Stories by Yardena Arar

Cool but Costly Palm Alternatives

Be honest. It's not enough for a personal digital assistant just to keep your address book, calendar, to-do list, and perhaps e-mail handy.

Wireless Internet Gathers Speed

Wireless Internet access is hot, but up till now the services have been too slow for anything beyond text messages and e-mail. Metricom Inc. aims to change that with its next-generation, 128-kbps Ricochet wireless service, which is slated to launch in Atlanta and San Diego at the end of July.

Devil in Details? Software Law Could Be Hell

If a car's engine blows up because of a defect the manufacturer knew about, the people inside--or their next of kin--can expect to collect big-time damages. But what if defective software destroys valuable data on your hard drive? Under a model statute that state legislatures are now considering, you might have little or no recourse--even if the vendor knew about the bug--as long as the vendor's license disclaimed responsibility for any problems.

Casio's Pocket PC Media Center

Want a personal digital assistant that doubles as an entertainment center? Casio Computer Co. Ltd.'s latest Windows CE palmtop, the Cassiopeia E-115 Pocket PC, looks identical to its predecessors in the E-100 line, and has much of the same multimedia spin. You can run videos on its glorious 65,536-color active-matrix touch screen. Music sounds decent over the built-in speaker and even nicer if you listen with stereo headphones. (A coupon included with the unit lets you send for a basic headset and three extra styluses for about US$6.)

Opera Sings a Different Browser Tune

If you're unhappy with your browser but don't want to deal with a 17MB-plus Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer download (which can take an hour or longer over a dial-up connection), consider a short visit to Opera Software AS. This capable browser from Norway is now in public beta for version 4. It arrives in a minuscule 1.55MB download and takes up a spartan 3MB of hard disk space. Yet it supports most major Web standards and in my informal tests loaded pages at least as quickly as Communicator or IE.

USB 2.0 Spec to Debut

The final specification for USB 2.0, boasting 40 times the bandwidth of the existing spec, is expected to be announced Wednesday and appear in peripherals by year end.

Netscape 6: A Lean Browsing Machine

Netscape is back. After three years without anything but point releases, the browser that helped put the Web into gear is revving up again--so radically altered that its creators decided to change its name and skip a release number.

Drive-By Computing: Dawn of the Dashboard Desktop

Car PCs will give new meaning to the concept of mobile computing. In-dash stereos with CPUs and other PC features are expected this summer at high-end auto accessory stores (and car dealers) near you. The pricey systems obey voice commands for hands-free cell-phone dialing, reading e-mail, retrieving driving directions, and more. Bare-bones models like Clarion Corp.'s AutoPC 310C begin at $1299.

Wireless Web Services: Finally Real, Even Useful

For months, wireless Web services--which let you tap into the Internet with a cell phone, a pager, or a properly equipped handheld computer--have been touted as the next big Internet craze. Finally they're a reality, but like many other technological marvels, they don't immediately live up to their billing. Finding them and finding things to do with them are still difficult. However, providers plan to make wireless Internet services more widely available soon. At the same time, the services should become more useful as producers create content specifically for the small screens and narrow bandwidth of wireless devices.

New Color Palm Looks Great, Pays Price

Palm Inc. personal digital assistants already cram a date book, an address book, a calculator, an expense report generator, and an e-mail reader into a device not much bigger than a deck of cards. What else could these popular PDAs remove from your pockets? Try the color photos in your wallet.

Dispatch

Eudora E-Mail: In March, Qualcomm will release Eudora E-Mail 4.3 in three modes to succeed Eudora Pro 4.2 and Eudora Light.Sponsored mode (free) has prominent ads; Light mode (free) has fewer ads and functions; Paid mode ($50) has no ads. Get the beta at http://www.eudora.com.

TaxCut, TurboTax Offer More

In the past, selecting a tax program was a lot like choosing an accountant: Your options were limited and invariably cost more than you wanted to spend. But this year, things are different. The top tax packages, Intuit's Quicken TurboTax and H&R Block's TaxCut, face new challengers: Microsoft Corp.'s first tax product, TaxSaver, and 2nd Story Software's TaxAct.

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