Since the new, high-end handhelds were announced this Spring, there has been an acute shortage of peripherals for them. Recently, this has begun to be remedied by various manufacturers, including Rhinoskin. They have recently begun selling slider cases for both the Palm m500 series and the Sony Clié.

Handspring has released the Handspring 3.5.2 v.1.4 Updater for all Visor Platinum and Prism handhelds in all languages. It offers improved Graffiti on the Prism, and adds modem HotSync, and fixes connection method editing and bitmap compression on both models. -Ed

Vindigo has recieved $6.2 million in new funding and laid a few employees off. They provide free city guides, movie listings, and restaurant reviews -Ryan

While we've had a report from the PC Expo already from Ryan, he concentrated solely on the Palm products. This report from Mike Cane covers not just Palm-related products but a whole host of others, including laptops, peripherals, electronics, and even some Pocket PC products that were at the Expo..

Finally, some good news for Palm Inc. According to NPD Intelect, sales of Palm-branded devices accounted for almost 70% of the handhelds sold in stores in May, up almost 8% from the previous month. This change was mainly brought about by strong sales of the m505. "May looked great for Palm," an NPD analyst said. "The m505 was just killer."

Palm's sales had languished during March and April after the company announced the m500 series long before it was shipping, which greatly reduced demand for their models that were available. May was the first month that the m500 series was shipping in large numbers.

Mobile Mail is a free service that lets handheld users check multiple e-mail accounts. It allows complete access to many types of accounts, including read, write, reply, and forward. Best of all, it works well with AvantGo, allowing users to send and receive e-mail whenever they HotSync. It also allows access to newsgroups, ICQ, news, weather, and much more.

According to a representative of Think Outside, maker of the Stowaway folding keyboard, "We anticipate that a keyboard to support the Kyocera Smartphone will be available Aug/Sept. 2001." -Todd Radel

RealVision showed off their upcoming PC Card adapter for the m500 series at last week's TECHXNY. A few more details are now available. The adapter, called the Guyver, should allow the handheld to use any PC Card, including wireless modems, GPS recievers, and microdrives. It should be available near the end of September for about $150. -Ed

The Handspring Foundation, a fund established in March to support organizations and programs dedicated to improving their communities, has awarded its first round of grants. They selected five nonprofit organizations to receive grants of up to $15 thousand. Also, they announced the launch of their Product Donation Program to give handhelds to nonprofit organizations and the Handspring Volunteerism Campaign.

In its second round of grants from the Palm Education Pioneer (PEP) program, Palm, Inc. is awarding $2.3 million in handhelds to schools to discover the best ways that handhelds can be used to improve teaching and learning. This research will help work out best practices for integrating handhelds into curriculum.

Last week, Belkin Components announced that they would begin shipping the Belkin Universal Portable PDA Keyboard at the beginning of July. This is a folding keyboard clearly intended to compete with the Think Outside Stowaway. More information on this keyboard is now available. When closed, it is 5.375 by 3.875 by 1 inch. It opens to be 11.25 by 3.875 by less than .5 inches. It weighs less than half a pound.

Over the past few months, Handspring has been offering a $50 rebate on the Visor Deluxe and Platinum. Unfortunately, these rebate programs have been causing unexpected headaches for both the company and its customers. Handspring didn't make it clear that some buyers were ineligible for these rebates and others didn't properly submit the paperwork for the refund. In order to keep this from being a black spot on the company's record, Handspring is going to honor all rebate requests.

Think Outside is going to release a version of its Stowaway folding keyboard for the Visor Edge in August. -Ed

SplashData has released SplashPhoto 2.5, the latest version of its image viewer. The free update provides seamless support for Palm m500 series SD cards. SplashPhoto images can be installed directly to an SD card using SplashPhoto Desktop or images can be moved to/from an SD card using the SplashPhoto viewer on a Palm OS handheld. They are offering it for $10 -- 50% off the normal price -- through July 15th. -John Chaffee