PDA brings digital future within grasp

By Endy M. Bayuni

JAKARTA (JP): At the recent Comdex, the annual trade show where state-of-the-art computers and the future are presented, Bill Gates proudly unveiled a prototype of Microsoft's TabletPC, a full-fledged PC pad-like device which allows you to write and read with ease because of its portability.

The message that Gates sent out in Las Vegas was that once this product comes on the market, which it is expected to in about two years time, it will revolutionize the way people read and write.

A desktop PC or a laptop PC has done that to some extent, but because they are not portable, most people still prefer to read daily newspapers, magazines and books the way they have for over 100 years: On printed paper.

Microsoft's TabletPC will soon change all that.

But for the few thousand people in the world who are making full use of their personal digital assistants, or PDAs, the future that Gates envisions is already here with us. The portability of PDAs has virtually put the future of the digital world within our grasp.

Thanks to PDAs, some of us are reading our favorite periodicals and books digitally on a far regular basis through the comfort of a machine which is tiny enough to fit in a shirt pocket, but not too small to discomfort the eyes when reading.

PDAs, at times referred to as Palms (the name exclusively used for the world's leading PDA brand), and at other times as handhelds or pocket PCs, are quietly revolutionizing the way we obtain our daily intake of information, digitally and without paper.

Microsoft TabletPC, when it becomes available, will only make the format slightly bigger and a little bit more reader-friendly than PDAs. The Tablet may also offer a few more gadgets than what we have in our PDAs, but the essence will be the same: A shift away from printed to digital data.

When the Internet became a fad about 10 years ago, allowing data to be transmitted digitally, many people predicted that the demise of newspapers, magazines and books was just around the corner. They were proven wrong because the digital data could only be accessed if you sat all day in front of your desktop PC.

Now, with the portability of PDAs, and in two years time Microsoft's TabletPC, speculation about the demise of printed publications will no doubt become in vogue again. This time, it will probably be harder to dismiss the speculation.

Thanks to PDAs and soon to TabletPC, computers will be the way everyone obtains their reading material, or certainly most of it.

The wonderful thing about reading digitally is that there is a plentiful supply of material available to download, for free, through the Internet. There are more than 1,000 websites of major periodicals which offer information for free in a format adjusted to PDAs. And there are dozens of websites offering ebooks either for free in the case of classics, or for a lot less than you would pay for newer printed books.

Currently, my collection of reading material which I regularly download on my PDA includes the BBC News and Fox News, parts of The New York Times (including its famous book review and front page sections), lead articles from The Economist weekly, the daily political columns of The Washington Post, and the daily postings of Business Week and Forbes. The Wall Street Journal also offers its brief business stories from around the world and one opinion piece and one leisure piece every day, and, as a bonus, an article from Barron's Online.

For my personal amusement, I also download the Joke a Day package, which includes two jokes every day (one mature joke and one G/PG joke). The package includes "Babe a Day" and "Hunk a Day", so whatever your sexual preference, you have no choice but to take both. For good measure, I also obtain regularly updated articles from RollingStones.com.

And as I write this article, my PDA's library has no less than 10 titles, again all obtained for free. The books I'm currently reading include classical titles, such as Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest and Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom.

PDAs have been leading the changes in our reading habits with little fanfare. But for some unexplained reason, the feature that allows you to read your periodicals (dailies, magazines and news websites) or your favorite books digitally has been the least touted, and probably underestimated feature of PDAs.

Typically, the makers tout this as one of the minor, standard features of their products. This is probably because every PDA brand available on the market offers the same features to read periodicals and books, or at least allows you to download this feature with ease. Instead, the makers are highlighting the technical advantages of their wonderful little machines.

Words like interconnectivity, wireless applications and other technical features may lure the tech-savvy, but they can be intimidating to tech-phobies. If only PDA makers were to emphasize more on what these features can mean to users, and less on the technical jargon, more and more people would probably be convinced that a PDA is something they would sooner or later have to have, for their comfort and convenience.

For me personally, as a reporter, writer and avid reader, my iPAQ H3630 pocket PC has become very much a part of my life, something I never want to be caught without at any time. My PDA, one of the pocket PC models churned out by Compaq this year, has plenty of features which have changed my life for the better since I bought the machine two months ago.

I have to admit that my life, both at work and at home, is now far better organized because of the organizer features on the PDA. There is no longer any excuse for missing, or for forgetting an appointment, since my loyal assistant is constantly with me to remind me of my next meeting in a timely fashion.

Palm, which first introduced the PDA, developed the pocket PC around the concept of a digital organizer, the little basic computing machine popular in the early 1990s.

A diary, a list of appointments and tasks and an address/phone/e-mail book are now standard features on a PDA. But with the increase of computing capability, these organizers have evolved over time to allow you to do much more with them.

Some are pure gadgets that do not necessarily enhance the quality of life. Unless you are in the film industry, for example, I cannot think of any real use for having a movie player on your PDA which lets you watch one or two-minute movie clips. The recorder that comes with my PDA is great for journalists to record interviews or thoughts, but not necessarily for people in other professions. The MP3 player on the PDA is also a gadget, but it is an entertaining one since you can work and listen to your favorite music at the same time.

There is no doubt that the best part of the PDA, at least for me personally, is the feature that allows me to read my favorite periodicals and books digitally, anywhere and at anytime. For my money, this is certainly a better feature than the WAP facility that telecommunications companies have been trying to develop to incorporate information in cellular phones.

Most standard PDAs come with an Internet browser as well as an e-mail facility that allows you to read and write letters away from your desktop PC. A portable modem is optional but as long as you have frequent access to a desktop PC throughout the day, at home or office, then you do not need a modem.

What you have to do is "synchronize" your pocket PC with your desktop PC, whether at home or office, regularly during the day to get the latest updates of the various periodicals you subscribe to. Updating periodicals, which in my case is from more than 10 different sites, is completed in a matter of a few minutes.

Most pocket computers allow you to connect through the Internet with AvantGo, a website which offers you the facility to access hundreds of periodicals to cater to everyone's taste which has been formatted specially for your handhelds. You use your Internet browser to read the periodicals like you would on a desktop PC, but the contents have been formatted in such a way that makes reading easy through your pocket PC.

Even if your favorite news sites are not on AvantGo's list, you are able to personally format their content to fit your PDA. Do not just take my word on it though, because I have not been able to work this one out yet.

For books, there are many sites that offer ebooks. Most classic books, including a large collection of Shakespeare and Jane Austen for example, are available for free. Barnes & Nobles and Amazon.com also offer a huge collection of new ebooks at their e-stores. They have also started offering audible books and you can download the audible program that will read the books for you. For me personally, having someone read things to me takes away the fun and enjoyment of reading.

Reading books using your PDA is not only fun, but, because it is so portable, it is much more convenient than if you have to carry the actual book, or if you are like me and you read more than one book at any one time, of having to carry several books.

You read your ebooks through the Microsoft Reader program. It is already installed in some PDAs, but if not, you can download it for free from Microsoft sites. The program allows you to bookmark, highlight or make notes on the margins just like you would in a real book. Plus, if you are reading more than one book at a time, you can store as many titles as the memory in your PDA allows (which is 32MB for my iPAQ H3630).

If you think this is revolutionary, then consider this. Bestselling horror writer Stephen King is offering his latest work in digital form, directly to his fans. At a mere cost of US$1 a session, you are entitled to download his novel The Plant as each chapter is completed and becomes available to the public from his website. By going digital and selling directly to his fans, King has cut out the role (and therefore the profit margin) of the publisher and eliminated the cost of paper and print.

The pocket computer, which allows you to read King's books anywhere and anytime you want to, complements this development.

The trend, or more appropriately the revolution in the information industry, is likely to continue, and with it the demise of printed publications is becoming a real prospect.

Without having to wait for Bill Gates to complete his TabletPC for a couple more years or so, the thousands of people who are using their PDAs to read periodicals and books are already entering the future of a truly digital world.

For most others, digital reading will come very soon.

The writer is a senior journalist at The Jakarta Post.