The Palm Store is currently running a fairly nice promotion that gives customers a coupon code "FIFTYOFF" for an instant $50 off any purchase of $200 or more. The coupon code is valid between now and November 5th.

This would immediately drop the Palm TX down to the $250 neighborhood, still the best price for a brand-new, factory-fresh TX from a reputable merchant. The Tungsten E2, with its list price of $199.99, just needs a bit of padding (perhaps a spare pack of styli?) to be pushed over the $200 threshold and be eligible for the coupon discount. The free shipping on all orders over $49 sweetens the offer a bit more.

A new version update, 5.5.7, has just been released by MotionApps for their popular mVoice call recording + voice memo app. This new update is a bugfix release due to the more substantial changes made in earlier 5.x versions. Dated 10/20/08, the mVoice release notes page lists the new version's improvements as: "Fixed autostart issue when recording phone calls with compression during recording."

mVoice for Palm OS is available now for $19.99, and has just been reduced $5 from the former $24.99 price. It is also available for Windows Mobile devices. You can also read my previous mVoice review of version 5.0.

Rumor: In what should be taken with a rather large grain of salt, some nevertheless intriguing information concerning the rumored CDMA version of the Treo Pro has appeared in the logs on DSL Reports' Mobile speed test site.

WMExperts has pointed out the presence of multiple entries of a "Treo 850e" running Windows Mobile and Internet Explorer Mobile 6.0 on the Sprint EVDO network. While the "Treo 850" model number might sound suspect, Palm has often used dual nomenclature on their past devices: the Centro is also the Treo 690, the Tungsten T was the m550 and the Zire is the m150, just to name a few. In addition, the extremely high throughput result of 1060 kbps is certainly indicative of a higher speed EVDO Rev. 0 or Rev. A device.

Following closely behind last week's announcement of a free limited-feature version of Kinoma Player for Palm OS devices and the previous week's EX update, a minor update has been released for each version. Users of both the free Player 4 and the Player 4 EX app can now download the new version 4.5.1 update.

This is a primarily a bugfix release, so no major new features have been added. According to Kinoma's blog, the fixes are as follows: Users in the UK can now reliably access YouTube streams, Palm Treo 650 users can now activate Kinoma Player 4 EX and Kinoma Player 4, bookmarks are once again searchable with Palm OS Find, Selecting Cancel from the Authentication dialog no longer crashes Palm T|X or LifeDrive devices when the onscreen keyboard/Graffiti area is hidden. As always, registered users can use the program's handy built-in auto-update feature to download and install the update to their devices.

ShSh software has released a new version of its popular 4cast weather browser for Palm OS. 4cast downloads weather information from the Internet and displays it in a nice palm native interface. It supports 5-day forecasts for multiple cities, weather maps and alerts. 4cast can also be used as a plugin for 2day, DateBk6 and ZLauncher. This update adds system alarms for severe weather alerts, and adds an optional KeyGuard interface for Butler and Nexave.

4cast v1.91 for Palm OS is available now with a free trial period. It costs $9.95 to register the full version. It is currently on sale for $6.95 for a limited time.

In its most recent Global Bond Markets' Weakest Links and Monthly Default Rates report, Standard & Poor's has named Palm Inc. and 140 other US companies on its "Weakest Links" list of low quality debtors. The category represents entities rated 'B-' or lower, with either a negative outlook or ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications, that are most vulnerable to default according to S&P.

Time Magazine has just published an article which takes a look at some of the implications of the report and makes a passing mention about Palm being a "troubled firm." PalmInfocenter has obtained a copy of the report and we take a further look at how it specifically relates to Palm.

Palm and Sprint announced new Olive Green and Vibrant Rose colored Centro smartphones last week and today we take a close look at the Olive Green variety. In addition to the new colors, these two models also bring a few relatively minor improvements in the form of double the built in program memory as well as some updated applications. Additionally, the new shades come with a soft touch finish for a better grip and a smoother, smudge free exterior.

Read on for our impressions and a full photo gallery of the new Olive Green Centro.

Access has announced a number of new initiatives around its Access Linux Platform at a company event this week in Tokyo. The company has announced version 3.0 of the Access Linux Platform. Providing little technical details, the company says the new version includes LiMo compatibility and a new advanced UI that features highly detailed visuals, smooth transitions and animations.

In addition, the company has announced a new product based on ALP called the Access Linux Platform mini. ALP mini is targeted at feature phones and low-end smartphones to Internet-enabled, beyond-PC devices, such as portable navigation devices, portable media players and set-top boxes. ALP mini omits Palm OS Garnet compatibility as well as native Linux applications.

Palm is letting its customers know that they have until Halloween to download the Windows Mobile 6 update for the AT&T Treo 750. Palm says that the update will "expire" as of October 31st and will no longer be available. Users of the Treo 750 who want this update must download it before the expiration date.

The Treo 750 was first announced in September 2006. The device originally shipped with Windows Mobile 5.2 Pocket PC edition and was updated to Windows Mobile 6.0 in late 2007. The update provides faster downloads, improved calendar functionality and compatibility with Windows Vista, among other things.

In what is undoubtedly a sign of the massive impact of the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced yesterday during its quarterly conference call that iPhones outsold BlackBerries devices during the last quarter. In their most recent quarter, Research in Motion (RIM) reported selling 6.1 million BlackBerry devices, while Apple just announced sales of 6.9 million iPhones. In roughly the same period, Palm reported overall smartphones sales (Treo and Centro combined) of 1,029,000 units during the quarter.

The numbers are quite staggering considering that Apple has been selling the iPhone for only about 15 months and has already exceeded its own goal of selling 10 million units in 2008. The data adds up to Apple rising to the world's third largest mobile phone supplier measured by revenue.

Ryhor Burakou has just updated his best selling TouchLauncher application. TouchLauncher puts a Palm OS spin on the iPhone home screen with a touch friendly launcher interface and various handy utilities. Among the many features are finger scrolling, rearrangeable apps, drag and drop operations, custom iconsets, wallpapers, weblinks, contact icons and much more. New features in this version include the ability to lock icons so they can't be moved, various minor and major bugfixes, UI updates with more rounded windows and shadows and menu options optimizations.

TouchLauncher v1.3 is available now for the Centro and devices running Palm OS 5 and higher including Palm PDAs (Palm TX, LifeDrive, T3, T5, Zire 72). The app comes with a free trial period and costs $6.99 to purchase.