Japanese memory chip maker Toshiba said it would make flash-based solid state drives for notebook PCs, as it seeks to create new sources of demand for flash memory chips. The maker of NAND-type flash memory said its solid state drives would range in capacity from 32 gigabytes to 128 gigabytes, and that it will mass produce the 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch drives in May 2008.

Zippy, quiet, and boasting a faster boot time than hard disk drives, solid state drives are used in portable devices like tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs. But their high price has prevented them from going mainstream in the PC market.

Dell is being sued by a couple of smaller companies that claim the PC vendor violated several patents regarding technology related to tablet PCs. The lawsuit also names Motion Computing, an Austin, Texas, company that makes tablet PCs for a range of vertical markets, including government, education and health care.

The lawsuit was filed by Typhoon Touch Technologies, a Seattle company that develops touch-screen technology for PC displays, and Nova Mobility Systems, of Phoenix, which makes rugged tablet PCs and other handheld devices. Typhoon licenses its technology to Nova for use in its tablets.

Microsoft began to place ads on its U.S. MSN Mobile page, moving into the nascent mobile phone advertising business. Computer-based Web usage dwarfs mobile Internet use in the United States, but companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo see advertising tied to mobile phones as potentially more lucrative than the $40 billion online advertising market.

Resco has released Resco MobileForms Toolkit 2008 optimized for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Compact Framework 3.5.

Resco MobileForms Toolkit 2008 is a suite of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 controls designed specifically for mobile devices. It provides the developers with fast, responsive and Windows Mobile-standardized user interface which gives the developed applications a professional look and feel. All controls were designed with view to the small display size, low CPU performance and limited ways of user input of a mobile device.

For those of you who can’t get enough of our own David Gewirtz on the air, you’re in luck with a morning broadcast on the Boston-area airwaves of WBNW 1120 am and Southern coastal Massachusetts down through Cape Cod on WPLM 1390 am. David will be joining Lou Michaels on the Daily Bear Show at about 11:15 am this morning (Monday).

For those of you outside the Boston area with a hankering for David and the Daily Bear (and discussions ranging from email safety to national security), you can tune in online. Just tap on the Listen Live button. It looks like they stream Windows Media, so you Mac readers might be out of luck.

This has been a very exciting week for us here at ZATZ. After many long months of work, ZATZ Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz’ book Where Have All The Emails Gone? is now available.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

SlovoEd Express for Windows Mobile Pocket PC from Paragon Software provides multilingual translation and brings the advantages of SlovoEd dictionaries in an absolutely new way. Now you are able to choose the way you like to get exact translation. All you need is just run SlovoEd Express, choose the language pack you need and buy a one-year subscription. Enable Internet connection and get the word translated into any language you need.

VITO Technology has released GoodWin, software to make your Windows Mobile Pocket PC handling even easier than on the iPhone. GoodWin is designed for managing your applications with a finger friendly interface. Fancy graphics with animated menus result in an extremely convenient and appealing user experience, with all important info being displayed in a single scrollable window.

The past several years have brought with them a number of disasters. Sadly, we don’t think of it until it happens to us and it’s too late–where am I storing my important life documents and are they safe?

KeepYouSafe provides free Online Safe Deposit Boxes that you can upload important documents to, or create important documents within. It’s as easy as uploading attachments to email or filling out an online form. Use KeepYouSafe to store all of your important documents–wills, property deeds, tax forms, banking information, birth certificate, passport, social security card–anything. You can also use the easy Wallet Wizard to store credit card, driver’s license and banking information in case your wallet is lost or stolen.

Your Online Safe Deposit Box is accessible from anywhere in the world, and if you want, share your password with your loved ones and perhaps your lawyer to make things simpler in your absence. The encrypted safe deposit boxes have military-grade security, so they are safe and secure–far more secure than storing highly sensitive material on your home computer or laptop.

Your mission should you choose to accept it is to find and activate a security software for your handheld mobile device that is easy to use yet protects your data in the event of theft or loss. Each year one of three handheld devices goes missing in this nation. As a result, private and privileged knowledge of financial assets, personal property and business contacts invariably falls into–the wrong hands.

Warden, from Corsoft, is protective software that allows mobile owners to easily lock up their private data, regardless of whether the device is in their possession. Or, in extreme cases, data on an irretrievable mobile device can actually be destroyed by logging into one of the available Web sites. The Warden defense mechanism doesn’t stop there.

Software users also have two methods for defining auto-destruction of data: one based on the time duration of the phone lock; the second based on the number of attempts made to unlock the device. Currently, the software product is available for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and smartphones, as well as Treo devices that run the Palm OS. It also allows corporate users to manage a fleet of company-owned devices. This story will self-destruct in five seconds.