Communication Intelligence Corporation (CIC) has announced that they have begun shipping "PenX v1.5: Pen extensions for Windows 95/98/NT4." CIC also notes that Fujitsu Personal Systems is the first customer to "license CIC's PenX pen extensions for vertical pen computer offerings."

Mitsubishi Wireless Communications' Personal Mobile Communications Division has, according to Newsbytes, released "a new low-cost accessory kit that [Mitsubishi] says enables wireless communications for 3Com's PalmPilot via a Mitsubishi MobileAccess 100 Series cellular smartphone."

Proxim has announced two news items of potential interest: 1.) Teklogix has selected Proxim's RangeLAN802 wireless LAN technology for Teklogix's new line of wireless data communication systems, and 2.) Datalogic Group's IDWare (Italy) has also reached an agreement with Proxim to OEM their RangeLAN2 wireless LAN technology into IDWare's new Formula 8500 handheld devices based on Windows CE.

3Com has been awarded exclusive rights by Metrowerks to market Metrowerks' software development tool for PalmPilot devices called "CodeWarrior for Palm Computing Platform."

Motorola has recently unveiled their next generation DragonBall microprocessor called the "MC68EZ328 (DragonBall EZ)" that includes "onboard static RAM and an external memory controller." Price per chip is under US$10 each in quantities greater that 10,000.

InfoWorld Electric has announced that Oracle is now shipping a "specialized sales force database automation" solution for PalmPilot devices.

The PC World published for Oct98 has a major handheld related article that starts on page 141. The article is entitled "Palmtop PCs Grow Up", and includes the following sub-articles: 1.) "Palmtop Users Speak Up", 2.) "Wanted: Seamless PDA Syncing", 3.) "Going Online? Good Luck!", and 4.) "Input Race: PDAs vs. a Desktop". The primary authors of this major effort include Michael Lasky, Harry McCracken, and Vince Bielski.

Aportis has announced that the new rev of Actual Software's MultiMail Professional v2.0 for PalmPilot devices supports remote downloading of AportisDoc formatted documents. MultiMail supports POP3 and IMAP4 email servers.

Alvin Schulman is looking for some personalized "Newton Internet Configuration Help" in the New York City (NYC) area. He is having some difficulties connecting to his new ISP, "BellAtlantic (NY)." If you can help Alvin out please contact him directly via email.

George Hughes, Systems Engineer at Falconbridge's Kidd Mining Division, notes that a "potentially very successful" Newton handheld solution was to be deployed by his employer just before Apple cancelled the Newton project. Some 150 paper based forms would have been eliminated in moving to a 7/24 centralized data collection system that was going to use a large number of MessagePad 130s and MessagePad 2000s. George also notes that Newtons are still being used successfully by his company to solve some customized problems in a wide variety of environments, but nothing as widespread as the above project would have been.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)