Competing technologies often emerge because electronics makers can’t agree. That confuses consumers, and causes them to spend money on products that become worthless because they won’t work together. Manufacturers pay a toll in wasted resources on redundant work. An intractable compatibility problem can stall the growth of a promising technology.

Handheld maker palmOne said Thursday that a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that its products do not infringe on two NCR patents. In March 2001, NCR sued Palm and Handspring, alleging the companies infringed patents for a type of “portable personal terminal.” NCR had been appealing a district court ruling that had sided with palmOne.

MapQuest announced a new feature designed to let subscribers send color maps to their mobile phones. The feature, part of the company’s MapQuest Mobile service, also lets users send driving instructions. Subscribers use the MapQuest Web site to find the maps and directions they want, then send them to their handsets. The feature is called Send to Phone.

EdgeStream unveiled a new television set-top box that uses its proprietary IPTV software platform and can, according to the company, deliver DVD-quality, on-demand broadcasts over the Net. The Internet streaming-media developer said the broadband IPV500 set-top box was built by Wyse Technology on a reference design from Intel. The box runs Microsoft’s Windows Media Series 9 technology over EdgeStream’s IPTV software.

MedicAlert, best known for its health care information bracelets, plans to offer a USB device that stores personal medical records. The Personal HealthKey will use a USB flash drive made by SanDisk and software from CapMed, a division of Bio-Imaging Technologies. The device will work with any USB-capable computer.

Four cable television channels, including A&E and National Geographic, will use the Internet to broadcast programs in a deal with video-on-demand company Akimbo Systems. Akimbo sells a programming service and a television set-top box that uses high-speed Internet connections to gather and store TV shows. It can hold up to 200 hours of video.

Microsoft unveiled a new video download service at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show. The service is meant to boost the slowly growing line of portable video players based on its nascent Portable Media Center software. Microsoft’s MSN Video Downloads will offer a daily changing selection of video clips from sources such as Fox Sports and IFilm.

Samsung has unveiled two cell phones that translate speech into text, representing the latest attempt to make it easier for cell phones to surf the Web or send text messages. Rather than typing, users just speak into the phone, telling it the email address and the content of the message. The phone does the rest.

Sony Electronics is making a feature of its mobile TV panel available on notebooks, and travelers will be able to access local TV content when far from home as a result. Come spring, Sony will release software that in conjunction with its LocationFree TV device will allow consumers to watch video content and access the Internet from a base station hooked up to a broadband connection.

A vulnerability in Firefox could expose users of the open-source browser to the risk of phishing scams, security experts have warned. The flaw in Mozilla Firefox 1.0, details of which were published by security company Secunia on Tuesday, could allow hackers to spoof the URL in the download dialog box that pops up when a Firefox user tries to download an item from a Web site.