NS Basic is now shipping v1.12 of their BASIC programming environment for Palm OS (US$100). New features: signature capture, barcode shared libraries, and full-screen HandEra extensions.

SONICblue has announced a new portable wireless Web device called ProGear (US$1500) that will be targeted towards specific vertical market segments (like: hospitality, education, & healthcare). ProGear offers: Linux 2.4 OS, Netscape 4.74 Web browser, Transmeta processor, 10.4-in TFT display, and 64-MBs of RAM.

TealPoint Software has announced a new v1.40 of their Palm OS third-party add-on system extensions (ie. "Hackmaster") manager called TealMaster (US$10).

Microsoft's MSN and Google have both announced support and new services for Handspring's Blazer Web browser for Palm OS.

Electric Fuel Corporation has announced plans to release a new line of "Instant Power Chargers" for handheld devices by end of Q2'2001. The power chargers will deliver 8 full battery charges to a variety of mobile devices: Palm V/Vx; Compaq iPAQ Pocket PCs; Handspring Prism and Visor Phone models; HP Jornada; Casio Cassiopeia; and Novatel Minstrel V wireless modems.

Recent NASA shuttle missions -- Atlantis (Mission STS98) and Discovery (Mission STS102) -- used IBM's 1-GB Microdrives for storage of digital images taken by the Kodak Professional DCS 660 digital camera which is capable of six-megapixel images (each image could be up to 18-MBs).

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)