Dana Cline examines the "Clio: Vadem's PC Companion" on pages 13-16 of the Software Development published for March 1999. The article has a "programmers" perspective running through the article, and overall Dana rates the device 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. The Clio Pros: instant-on, 12 hour battery life, PC Card for Ethernet or wireless networking access, and "high success rate" bundled handwriting recognition software. The Clio Cons: poor voice recorder, and two quirks that are more Microsoft's "fault" than Vadem's-the display can not switch between landscape and portrait mode, and Pocket Word does not have styles or tables.

ZDNET's AnchorDesk has a quick look at the new "NEC tiny new computer [that] fits the smallest desktops" in an article entitled "MICRODESKTOP PC DEBUT" in their "TOP TECH NEWS".

NS BASIC Corporation has announced that NS Basic/CE (US$100) now supports Windows CE Palm-size PC devices, along with Windows CE savvy Handheld PCs and Handheld PC Professionals. NS Basic/CE features: extensions providing visual objects (such as boxes and buttons), serial and WINSOCK communications, financial functions, and file I/O. It supports ActiveX objects as well as the ADO database for Windows CE, which is also used by Pocket Access.

Symbol and Data Connection have begun public demonstrations of their new Symbol's CyberPen (formerly known as InfoPen) with DCL's VoiceNet technology for the retail store environment. The CyberPen is equipped with a barcode scanner that can be used to track inventory, and then "transmit" supplier re-orders via the telephone using VoiceNet.

JP Systems' latest version of BeamLink for Palm OS devices lets users "wirelessly send and receive email messages using a Skytel pager." Text messages can also be sent to a "BeamLink service" to be dictated into a voice message and passed on to the recipient via voice mail.

Clint Thayer reports that Hat-Dot Software has released a new tool called "Mona Linka" that will link a desktop computer to the Royal daVinci and daVinci Pro devices without having to go through the standard "PIM" application. A demo is available for download.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)