For the folks that might have missed this one. Over at Mobileread, one of the community developers (amirshim) has created a way to browse Wikipedia on the iLiad without being connected to the internet.

The project is still in an early stage, but thanks to the efforts of the good folks over at Mobileread, there is already an installer package available. Which can be downloaded here (54 MB).

The “Simple English Wikipedia” is less than 100MB, but for the full version you will need a CF card with atleast 4GB capacity.

For more information, check out Amir’s blog or if you have an iLiad and want to get started, head over to the Mobileread forum.

Today we have announced the iLiad Book Edition, a lower priced and simplified version of the earlier iLiad. Unlike the iLiad, the Book Edition has no WiFi capability but is otherwise similar to the original iLiad. The Book Edition is priced at 499,- EUR and comes with 50 pre-loaded free eBooks.

With the Book Edition we aim to offer the book lover all the good for less.

The official press release can be downloaded here and high resolution pictures can be found here.

Update: I noticed many blogs convert the Euro price incorrectly to the US Dollar price. The Euro price includes VAT which is not applicable for US customers. The retail prices for the Book Edition in the different currencies are: 399,- GBP, 499,- Euro and 599,- USD.

The folks at GottaBeMobile made a nice video review about the iLiad. You can check it out here. Next week they will add a second part covering the note taking and the connectivity.

Recently some iLiads showed up on eBay that are being sold as new. Although these iLiads might never have been out of the box, they can be different from the iLiads sold via our official retail partners. The reason for this is because iRex sometimes produces iLiads with a different specification and software on request of certain business customers. Due to this these iLiads might not be able to read Mobipocket e-books or receive the regular software updates.

We identified some of the iLiads now being sold on eBay as part of a batch with such a different specification and in some cases even 1st edition iLiads. As these devices are tailored to the business customer’s wishes, they might not offer the same terms of warranty and therefore iRex Tech Support might not be able to offer the same support for those iLiads.

If you are interested to buy an iLiad we recommend buying one from our official partners listed on our website. If you buy an iLiad from a third party you can always verify that you are buying an iLiad with the standard software, and warranty by checking the model number, which is ER014x-002-000 for the Western version of the iLiad 2nd Edition.

And if you see a price that is too good to be true, it probably is

Today we released software release2.12. It is a small release which does not include any new feature but rather fixes and updates to the current software release. Herewith an overview of what is in this release:

1.Connection Manager GUI Improvements
To simplify the process of creating a network connection to the iDS, several improvements have been made in the connection manager. These improvements focus on providing more feedback to the user when an error occurs.

2. Support for Tables in Mobipocket files
Converted Mobipocket documents which contain tables are now rendered correctly. However there is currently no solution to navigate a table that is wider than the screen.

3. Support for Mobipocket folder on external memory
You can now create a ‘books\Mobipocket folder on MMC, CF or USB memory. This folder will act the same way as the Mobipocket folder located on the internal memory, so dictionaries will also work from any of these locations now.

4. Automatic connect to open WiFi Network disabled.
After software release 2.11 a number of people complained about their iLiad connecting automatically to public unsecured WiFi networks. This can now be disabled in the iLiad settings menu. This will stop the device from automatically using any unsecured WiFi network to connect to iDS.

5. Bug Fixes
This release also includes a number of bug fixes that were reported and some small stability improvements.

The release notes can be downloaded here.

It has been a bit quiet on the i-to-i blog recently but this will certainly change considering all the interesting developments and activities that you can expect to see from us in 2008.

For those who might have missed it, on the Teleread blog you can find a short Q&A, where I address some of the questions from David Rothman in regard to the iLiad and future developments. Make sure to check it out here.

A few weeks ago we had a visit from the Dutch television for the program ‘In de ban van het ding‘. This weekend the third episode covered the iLiad as well as the Kindle.

At the Universita della Calabria in Italy a group of 4 students have started with an experiment using the iLiad as their unique support to follow their course in Public Communication. For the experiment all the study materials used in the course were converted into files optimized for the iLiad in order to allow the students to read and study their material using the iLiad.

During the experiment the students will regularly discuss their experiences with the iLiad on their blog. The blog is in Italian, but there will be some translations in English.

At the end of the experiment the students will summarize their findings in a paper which will underline the merits and flaws of using this method of study. For more information check out the blog here.

Last month iRex Technologies attended the IFA, one of the world’s largest consumer electronic trade show, held in Berlin, Germany. It already became a little bit of a tradition over the last several years that the IFA is promoted by Miss IFA, a model with very red hair.

This year was no different and we have a few shots of her showing off the iLiad. You can view them here and here.