Wireless Archive

"A year ago, investors were losing faith in Palm Inc. The once high-flying company itself admitted to frailty and mistakes. But Palm never gave up, and launches Monday a new operating system -- a crucial weapon in its battle to remain dominant in the competitive handheld market. Palm OS 5, analysts say, is a much-needed major upgrade from the pioneer of personal digital assistants' earlier operating systems." Read the report at Yahoo!. Update: Palm pins hopes on beefed-up OS.

Openwave Systems Inc., the worldwide leader of open IP-based communication infrastructure software and applications, announced that it has contributed its Open Usability Interface server-side programming library and source code to the open source developer community under a Mozilla License. Openwave is contributing Open Usability Interface as a code base for developers for developing mobile applications that can be accessed through multiple networks and mobile devices. Open Usability Interface is a server-side programming library that that abstracts the presentation of content from the underlying platform implementation details. In practice, developers code to the capabilities that each platform offers. The library presents the best possible user experience by adapting the application user-interface for the particular device and gateway requesting the service.

"The Palm handheld computing platform is moving ahead with advanced new technology, but users and developers shouldn't expect to see a big change overnight, according to company unit PalmSource." Read the rest of the report at News.com.

"Palm subsidiary PalmSource introduced a new program to help software developers create applications for its upcoming operating system. PalmSource is offering a kit that includes a Palm OS 5 simulator so developers can test their applications on the operating system. PalmSource is also introducing the Palm Powered Compatible Solution logo, which can be applied to applications that pass compliancy tests with Palm OS 4 and 5. The test will be administered by a third party and requires a fee. The fee and availability of the test will be announced early this summer with the launch of PalmOS 5. The logo is meant to help consumers identify software that meets compatibility standards." Story at ZDNews.

"When PalmSource, Palm's operating system unit, previewed the Palm OS version 5 at the PalmSource conference in San Jose earlier this year, participants got a chance to see a test version of Palm's next-generation OS in action." Read the rest of the story and the comparison chart of PalmOS at ZDNews.

"Symbian today said it will open most of the source code for its mobile operating system to third party developers, in its latest effort to encourage the creation of more software for the platform. The company also announced that German electronics giant Siemens has agreed to buy 5 percent of the company for more than 20-million euros ($17.8 million). The software company, which is co-owned by Psion as well as Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and others, already provides most of its code to its licensees, and will offer the same access to software developers through a new plan called the "Symbian Platinum Program". A number of third parties have already committed to joining the program, including Intel, AppForge, Texas Instr. and UK chip-designer ARM Holdings." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.

According to Tiqit, although this feature was previously considered impossible to engineer, the eightythree is not a concept product. Instead, Tiqit says it has built -a mass produced- a fully functioning x86 handheld device out of cutting-edge but available parts, designed specifically for enterprise use and immediate production. In terms of components, eightythree's CPU is the National Semiconductor Geode, 266-300 MHz, RAM is 128 MB or 256 MB, and there is a 10 GB hard drive. The screen is a 4-in 640X480 TFT (18-bit color) with touchscreen and backlight. The external monitor displays up to 1280 x 1024 at 75 Hz, 1024 x 768 at 85 Hz. eightythree is powered by an internal lithium ion rechargeable battery. "This product will greatly accelerate adoption and use of handhelds in the enterprise," said Ian Blasch, CEO, Tiqit Computers. "It uses standard operating systems -- Windows XP, Linux or UNIX -- and is compatible with all associated applications, including legacy software. Almost anything you can do on a laptop or PC, you can do on eightythree -- only it is smaller and more mobile."

Along with our XML or PHP news feeds, OSNews is now offering WAP support for the readers that own a WAP-enabled mobile phone. Just point your WAP device on http://wap.osnews.com/ or on http://wap.osnews.com/index.wml and you should be able to access our 15 latest headlines. Please report any problems you may find on our comments section. Additionally, people with 4th generation mobile phones (mostly sold in Japan) capable of HTML should be able to render OSNews in full HTML, but in a more simple manner (no ads or nested tables). Just follow the same instructions as we have for the AvantGo, Lynx, Links and W3M browsers. Check the screenshot showing some WAP emulators and the three major text browsers rendering the alternative (and simpler) OSNews pages. UPDATE: I did some changes on the WAP source, please let us know if it now works ok with your devices. Thanks!

Descriptive quote from the editorial at OSOpinion: "Even though Palm's operating system still owns more than half of the PDA (personal digital assistant) market, Microsoft's marketing engines are roaring. With Microsoft aligning with Intel, and making a full-court press to capture more of the mobile operating system market, it is not hard to see a new Microsoft-Netscape battle brewing. This time, though, the battle is more than just browsers. It is about full operating systems, and Palm now is the would-be David facing the Goliath of the software industry."

"Version 7.0 of the Symbian OS is here, with improved support for 3G networks, EMS, MMS, IPv6, MIDP Java as well as a slew of improvements related to security and certificates. The successor to version 6.1 of the Symbian OS, v7.0, has been launched at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, bringing with it features that the mobile industry needs and wants. The new version builds on v6.1 and includes new communications, messaging, networking and application development technologies to more easily implement 2.5G and 3G technologies in new phones." Read more at the one place for PDA and cell phone news, InfoSync.