Palm, Inc. announced that a federal court has agreed with Palm that assertions of patent infringement made by E-Pass Technologies, Inc., are unfounded. In an order dated Aug. 12, 2002, Federal Judge Lowell Jensen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Palm’s request for summary judgment, finding that Palm had not infringed the E-Pass patent. Last month, Palm was similarly exonerated when a federal court in Delaware ruled that Palm did not infringe two patents asserted by NCR Corp.

DDH Software, Inc. announced HanDBase 3.0, which features an External field type that allows other Palm OS and Pocket PC applications to be called from within a HanDBase database. The new External field supports plug-ins, which are actually external applications that may be called from within HanDBase to provide additional features for users, such as image viewing, voice dictation, GPS entry, enhanced text editor, email/Web-browsing, and third-party hardware support.

Twilight Edge Software has released Backdrop GC, an application for color Palm OS devices that allows you to install an image as a background screen, similar to wallpaper on desktop PCs. The background image stays in place while other applications run, and you have full control over which programs will display it.

Metrowerks is adding support for the Intel XScale technology in its CodeWarrior Development Tools for ARM Embedded Systems. Version 1.2 of CodeWarrior Development Tools for ARM Embedded Systems, which begins shipping this month, is designed to enable embedded software developers and device manufacturers to visually debug ARM processors based on Intel XScale technology, including the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 processors, Intel’s next generation processors for wireless devices.

ePocrates announced a new partnership program between ePocrates and The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) designed to allow you to request U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations from your handheld device. This is the first time that USPSTF, an independent panel of primary care and prevention experts that develops evidence-based recommendations for clinical preventive services, has used a handheld network to deliver outcomes to the medical community.

PocketInformatics announced their PocketPractitioner software has been tested and accepted by the American Medical Association (AMA) PRESS for inclusion in the AMA Catalog. Beginning this month, PocketPractitoner is available from the AMA Coding Catalog as well as online at AMAPress.com. PocketPractitioner 2002 is designed to provide medical practitioners with a patient tracking and billing application created by a doctor for use in clinical settings. It was designed for use at the point-of-care by medical practitioners to improve patient tracking, capture diagnoses and procedural histories, as well as to decrease billing errors.

Here’s an interesting promotion. The ##PalmStore## is offering a free copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD when you purchase a Palm m515 handheld. Once you’ve purchased your handheld, the DVD will be shipped to you separately. This makes sense, because we all remember that bizarre product placement in the movie where Frodo uses a Palm m515 equipped with a GPS navigator to plan out the trip to Mordor. Oh, you don’t? Well maybe that scene will make it in the Special Edition DVD.

Electric Pocket Limited has announced enhanced versions of its BugMe! and Mailer applications for Palm OS handheld computers. BugMe!, an application that enables users to handwrite reminder notes or sketches directly on the screens of their Palm OS handhelds, has been upgraded to version 4.0 and now includes support for the high resolution screens of Sony Clie branded Palm OS handhelds such as the new NR-series devices. Support has been added for both Sony HiRes and HiRes+ devices. These same enhancements have been made to Mailer, the company

Metrowerks’ newest Wireless Development Center opened this week at the company’s Austin, Texas headquarters. The Wireless Development Center is designed to provide developers an opportunity to “test drive” their applications on a live wireless network, and on a variety of different devices, before offering them to carriers or OEMs, or deploying to customers. It should enable developers to improve performance, eliminate bugs, and address other issues before taking their products public.

Botzam, Inc announced the public release of documentation describing how to develop Botzam Backup plugins for both encryption and compression. This provides third party developers with the ability to enhance the Botzam Backup product. In addition to documentation, sample source code is provided. Plugin Documentation and the developer kit are freely available.