International Data Corporation (IDC/Link) research unit has released two new studies on wireless communications: the first is "Survey of Wireless Users, Former Users, and Nonusers", and the second is "Personal Wireless Communications User Survey." Among the findings: "penetration of mobile phones is up 7.6% this year, while penetration of paging devices is up just 1.3%." For more info check out www.idc.com.

RTS Wireless and The Traffic Station Group are working on building a "real-time traffic status reporting system" that should make it possible for system and network administrators to get network traffic conditions via a wide variety of mobile computing devices.

Graeme Burton examines "World in motion: convergence of voice and data in the mobile world is about to become a reality" on pages 27 - 29 in Global Technology Business published for August 1998. The article includes a good review of "cellular communications" options including FDMA, TDMA, GSM, GSM2+, CDMA, AMPS, and PHS.

ILT has recently announced a new Java version of their PosiTrak Mobile Workforce Suite that can be deployed on handheld pen-based computers built by Telxon.

George Henne at NS Basic reports the release of NewtCard 1.2 for the Newton. This new release includes better sound report that lets "stacks" be distributed with custom sounds. This version also includes the ability to include Text to Speech technology and retails for just under US$100.

Bernie has release a new version of Newtoploy (version 1.03) for the Newton. This version fixes a host of user reported bugs.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)