.KEYWORD pcexpo
.FLYINGHEAD TRADESHOW REPORT
.TITLE Palm OS thrives at PC Expo
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT pcexpo-cover.gif
.SUMMARY With so much to see at PC Expo, it’s good to set priorities. In his report from the showroom floor, Steve Niles takes you on a tour of the Handspring, Sony, and Palm, Inc. booths to see what’s new in the world of Palm OS-based devices.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
PC Expo 2000 was held at Javits Center in New York City from June 27 through June 29. It was a massive event, making it impossible to see everything, so in the day I spent roaming amongst the garish product displays, I made it my goal to check out everything involving the Palm operating system. This is not as easy a chore as it once was, as the pool is in the process of expanding now that Sony is adopting the Palm OS for the company’s soon-to-be-launched foray into the handheld market.
Before I checked out Sony’s new device, however, I had to pay a visit to Handspring.
.H1 An expanding pack of third party developers
I have to admit, as I threaded my way through the elaborately staged booths covering the convention center floor, I was less than enthusiastic about visiting the folks at Handspring. I really wanted to see what Palm was offering, but I figured I’d visit Handspring first to get it over with. I would soon be changing my tune, however.
As a newly hired PalmPower editor, I’m still learning about all the players. I didn’t know much about Handspring’s Visor at all. To me, it was just a Palm device with a more colorful form factor. I knew a little bit about its Springboard expansion slot, but never having seen one, it didn’t mean much to me.
I was immediately surprised by the size of Handspring’s presence at the Expo. Around a center stage where a demonstration of the Visor’s capabilities was being held at regular intervals throughout the day, small stands were arranged for Handspring’s many third party developers. As I made the rounds, I gradually became acquainted with the idea of the Springboard expansion modules.
If you’re not familiar with them, the modules are small, cartridge-like pieces of hardware that slide and snap into the Visor’s unique Springboard expansion slot. These instantly switch the Visor’s functionality from that of a mere organizer to whatever the module is designed to do, whether it be an MP3 player, a radio, a GPS locator, an ebook, a digital camera, or what have you. These conversions happen almost instantly, with no software drivers to install or special adapters needed. It’s just plug-and-play.
I truly was impressed by the design. As a banner on the side of the Handspring booth declared, it seems you really can make the Visor "whatever the heck you want it to be."
Of course, not having used any of these Springboard modules, I can’t verify how well they do what they say they can. However, they show great potential, and we here at PalmPower can’t wait to get our hands on them to see for ourselves. Here are a few of the more interesting modules I came across.
.H2 my-Vox Digital Voice Recorder
The my-Vox Digital Voice Recorder (at http://www.my-vox.com/ivoxhs1.htm) comes from the elaborately named Singapore Shinei Sangyo Pte. Ltd. It can record up to eight minutes or 99 messages, and features an earphone jack, single button recording, and voice alarm activation. The marketing representative at the show said it’d be good for recording meetings. Provided we lived in a fantasy world where no business meetings stretched beyond eight minutes, I suppose that would be true. However, I think it’d be better suited to the odd personal memo.
Singapore Shinei Sangyo Pte. Ltd. had another module to demonstrate called my-Raydio, the misspelling of which can be accounted for by a smiling sun logo. By plugging the device into your Visor, it transforms your handheld into a portable radio.
.H2 CUERadio
CUE Corporation has another radio module for the Visor called CUERadio. You can select from a preprogrammed list of stations and add additional cities to your play list. With the module, you can also get traffic alerts, driving directions, personal messaging, email alerts, and weather forecasts. You can find it at http://www.cue.net.
.H2 Bar code scanners
Bar code scanners were popular. Variations were being offered by both Symbol and Momentum. Momentum’s representative was touting a complicated sounding home-shopping program that you need to coordinate with your local grocer. Unfortunately, my grocer can’t coordinate his own staff well enough to clear the shopping carts out of the parking lot, so I asked if the scanner might be useful for working in a warehouse instead. However, he said the device wasn’t designed for such a rough and tumble working environment and would break. He gets points for frankness.
You can find more information at http://www.pscnet.com/html/grocerescan.htm. In Figure A, you can see a woman making use of the Momentum Bar Code Scanner for her home shopping needs.
.FIGPAIR A This woman apparently managed to decipher Momentum’s home-shopping program.
.H2 Modems
There were also a number of modems. Xircom was showing off its SpringPort communications module, pictured in Figure B. Once plugged into your Visor, it allows you to access email, the Internet, stock quotes, and Web portals. It’s at http://www.xircom.com/cda/page/0,1298,0-0-1_1-704,00.html.
.FIG B Xircom’s SpringPort gives you Internet access on your Visor.
The guys at CardAccess gave me a demonstration of their Thincom Portable Modem, and I was impressed by the Web images it managed to render on the Visor screen. It connected directly into a normal phone jack. For more information, visit http://www.cardaccess-inc.com.
.H2 CitySync
I became of fan of Lonely Planet’s line of paperback travel guides while in the Solomon Islands. Now, I’ve learned, the company is putting out a line of city guides in the form of a Springboard module. See http://www.citysync.com. The guides should provide the same great reviews and information available in their paperback versions, as well as provide street maps and a travel notebook.
.H2 GPS
If street maps are what you’re after, there are some other options available as well. Navicom has HandyGPS, featuring such GPS favorites as date, time, position, bearing, course, and speed. It’s at http://www.nexian.com/handygps/handygps.htm. GeoDiscovery also has a GPS device out called Geode that provides easy-to-scroll maps and travel information. It can be found by visiting http://www.geodiscovery.com/products.htm#04. One unique feature their representative pointed out to me is the fact that their GPS system can tell where you are even when you’re standing still.
Does the fact that orbiting satellites are routinely monitoring our location bother anyone else? I’ve become paranoid of Global Positioning Systems since reading about how terrorists could soon harness this technology in order to aim missiles with pinpoint accuracy. This makes the threat personal, as now some rogue state nutcase can target my third floor apartment while I’m out barbecuing on my deck. And this begs the question, how long until someone develops the Ballistic Missile Targeting module for the Springboard expansion slot?
Leaving such paranoia behind, I decided to move on and check out Sony’s yet unnamed handheld device. It was the one item about which I had heard the most pre-show buzz.
.H1 Sony
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to Sony’s new handheld, there’s not much else to do. It wasn’t terribly striking to look at, and it probably wouldn’t have drawn much attention if it weren’t for the fact that it was securely locked under a glass case as if it were the crown jewels. It even had a personal guard, cleverly disguised as a marketing representative.
Curious gawkers could do little but press their noses against the glass and squint at it. As if that might make it look less drab. It was difficult to judge, but it appeared taller and narrower than the typical handheld. A partially inserted memory stick poked from the top. The device was blue and silver in color, slim, and had rather severe looking edges. Personally, I prefer the sleek curves of a Palm V.
The admirers crowding around the display case were naturally curious, but their questions were deflected by the apologetic guard/marketing guy who could only say that, because it was a prototype, there was little accurate information he could give, as things could change by the release date. He did reveal that versions will be available with both color and grayscale screens, and it should be on the market in time for the holidays.
I asked about the memory stick, as I wondered if the slot would be similar to Handspring’s Springboard expansion slot. No, he assured me, it was just for memory.
.H1 Inside the Palm pavilion
After visiting Handspring and Sony, I dutifully checked out the Palm booth, which looked quite spectacular this year. They had even more cool hardware goodies for my toy-seeking entertainment and gratification. I’ll describe some of them for you.
.H2 C-Pen
C Technologies’ C-Pen immediately caught my attention. It’s at http://www.c-pen.com. The device is actually a pocket-sized, handheld computer shaped like a bulbous pen. It’s pictured in Figure C.
.FIG C The C-Pen can scan a line of text.
You run it over a line of printed text like a highlighter, and it takes thousands of little pictures, basically scanning in the text. It then translates the pictures back into text, which you can edit on the C-Pen’s small screen. Alternatively, you can use the device’s infrared port to beam the scanned text into a Palm device. Basically, it’s good for picking up interesting quotes out of magazines and newspapers or grabbing some information from a business card, etc.
.H2 Firepad
The next booth to catch my attention belonged to a company called Firepad, at http://www.firepad.com. They were giving demonstrations of their FireViewer product. FireViewer allows you to display large, scrollable images on a Palm device. It can be used to view pictures, maps, or diagrams, in grayscale and in color, depending on the type of device.
They then did something quite remarkable. The marketing representative explained that they had a camera aimed at one of their employees back at the office. The live image came streaming over a modem attached to their Palm IIIc, and the video image appeared right on the handheld device. To prove the image truly was live, the representative had his partner call the woman sitting at her desk in Mountain View, California.
"What do you want her to do?" he asked the assembled crowd. When no one else immediately responded, I held up my hand in the unmistakable Vulcan salute and offered, "How about this?" The Firepad representative told her what to do, and sure enough, I had a woman clear on the other side of the country tell me to live long and prosper right from the screen of a Palm IIIc.
.H2 PocketPyro and BikeBrain
There were a few other intriguing bits of hardware I’m anxious to see more of in the future. There was a cool looking gadget called PocketPyro that attaches to the bottom of a Palm device to give the platform "unprecedented access to multimedia power and storage capacity." Take a look at it in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D PocketPyro connects to the Palm device to add multimedia power.
At the moment, it’s basically an MP3 player, but in the near future, according to their press release, it should offer speech recognition, file storage, voice recording, and text-to-speech functionality. That’s a tall order they’re asking from the multimedia engine inside, named with utmost modesty, DragonThunder.
There was also an interesting device called BikeBrain that lets you attach your Palm device to the handlebars of a bicycle. It provides graphical displays, route directions, logging, and smart features such as automatic wheel size calibration. It’s pictured in Figure E. More information is available at http://www.bikebrain.com.
.FIGPAIR E BikeBrain simply oozes with hip attitude.
.H2 Chapura and AnyDay.com
I dropped by Chapura (at http://www.chapura.com) where they were handing out really cool pens that have nothing to do with their products: two bits of software called PocketMirror and PocketJournal. They work together to "mobilize the complete suite of functions available in Microsoft Outlook."
Finally, I visited with AnyDay.com, a Web site that has recently partnered with Palm. At the site, you can set up your own personalized calender, which you can now synchronize with your Palm handheld. More details on that can be found at http://www.anyday.com/funding_053100.html. The integration details are still being worked out, according to the site’s representative at the show.
.H1 Final thoughts
I ended my Palm experience at PC Expo by sitting in on a stage show demonstration. The two hosts, one of whom was a dead ringer for Courteney Cox, kept things fun by tossing out Palm logo magnets, free styli, and T-shirts.
All in all, I’d say PC Expo was a success. There are a lot of exciting new products coming out for Palm and Handspring, and by the end of the year we’ll all get to see what Sony has managed to do with the Palm OS. Stay tuned to PalmPower to read all about it.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the my-Vox Digital Voice Recorder, visit http://www.my-vox.com/ivoxhs1.htm.
For more information on CUERadio, visit http://www.cue.net.
For more information on the Momentum Bar Code Scanner, visit http://www.pscnet.com/html/grocerescan.htm.
For more information on Xircom’s SpringPort, visit http://www.xircom.com/cda/page/0,1298,0-0-1_1-704,00.html.
For more information on the Thincom Portable Modem, visit http://www.cardaccess-inc.com.
For more information on Lonely Planet’s CitySync, visit http://www.citysync.com.
For more information on Navicom’s HandyGPS, visit http://www.nexian.com/handygps/handygps.htm.
For more information on GeoDiscovery’s Geode, visit http://www.geodiscovery.com/products.htm#04.
For more information on the C-Pen, visit http://www.c-pen.com.
For more information on Firepad, visit http://www.firepad.com.
For more information on PocketPyro, visit http://www.pocketpyro.com.
For more information on BikeBrain, visit http://www.bikebrain.com.
For more information on Chapura’s PocketMirror and PocketJournal, visit http://www.chapura.com.
For more information on AnyDay.com, visit http://www.anyday.com.
For more information on Palm’s acquisition of AnyDay.com, visit http://www.anyday.com/funding_053100.html.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
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