The Fifth Annual "Mobile and PDA Expo 1999" is going to be held in Chicago, Illinois from 21-23Apr99. The sessions offered at this conference will focus on healthcare, public safety, customer service, transportation, logistics, emergency service, work order management, and hardware/software. You can learn more at www.pda-expo.com.

Advantech Technologies has announced a "system-level compact chassis Windows CE based on-board SBC/SSD developer platform" that is ideal for embedded application development. The system runs on a 586-133 CPU, 6.4" VGA TFT LCD, and ports for IDE, FDD, PS/2, LPT, and two COMs.

Eclipse International is now shipping a new Windows CE savvy rapid development and deployable software developer toolkit (SDK) called "advanCE System Design Package." The toolkit can be used to build embedded systems, information appliances, and mobile computers solutions.

MicroTouch Systems has announced a new line of "resistive touchscreens" called the "TouchTek4" that are ideal for portable computers and other mobile communication devices.

ARM and Fujitsu have announced that Fujitsu has licensed the ARM7TDMI processor core from ARM. Fujitsu will use this 0.25-micron ASIC processor in future hard disk drives, multimedia digital cameras, digital set top boxes, cellular phones, and portable handheld devices.

Franklin Electronic Publishers has reportedly jointed the "eBook initiative" which was created last year by Microsoft, NuvoMedia, SoftBook Press, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). According to Newsbytes, "The open eBook draft specification for an eBook's file and format structure is based on the HTML (hypertext markup language) and XML (extensible markup language) page formatting systems for websites."

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)