NS Basic has announced a new version of their Windows CE development toolkit--NS Basic/CE 2.0 (US$99)--with major enhancements to the "Visual Designer" module, and support for palm-size PCs & Windows CE v2.11. This version also supports "write once, run anywhere" without regard to Windows CE form factor or processors. Upgrades are only US$40 from previous versions.

PC World has two potentially interesting articles: #1.) "FIRST VIDEO CELL PHONE APPEARS--Kyocera's VisualPhone can transmit and receive two tiny color images a second", and #2.) "WIRELESS PALM VII TO SHIP NEXT MONDAY--Pricey PalmPilot VII supports e-mail and condensed Web content".

Fujitsu Limited has announced a new Windows CE "half-notebook-sized (A5) handheld PC--INTERTOP CX300--for the Japanese market." This unit weighs 880 grams, offers 16 hours of battery life, comes with a 7.8-inch color touch screen LCD and a 15mm-pitch keyboard, and highlighted with a 100% pure titanium cover. Pricing is expected to be in the US$1000 range. More information may also be available at www.intertop.ne.jp.

Business Wire notes that 3Com has announced plans to bring "network management tools" to Palm OS devices in the near future, and that Riverbed Technologies has announced "Mobile Device Management Center" (beta) for Windows CE and Palm OS devices with the goal of "simplifying the administration of enterprise applications and data available on corporate handhelds."

iBiz Technology has signed an agreement with Inkverse to build the software interface to iBiz's KeyLink keyboard for Palm OS.

IBM has announced at the 11th annual "International DB2 Users Group (IDUG) North American Conference" being held in Orlando, Florida that the next version of DB2 will support Unix, OS/390 and AS/400, Linux, Windows, and OS/2 desktop operating systems, and that the new "DB2 Universal Database Satellite Edition and DB2 Everywhere" solutions will support Palm OS and Windows CE mobile operating systems.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)