“ACCESS CO., LTD. today unveiled a new brand identity that signifies a milestone in the Company’s history and further highlights ACCESS’ evolution as a leading provider of solutions for the mobile phone and device markets. In addition, the Company also announced that it’s wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, Inc., has started the process to begin transitioning its company name to ACCESS.”

Question: How many of you seriously think there will ever be a new PDA that runs some next iteration of the Palm operating system from any major supplier? I am pretty confident Asia will see phones, and it wouldn’t surprise me of phones came to the US. Palm didn’t release a single new PDA this year - just Treo’s. PalmSource is effectivly gone now, completely absorbed into a company with no name value in most countries. I am just going to be completely shocked if we see a device that I hear people begging for in other communities - a PDA running PalmOS.

“Reaffirming its commitment and ongoing support to the developer community worldwide, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today unveiled the Palm Developer Network (PDN). PDN is designed for mobile hardware and software developers targeting Palm(R) products and is the first formal developer program to include both Palm OS(R) and Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC developers. The new program provides focused technical, business and marketing support, and replaces Palm’s prior, successful developer program, PluggedIn. New services include a support library to answer developer questions, and a “Designed For Palm Products” compatibility test and logo program to help validate that the mobile solutions are compatible with Palm devices. Additional developer services are available for members of Palm’s Select Developer Program — an invite-only group of top developers who consistently deliver highly valued consumer or business applications to customers worldwide.”

For those of you out there that produce both a Pocket PC and Palm version of your software, this may be helpful as you wait out Palm OS’s slow yet inevitable death Seriously, it does look like it can help Palm developers get their ideas from “concept to market” quicker, and I guess that’s good for mobile devices as a whole.

“The BlackBerry® Pearl? 8100? smartphone is one of the world’s smallest smartphones and packs all of the power of BlackBerry. It comes complete with digital camera, multimedia capabilities and expandable memory. “

It looks like RIM is going after the Windows Mobile market, especially the Q, with their latest release. In addition to the features common to all Blackberry’s, the Pearl has:

? Instant Messaging.
? Web browser.
? Camera.
? Media Player. Audio and video playback in a variety of formats.
? BlackBerry Maps?, the best way to find your way.*
? 64 MB of memory and expandable memory via microSD card.

Both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal have favorable reviews of the device. Of course, Microsoft isn’t going to let this one go unanswered.

“A SUPER confident Symbian is claiming to have kept the Beast of Redmond at bay with a 65 to 70 per cent share of the smartphone sector, according to CEO, Nigel Clifford.”

Doesn’t it also depend on how you define what a smartphone is? I’d say some Symbian powered models are little more than feature phones.

A reader at PalmInfocenter attended the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco last week and brought back some interesting tidbits about the next operating system from PalmSource. Among the things mentioned were:

? The operating system will finally have true multitasking, but unlike Windows Mobile, the application will have to be specifically written to stay open in the background, otherwise, it will shut down into a saved state just like it does now.
? Four APIs are supported on the platform - Palm OS Garnet, Java, GTK+ and MAX. Palm OS Garnet, also known as Palm OS 5, will still run in an emulation environment on the device, but the platform may expose some of its features to the Garnet based apps, allowing new or modified Garnet apps some forms of multitasking for specific features.
? The primary target resolution is 240X320 QVGA, though other resolutions will be supported.
? Native Linux apps will run on a mini-X Windows system.

The platform has been described as pre-Alpha, so things are certainly subject to change. I think it will be unlikely devices will be seen in the next 12 months unless they button down the feature set pretty quickly then have a very fast and trouble free beta followed by a quick round of carrier trials. Of course, they could make a standalone PDA faster since the radios required for a phone take a bit more time to test and integrate. It is also likely the first area to get any device with the new platform will be Asia, not the Americas or Europe.

“…ROAD has been promising this Handy-PC Linux dreamphone of theirs for a while now… it still hasn’t materialized, but their new concept version of the phone looks a tad snazzier and a bit more for-reals… it’s still a QWERTZ clamshell with Bluetooth, WiFi, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and a 640 x 240 display. When closed the unit acts like a slightly chunky candybar — ala Nokia 9300 — with a 102 x 65 monochrome display… The device is powered by a 400MHz Xscale CPU, and comes in two flavors: the S101 and S101K, the latter of which adds a 2 megapixel camera and encryption…”

No word yet on when this might be available or for how much, but I wonder how many folks would like this better as a Windows Mobile device with this higher resolution, but larger size? I know I might be intrigued. If you’re interested in pre-ordering or just following the latest press releases, you may want to bookmark their website (though it is in German). Anyway, let us know what your impressions are of this!

“What was once known as the BlackBerry Stealth, then as the BlackBerry 8100, is now known as the BlackBerry Pearl. That’s right, RIM’s first cameraphone with media capabilities and external storage is coming to T-Mobile on September 18th.”

Engadget Mobile has posted some tasty morsels of information regarding the anticipated and upcoming BlackBerry Pearl. Personally, I like their numerical designations better, but they seem to be running out of room in the four-digit range - would you have liked the “BlackBerry 13250?” Anyway, if you’re into this sort of thing (and don’t be ashamed, this one seems to be fully loaded!), check out the leaked information and previously posted pictures all nicely laid out for you. Could this make you switch over to “the Dark Side?”

“Nokia announced today that it will not be forming the new CDMA device company with SANYO it preliminarily announced on February 14, 2006. Nokia decided not to pursue its earlier plan as it concluded the terms and conditions of the proposed partnership were not satisfactory and in the best interests of Nokia’s long term success. In addition to an already financially prohibitive CDMA ecosystem in general, recent developments may indicate that the…

“Despite high hopes for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices, sales have been disappointing and competition in the smartphone market has been fierce…But despite strong sales of the 8700 at T-Mobile, Research in Motion’s gains were offset by strong sales of Taiwan-based High Tech Computer’s MDA pocket computer.”
The T-Mobile MDA is the HTC Wizard, known by a variety of names around the world. Mine is called the K-Jam, and most blackberry…

“It’s been two years since the release of the last major upgrade to the Palm operating system for mobile devices, not counting the upgrade [Cobalt/PalmOS6] that never appeared in public. The Palm OS still enjoys a loyal following, but it’ll have to get up to speed sooner rather than later–or risk an exodus to competing platforms such as Windows Mobile and Symbian. With a brand-new version of the pioneer mobile OS not expected to appear for at…

“Cingular has officially launched the Nokia 9300 Communicator for direct consumer sales. The carrier has been selling the phone to its business customers since November. The 9300 is one of Nokia’s Series-80 devices and has an extensive feature set.”
Try as I might, I can’t get excited about this device. After having used several WM5 Pocket PCs, including the JasJar and the Treo 700w, and having played with my colleague’s XV6700, I don’t see…

“A few weeks ago, PalmSource revealed more of its plans for the next version of the Palm OS, which will be based on Linux…Many have assumed that this will still have the same general look and feel as the this operating system has always had. Maureen O’Connell, PalmSource’s Senior Director, Corporate Communications recently told Computing Unplugged that this isn’t necessarily so. “It’s not particularly our intention that MAX “inherit much of the…

Research In Motion just cleared a big hurdle in the road by settling with NTP for a huge wad of cash, but their troubles may not be over.
“The patent case was a whole bunch of noise,” said Ellen Dailey, a Forrester Research analyst. “Right now, R.I.M. is in danger of relegating itself to becoming a niche e-mail player.” David Schatsky of Jupiter Research echoed that view. “The lawsuit was an active threat to R.I.M.,” he said. “But they now…

“BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said Friday it agreed to pay $612.5 million to patent holding company NTP to settle a long-running dispute that had threatened to shut down the popular wireless e-mail service. Canadian-based Research in Motion (Research) announced the settlement late Friday ahead of a U.S. judge’s expected ruling on damages in the case.”
I wonder what the true cost to RIM has been, in lost/delayed business, attorney fees,…

“U.S. District Judge James Spencer declined to issue an immediate injunction Friday against Research In Motion Ltd. in the BlackBerry maker’s long-running patent dispute with NTP Inc. The judge reserved his decision, remarking that the patent case should have already been settled and that a damages order may come soon.”
It isn’t over, but this was a pretty big hurdle for RIM to get past….

“ACCESS Co., Ltd., and its wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, Inc., today announced the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP), the latest evolution of Palm OS® for Linux. The ACCESS Linux Platform is designed to be an integrated, open and flexible Linux-based platform tailored for smartphones and mobile devices.”
Last summer, ACCESS acquired PalmSource, the maker of PalmOS, which was spun off from Palm, Inc. several years earlier. In late 2004,…

“Here’s a small company in a technology backwater selling a klugey portable pager to an equally small market. Then it makes a few modifications to its product, and Wham! It has one of the hottest new electronic devices on the planet. Movie stars carry it, corporate tycoons sit through billion-dollar negotiations tapping its keyboard, and even its goofy name, BlackBerry, enters the language as defining an era of wired wheeler dealers.”
This is…

“Mobile e-mail technology firm Visto Corp. said on Tuesday that it had filed a lawsuit against privately held rival Good Technology, alleging that Good?s products and services infringed on its patents. The move follows privately owned Visto?s lawsuit against Microsoft Corp in December. It had also accused the software giant of infringing its patents for wireless e-mail.”
I should patent the patent lawsuit process and then sue everyone that…

Contrary to popular belief, NTP, Inc. doesn’t appear to be just a band of lawyers intent on patent squatting. In fact, one of the founding members, Thomas Campana Jr., is a long time inventor that has had several start-up companies involved in wireless text delivery, each with varying degrees of success. Mr. Campana died in 2004, but he was fiercely involved in protecting his intellectual property, and the amount he wanted was ridiculously small…

“What, you have zero reason to act surprised that Tiger Telematics, creator of the Gizmondo and Smart Adds, is filing for bankruptcy in the UK, their country of origin. We’ve been following these guys since day one and we’re pretty sure there wasn’t anyone who didn’t see their collapse as absolutely eventual; the filing — submitted last Friday — surfaced today in apparent explanation to the SEC of what happens to their US operations. It looks…

For years PalmOS fans have been waiting for Cobalt, the next generation bits for the PalmOS platform. Could it finally be here?
“Cobalt is a blue screensaver with a lot of shading effects! The sequency is never the same - a shade generator mades it possible!
Well, I have admit, that is not the GUI I was expecting. I wonder if it can multitask? …

“We’re living in the golden age of the gadget. Don’t believe it? Check your pockets. Odds are you’re carrying a portable music player, an electronic organizer, a keychain-size storage device, a digital camera, or a cell phone that combines some or all of these functions. And you’d probably be hard-pressed to live without them. . . . In honor of this raging gizmo infatuation, we polled our editors and asked them to name the top 50 gadgets of the…

Wowee! OQO has finally made the move to a Tablet PC Edition of Windows XP. All of a sudden, the Model 01+ doesn’t seem half bad, though it’s probably safe to assume that the battery life still greatly sucketh, and that it still might burn a hole in your pocket, both literally and metaphorically ($2099). But hey, it’s still cool. …

“Enterprises should not deploy or invest in Research In Motion’s BlackBerry “until RIM’s legal position is clarified,” market research firm Gartner said this week. In addition, Gartner urged enterprises to demand that Research In Motion (RIM), which has been struggling in a patent action brought against it by NTP, should publicly detail its plans for a workaround should it loose its suit. Besides getting details on the workaround, enterprises…

“Hold on to your BlackBerries. Wireless email giant Research In Motion has taken a big hit in its long running legal dispute with NTP, and now faces the prospect of paying more than a billion dollars to get itself out of trouble…On Wednesday, Judge James Spencer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia refused to delay the proceedings any further, or to hold the companies to their previous settlement. The decision means…