Sony introduced new handhelds that emphasize wireless communications. The two new Clie handhelds, the PEG-UX40 and the PEG-UX50, with built-in wireless connectivity as well as more components that were manufactured in-house. The devices will be available in Japan starting early August and the United States in early September.

PalmSource announced a new Palm Powered smartphone, the Xplore G18, from Chinese licensee GSL. The Xplore G18 is a full-featured smartphone that integrates PIM functionality, multi-media capabilities, and telephony features. The Xplore G18 runs Palm OS 4.1.2 and comes bundled with several productivity, communication and gaming applications.

CRN reports that Oracle Collaboration Suite Release 2 was released without instant messaging, but that realtime feature will be delivered in yet another upgrade during the first half of 2004. Like the first release, the upgrade allows users to use the Microsoft Outlook client to the collaboration services. It offers a new flashback recovery that allows Outlook users to recover deleted messages without an administrator. It also features enhanced resource scheduling and a standard-based SyncML server for Oracle Calendar that supports mobile devices.

The New York Times reports that Kensington will make it easier to find Wi-Fi networks when it releases the WiFi Finder. The tiny gadget has three green light-emitting diodes and a button. When the button is pressed, the device scans the area for a network within 200 feet using the common 802.11b or the newer 802.11g network standard. If it finds one or more networks, it displays the signal strength of the strongest network with one, two or three L.E.D.’s. Free registration is required to access this article.

CNet has this interesting article about the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) drive to identify and ultimately sue what could be thousands of file swappers online. Apparently, there’s a hole in the RIAA’s initiative because of free Wi-Fi access points where no registration is required. With people logging in and out without offering identities, it becomes virtually impossible for groups such as the RIAA to track down the identity of copyright infringers using these nodes.

eWeek reports that several vendors are readying WLAN products that support not only Wi-Fi, but Bluetooth and WANs as well to help integrate and manage the variety of wireless platforms and protocols available to enterprise users.

PC Magazine reviews the color version of the T-Mobile Sidekick. The Sidekick comes with a backlit swivel screen, backlit thumb keyboard, Danger Hiptop OS, and the scroll wheel for navigation. According to the article, you can do a one-time import of Palm Desktop or Microsoft Outlook PIM data with the shipping product.

SyncData released SmartphoneNotes, an ActiveSync service provider that enables synchronization of Microsoft Outlook text notes with Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002 devices. SmartphoneNotes is designed to synchronize the Orange SPV Smartphone 2002 and Orange SPV E100 Smartphone 2002.

Here’s an article from Silicon.com that talks about the trouble of synchronizing a mobile phone with email. The writer was using a Nokia phone to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and Lotus Organizer.

Network Computing takes a look at Palm’s Tungsten C device. The Tungsten C comes with a thumb keyboard and no dedicated Graffiti area; Graffiti 2 can be used anywhere on the 320×320, 16-bit color screen. The device also has 802.11b Wi-Fi capability.