A recent visit to the TomTom USA web site showed a new banner advertising map updates. I entered in the registration key for my TomTom Navigator 6 DVD (included in the Palm GPS Navigator 6 GPS kit reviewed here) and received the pleasant surprise that I was eligible for "free" updated 2006 maps from TomTom. A USPS shipping charge of $6 is assessed by TomTom but that still seems to be fair considering that a physical DVD is being mailed out to users.

Sling Media and Palm today announced SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm OS, making it possible to watch television on the 3G-enabled Palm Treo 700p smartphone. The new software, expected to be available Q1 '07, will be demonstrated at the Anytime-Anywhere Tech Zone in the Sands Expo & Convention Center, Sling Media booth, No. 69430.

Kent Pribbernow (aka FooFighter), a longtime mobile user/writer/pundit, has posted a number of interviews with various mobile software developers on his PocketFactory blog. Some of the notables personalities interviewed in the article are Howard Tomlinson of Astraware, Adriano Chiaretta of iambic, and, hitting especially hard in his criticisms, C.E. Stuar Dewar, of DateBk6 fame. This one's definitely worth a read for any other developers or long-term fans of Palm OS.

Palm Cingular Wireless today announced the Palm Treo 750 smartphone running on Cingular’s 3G/UMTS network. The Treo 750 is a five-band world phone running Windows Mobile with Direct Push Technology offers Palm’s exclusive usability improvements with powerful business features, including email, security, and web access on the go.

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Rumor: Engadget is reporting that the upcoming CES '07 will mark the announcement of the Treo 750 for Cingular's GSM network in the United States. This often-delayed device was introduced earlier in 2006 by Vodafone but to date has yet to officially appear on any domestic carrier. Engadget is listing Sunday, January 7th as the official release date. The release of the Americanized Treo 750 will complete the full 2006 release schedule promised by Ed Colligan--Treo 700w, 700p, 750, 700wx, 680.

The home video DVD release of "Snakes on a Plane" has just been released. Palm's Treo 650 handheld is featured prominently in this new Samuel L. Jackson action/comedy thriller. Palm has a new web page up specifically for the tie-in.

Palm devices are certainly no strangers to the silver screen. In addition to numerous references to "Palm Pilots" in films throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Palm's Tungsten C made a starring turn (it's depicted in the official lobby poster and DVD case artwork) in the 2004 romantic comedy "Little Black Book", starring Britney Murphy and Ron Livingston. The Treo 650 was also "casted" in the recent film "A Good Year," starring Russell Crowe.

TomTom's superb Navigator 6 GPS software (see PIC review here) has only enjoyed a few months of retail availability but already supposedly has troubles with the newest Palm OS device on the market, the Treo 680. A TreoCentral forum member has recently discovered and posted a work-around by using a hex editor that enables TomTom 6 to function on the Treo 680, essentially thinking it's actually a 650. Please note that this is an unsupported and unverified by PIC fix. Use at your own risk!

PalmAddicts are reporting that MobiTV has quietly revised their channel lineup for Palm OS devices. A handful of channels have been added or modified, most notably of which is the addition of Fox News Channel's. Fox's MobiTV channel is one of the few MobiTV offerings, in addition to MSNBC, offering live MobiTV streaming concurrently with the live brodcast version.

NBC News and ABC News Now are also offered on MobiTV's channel guide but they serve up specially formatted and edited mobile programming instead of the live broadcast content. The following "real" channels carry on as before, having always had live content mirroring their broadcast equivalents: CNBC, C-SPAN, C-SPAN2 and The Weather Channel.

The MobiTV Palm OS client software remains unchanged at the moment. See the PIC review of MobiTV here.

One of the few constants in the world of Palm OS-oriented print media has been McGraw Hill/Osborne Press’ How to Do Everything series. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the release of the sixth edition of this volume, How to Do Everything with your Palm Powered Device, given the general hasty retreat by most industry heavyweights from the handheld and PDA segments. I ordered my own copy from Amazon, not wanting to wait around forever to try and acquire a press review copy. I had previously purchased the second, fourth, and fifth volumes in the series so I pretty much knew what to expect from this latest revision. Read on for my impressions and comparisons with the previous volumes in the series.

As reported on PIC recently, the transition from Secure Digital 1.1 to Secure Digital 2.0 (aka SDHC) has begun due to the Treo 680's compatibility. The recent arrival of sub-$100 8gb SDHC cards and compatible devices is only hastening this process but many owners of SD-only devices have been left in the cold wondering if their devices will ever be updated for SDHC compatibility.

Read on for the full howto tutorial on enabling SDHC compatibility on your Treo 700p.