Palm has invested in SiPix, a company that is going to manufacture thermal printers for handhelds and tiny cameras. A thermal printer uses heat to transfer images to special paper.

Interest in handheld printers has never been high but IDC analyst Ron Glaz believes the market may be ready. "With handheld technology becoming also wireless, there is an increased need for being able to print."

YadaYada announced today the commercial availability of its nationwide wireless Internet service. They have been in public beta since last fall. Their monthly service charge is $40.

They also announced a partnership with Indiqu to deliver wireless, server-based games to their subscribers. On the site today, single users can play Blackjack, Poker, Touch Trivia, and Word Soup. By March 31, Indiqu will deploy multi-player games.

Coola Inc., who makes software that transfers all types of content between the Web and handheld devices, today announced that it has entered into partnerships with seven major providers of document reader software for Palm and other handheld devices. As a result, users visiting Coola-enabled Web sites can have the information from any Web page automatically converted for viewing on any Palm Powered handheld equipped with any of these document readers.

Palm reduced the price of the 8 MB IIIxe permanently to $200 after the recent $50 rebate program expired. That would seem to compete somewhat with sales of the m100, which sells for $150, and brings up questions about whether Palm is planning to release a replacement to its venerable III series sometime soon. Rumors have been circulating lately that the company will be releasing an m300 series with a new design in the near future, possibly at the same time as the m500 series.

AlphaGrip presented a prototype of its new handheld speed typing device and technology at Upside Events' Showcase 2001 this week. The device allows users to enter text at more than 50 wpm regardless of body position or the availability of a work surface. The company plans versions for Palms, cell phones, and interactive TVs.

More details about the Palm m505 have come to the surface thanks to ZDnet. This new Palm is expected to run a Dragonball VZ chip at 33 MHz and sport 8 MB of RAM. Also new will be the "postage-stamp-sized" SD (Secure Digital) expansion slot.

There will be two versions of this device, monochrome and 16-bit color. The monochrome version won't weigh more than 3.25 ounces, about an ounce less than the current Palm V series. The color version will weigh between 3.9 and 4.3 ounces and use flexible lithium-polymer batteries. It is 1 mm thicker than the current Palm V.

Earlier this month, PTN Media, Inc. entered into a three-year, exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license agreement with Michael Jordan, the former NBA player, granting PTN Media the right to use Jordan's name, likeness, image, and endorsement in connection with the proposed advertisement, promotion, and sale of handheld computers using the Palm OS.

The agreement provides that PTN Media will pay Jordan a royalty equal to 12% of the proceeds from the sale of certain Palm products, but in no event less than an annual minimum royalty of $1,000,000 in the first year and $1,250,000 in the second and third years.

PalmStation.com has a picture of what might be the new color Palm that is going to be released in the next few months. Or it might be the product of someone's imagination; PalmStation received the picture anonymously.

It is labeled the "m505", which fits in with Palm's new naming scheme. It has separate up and down scroll buttons, not a rocker switch like the current V models but the m100 has separate ones, too. The screen shot shows an app called Card Info, which is presumably for the SD card port.

Market research firm NPD Intelect has released a study that really makes it clear that handheld computer sales exploded last year. For the entire range of such devices (including Palm and its licensees, PocketPC and a few others), 3.5 million devices were sold in 2000, a 150% increase over the 1.3 million sold in in 1999. And revenue increased almost as much, going from $436.5 million sold in 1999 to $1.03 billion in 2000.

For the year, Palm maintained its market dominance, though it slipped a bit. In 2000, it has 72% of unit sales, down from 78% in 1999. But that is still far ahead of its next nearest rival Handspring who had 14% of unit sales.

Brayder Technologies has announced the release of JackBack™ 1.0, a backup solution for critical data. With JackBack, users can keep an automatic backup of data right on their handheld, which gives the ability to restore data anywhere, at anytime. Backups are saved into Flash memory or an external storage media, which will survive a hard reset or battery failure.

JackBack costs $20 but is available for a limited time at PalmGear for 30% off.

envi.con has released Pilot Install 2.0. This freeware tool allows you to install Palm software much faster than HotSyncing and now offers the ability to put images on a user's Palm. Every picture comes with its own tiny built-in viewer and can be looked at immediately on the device. Images can be beamed to other users' Palms, who can also use the viewer app. In addition, this new version offers enhanced capability to convert and send documents only fly from a PC to a handheld, like text to doc, midi to alarm etc.

Qvadis has released version 2.00 of Express Reader Pro, an e-text reader.