is an iPod Shuffle, and much more."...