Group Sense PDA Limited (GSPDA), today announced its entry into the North American market with the availability of its Xplore M-series smartphones. GSPDA, one of the largest sellers of handheld products in Asia and the subsidiary of Group Sense (International) Limited is launching the Palm Powered M28, M68 and M98 smartphones in North America. [updated with photos]

palmOne and Rogers Wireless today launched the Treo 650 smartphone in Canada, making the device the first all-in-one, quad-band smartphone to utilize the carrier's EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) network.

Images of an unusual Treo design have been posted on TreoCentral. The details about the devices are sparse and have lead to speculation on what they may actually be.

palmOne has just released their own wireless headset for the Treo 650 smartphone. The Treo wireless headset uses Bluetooth for cord-free conversations and is also compatible with other Bluetooth phones.

PalmSource and new Palm OS licensee ITM Technology AG, today launched the Palm Powered hagenuk SmartPhone S 200. ITM plans to offer the hagenuk SmartPhone S 200 to wireless customers in Germany through its retail channels beginning in April.

Altair Nanotechnologies, has announced that it has achieved a breakthrough in Lithium Ion battery electrode materials. These new materials allow rechargeable batteries to be manufactured that have three times the power of existing Lithium Ion batteries at the same price and with recharge times measured in a few minutes rather than hours.

PalmSource has announced it will be presenting at the Smartphone Summit on March 13, and CTIA Wireless 2005 on March 15, in New Orleans, La.

Earthcomber today announced new features of its freeware personal navigator that allow users to mark and share places on the map. Earthcomber Version 1.2 lets users mark their favorite places on maps, either on their Palm-powered devices or directly on the Web, and then share those places through private and public groups in the Earthcomber community.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) just commissioned an independent study on consumer awareness, attitude and usage of Bluetooth wireless technology compared to other wireless technologies. The study shows increasing rate of Bluetooth awareness and deployment among consumers consistent with rapid overall growth of Bluetooth products on the market.

PalmSource today announced it has joined the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF). The CELF is an open standards-based consortium of industry-leading companies aimed at encouraging adoption of Linux for the development of consumer electronics devices. PalmSource has joined the CELF as an Associate member.

A Palm OS developer in France has ported 3 classic PC first person shooter games over to the Palm OS. Original copies of Quake, Doom and Hexen can now be run on most Palm OS 5 handhelds.