SYWARE announced the availability of mEnable 2.0, to provide mobile users with wireless access to enterprise data and run database applications on handhelds and connect to ODBC-enabled databases in real-time at any time or place. mEnable compliments the company’s Visual CE software product line that empowers people to rapidly create feature-rich database applications, without programming, that can be deployed on any Windows Mobile device wherever they need to work.

A walking childlike robot from Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. is entering classrooms to help teachers demonstrate the wonders of science. In a demonstration for reporters at a Tokyo museum Wednesday, a teacher explained to students how Asimo has sensors inside its body to maintain balance, and the robot displayed how it can keep its balance by tilting its body while standing on a swaying platform.

IBM announced the ThinkPad X41 ultraportable notebook–its lightest and smallest ThinkPad with a built-in fingerprint reader. IBM also announced new ThinkPad software that automatically performs a complete system hardware check and installs the latest drivers, BIOS, and options required for peak performance. Weighing in at only 2.7 pounds, the new X41 combines advanced biometric capabilities with an ultraportable design and extended battery life, providing road warriors and traveling business users with power, performance and versatility.

The latest sign that malware writers are refining attacks on mobile devices comes from Mabir-A, a new worm capable of infecting specific devices through clever social engineering and the use of both Bluetooth technology and multimedia (MMS) messages. F-Secure also warned of a new Trojan called Fontal-A. Fontal-A is a Symbian Series 60 Trojan that installs a corrupted file that damages the applications manager, preventing the installation of any new applications. F-Secure said the Trojan then causes the phone to fail to reboot. If the user tries to reboot the infected phone, it will be permanently stuck in reboot and must be disinfected before it can be used. F-Secure said the only known method of repairing the phone is to use the reformat key combination, which causes the phone to lose all data.

Wireless integration with the back office should get a whole lot easier as Research in Motion (RIM) prepares to offer a new framework for developers. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company, creator of the BlackBerry wireless email device, plans to unveil a new version of its Mobile Data System (MDS) development framework at this month’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Orlando, Fla. MDS 4.1 enables wireless applications to integrate with back-end enterprise systems using Web services. Using the visual design tool in MDS 4.1, developers can browse to any Web Services Description Language file, find the available Web services they’d like to access and simply drag and drop them into their application. The tool then takes care of generating the underlying “plumbing” code, said David Yach, vice president of software at RIM.

US scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again. It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual’s eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear. Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret.

The Mozilla Foundation has developed a beta patch for the Firefox browser that it claims improves the blocking of pop-up ads. The popular open-source browser already contains a pop-up blocker by default, but this doesn’t handle pop-ups launched by plug-ins such as Flash and Java. Mozilla employee Asa Dotzler wrote in his blog last week that Mozilla developers are responding to the increasing number of advertisers that are using plug-ins to launch pop-up ads.

Exideas released a new version of its MessagEase text entry software with multi-language, multi-alphabet support. Available as a free download (free for the first two months), this latest version of MessagEase’s Onscreen keyboard runs on Windows (XP or 2000) and Tablet PCs. In addition to its native English keyboard, it includes support for Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, German, Spanish, and French. This software is also user-configurable for any other language or alphabet, including Chinese and Korean. MessagEase is also implemented for Palm and Pocket PC PDAs and is enjoying the support of a growing number of Tablet PC and PDA users.

Clickgamer Technologies announced it’s offering its newest game, High Noon Drifter–Dead Man’s Gulch as a free download. The new game is a first-person “Old West Shoot ’em Up” adventure available for all devices based on the Windows Mobile Pocket PC platform. The free game offer is in celebration of the complete redesign and re-branding of the company’s two Web sites.

Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Mobile upgrade, code-named Magneto, is designed to be a Blackberry killer, said sources familiar with the ambitious plan. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant is on track to freeze the Windows Mobile 2005 ROM code in April and provide new technology in Exchange 2003 Server Pack 2 that will push email out to mobile workers who use Pocket PCs and smartphones.