Centura Software Corp. announced a regional strategic alliance with Powerlan Limited. According to the press release, the combination of Centura

Here’s what happens when we cover controversial issues. We get picked up by the Washington Post. Although the article implies that our readers were of only one mind on the issue, the editors of the Washington Post privately acknowledged to us that our readers and our coverage were both very even-handed.

TapPad.com is extending their discount offer on their Graffiti enhancement through Sunday December 3. TapPad is available now for only $12.95 (normally $19.95).

It appears to be a banner day in general for ebook cynics. The New York Times has an article wondering whether, “There is something not entirely rational about the book industry’s current love affair with electronic books.” The article argues that no one knows yet if there’s even a substantial market for ebooks.

And so the great ebook experiment comes to an end. Wired News reports that Stephen King has announced the next installation of his serialized ebook, “The Plant,” will be the last. Angry protests from readers have been countered with the fact that by part four of the series, only 46 percent of the people who downloaded the book paid for it. The fact that two more installments were issued after that, the publishers say, more than lives up to their end of the bargain.

The Register has an article suggesting porn will be the driving force behind mobile technology. According to the article, “It’s often said that the smut business established VHS as the de facto home video standard over the technically superior Betamax, so never underestimate the pulling power of porn.”

Tomoharu Nishino has written in with a translation for one of yesterday’s news items:

You mentioned the new Japanese Zaurus PDA, but lamented the lack of details owing to the language barrier. Well, if you are interested, here are the basic specs from their Web page.

Proprietary Zaurus OS and PIM, 32bit RISC processor, 8MB Flash/8MB RAM 240*320 frontlit 16bit color display, slide out keyboard and HWR, MPEG-4 movie player, MP3 player, built in support for connection to cellular phone/modems, POP3/SMTP mail client, browser with HTML3.2, 128bit SSL, Javascript, frames and cookie support, and compact flash and SD card slot.

According to the Web page, Sharp has included both CF and SD card slots so that the SD card slot can be occupied by a memory card, while the CF card is occupied by some other device (modem, camera, etc.).

An interesting capability is MPEG-4 playback. As a separate accessory Sharp provides an MPEG-4 encoder which plugs into a standard video connection. With a big enough memory card, you could conceivably carry a feature length movie around.

I have used the Japanese Zaurus OS and PIM and find it clumsy to use, but Sharp sure knows how to make hardware.

Hope this was interesting.

YadaYada Inc. announced a collaboration with go2 Systems to provide mobile PDA users with go2’s wireless location-based directory and information services.

The Register has an article on Palm’s dispute with the owner of Mypalm.com. Palm recently announced its plan to launch a portal called MyPalm, only to find Mypalm.com was already registered to a UK company, Intanet Communications. Palm is accusing the site’s owner, Dominic Hulewicz, of being a cybersquatter. Hulewicz argues that this claim is ridiculous, as he registered the name a year before Palm announced the name of the proposed portal.

Tescina, Inc. has introduced the DataGet BCD cartridge, the first gauge interface for the HandSpring Visor and the first gauge multiplexer for any Palm OS device.