At Palm’s Annual Stockholders Meeting, stockholders approved the spin-off of PalmSource, Inc. from Palm, Inc. Palm will distribute all the shares of PalmSource it owns (approximately 86 percent of the total) to Palm stockholders of record as of the close of business October 28, 2003. Those Palm stockholders will receive approximately 0.31 shares of PalmSource common stock for each share of Palm common stock they own. PalmSource common stock will trade on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol PSRC.

Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises and Research In Motion announced that the two cruise lines operated by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) have selected BlackBerry to help increase efficiency and enhance customer service through wireless connectivity. Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises chose to implement BlackBerry because of its tight integration with existing corporate infrastructure and always-on, push-based access to email. The IT department integrated BlackBerry Enterprise Server with IBM Lotus Domino and distributed BlackBerry Wireless Handhelds to employees.

AppForge began shipping version 4.0 of AppForge MobileVB. Version 4.0 adds support for Palm OS 5 and Series 60 devices including the Palm Tungsten, Sony Clie, Nokia 3650, 7650 and Nokia 6600. With the addition of Palm OS 5 and Nokia Series 60 support, MobileVB developers can now write cross-platform applications and distribute those applications on most of the leading mobile and wireless devices including Palm OS, Pocket PC, and Symbian UIQ, Series 60, and Series 80 PDAs and Smartphones.

Ever get your knees bashed by the seat in front of you during a long flight? Ira Goldman invented the Knee Defender, a beeper-sized block of plastic that lets airline passengers prevent the seat in front of them from reclining.

McDonald’s will decide in the first quarter which hot-spot service providers will receive passing grades in current test programs, according to the company. News.com reports that McDonald’s now has hot-spot pilot programs in the Bay Area, Seattle, Chicago and New York City with Cometa Networks, Toshiba’s SurfHere and Wayport. Those trials are expected to end during the first few months of 2004.

DuPont Display Solutions and NEC LCD Technologies announced the introduction of a line of display modules enhanced with technologies for improving flat panel display performance. The products will utilize DuPont Display Solutions’ ability to assist NEC’s flat panel display customers by providing after-market enhancements that enable Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) for a fast growing number of emerging non-PC industrial market applications.

SMC Networks announced its newest family of products for home networking. SMC’s new HomePlug solution comes with two versions of the EZ Configuration Manager software: one for the Windows OS and one for the Mac OS. The products will begin shipping in November.

Padcom, Inc. filed a complaint alleging patent infringement of two patents on Padcom’s wireless roaming technology. Padcom’s complaint alleges that defendant NetMotion Wireless entered the communications networking market subsequent to Padcom, and infringed upon Padcom’s technology with its NetMotion Wireless’ Mobility software. Database Solutions, the complaint also alleges, serves as a reseller for the infringing products, offering the accused products to customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Dell Computer announced the Dell Digital Jukebox, a portable MP3 player and tapped Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for its 1.8-inch hard disk drive. According to the EE Times, The Dell DJ plays MP3 or Windows Media Audio files and handles digital voice recording, and data backup. The 7.6-ounce unit features a USB 2.0 interface and built-in rechargeable lithium-polymer battery for up to 16 hours of continuous music playback.

If you’ve ever seen the wacky new Nokia, you’ll understand what these folks are up to. This is a cherished link. It’s got bad MIDI and more geeky guys than you can shake a stick at. And, it’s on topic!