Special Offers from Audible!

Take advantage of this fantastic offer from Audible.com - they will give you $100 off the price of a brand new iPod or iPod Mini when you sign up to Audible for 1 year - Audible.com is great anyhow - you can listen to a wide range of audio books, periodicals, news clips etc. on your portable device (mp3 player or PDA) or on your PC or on a CD player by downloading using special Audible software - its a great deal!

Another great offer from Audible.com gives you a free Creative MuVo MP3 player when you sign up!

Downloadable Media

Well it's all getting very exciting in the Downloadable Video world.

CinemaNow is offering movies for download at $2.99 approx average per movie or unlimited access to premium movies for $9.99 per month ($49.95 per year) - and they are currently offering a 7 day free trial with no obligation!

The MovieFlix unlimited equivalent is only $6.95 per month (with the chance to win a DVD player), with some movies totally free!

Rumour has it that NetFlix is about to enter the fray! That should be interesting! Especially if they intend to replicate their "real world" service which allows members to rent as many DVDs as they like for $22 per month - presumably a web-based service would be far cheaper as it would not involve postage costs and fewer workers would be required to keep tabs on returns and late returns (the computer would automatically do that presumably). Interesting indeed..

The Clie is dead!

Sony has decided to exit the PDA market! Terrible news - leaving the Palm world to be taken over by the Microsoft Window Mobile operating system! Why doesnt anyone out there listen? The Microsoft PDAs are poor - the Palm OS is sooooo much better! Why are you guys out there still all buying Microsoft PDAs? Buy a Palm! Or a Treo Smartphone!

To find out more about PDAs click here

To find out more about Smartphones click here

Wifi On Vacation with Yahoo!

If you are going on vacation and want to be able to check email and surf the web from your hotel, check out the zip code of your hotel using Yahoo! Maps - it now shows you all wifi locations close to your zipcode location when it displays the map!

Listen to this article about Yahoo! Maps and Wifi or go to Yahoo! Maps to see it in action!

To find out more about Wireless access at Portatainment, click here!

Music Mania

It seems that music fanatics are not letting a little thing like copyright disputes prevent them from downloading music - the top six music sites were visited by 11 million distinct users in March 2004, and 58% of music downloaders said they did not care about copyright on music files that they download, according to comScore Meida Metrix and Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Meanwhile, a US House of Representatives subcomittee is discussing amendments to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) - the Digital Media Consumer Rights Act (DMCRA) is likely to allow consumers to circumvent copy protection controls on a DVD for personal reasons only (such as making backup copies), though movie moguls are even in opposition to that!

PDA Handyman

Please pay a visit to the PDA Handyman web site - it offers news, reviews and articles about all things PDA related.

Let us know what you think!

Confusion: When is a Phone a PDA?

Technologies are evolving so fast that it is getting more and more confusing to try to distinguish between a pda, a smartphone and a cellphone..

Today's news that HDD technology is coming to the cellphone (see Yahoo! is no big surprise.. it simply adds to the confusion about what we would call such cellphones. Would they still be called Smartphones? Or would they be called Smartphone PDAs? What is the difference anyway?

See our articles looking at the difference in Portable Entertainment terminology..

What is the Difference between a PDA Phone and a Smartphone

What is the Difference between a Palm and a PocketPC

Let us know what you think! Post your opinions below

Standardization Issues Affecting Portable Entertainment

There is a really interesting article on Yahoo! today about digital media.

Michael Fitzgerald bemoans the lack of standardization in the digital media world - with all the different competing formats making life increasingly difficult for the media nut to keep up with.

Funnily this seems to be a common theme across the internet, for while he covers music, video, sound formats, and even storage formats, Lucas Van Grinsven is discussing the issues surrounding the bewildering array of wireless standards, also on Yahoo!, in his article.

Watch out for our article on wireless standards, soon to be published on portatainment.com

Welcome!

This is the very first blog entry for the Portatainment site!

The Portatainment site officially goes live on Friday 11th June 04 so you still have time to get your comments, ideas, article submissions etc. to me!

Let me know what you like/hate about the site and what you think needs to be improved - PLEASE! The only way I can make it what you want it to be is if I know what you think!

You will find lots of reviews, articles, links and information on the site about MP3 players, PDAs, DVD players, Games Consoles etc.

You can contact me anytime on Yahoo! messenger (live if I am online), on Bold chat (live if I am online), or via email or phone.

Use the contact us page on the site or email me on mishj@yahoo.com!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Cool Dudette