Xircom has announced a new line of Windows CE savvy Type II CompactFlash cards for doing Ethernet, modem, and wireless GSM connectivity all in one card. The first product is the "CFE-10BT" (US$149) and it is expected to be shipping Jun99.

JP Systems has created a new site dedicated to their new information retrieval service called "InfoBeam". InfoBeam users can select a search topic on Palm OS devices and then link via infrared technologies with Glenayre's AccessLink II two-way pagers (US$209) to the Internet for retrieving answers to their search topic (usually in 40 seconds or less). The activation fee is US$9.99 and there is a quarterly payment plan of US$15 for unlimited InfoBeam service.

IBC USA Conferences has announced a North America marketplace focused conference entitled "Smart Cards for Mobile Telecommunications." The conference will be held in Boston, MA, from 28-30Jul99, and cost US$2200.

USAR Systems have announced a new "ACPI-compliant embedded controller" that offers "advanced and robust" features to keyboard and mouse functions necessary in mobile devices that need to use their "built-in Smart Battery System Manager (SBSM) for battery management."

Chris Oakes at Wired had an interesting article entitled "Faster Notes for the PalmPilot" posted online on 30Apr99 about Ken Perlin's Quikwriting alternative to Palm OS's Graffiti software. The "free" evaluation can be found at the Quikwriting site.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)