MobiMate announced the release of WorldMate Professional Edition 2007. The new version of WorldMate with enhanced global weather coverage was intended specially for the new Palm Treo 680 smartphone. This release continues the eight-year tradition of MobiMate working with Palm, making the WorldMate product franchise one of the longest-standing and best-selling applications for the Treo smartphone and other Palm devices. This legendary performance has provided MobiMate over the years the experience needed to tailor its products to be ideal for Palm Treo users, turning WorldMate into one of the most dominant travel application among them and one of the most popular Palm applications.

The Ultimate Smartphone and Pocket PC How-to Guide is devoted entirely to showing you HOW TO DO THINGS with your Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. You’ll find short, focused articles and brief tips describing how to sync your device, use the built-in applications, install software, play music and videos, connect to Wi-Fi hotspots, send and receive email, encrypt sensitive files, extend your battery life, and much, much more. This first, annual edition of the How-to Guide contains over 185 “how-to’s” and “tips,” organized into five sections:

The Starting section is dedicated to new Windows Mobile users and provides the kind of information you’d need in the first day or two.

The Learning section focuses on the building blocks you need to sync data, install third-party software, and personalize the look and functioning of your device.

The Using section explores the built-in applications and shows you how to get more out of them.

The Mastering section shows you how to enhance the capabilities of your Windows Mobile device with third-party software and hardware accessories. This section also shows you how to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots, enable Bluetooth partnerships, extend the life of your battery, turn your device into a GPS receiver, enable Push e-mail on Windows Mobile 5 devices, and much more.

The Additional Resources section lists online resources you can use to get your questions answered, find free software, locate a Windows Mobile user group in your area, and more. It also includes a comprehensive glossary and an index for the entire issue.

The Ultimate Smartphone and Pocket PC How-to Guide is available for individual purchase, as well as to all new subscribers of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine and is on newsstands now.

MadZ Software announced the release of version 2.5 of its DVD to iPod/PSP Video Converter software. DVD to iPod/PSP Video Converter rips DVD video files and converts them into the appropriate format for uploading to and viewing on an Apple iPod Video or a Sony PSP. Just connect your player to your computer as you normally do, and instantly the converted video files will be uploaded.

For years, the Internet’s technical constraints went hand-in-hand with the realities of Internet usage. At first, most people viewed Web pages but did little to create or change them. Web journals, photo sites and video sharing didn’t come until later. Even when users had a need to send information–an email here, a shopping transaction there–the amount of data was small. But as those consumers evolve into contributors and require better upload speeds, many of the old technical constraints remain. Consider DSL services from phone companies.

In the book “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, the main character, Arthur Dent, came into possession of a device that told him everything there was to know about how to get to a place and then everything about that place one he got there. This is the best way to describe this amazing new software for cell phones and mobile devices. Mobile mapping has finally come of age with the logical integration of maps, local search and points of interest rolled into one, compliments of iMapia.com.

Hoping Santa will send you an iPod, a Nintendo Wii or the latest mobile phone this Christmas? Be careful what you wish for: it could come “painfully” true. Sore thumbs, inflamed elbows and stiff shoulders are among the musculo-skeletal injuries linked to excessive use of the popular high-tech games and gadgets that could be under the tree.

Lovelorn video gamers who are better with consoles than conversation, have a new venue–a restaurant where each table has touchscreens for ordering food and for playing a variety of social games. Entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, founder of the original Atari game company and the children’s U.S. restaurant franchise Chuck E. Cheese, has set up uWink in a shopping mall in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb, to attract an adult dating set. Each table at uWink has a pair of touchscreens for ordering food and playing conversation-fueling trivia games covering everything from entertainment to politics and sports. The library at uWink, which opened in October this year, already has more than two years of game content, including more than 45,000 questions that update weekly.

A video posted on the ultra-popular Web site YouTube has helped Canadian police find a man they believe responsible for a murder. Police in the Southern Ontario city of Hamilton said on Thursday that they uploaded a one-minute, 12-second clip from a surveillance tape onto the video-sharing YouTube site. The video, which showed suspects arriving at a local nightclub for a Sean Price hip-hop concert, garnered media attention and was viewed more than 30,000 times.

Sure, HDTV deals abound, but nothing beats the discounts you get on electronics after the holidays, as retailers are eager to move gadgets and components in time for the new stock in February. Ideally, you’ll have a hefty gift certificate or card to apply to heavily discounted big-ticket purchases. You can start flipping through the circulars that will come in newspapers most likely to find deals, or you can use a much more efficient method by visiting a site like Dealnews, which rounds up the best deals on all kinds of items throughout the year.

Dell has issued a reminder to its customers to check their notebooks and return any lithium-ion battery packs that were listed under the voluntary Aug. 14 recall. On Dec. 21, a spokesperson confirmed that the PC maker had issued the reminder to its customers as part of the company’s effort to recall more than four million notebooks that were shipped with faulty Sony battery packs.