New Palm, Dell plans PDA

Palm introduced two new high-end handheld computers yesterday that it hopes will revitalise demand. Palm unveiled its Tungsten T device, which is driven by the new Palm OS 5 operating system and built around a Texas Instruments chip. The new handheld is a little pricey at around $500 but includes a high-resolution screen as well as Bluetooth connectivity.

The Tungsten T follows Palm`s recent debut of its Zire model, a low-cost device targeted at entry-level users. "The Zire product will help Palm increase its unit share and Tungsten T is probably the best product Palm has ever made," says Todd Kort, analyst at research firm Gartner Dataquest.

While analysts describe Palm`s new products as attractive, they emphasise that Palm faces an increasingly competitive market, one that will likely be transformed soon by Dell, which is planning to release its own PDA in the coming months. [Reuters]

Upset with ADSL pricing? Tired of slow bandwidth connections? Perhaps your problems are not so bad. A French-speaking mission station in the mountains of Lesotho, with no electricity or telephone lines, was so determined to get Internet access that it has hooked up via a generator and cellphone.

The mission station is now connected to the Web via ICL`s Eject Internet access service.

A dedicated cellphone is being used with external antennae hardwired to a modem and desktop PC to dial in to the Bloemfontein Eject PoP. The equipment set-up and user registration was done through the Eject Call Centre, with the assistance of a French interpreter.

The mission station will use the service for e-mail and Internet access to communicate with colleagues in SA and France.

CBROnline reports that RealNetworks will today release into the developer community the source code for an audio-video playback client.

The company says it will release the code of its Helix DNA Client, the underlying engine for its own commercial RealOne Player, under two licences. One licence is similar to open source agreements such as the General Public Licence, the other allows developers to create closed-source software for a maximum royalty of $0.25 per unit shipped.

Source code for handling RTSP, RTP, RTCP and SDP streaming protocols will be available, as will source code for playing back MP3, H.263, NB-AMR and 3GPP (MPEG) codecs. More than 600 APIs will be made available for building playback clients and adding codecs, the company said.

However, the Helix DNA Client stops short of fully opening RealNetworks` crown jewels. Support for its proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo codecs will be available only in object code, rather than source code. Both licences have been specially written to ensure RealNetworks` patent rights are protected. [CBROnline]

This week`s TechNiche:
Sun joins WS-I board