CNET is reporting that Compaq has released a new iPaq Pocket PC called the H3150 that offers 16 shades of gray vs. 4096-color of the 3650 due to the short supply of color screens. The unit is powered by a 206-MHz Intel StrongArm processor and offers 16-MB of RAM.

Metrowerks has announced plans to deliver a complete set of Codewarrior software development tools geared especially for creating wireless Symbian EPOC OS solutions.

Espial has announced that Home Depot is going to use Espial Devicetop suite of products to build a mobile in-store client/server infrastructure that will offer wireless data services to both customers and employees.

Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATC) has officially announced that they will license Extended Systems' Bluetooth technology for CATC's Merlin family of advanced Bluetooth protocol analyzers and traffic generators. CATC is Extend Systems' 60th licensing customer, others include: Hewlett-Packard, Palm, 3Com, Motorola, Fujitsu, and Xircom (soon to be Intel).

AOL has announced that they will enable email access and instant messaging services on SONICblue's new Diamond Mako handheld plus compatible modem.

NEWTON NEWS -- A dedicated Newton developer has written a beta ATA driver for Newton devices that enables Newton users to use a significantly wider range of PC Card storage devices.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)