A few readers have wrote in to report that the new Sony Clié N710C is now in stock and available for purchase at some Fry's Electronics stores for $499.99.

The N710 features a front lighted, reflective TFT color screen at 320x320 resolution and a Jog Dial. It has 8 MB of memory and comes with an 8 MB Memory Stick. The 710 also has support for mp3 digital audio and comes with headphones and an audio remote control.

Should anyone spot a new Clié at a retail location, please post it here.

Palm, Inc. and West Group are working with Stanford University's Law School on a six-month wireless handheld experiment. A group of 50 faculty and students are being given a Palm VIIx and wireless access to Westlaw, the legal research service.

"This program is part of our strategy to bring the power and convenience of handheld computing to colleges and universities -- especially those offering research-intensive programs such as law,'' said Mike Lorion, Palm's vice president of education markets. "We expect this initiative will serve as a model for universities that want to provide their students simple, quick, fun and smart ways to communicate and learn remotely.''

InnoPocket has announced the FlashPlus, a Springboard module that allows Visors to use CompactFlash cards. Previous versions of this Springboard required the file management applications to be manually loaded into RAM by the user. The FlashPlus is a true Springboard with the apps residing on the module. It will be available June 1 for $50.

DataViz, Inc. has announced that it has made several improvements to Documents To Go Professional Edition. They have added DocSync to the Windows versions, which allows users to make changes on their handhelds without losing the desktop document's original formatting after synchronization. Formatting attributes, including fonts, graphics and charts remain intact within the original document, and changes made on the handheld file are integrated into the desktop document.

RhinoSkin is now offering aluminum hardcases for both the m500 series and the Visor Edge. These are both slider cases, which means the cover slides under the base to save space. These are made of 100% anodized aluminum with a scratch-resistant finish. Their rigid exteriors and Neoprene interiors help protect the handheld from shocks. The m500 version is $50 and the Edge one is $60.

There is now a link for each article on the home page that will display that article in flat mode. This means that the entire text of the article and all comments and comment responses are displayed. The link is a small icon () just below the first part of the story. It's also possible to make this happen globally, so that all links to articles open in flat mode. This is one of the options that is set when registering for the site.

The Palm Infocenter Forums have recently been upgraded with many new features. These forums are the place to go to post questions and hold discussions not directly related to a current PIC article.

Despite some people's hopes, there are strong indications from Palm that they don't intend to cut prices again soon. Though Palm finds itself with hundreds of millions of dollars in excess inventory, it has two possible ways of getting rid of it: it can sell it to customers or it can write it off and take a loss on it. Palm has already tried the former and is now going to do the latter.

Olive Tree Bible Software has announced that BibleReader now offers preliminary support for extended memory, including the Palm SD and MMC interface, the Sony Clié's Memory Stick, the TRGpro CF slot. Now the Palm can run the BibleReader databases directly from extended memory. -Jerry F. Giardina

mwave.com is selling the m505 for only $390. The limit is 5 per customer. They also have the m500 for $345. -JFM3

Motorola has licensed Sony's Memory Stick technology and will build slot control circuitry for it into the processor of its next generation of Dragonball and Dragonball-ARM processors. The effects of this are two-fold. Making handhelds with the MemStick slot will be significantly cheaper for Sony and other handheld makers can save a similar amount of money if they adopt Sony's expansion slot for their handhelds.

Yes, you read that right, Palm Inc. is not going to fail. True, they are going through a rough time right now but their current difficulties are not enough to bring the company down. So if you've been holding off buying a new handheld because you've been waiting to see if Palm would be around next year, I can assure you that it will.

Agilent Technologies has introduced a highly integrated system-on-chip that is capable of running Palm OS 5.0 if Palm Inc. chooses it as the processor for its next generation of handhelds.

Agilent's new, low-power chip, the AAEC-2000, contains an ARM920T embedded processor core that operates at 200 MHz. It also offers a wide selection of I/O, full color LCD controller, frame buffer, external memory controller, programmable PLL, and a versatile memory manager.