John Dodge discusses some Smart Phone vs. handheld computers issues in "This PC Week" column entitled "The Eventual Newlyweds: Dr. Digital Phone and Mrs. PDA" on page 3 of PC Week published on 13Jul98.

Motorola has a new "sensor package" that is 30% smaller than previous offers and is capable of being mounted directly on a motherboard. The sensor also consumes less power and can handle "harsher" environments than previous sensor offerings from Motorola.

Peter Coffee's "PC at Work" column published on 13Jul98 in PC Week (page 42) is entitled "A PC in Your Pocket is a Dumb Idea". The focus on of this opinion piece is that PalmPilot like devices are more "natural" portable solutions then small PCs or handhelds that use PC metaphors.

Note Pad Technologies has announced the release of "Note Pad" and "Desk Pad" -- two new 14 button "Playstation-style" handheld gaming pads for laptops (PS/2 port, ~US$35) and desktop (keyboard port, ~US$30).

Semico Research Corporation (SRC) has released a new market forecast document entitled "Handheld Intelligent Appliances" that declares that "annual sales of handheld PCs (HPCs), palmtop computers, and smart phones will reach US$7.5 billion by the year 2003."

Southern American Business Intelligence is reporting that the Brazilian handheld marketplace is currently getting a lot of advertising attention from 3Com, HP (Windows CE), Philips (Windows CE), and Psion.

The "bible of film connoisseurs with over 20 years of coverage" -- the Halliwell's Film & Video Guide -- is now available on Psion Series 5 devices according to a recent press release.

Eric Kenslow, the author of LaunchPad, has teamed up with Synergy Solutions to bring an upgrade/sidegrade to LaunchPad known as "Launch'Em v1.5 for PalmPilot." The new version includes a drag-n-drop interface, Tabs menu, and a six-button persistent tool bar.

Philips has announced plans to bundle Spyglass' Mobile Forms Database solution with future Velo 500 HPCs running Windows CE 2.0. In related news, the San Diego Union And Tribune has a review of this device in an article entitled "Philips' portable PC is dynamo at $650" published on 14Jul98.

PC Week Labs (Michael Caton, 13Jul98, page 45) reviews the new Novatel Contact Wireless HPC that runs Windows CE 2.0. Some plusses for this device: built-in fax/modem; good voice recorder; and good form factor. Some minuses according to Caton: CDPD modem is power intensive, and the landline fax/modem is only capable of 14.4-bps.

Macmillan Digital Publishing has announced the release of a new Business Plus Pack CDROM for PalmPilot users. Included on this CDROM are the following titles: Actioneer, AirMiles, BrainForest, PalmMap, Parens (calculator), PhoneLog, Trip, and World Time.

JRAd Consulting has announced the release of Palmedic v2.31 for the Newton to fix a recently found bug in v2.3's "note writing" capability. You can either install the complete v2.3.1 available on their WWW site, or use a new "updater.pkg" to fix problems. For more information contact JRAd Cosulting.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)