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Twitter has been plugged into a Handspring Visor for some reason
A 'working' Twitter client exists for the PDA from 1999.
Planet Computers' Astro Slide is a smartphone and PDA in one
Planet Computers is continuing to build very unique physical keyboard smartphones with the launch of its latest flagship, the crowdfunded Astro Slide. It's a phone with surprisingly robust specs, but the key trick is that it can be used either as a standard 6.53-inch touchscreen smartphone or as a PDA, thanks to the "RockUp" slide hinge mechansm.
Sailfish for the Gemini PDA lets you ditch Android
The Gemini PDA is a throwback to the days when people thought they needed a physical keyboard to manage their portable devices. Sailfish OS is an Android alternative based in part on Nokia's MeeGo project and created for the Jolla phone that works on the Gemini as well as a number of Sony's Xperia handsets. Now the Gemini PDA will feature Sailfish officially; it will also be available to download (as Sailfish X) in late 2018.
Gemini PDA review: We’ve come a long way since keyboards
The sun may have set on the phone-with-a-keyboard phenomenon, but there are still people who pine for physical keys. Armed with a deca-core processor, Android, all the wireless connections you need and slots for SIM and microSD cards, the Gemini ($599, by Planet Computers) is a refreshing proposition to those frustrated with the port-less, key-less mobiles of today. (And yes, it even has a headphone jack.) But I'll warn you now, the touchscreen world has come a long way in recent years -- so much so that you might find a keyboard isn't as helpful as you hoped and can even be a hindrance.
Former Psion designers return with a fresh take on the PDA
Way back when, in the days before smartphones, folks had to use a PDA to get work done when they were out and about on the go. The form factor was typified by Psion, which died off at the turn of the millennium when it was clear other devices would take its place. But now the spirit of Psion lives on in a couple of its former engineers, which have developed the Gemini, a clamshell smartphone with a physical keyboard.
Palm and webOS product auction reminds us of the forgotten Foleo
It's funny how, as time passes, we grow fonder of gadgets that were once disregarded. Nerd nostalgia has a knack of trumping common sense and draining wallets, which is why we're almost hesitant to bring this auction of Palm and webOS gear to your attention. Featuring the collection of a former webOS employee, you'll find everything from t-shirts, posters and other branded paraphernalia, through to a mint-condition Palm VII PDA, 4G TouchPads and a range of mobiles, including many from the long-forgotten Pre series. The prize piece, however, has to be the boxed, unused Palm Foleo complete with an hour of phone time with one of the product's OG engineers, who also "has apps for you," apparently. All money raised from the auction is going to a charitable cause, which totally justifies whatever exaggerated sum Palm's nigh-mythical flop ends up going for.
Apple abandons Newton trademark
Even though Steve Jobs killed the Newton when he returned to Apple in 1997, the company has maintained the trademark for Apple's first PDA ever since. Well, until earlier this month that is. As noted by PatentlyApple, Apple officially abandoned the Newton trademark on February 12, 2013. The discovery was made when PatentlyApple was searching through trademarks in the Canadian IP office this month. With the abandoning of the Newton trademark, it's likely we will never see another product from Apple called "Newton" again.
Fraunhofer develops extra-small 1Gbps infrared transceiver, recalls our PDA glory days
Our 1997-era selves would die with envy right about now. Fraunhofer has developed a new generation of infrared transceiver that can transfer data at 1Gbps, or well above anything that our vintage PDAs could manage. While the speed is nothing new by itself -- we saw such rates in 2010 Penn State experiments -- it's the size that makes the difference. The laser diode and processing are efficient enough to fit into a small module whose transceiver is as large as a "child's fingernail." In theory, the advancement makes infrared once more viable for mobile device syncing, with room to grow: even the current technology can scale to 3Gbps, lead researcher Frank Deicke says, and it might jump to 10Gbps with enough work. Along with the usual refinements, most of the challenge in getting production hardware rests in persuading the Infrared Data Association to adopt Deicke's work as a standard. If that ever comes to pass, we may just break out our PalmPilot's infrared adapter to try it for old time's sake.
Blake Patterson's Byte Cellar: the ultimate man cave for aspiring geeks
Apple IIGS? Of course. Commodore 64C? You betcha. NeXTstation Turbo Color? Booyah! These three classics are just part of Blake Patterson's tricked-out technology den that's known as the Byte Cellar -- and yes, we're seething with jealousy. Take notes, folks, because this is how it's done. In all, the Byte Cellar currently plays home to 69 computers, video game consoles, PDA's and other noteworthy gadgets. Need to switch between the Atari and the Amiga? Not a problem, as each system is thoughtfully laid out on a workbench that allows one to easily scoot between rigs. Even the walls bleed vintage cred with a Space Invaders motif, rare posters and hardware components from bygone eras. Be sure to take it all in with a panorama photo that's been linked up below, along with a complete list of the equipment currently in Blake's collection. Regardless of whether you agree with his taste in hardware, one thing is for certain: the man must go through a lot of compressed air.
Motorola Solutions buys Psion for $200 million
Psion has mostly slipped out of the public eye, but that's about to change -- Motorola Solutions just bought the company for $200 million in cash to bolster its work with industrial companies. The deal will mostly focus on improving Motorola Solutions' toughened-up handhelds and in-car terminals. Not always exciting out of devices like the ET1, but it ends Psion's 32-year history as an independent company and a legacy that includes some of the very first PDAs, like the Psion Organizer. We won't miss the fight over the "netbook" name, mind you. Regardless of how you feel, you'll have until fall to wax nostalgic, as that's when the two sides expect the deal to close and the Psion name gets subsumed into that of another mobile pioneer.
Apple Newton celebrates 20 years of eating up Martha
History hasn't been particularly kind to the Newton. Apple's early play at the mobile device market has largely been a source of ridicule, considered a low point in the company's catalog. For every suggestion that the device was ahead its time, there are countless "eat up Martha" jokes. It's not hard to see why -- in spite of tenacious commitment on the part of John Sculley and co., the PDA never really took off, a fact blamed, in part, to hardware and software limitations. To mark the 20th anniversary of the device's on-stage debut, Harry McCracken picked a first-gen MessagePad H1000 and some accessories up on eBay, living with the device for six weeks, as part of an attempt to "reconsider" the Newton. So, how does the product hold up in the harsh light of 2012? At the very least, it offered up the opportunity for great shots like the one above.
USRobotics PalmPilot Personal review
It's 1996. You might have a cellphone, but it doesn't do much more than make phone calls. You might have a laptop, but it's likely too heavy to carry with you everywhere you go. Or you might only have a phone that's plugged into a wall and a PC that's confined to a desk. That's the environment that gave rise to the Personal Digital Assistant (or PDA), a new type of product that first arrived in the late 1980s but really came into its own in the mid-90s. 1996 also saw the release of the first PDAs developed by USRobotics subsidiary Palm Inc., the Pilot 1000 and 5000, which had more in common with today's smartphones than many of their contemporary devices. They had a touchscreen with only a few physical buttons at the bottom. They had apps you could download. They could sync data with your computer. And they were small and light enough to carry with you at all times. They just didn't make phone calls. A year later, Palm released the slightly upgraded PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional (with 512KB and 1MB of RAM, respectively), and the ensuing years would see a regular stream of new devices -- not to mention an acquisition by 3Com, and a new spate of Palm OS products from Handspring, a company founded by the folks behind the original Pilot. But it's those first few devices that come to mind when someone mentions "Palm PDA," and with good reason -- they set a mold that wasn't deviated from much until Palm made the jump into smartphones.
Switched On: Pen again
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Last week's Switched On discussed how some next wave notions from a decade ago were trying to reinvent themselves. Here's one more. Surging smartphone vendor HTC is seeking to bring back an input method that many wrote off long ago with its forthcoming Flyer tablet and EVO View 4G comrade-in-arms: the stylus. A fixture of early Palm and Psion PDAs, Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile handsets, slim, compact styli were once the most popular thing to slip down a well since Timmy. Then, users would poke the cheap, simple sticks at similarly inexpensive resistive touchscreens. After the debut of tablet PCs, though, more companies started to use active digitizer systems like the one inside the Flyer. Active pens offer more precision, which can help with tasks such as handwriting recognition, and support "hovering" above a screen, the functional equivalent of a mouseover. On the other hand, they are also thicker, more expensive, and need to be charged. (Update: as some have pointed out in comments, Wacom's tablets generate tiny electromagnetic fields that power active digitization, and don't require the pen to store electricity itself.) And, of course, just like passive styli, active pens take up space and can be misplaced. The 2004 debut of the Nintendo DS -- the ancestor of the just-released 3DS -- marked the beginning of what has become the last mass-market consumer electronics product series to integrate stylus input. The rising popularity of capacitive touch screens and multitouch have replaced styli with fingers as the main user interface elements. Instead of using a precise point for tasks such as placing an insertion point in text, we now expand the text dynamically to accommodate our oily instruments. On-screen buttons have also grown, as have the screens themselves, all in the name of losing a contrivance.
Switched On: Iconic trends meet ironic ends
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. This week saw significant and contrasting twists for the legacies of two operating systems that had their roots in the heyday of the PDA. HP revealed that it is killing off the Palm brand, and Nokia announced that -- while it would continue to "harvest" less capable versions of the Symbian operating system on its basic handsets -- it would shift away from the operating system in its smartphones in favor of Windows Phone 7. In some ways, the demise of the Palm brand and the loss of Symbian's last major supporter at Microsoft's hands represent the end of an era.
Hong Kong gadget flea market: a blast from the past
If you've seen our Hong Kong feature from awhile back, then you would've already heard about my favorite gadget hangout Sham Shui Po. By chance, my post-flight stroll in said district yesterday coincided with Apliu Street's Chinese New Year flea market, which featured many vintage items like jade figurines, paintings, jewelry, video tapes, vinyl records, etc. Naturally, what really caught my attention were the old gadgets that were literally piled up along the street, and from just HK$30 (US$3.85), you could easily pick up an old classic such as a Sony Clié, an HP iPaq, a WonderSwan Color, an original GameBoy, a MiniDisc player, or even a proper old school laptop or camera. Hell, some guy even had a couple of Nintendo Micro VS Systems (Donkey Kong Hockey and Boxing)! The catch? Well, there was obviously no warranty for these old timers, plus the broken screens or the lack of compatible batteries for some meant that most were more suitable as collectibles. Regardless, we took a $6 gamble with a Sony Clié PEG-NR70 Palm PDA with docking station and boom! It works! Well, except for the battery that only lasts for an hour, but I'll figure something out. %Gallery-115754%
North Korea gets a PDA befitting its Dear Leader
The DPRK's not exactly the world's healthiest economy. So it's with some surprise that we're now presenting you with North Korea's newest (only?) touchscreen slab. Apparently, it's available "in all the computer shops" and is being touted locally as something of a big deal by a Russian blog operating within Pyongyang. Unfortunately, it's void of any radios of any kind -- no GPS, no WiFi, no cellular, no Bluetooth. So really, it's just an old school Windows CE (judging by the icons) PDA with an electronic dictionary, map of the country, games, media player, and word processor. It also features a handy stylus for poking about the resistive touchscreen and to identify enemies of the state in a crowded room. The high-end 8GB model with microSD slot is said to cost $140 in a country where the average worker is estimated to earn about $1 per month. And here we thought that our gadget addiction was bad.
Aceeca's PalmOS-based PDA32 gets reviewed, albeit in prototype form
Ah, the dream does live on. If we're being straight with you, we didn't exactly have the highest hopes for Aceeca's PDA32 to ever make it out of the dreamworld in which it was created, but apparently it's well on its well to commercialization. For reasons unknown, of course. The good folks over at TamsBlog managed to get ahold of a prototype device, powered by one of yesteryear's greatest operating systems and encased in a comically large shell. It's important to note that this isn't a finalized retail unit, but it's still fairly fascinating that an object like the one you're looking at above is actually about to ship in the year 2010 A.D. The overview is about what you'd expect, noting that the screen is above average, the enclosure itself is downright "fat," and the whole thing seems far more sensible in the enterprise realm than the consumer one. Sadly, there's no real talk of software performance, but we suspect that'll come when the final product ships out. Hit the source link for a fascinating look at a device you'll never buy.
Switched On: Stowaway from the PDA era
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Their screens lacked color and their apps lacked Internet access, but one thing the PDAs of yore had in common with the smartphones of today was text input that couldn't compare to a full-sized keyboard. The challenge, of course, is that full-sized keyboards generally aren't very good traveling companions for pocket-sized devices. In 2000, a startup called ThinkOutside addressed the issue with the first Stowaway keyboard, an ingeniously designed folding keyboard that used the dock connector of Palm PDAs to create a touch-typing experience that fit in your pocket. (Stowaway designer Phil Baker is the author of the book From Concept to Consumer, which explains how ideas become products that get built overseas and ultimately sold back here). ThinkOutside went on to create versions for PocketPCs, infrared (to accommodate incompatible dock connector standards) connections, and then finally Bluetooth. The company was eventually purchased by accessory maker Mobility Electronics, which renamed itself iGo after its flagship power adapter product, and eventually cancelled the Stowaway. At the time, PDA sales were sinking and relatively few handsets supported Bluetooth; most of those that did supported only the profiles needed for headsets and speakerphones, not keyboard input.
Entelligence: Happy 10th birthday, Pocket PC
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. Microsoft introduced the world to Pocket PC on April 19th, 2000 at a relatively small gathering in Grand Central Station in New York City. Pocket PC was the company's response to Palm, which at that time was leading the PDA market -- for many geeks, using a personal digital assistant was indeed a public display of affection. I was at the launch event -- in fact, I was even quoted in the press release. Microsoft introduced four devices that day with their partners: the Casio EM500, the HP Jornada 545 & 548, the Symbol Technologies PPT2700, and the Compaq iPAQ. The iPAQ was the flagship of the Pocket PC line and the hottest handheld you could buy at the time: it had a slim form factor with "sleeves" that could be attached to add functionality such as Compact Flash or PCMCIA cards, a "fast" ARM processor and a killer indoor/outdoor screen. Availability was limited and prices on eBay quickly topped $1,000 for the scarce unit.
Aceeca's PDA32 keeps the PalmOS dream alive
We'd heard earlier this year that Aceeca would be sticking with PalmOS for at least a few more devices, and it looks like those hopes have now finally become a reality in the form of the company's PDA32 device. In addition to a leading-edge, one-inch-thick design, this one packs a 320 x 480 display, along with a 400MHz Samsung S3C2440 processor, 64MB of RAM, 128MB of flash storage, an SD card slot for expansion, and optional Bluetooth and WiFi (in case you don't need such things). Still no official word on a release date, but a preliminary spec sheet that's turned up lists April 10th, and a price of just $199 -- belt holster not included.
