Noblestar Systems Corporation reported today that it has successfully spun off Riverbed Technologies, Inc., one of Noblestar’s wholly-owned subsidiaries. Riverbed, known for its flagship product, Scout, will continue to develop and sell specialized middleware and connectivity software aimed at the “hyper-growing” mobile computing market. Riverbed’s product, Scout, started as a way to hook up multiple, simultaneous users of handheld deveices and smart phones directly to a server running enterprise applications. Enterprise applications include ERP packages like PeopleSoft and SAP, as well as custom developed applications.

ProdEx Technologies Inc. unveiled AddressGrabber, a software utility that allows PC users to easily capture addresses from anywhere in their system and transfer them to another program with just one mouse click. The program automatically captures the name, company, title, full street address, phone, fax, e-mail address, and other necessary information from the PCs screen with one mouse click.

Palm Underground features the SyncPick archive from Palm Planet as well as the new February1999 SyncPicks, Palm Planet news archive, Palm Planet review archive, and Palm links resources which will be used as the foundation for the most complete and extensive Palm link listing on the Web. Palm Underground will also present other original features including product reviews, commentaries, analyses, and other presentations. Within the week, Palm Underground will be accessible via the palmunderground.com domain name. For now, Palm Underground is available via their IP address.

AvantGo and CNNfn announced that they are now delivering breaking financial news to users of handheld devices. From the fn to go area on CNNfn

PMN Publications has launched the first ‘channel’ of information for users of OneTap Software’s SmartDoc. The channel will broaden access to the content of the popular PMN News Service, currently distributed by e-mail in text and Doc format. Using the powerful ‘NetMarks’ download facility provided by SmartDoc, readers can obtain the latest news and information from the mobile computing industry with a single stylus tap.

The Scotsman takes a look at online calendars from Yahoo! and Netscape. The article also explains why such sites offer free versions of software you have previously been willing to pay for.

Forbes Magazine has this article on the problems and prices of electronic books.

Ziff-Davis

The San Jose Mercury News has this review of Royal’s DaVinci handheld computer.The device, which retails for $99, contains 256 kilobytes of storage, compared with 1 megabyte for the Palm Pilot Professional and 2 megabytes for the Palm III. http://www7.mercurycenter.com/columnists/langberg/docs/tt012499.htm

Palmtop Publishing announces a fun, educational and interactive, game day, pocket football companion for the Palm Computing platform. The OnTap Super Bowl and NFL Referee Signals Handbook provides sports fans and armchair quarterbacks with an impressive reference collection of player data, sports trivia, game rules, cheers, and a referee signals flip book to prepare for or to use during the game. There are charityware and a commercial editions available. Both run on the Pilot, PalmPilot Personal/Professional Editions, Palm III organizers, and the IBM WorkPad.