Symbian -- which licenses, develops, and supports the EPOC operating system -- has joined the "Bluetooth wireless connectivity initiative" that is headed by 17 companies, including IBM, Intel, and Toshiba.

Puma Technologies has announced plans to acquire SoftMagic Corporation -- the developer of "development tools for linking PalmPilot devices to custom corporate databases." The tools were sold under the name "Satellite Forms" and the product is expected to be rolled into a "yet to be announced" package.

In related news, Puma Technology has also announced plans to release Intellisync 3.0 for PalmPilot devices in the near future. The new version will offer betting e-mail sync capabilities and better linkage to Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes. The product will retail for just under US$70 and owners of previous versions can upgrade for under US$35.

The MacWorld published for Sep98 notes on page 28 that Palm Computing's MacPac v2.0 (not released yet but based on Claris Organizer) was awarded one of nine MacWorld Expo New York 1998 "Best Product" awards.

The most recently published Computer Retail Week (27Jul98) has a host of handheld related articles that cover how individual business users use handhelds, how companies are using specialized handheld solutions for retail sales, how to convince bosses and customers to use handhelds, and a detailed look at Microsoft's future Windows CE plans.

Reuters is reporting via The Wall Street Journal that 3Com has plans to invest nearly US$100 million to sell PalmPilot devices within Asian markets including China.

Power Media is now publishing and distributing "PalmFlash" (US$49.95) written by Scrawl, LLC for PalmPilot devices. This new application lets you send American Online (AOL) e-mail via any PalmPilot device attached to a modem.

MISCELLANEOUS NEW STUFF: #1. Trimble has a new "GPS Total StationAE 4700" surveying product. #2. Matsushita Electric Industrial has a new "IC voice recorder" with 60 minute capacity called the "RR-RD60" that will ship in Japan on 01Sep98. #3. Telex Communications has a new Universal Serial Bus (USB) digital interface computer headset for doing speech dictation solutions called "Verba.USB". #4. Fujitsu and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have created a new "64-megabit flash memory device" using a 0.25-micron process.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)