Puma Technology has announced Intellisync 3.0 for PalmPilot devices that will synchronize a PalmPilot device with many desktop PC applications--especially with Microsoft Outlook. The software should be available in Nov98. There is also a new version of Intellisync 3.0 for Windows CE going to be available in Q1'99, and support for Lotus Notes is expected to be released in Q1'99 for both Windows CE and PalmPilot devices.

Communication Intelligence Corp (CIC) has announced the release of "Jot" for PalmPilot devices. This "natural character recognition solution" supports English, French, Italian, and Spanish languages.

Consumer Electronics and Consumer Multimedia Report both have published recent articles about Franklin's new Rex Pro (now with data entry capabilities) and the daVinci organizer from Olivetti's Royal Consumer Business Products division.

The InfoWorld published on 07Sep98 has a major front page article written by Ephraim Schwartz entitled "Information appliances: Handhelds, cell phones meet halfway." Expect new stuff in the near future from Puma Technology, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, AvantGo, Philips, and Symbian. This issue also has "Spyglass offers WinCE Web browser" on page 47 written by Emily Fitzlof.

PC Week has an interesting article entitled "Windows CE Pockets Deepen: Microsoft to add two new apps to upcoming handheld specification" on page 39 of the issue published on 07Sep98 written by John Spooner.

Paragraph has announced a Windows CE version of CalliGrapher 5.1 (handwriting recognition engine) that can be downloaded online at a special price of US$49.95 (vs. $59.95 mail order). [Information Week, 07Sep98, page 146]

Textware Solutions has released the Fitaly software keyboard (US$25) for PalmPilot devices. This "keyboard" is more efficient for tapping in English characters than the standard QWERTY. [PC Week, 10Aug98, page 40]

CommonTime has announced CadenzaForte 2.0 that links Windows CE devices to Lotus Notes. The release date and price has not yet been announced, but the software will be distributed directly from the developer. [PC Week, 17Aug98, page 43]

NEWTON QUESTION!! Dan Levin is interested in knowing if others who have upgraded their MessagePad 2000 to MessagePad 2100 have begun to experience less battery life since the upgrade. Please contact Dan if you have any input.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)