Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly... no, wait, that's Star Wars 3. This is Partners in Precrime 3, the epic conclusion to our series analysing Palm's publicly announced webOS software partners.

Subject to scrutiny this time around are MovieTickets.com, Fandango, SplashData, AOL, Telenav and Chapura. So smuggle your lightsaber into the nearest available astromech droid, bone up on your Jedi mind tricks and slip into your favorite gold bikini as we board the sail barge for the end of this opus... and actually, leave the gold bikini behind. Thanks.

Rumor: A report running today on the Boy Genius Report claims that Alltel is planning on offering the Palm Treo Pro very soon. The unsubstantiated report claims it could happen as early as this Thursday, March 5th. It will reportedly be offered with a $125 rebate, for an approximate $199 price tag with a new 2-year contract agreement.

The Treo Pro has been available as an unlocked GSM handset in the US since September. It has been rumored to be on its way to Sprint since almost as long, but has apparently suffered numerous certification delays. The CDMA version of the Treo Pro just debuted on Canada Bell and the device is also available in Europe and many South and Latin American countries.

Deluxeware's excellent Clock Deluxe application for Palm OS devices has recently been updated. Clock Deluxe is a multifunctional clock app with numerous features including Alarm Clock, Multi-zone clocks, Time Calculator, a World Time Map, Calendar, Timers, and a Stopwatch. It also keeps your system time sync'd up with Internet atomic time servers. The latest update lists an improved timer engine and the edit city feature received a bugfix.

Clock Deluxe v1.84 is available now for $7.95 and is currently on sale for $5.95 for a limited time. It comes with a free demo period and is compatible with devices running Palm OS 3.5 and above.

Research Group IDC has recently published a report on the impact of the "Global Economic Downturn" on the mobile industry. In short, IDC believes the mobile industry is likely to fare the current global economic downturn better than many other industries. The report predicts softening sales in 2009 in all related sectors including mobile devices, chipsets and mobile software, yet states they are still likely to only grow over time – taking the current economic downturn in their stride.

The mobile sector has emerged as the dominant driver of the global telecommunications industry. The US$700 billion mobile industry now serves almost half of the world's population with 3.6 billion subscriptions at the end of 2008. Looking beyond the tremendous growth in revenue and subscriptions, the mobile industry is a diverse one, indeed a tale of two worlds – the developed and emerging markets. It is also an industry that is roiled by social and technological transformation, as well as the fickle but equally important dictates of fashion and consumer preferences.

As foretold, the Palm Treo Pro made its debut today on Canada's Bell Mobility. The news is also notable as this marks the North American debut of the CDMA Treo Pro featuring EV-DO Rev. A network capabilities. The 3G-capable Treo Pro smartphone is now available to Bell Mobility clients for a limited-time price of $99.95 on a three-year contract.

"Treo Pro is a perfect fit for the busy business professional or casual user who needs on-the-go access to business tools or their personal email," said John Traynor, vice president, business products, Palm, Inc. "Treo Pro's capabilities, including Wi-Fi and GPS, ensure users can be highly responsive, available and productive with a powerful yet effortless mobile experience."

Palm and O'Reilly have posted a video of yesterday's webOS Developer Preview webcast, which can be seen embedded after the break. The video includes a presentation and srceencast about developing apps for the webOS operating system and Mojo development environment, followed by a Q&A session.

The event is hosted by Mitch Allen, who is vice president and software chief technology officer at Palm, Inc. Mr. Allen is also the author of the recently released intro chapter of the webOS development book.

RCR Wireless News has posted a Q&A interview with Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Of course they brought up the question on everyone's mind lately... When is the Palm Pre release date? Unfortunately he did not disclose a definitive timeframe or date, however he does elaborate somewhat on the planning and preparations that are underway for the Pre's launch.

We haven't announced that. [Pre's release date] The plan of both companies is to have it on the market in the first half of the year. Obviously when you're bringing out a new device with this level of sophistication and functionality there's a lot of work required. The guys at Palm are working 24/7 and we're working 24/7 to bring it out as soon as we can.

Welcome to the latest version of PalmInfocenter! Todays refresh marks our 6th major design overhaul over the course of our 10 years online. The new site features a streamlined new look, improved loading times, larger fonts for easier reading, optimized navigation and various commenting enhancements, while still retaining the classic PIC look and feel.

In addition I've also overhauled the mobile version of PalmInfocenter (m.palminfocenter.com) as well. It now offers registered users the ability to login in and comment right from your device while browsing the lightweight, mobile optimized site.

Vito Technology has released a new version of its Windows Mobile shell program. Winterface enhances and replaces various aspects of the Windows Mobile user interface and works especially well on the Treo Pro. It is comprised of a launcher, unlock screen, task manager and various Today plugins. It allows for a much more customizable interface and brings colorful skins and added features. This new version includes a new "bright" skin, the ability to hide or show the standard wm start bar, support for opera mobile favorites and various bugfixes.

Winterface v1.3 is available now for $19.95. It comes with a free trial period and is compatible with Windows Mobile 5 and above.

SanDisk and Toshiba have jointly announced the co-development of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory using 32-nanometer (nm) process technology to produce a 32-gigabit (Gb) 3-bits-per-cell (X3) memory chip. The breakthrough introduction is expected to quickly bring to market advanced technologies that will enable greater capacities and reduce manufacturing costs for products ranging from microSD memory cards to Solid State Drives (SSD).

The 32Gb X3 on 32nm technology is the smallest NAND flash memory die reported so far, able to fit into the fingernail-sized microSD memory card format. Production is expected to begin in the second half of 2009.

Two new analyst reports on Palm's stock have been published this week and they couldn't be more different. First the good news, Deutsche Bank has upgraded the stock to Buy and raised their target price to $10, stating:

"We see clear signs that [Palm is] capable of executing to plan and shipping the Pre at least on time," At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, he adds, "we found a lot of carrier interest in the device as well." [...] "Palm has been beaten down for so long that even a modest success could generate significant earnings leverage. Numbers in the next two quarters will still be dismal, but the Pre offers a meaningful break with the past."