Socket Communications has announced the release of the "Socket Laser Scanner Connection Kit--a mobile bar code scanning solution" that allows users to plug a Symbol Technologies LS2104 (US$129), LS3603 (US$139), or LS4004 (US$139) laser scanner gun into a Windows CE savvy Handheld PC or a Windows notebook. Socket's bar code scanner products are currently available from Seneca Data and PositiveID.

Business Wire is reporting that E-BestDeal has announced a "wireless portal" for mobile handheld users. In related news, Yahoo! has also announced plans to build "wireless portals" for mobile devices.

Sybase has officially released a new version of their mobile and embedded database system called "SQL Anywhere Studio." The technology comes with Sybase's "UltrLite" deployment option, and their "MobiLink" database server synchronization toolkit. [SOURCES: TELECOMWORLDWIRE, PR Newswire]

Ben Goetter has released a new "Unicode" savvy version of his "Pocket Scheme" development environment for Windows CE. Version 0.3.0 is based on the SIOD-derived R4RS Scheme interpreter, and the inclusion of Unicode support allows for native character data manipulation of Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Greek, or other non-Latin languages.

R. McGuinness has announced the creation of a new site called "AllNetDevices.com" that is dedicated to the concept of "IP Everywhere" including mobile devices like smart phones and PDAs.

Robert Lum reports that MacWorks is advertising Newton Keyboards for US$20, Newton 9W power adapters for US$10, and Newton NiMH Batteries for US$10.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)