A price war in expansion memory appears to be in full swing. Sony announced today that it is dropping prices on its full line of Memory Sticks. The price on a 128MB MemStick is dropping from $240 to $150, while an 8MB one drops $5 to just $25. These prices have not yet taken effect on the SonyStyle webstore.

Earlier this month, Panasonic dropped the prices for its MemStick rival, the Secure Digital card. However, with this latest round of cuts from Sony, all sizes of MemSticks are now less expensive than their SD equivalents.

Red-M, a supplier of advanced Bluetooth networking products, has just launched the Red-M Blade, a Bluetooth clip-on for the Palm Vx, giving it short-range wireless networking capabilities. Its design allows the handheld to be placed in its cradle without removing the clip-on. Combined with Red-M's BladeLink software, connection in the office, home, or on the road is seamless and automatic. It will be available in retail stores this month for $200.

United Airlines now has a web clipping app that allows users to book flights, purchase tickets, check flight status, and more. -Ed

LandWare is offering a program that allows owners of competing products to switch to Pocket Quicken 2.01. Customers providing LandWare with proof of ownership of SplashMoney, QMate, Accounts and Loans, PMT, PocketMoney, or BankBook can purchase Pocket Quicken 2.0 for only $20 until September 3. -David Porfido

ARM Holdings has licensed to Intel and Texas Instruments its ARMv6 architecture, its next-generation of designs for high-performance, low-power microprocessor cores. ARM didn't release many details on the new design but did say that it offers improved support for multi-processor handhelds and better performance all around.

Last week, Palm announced that Intel and TI would be taking part in its Palm OS Ready program, in which ARM-based chips by these companies would be made ready to to run OS 5.0. Motorola is also part of this.

Rhinoskin has announced some new additions to its line of cases. The have new models for the Edge, m100 series, and tri-fold one for all handhelds.

The Handspring Visor Edge Leather FlipCase comes in black or brown and sells for $40. It offers easy stylus access and semi-rigid edges to better protect the handheld.

Many of the readers of this site are early adopters and gadget freaks. They tend to buy the latest handhelds and lots of accessories. The downside of this is they are left with a lot of equipment that they don't use any more whenever they upgrade. To help out, the Palm Infocenter has just opened its Market Place, a completely free area to post classified ads for buying and selling PDA-related items.

Palm has made their Knowledge Finder web-based information service into a web clipping application. It contains more than 1,000 solutions compiled by Palm engineers worldwide and offers user guides, tips and frequently asked questions.

Parachute Technologies has officially announced the release of the Parachute III PC Card adapter. They are accepting orders at $130 for delivery in 6 to 8 weeks. They plan to develop versions for the m500 series, Visor, HandEra, and the HP Jornada.

It is difficult to say whether the most important story of last week was the announcement of the Palm Ready Program, in which multiple companies will make processors for future Palm handhelds, or Palm splitting its OS division off into a subsidiary.

There was significant hardware news about the Minstrel m500 wireless modem and the Audible Advisor Springboard. Also, we published the long-awaited Sony PEG-N710C review.

OmniSky, the wireless ISP, has revealed that it expects to have between $4.6 and $4.7 million in revenues this quarter. Unfortunately, they expect to lose between $19 and $21 million in that same period. Still this is better than expected. They are cutting their global workforce by nearly 100 employees, mostly by reducing its European workforce and closing several European offices. Before this and other cost-cutting steps were taken, they were expecting to lose between $41 and $43 million

Palm, Inc. has announced it will form a wholly owned subsidiary out of its Platform Solutions Group, which oversees the Palm OS and its licencing. This isn't exactly the same as splitting off the OS portion of the company from the hardware part, but it's close. The new subsidiary will still use Palm's buildings and some administrative staff.

A committee of the board of directors of Palm, chaired by David C. Nagel, will oversee the subsidiary's creation by the end of this year.

Portable Innovation Technology has announced that PiDirect is no longer in beta. This app works with either of the MemPlug Springboards to allow users to run applications and read-only databases stored on a memory card. It will cost $20 but it is on sale for $10 until August 30.

Update: PiDirect II is now available.