Palm has announced that Symbol Technologies will be offering a new line of ruggedized wireless wide area network (GSM or CDPD) Palm OS savvy devices. This new line of products will also support Microsoft Pocket PC and DOS; and will come integrated with barcode scanning capabilities.

RIM has announced plans to offer via their new retail channel partner Aether Systems RIM BlackBerry 950 (US$399) & 957 (US$499) solutions that can be purchased online using Amazon.com.

Anoto has officially announced their new suite of pen and paper technologies (ink, camera, processor, Bluetooth) that should make wireless "written word" data capture nearly seamless. One of the first products to market using this technology will be from Time Manager International which expects to have a "Anoto-powered pen" built by Ericsson available in Q2'01.

Ectaco International has announced new online dictionaries and free translation services to help translate text from English to Russian and back again.

iGo offers a retractable 14-foot RJ-11 phone cord for US$19.

ZDNET UK has coverage of the new wearable "Charmed Communicator" that offers built-in GPS, MP3, and video in/out capabilities running on a 700-MHz processor.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)