The Visor Platinum is now listed on Handspring's webstore as "Currently Out of Stock". The Platinum has been out of production for a while, replaced with a new model. -Ed

Coming in January is Empower Technologies' PowerPlay V PDA. It resembles a Palm V series but runs the company's Linux DA operating system. It has 8 MB of DRAM and a 16 MHz processor. It will cost $150. They already sell a version of the OS that can run on the Palm III and V series. -Ed

The big day is almost here but if you are trying to cram in as much holiday cheer as physically possible, your Palm handheld is ready to help. Maybe it's something about the spirit of the season but dozens of developers have created free Christmas-related applications to share with everyone. The following is a few of the more interesting ones. This isn't meant to be a complete list by any means. If you have a favorite that isn't included, feel free to contribute it.

Sony's low-end model, the PEG-S320, now appears on the SonyStyle webstore as "sold out". While it's entirely possible that heavy demand for this model during the holiday season has simply depleted Sony's stocks, the only times in the past Sony has allowed this to happen have been when it was about to discontinue a product.

If so, this would come as a surprise to a great many people. There have been no rumors circulating of a new low-end replacement for the S320, though Sony has done an excellent job in the past of keeping such announcements a total secret.

Many people have said that the high resolution default font on the Sony's Clié is too thin. Hacker Dude-San, creator of several other popular apps, has released Thin Font Fix. It thickens the lines of the default font a bit but the size of each character stays the same. It is freeware.

Palm Inc. was the top news-maker this week, announcing its quarterly earnings, losing a court case with Xerox, and being removed from the Nasdaq-100. They also chose Texas Instruments to make the processors for their OS 5-based wireless handhelds. There was even a bit of news on OS 5 itself and the i705.

Not to be overlooked, Handspring got a $10 million investment from Qualcomm and donated cash and handhelds to various charities.

iambic, Inc. has released Bump Attack Pinball, which features a play area that is larger than the handheld's screen. The game scrolls as the ball moves into the upper or lower regions of the tables. Play goes on in front of two different full-color backdrops. It is available until January 1 for $15, after which it will sell for $20.

Adobe has released a new version of its free Acrobat Reader for Palm OS that has complete support for storing and reading PDF files from VFS memory cards. The PDF files have to be converted to a Palm-only format by the Acrobat conduit first but it can then save them directly to an SD, MMC, or Memory Stick where the Reader can access them.

Palm Inc. and 3Com have lost a patent lawsuit with Xerox. A judge ruled today that Graffiti does infringe on a patent Xerox holds on a handwriting recognition method, called Unistrokes.

The lawsuit will now move on the the penalty phase. The court will decide if Palm has to pay damages and if it is allowed to continue to use the technology. Xerox will urge the court to either require Palm to stop using Graffiti entirely or pay royalties.

Update: Palm has just announced that it will appeal this ruling. "We assert that the Graffiti handwriting technology does not infringe the Xerox patent and that Palm has strong arguments to support its defense," said Eric Benhamou, chairman and CEO. "Palm will defend itself vigorously and does not intend for this litigation to affect its business strategy or business model nor that of its licensees."

BetterPalm Software has launched HandBrowser, a substitute for the built-in Palm application launcher which can display for liles and applications. It has support for VFS memory cards and File-App associations allow applications to be launched by tapping on their associated file. It can display all the apps or all the files on the handheld on a single window or break them up into categories. It is available now for $20.

More evidence has emerged that Palm is close to releasing the i705 wireless handheld and that Sony is likewise close to announcing a U.S. version of the T600, which will likely be named the T615.

The Sony N610C, which is quite similar to the T615, now shows up on the SonyStyle webstore as "Sold Out". In the past, this has happened right before Sony announced a replacement. Though Sony won't comment on whether it will release a version of the T600 in the U.S., it is widely expected to do so and that it will replace the N610C.

Handspring and Neomar, a developer of wireless enterprise software, have announced that they will work together on marketing and sales of Handspring's Treo communicators and Visor handhelds with Neomar's mobile infrastructure software to corporate customers. -PR

Palm Mobile Mentor software Collegiate Edition, a collection of organization, productivity and learning applications, was named a 2002 Codie award finalist for Best Post Secondary application. The Codie awards honor the industry's finest products. -PR