Fujitsu Personal Systems was demoing their new Windows CE Professional PC "pen tablet" prototype device that when completed will be called the "PenCentra 130" at the recently held DemoMobile 99 Conference (San Diego, California). The unit will reportedly ship in Sep99.

Nikkei English News is reporting that Sharp has plans to announce next week a new "high-end addition to their Zaurus line of PDAs" in Japan.

Sovereign Software has begun a new "developing and marketing" initiative for innovative Palm OS based software products. They are "giving away a free Caribbean Cruise for two in the weeks to come." Check out the above URL for details.

DataViz has posted a 15-day trail version of their "Documents To Go for the Palm Organizer" product that supports Power Macintosh and Windows 95/98/NT. This "powerful" tool lets you download and view Microsoft Word and Excel, Lotus Smartsuite, Corel WordPerfect, and ClarisWorks/AppleWorks files on Palm OS savvy devices.

Ron Risley has announced a new Newton GestureLaunch script called Boilermaker. This script pops up a hierarchical menu of bits of text for instant insertion in any note or field.

ZDNet's PalmPilot Express for 13Apr99 has been posted to ZDNet's PalmPilotSoftware.com. The "Editor's Picks" includes a pointer article to the "latest 50 free Palm OS packages available," and a more in-depth article about "travel" savvy Palm OS solutions. This issue also contains references to the following "Hot Files"--PassMan, BombRun, ToUpper DA, TealPaint, and Baseball Statistics.

SanDisk has announced plans to support Microsoft's new Windows Media Rights Manager and other future Internet portable music players that use similar "unique serialization" technology.

Peter Belanger has created and posted a World Map for use on Newton devices.

Don Norman, former Apple Fellow and professor emeritus at the University of California, has created a new company called "Nielson Norman Group" and was recently quoted in the Financial Times about his thoughts on "The Invisible Computer." According to Norman, the key requirement for these "information appliances" to succeed in the marketplace is the need for "standardized, international protocol for sharing of information." [SOURCE: Edupage, 12Apr99].

Dynamism has announced some "price cuts" on the following sub-notebook computers: Panasonic S51 and A44, Toshiba Dynabook 3300 and Libretto, and the Sharp Mebius M3. They also have some of the new offerings now available in the US including Sony's Vaio 505, Sharp's Mebius PJ, and Panasonic's S-51EX.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)