PDA News - Fabric keyboards, Irrational drivers, Apple rumors

Company boasts fabric Bluetooth keyboard

If you just have to have something unique, and the Bluetooth laser projection keyboard simply isn't strange enough for you, you now have a new option: a touch-sensitive fabric Bluetooth keyboard. The device, from international outfit Eleksen, has 42 keys, runs on two AAA batteries (housed in the plastic compartment at the end), and is supposed to be capable of running for ten hours. It's also water-resistant, though I'm not sure you'd want to test it too severely.

http://www.eleksen.com/index.asp?page=products/wirelesskeyboard/keyboard_1.asp

HP releases WM5 drivers before WM5 upgrade

Somewhere on Planet Oddball, the HP execs are smiling. The company just posted a new driver for the iPaq hx4700 running Windows Mobile 5, so that the upgraded machines can use HP's attached keyboard. The problem? Well, HP has never actually gotten around to actually releasing the Windows Mobile 5 upgrade package for the hx4700, so with the possible exception of a handful of beta-testers, there ARE no upgraded machines for the driver to be used on.

Apple rumors, episode 7

It's that time of year again. Ladies and gentlemen, our annual Apple PDA/smartphone rumor, episode 7: Revenge of the ROKR. This time, the impetus for the mass speculation is a trademark that Apple filed for on the term "Mobile Me," including in the filings a possible reference to the idea of a phone which plays music. This has bred rumors that Apple is planning a smartphone device of some kind, despite the company's general lack of interest in that market, as well as their lack of an operating system for such a device.

Never mind the fact that Apple has a history of broad trademark filings. Never mind the fact that they file for trademarks on things they never end up using, like "Gigawire." (Which, insanely, immediately sparked rumors of a super-secret gigabit wireless technology.) Never mind that "Mobile Me" sounds more like a sync service or branding scheme than a product name. Craziest of all, Apple already has a partner producting a product similar to that described--the ROKR music phones. But hey, it's that time of year, and we need an Apple rumor.

http://brighthand.com/article/Apple_Smartphone_Rumors_Part_XX

Nebula Award nominees as free ebooks

Preliminary nominations are out for the Nebula Awards, the official honors of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Fictionwise has a number of the nominees available as ebooks, including two available for free: short story "The End of the World as We Know It," by Dale Bailey, and novella "The Tribes of Bela," by Albert E. Cowdrey. Regrettably, all titles require DRM-enabled reader applications.

http://www.fictionwise.com/nebula2006.htm

Sony ebook Reader pricing official

We now have official pricing data on the new Sony ebook machine, the Reader. The monochrome digitial ink device will retail for $350, as earlier reported.

http://www.bargainpda.com/price/default.asp?productID=1253&display=priceDetail