Despite the fact that a version of Palm's Centro smartphone has been available since February for the AT&T GSM network, users have been offered the wide range of colors hue available to their Sprint CDMA Centro brethren. Centro owners on AT&T been forced to accept a launch color scheme of Glacial White with a rather garish lime green dial pad, followed by a more recent black version that became available in late March after the white version's debut.

For AT&T users, relief is now at hand with the immediate availability of a new "electric blue" Centro that is certain to find favor amongst buyers shunning the white version. As of this writing, Palm.com's AT&T Centro checkout page lists the color as "coming soon" with the same $99.99 price tag as the other color offerings. Palm's blog states the new color will be available in AT&T stores and online at Palm.com begining this Friday.

Hobbyist Software can always be counted on for releasing constant updates for their line of utilities for Palm OS-based smartphones. This summer is off to a busy start, as Hobbyist has released a number of updates to their line of Treo utilities over the past month or so. In the interest of saving space, we won't go into the details of the exact changes that are fully detailed on the Hobbyist Software changelogs.

The superb Phone Technician multifunction utility has just been updated on July 1st to version 4.11. Be sure to read my Phone Technician review from a little while ago. Another Hobbyist utility and a personal favorite of mine, Butler, was updated to version 4.91 on June 30th. Finally, version 3.62 of the Initiate launcher was released on June 5th.

Longtime mobile entertainment title developer Astraware is celebrating the release of the Symbian S60 version of their popular Big Box of Blox title by offering free versions of the title for both Palm OS and Windows Mobile/Pocket PC devices.

Big Box of Blox, licensed from Digital Eel and published by Astraware, is a nifty title that provides a few interesting twists on the classic Columns-style gameplay. Interestingly enough, Coluns itself was one of the slew of early 1990s derivates/clones of Tetris-see my PIC review here of the older but essentially similar Jewels by Beiks. The full rundown on the Palm OS version of this title can be found here.

Long-time favorite backup utility NVBackup from Alex Pruss has just received another update. With the latest beta release, dated June 30th 2008, NVBackup is now up to version 1.22b6. A quick install and quick backup routine on my 755p showed no noticeable problems or installation difficulties.

Sourceforge.net's page detailing the release history of NVBackup and download links can usually be found here but it has not yet been updated to reflect the release of the new 1.22 version. This page also offers archived downloads of older builds of the utility. The 1.22b6 version is available for download "as is" now from Alex Pruss' homepage here (.prc link).

Engadget is reporting late today that Matias Duarte is now employed at Palm and is part of the team driving the design and UI of Nova, Palm's next generation operating system. Matias was formerly the Director of Design, at Danger where he was responsible for the user experience and interface design. He also held a similar position at Helio.

According to his public LinkedIn profile, Duarte has been working at Palm since September 2007 and his own job description field is teasingly vague at quote "something new... :-)"

Palm has posted the first ROM update for the Treo 755p on Verizon. The update brings the device up to version 1.08. The update support page is pretty vague on specific details stating only:

This software update is a tune-up that improves the phone application, stability and device usability.

The update is only for use with a Verizon 755p. Palm Support says the update should take roughly around an hour to complete. The usual backups are recommended. Installers are available for all versions of Windows and a expansion card method is provided for Mac OS and other systems.

On July 1st, California will be joining Connecticut, Illinois, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington State and Washington D.C, by implementing a hands-free requirement while operating a motor vehicle. The new law prohibits the use and handling of mobile phones while driving. Talking while using hands-free devices, such as Bluetooth headsets, will still be allowed for those over the age of 18.

The Stanford PalmPilot User Group meets at 7 pm on the first Tuesday of each month; the July first meeting will feature the Spugly Award for the Worst Palm OS Software Ever. The first nominee is Paragon/Penreader's SlovoEd dictionary application, for its chunk over-locked crashes and robotic technical support responses. Spug members are encouraged to demonstrate their own nominees for the Spugly Award at the meeting, and to show technical support responses which fail the Turing Test. Readers of PalmInfoCenter may also suggest nominees in the discussion forum.

Engadget has posted yet another set of prerelease Treo 800w information this weekend. This time around a series of Sprint spec sheet's reportedly taken from am internal training manual have been posted. There is little new information that hasn't already been disclosed, nonetheless the slides show a few new device angles (such as the new Micro USB 2.0 connector) and a fresh screenshot of the default home screen.

The device is now all but certain to be formally announced sometime around July 13th. The Treo 800w is set to run Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and will include a 320x320 pixel touchscreen, EVDO Rev A wireless, Wi-Fi (with a dedicated on/off button), GPS functionality, a 2MP digital camera and 128 MB of built in memory. Read on for a screen grab of the latest spec sheet and a recent rumor recap.

On Sale CorePlayer Mobile for PalmOS 1.2.5 MissedCall 1.4.1 Sudoku DeluxeWare 1.00 Penguin Panic 1.25 Click Deluxe 2 1.04 VoiceDialIt - Voice Dialing for your Treo 2.0 HealthCalc Pro 2.4.0 Navigator 1.482 Weather ( infinity subscription ) 1.00 Exact II 2.27

New Software AFK Dice Challenge 1.0 IEO-DVD Track 2.0 Handy Diary 4.0 MxWallet - Digital Password Manager for Palm OS 1.0.1 Twin Spin 2 (Palm) 1.06 Fried Chicken Reloaded (Palm) 1.1 Weather ( 3-months subscription ) 1.00 Weather ( 1-year subscription ) 1.00 Weather ( infinity subscription ) 1.00 Twin Spin (Palm) 1.06

Updated Software ScrapBook 1.15a ClearSync calendars & contacts software SILVER 2.0 ClearSync calendars & contacts software GOLD 2.0 Softick Audio Gateway 1.22 tumemos 1.1 PrettyMap Full 5.1 The Final Battle 1.1 mVisualVoiceMail 1.0.2 RDM+ Remote Desktop for Palm OS 3.7.2 mTools 1.0.4

Palm Inc. announced their fourth consecutive quarterly loss today. The company posted a fourth quarter loss of $43.4 million. In its conference call Palm blamed the loss on lower average margins, its continued transition and declining sales of its aging Windows Mobile product line. All the news was not negative and increasing Centro momentum drove significant gains in market share and record smartphone sell through for Palm. The company also announced it will be refreshing its entire Windows Mobile line utilizing Microsoft's latest offerings over the next few months.

Palm, Inc. today reported that total revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008, ended May 30, was $296.2 million. Smartphone sell-through for the quarter reached a record high, totaling 968,000 units, up 29 percent year over year.

"We continue to invest in Palm's future and remain focused on building long-term value," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer for Palm, Inc. "Centro is a tremendous hit, we are gaining market share, and we believe with this momentum, and the launch of new Windows Mobile products, we will turn the corner and return to revenue and margin growth."