Agendus for Palm OS Version 12 includes powerful journaling capabilities, a personal project manager, all new “at-a-glance” or Card views now more colorfully organized and streamlined, a new Contact View “Photo Dialer” mode, support for attaching items (documents, images, etc.) to meetings, tasks, memos and contacts and standalone alarms, just to name a few.

Version 12.05 is a maintenance release which reflects the feedback received through our user community. In particular, it contains stability improvements and resolves a problem with alarm dialogs not showing all their buttons occurring in certain instances.

Paragon Software Group, developer of innovative software applications for mobile devices and PC desktops, announced that users of its Handy Weather application for PDAs and smartphones will now be supported by the most reliable Intellicast service of Weather Services International, the authority for expert weather data. Paragon Software will demonstrate its flagship Handy Weather service with its extended and highly detailed graphical capabilities at Mobile World Congress 2008.

Handy Weather’s users can get instant and detailed five-day weather forecasts, supported by satellite weather maps, for thousands of cities worldwide. To get expert weather data, users can pick any location from a preset list of 15,000 cities from all over the world. Wireless Internet compatibility is the only requirement needed for users to get real-time weather information when away from the desk.

A future version of Bluetooth will be able to increase throughput for sending videos, music, and other high-bandwidth applications by using a nearby WiFi network, the group in charge of Bluetooth development says.

Ander Edlund, European Marketing Director for the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, said the technology enabling Bluetooth connections to hop on neighboring WiFi networks is about a year from being ready. “We’re on [Bluetooth version] 2.1 now, so it might be in version 3,” Edlund said on the eve of Mobile World Congress, which opened its a four-day run Monday.

According to the British tabloid The Sun, Gates was getting some 8,000 requests per day. While he once spent half an hour per day on the site, he has stopped using it altogether, the paper reported. According to a Wall Street Journal blog, the Microsoft chairman had so many people trying to add him as friends that the site just wasn’t useful for him.

A new portable battery charging system hitting the market this month is designed to exponentially increase battery life for handheld electronics and phones–and at a fraction of the cost of other battery accessories currently available. The Xscape line is a sleek and stylish portable rechargeable lithium-ion battery that will extend the staying power of any iPhone device up to 3-5 times its normal capacity. The versatility of the Xscape allows it to be used on any iPod, MP3, MP4, cell phone, PDA, Bluetooth or GPS device on the market.

Kaspersky Lab has detected a large-scale, global mass mailing of Valentine’s Day spam. The spam was first identified by Kaspersky Lab on the morning of February 12, and as of the morning of February 13, the number of spam messages of this type have still not decreased. The message currently accounts for about 5-percent of all mail traffic checked by Kaspersky Hosted Security Services.

The text of the message asks recipients to click on a link to view a selection of Valentine’s Day “e-cards.” However, clicking on the link simultaneously downloads the malicious file Packed.Win32.Tibs.ic. As the holiday draws near, Kaspersky predicts that the peak in Valentine’s Day spam is still to come.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry could lose its iconic status in the eyes of corporate and retail subscribers alike if it doesn’t manage to stem service problems such the ones that led to two major outages in less than a year, analysts say. A three-hour service problem left subscribers across the Americas with spotty or nonexistent access to wireless email on Monday.

RIM said late Tuesday an early investigation pointed to a problem with an upgrade of a data routing system. The upgrade was part of an ongoing effort to expand capacity for long-term growth, it said.

We just got this note from Netflix:

“You’re receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.”

“While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.”

“Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don’t worry, we will contact you before this happens.”

Now, the editorial team here at Computing Unplugged have both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. But the idea behind Netflix was to gain access to all movies, not just a subset. Admittedly, HD-DVD is on the ropes, but it wasn’t dead yet. Will this help kill off HD-DVD? Probably.

We need to be critical of Netflix here. We consider this a premature choice, one that should have waited until the format was no longer in production. Now, there’s always going to be some question of what movies are available in HD-DVD and what aren’t.

We think it’s wrong for Netflix to take sides. Their job is to provide movies, not to pick what movies we’re allowed to see.

At the 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress, HTC, provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile smart devices, announced an updated version of the HTC Advantage that introduces new software, increased storage and an improved keyboard. The HTC Advantage is an ideal companion for the business traveller who needs a powerful and portable device that includes constant connectivity.

Developed from the ground up to be extremely portable, yet powerful, the HTC Advantage integrates a broad set of features into a compact and innovative design. Based on a future version of Windows Mobile, the updated HTC Advantage includes a customized HTC Home today screen that provides one-touch access to emails, text messages, missed calls, calendar appointments and contacts, as well as current weather conditions and forecasts for hundreds of cities around the world.

The HTC Advantage features HTC’s TouchFLO software which enhances finger touch scrolling and browsing of Web pages, documents, messages and contact lists. The Advantage will also include Opera Mobile 9 and Google Maps for mobile.

At the 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress, HTC, provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, announced the first availability of the HTC Shift. HTC Shift combines the power of Windows Vista and Microsoft’s new Origami Experience 2.0 with always-connected 3G/HSDPA connectivity that features true push email with up to 3 days of battery life.

Microsoft Origami Experience 2.0 enables improved access and consumption of content through the addition of a new finger-friendly browser, RSS Reader and media player. It also includes Origami Now which gives users one-touch access to the information that’s important to them, including email, calendar, weather and to-do lists on one screen that changes according to the time, the day and even their current location.