OmniBrowse has announced the release of their first version personal digital assistant (PDA) communications package for Palm OS devices that enables wireless data access to sports, stock quotes, weather, and news feeds using PageMart's Synapse pager card. Pricing starts just under US$10 a month.

Seven Seas Communications is now offering "mega-yacht" owners with "new and improved" satellite communications products and services from Iridium, MiniPhone, Kyocera, Motorola, Inmarsat, and Oceancell (AMSC).

Martyn Williams at Newsbytes is reporting that Japan's Pioneer Electronics has a new "DVD-based car navigation" product in the works called "AVIC-D9000 car computer" that will also come with wireless Internet access capabilities. The device uses a "32-bit RISC microprocessor"; offers a PC Card slot for data transfer and networking, an FM tuner that receives DGPS (differential global positioning system) data and VICS (real time traffic condition information data), and a 2-D display offering 3-D mapping; and uses a "voice guidance" interface. The list price in Japan will be in the US$1640 range, and availability in Japan is projected for late May 1999.

Oracle has finally publicly outlined their "aggressive roadmap for Oracle8i Lite" (client and server) for mobile, embedded, and information appliance applications. Expect additional support for Linux, a mini-server that will ship in Q2'1999, integration of Web-to-Go and iConnect technologies, and wireless portal services.

Paul Cockerton dug up the direct link to more information about the Symbian Developer's Conference being held 03-04Jun99 in London, United Kingdom.

Lewis "Sir Isaac" Miller notes that The Stanford Newton User Group (SNUG) will meet Tuesday (25May99) from 8-10:30 p.m. at Printers Inc. in Palo Alto, California. The Guest of Honor at this meeting will be Mr. Bun Ng from the Hong Kong Newton User Group (HKNUG).

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)