Paul Rhoades is looking for some help trying to get an old prototype that he built to run on a NEC Versa device (Windows 95 with Pen extensions) written in Visual Basic. NEC is not longer building such a device and Paul would like to find an alternative manufacturer to continue his prototyping efforts. Please contact Paul directly via email if you have a potential solution.

The Interactive Week published on 03Aug98 has an article by Scott Leibs entitled "The Whole World In Your Hand?" on page 20. The article examines and compares the 3Com's Palm III, Casio's Cassiopeia E-10, Everex Systems' FreeStyle Palm PC, and Philips' Nino 300.

Canon Computer Systems has announced that they are now shipping in the United States their PowerShot A5 digital camera (US$699). This new camera has the following major capabilities: weighs 8.1-oz, 1024x768-pixel images, 24-bit color, and a 810,000 pixel CCD sensor. Canon is also shipping a new color "CD-200 Digital Printer" (US$499) that is CompactFlash savvy and ideal for printing digital images.

SiRF Technology, the developer of global positioning systems (GPS), has announced acquiring US$10.1 million in investment dollars in a recent round of funding. Nokia invested the largest amount--US $3 million--and other investors included Acer, Umax, Ionics, UMC, ICCP Ventures, and American Pacific Venture. Existing investors included Ayala, FPHC International, and InveStar Capital.

The Washington Times published on 10Aug98 has an article of potential interest entitled "Pager upgrade makes PalmPilot a handier personal digital assistant." The article is written by Mark Kellner, and it goes into great detail on Mark's experiences using the new PageMart Wireless' Synapse Pager Card (US$169) for pre-Palm III PalmPilot devices. The pager card upgrades older PalmPilots to Palm OS 3.0 and includes 2MBs of storage.

Martyn Williams at Newsbytes News Network reports (09Aug98) that the total number of mobile phone users in Japan, as of the end of Jul98, has surpassed the 41 million user mark. Cellular users have grown to 35 million (largest growth rate) compared to the 7 million Personal Handyphone System (PHS) users (falling growth rate).

POET Software has announced a new embedded device utilizing a "modular object database written completely in the Java" that is code-named "Navajo." The final version is due on the market by Spring 1999, but POET Software has created a "Design Partner" group that has begun advanced development projects using Navajo. One of the first integrators is Ericsson's New Concepts group that will be using POET's Navajo for mobile database applications.

Nathan Henderson notes a host of updates to the Newton Evangelist site. There is now a host of "discussion groups" and some more Newton Books: Egg Freckles, USA Political Map, and USA Satellite Map.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)