Carmen Nobel at PC Week sums up the 'Pros and Cons' of the wireless Bluetooth standard this way--"PRO: Offers seamless, constant, 1-Mbps connection among all sorts of wireless devices from cell phones to notebook computers." And "CON: Uses the same radio frequency as 802.11 and HomeRF, meaning that it might jam wireless LAN connections and interfere with home networks." [15Nov99, page 10]

Fred Bayer has announced the release of a Scheme programming language compiler and runtime system called "LispMe v2.6" for Palm OS.

PhatWare Corporation is reportedly now shipping "HPC dbExplorer v1.5" for Windows CE that enables a user to "browse and manage databases on their mobile device." This package is only US$20 until 15Jan2000, then the price goes to US$25.

MORE ON 'DICK TRACY' WATCHES -- MSNBC is reporting that Samsung Electronics is working on a "voice" savvy "Conversa" digital watch; and the Swatch Group has teamed with Hewlett-Packard to co-develop, produce, and market future Internet savvy wireless watch solutions.

The Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC) is meeting during the current meetings in Seattle for the World Trade Organization (WTO). They have issued a press release stating that since Jan1999 through Sep1999 that the number of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) worldwide users has jumped by 61%.

Toad Hollow Software has announced the release of "Holidays 2K" for Newton OS v2.0 (freeware) that "adds over one hundred U.S. civil, Christian, Jewish (estimate), Islamic, UK Banking, and just plain fun holidays to the Newton datebook."

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com) eFax: 978-246-3067