Palm OS Status

It sounds like Palm won't have any upgrades for the existing Centro or their PDA lines, which include the Z22, E2 and T|X models. Apart from new Nova devices, Palm will focus on refreshing and expanding the Treo Pro line. The company will continue to sell PDAs, but not make any new ones.They plan to push the ones they have out into the marketplace as long as there is a sufficient demand - but they are not developing new ones - which spells the inevitable end to the Palm PDA.

LG Debuts Sunlit LCD Panel At CES

Seoul, South Korea — LG’s display division has developed a 14.1-inch LCD panel for notebooks that is illuminated by sunlight instead of the backlight when used outdoors.

LG said its backlight data signal switching technology uses selective reflection plates in existing backlight panels to enable the switch from reflective mode in sunlight to a “transmissive” mode indoors and at night. The switch can be performed with the touch of a button.

According to the company, the display consumes about one-fourth the amount of energy in its sunlight mode than it does when it uses the backlight, which increases battery life.

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Wal-Mart $99 iPhone Update

Wal-Mart may soon start selling a $99 Apple iPhone, according to several reports.

Rumors began circulating on Apple-related blogs late last week that the retailing giant would have a low-end version of the still-hot gadget in stores by New Year's Eve.

Over the weekend, Wal-Mart sources told the San Jose Mercury News and Bloomberg News that Wal-Mart would indeed be selling iPhones, but couldn't confirm that a $99 model would be among them.

"It's going to be very soon," the manager of a Wal-Mart in Fremont, Calif., told the Mercury News. "Originally they were going to release it before Christmas, but they can't get them that fast to us."

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Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns

In Peru, there are 10,000 one- and two-room schools — and thousands of children who live in homes without running water or electricity. But now, many of those same kids are the proud owners of their own little piece of modern technology: a laptop computer.

The laptops are part of a huge educational experiment. Peru is purchasing hundreds of thousands of low-cost computers developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leading technology experts as part of the One Laptop Per Child project.

Read more . . .

Update iPhone/iPod Touch Physical Education Software

As note in a previous post, we are porting our software (Fitness Report, Record Book, Clipboard, Heart Monitor/Pedometer Report, FITT, EXER, and eventually Teacher Observation PRogram) to the iPhone/iPod Touch.

We noted that there were about a dozen issues that we were addressing - and 11 of them were cleared up quickly. We still have one issue that we are continuing to address. We are working with the developers to address this issue which is key for all our applications except for Clipboard.

So, as we are addressing this one issue - we are doing the final testing of Clipboard (as a runtime option - so that you don't need to purchase Filemaker to run our programs) and writing directions for all the software. In this way we will be able to have the programs out as soon as the issue is addressed.

Be aware that later this spring - we will also have software available for Blackberry, Mobile 6, and G-1.

iPod Touch/iPhone Physical Education Software

Out of the 12 issues - we have solved 9 of them.
The other 3 seem to be features not currently supported in FmTouch - but we can address these tasks differently. Today we will do the work-arounds for these 3 issues.

We are still anticipating the release of the programs next week - probably one per day.

iPod Touch/iPhone Physical Education Software

Working through about a dozen issues - with converting the programs to iPod Touch - will post tonight how many have been fixed.

Walmart.com offers "thousands" of Wiis from Monday

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii has emerged as one of the few hot products this holiday season, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc will offer "tens of thousands" of the hard-to-get video game consoles on its website starting on Monday.

Walmart.com said it will offer the Nintendo Wii console for $249.24, and a "value bundle," which includes the console and other items like an extra set of controllers, for $329, while supplies last.

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Apple to Sell IPhones in Wal-Mart Stores This Month

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will become the second mass-market retail chain to start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone, with two store representatives saying the world’s largest retailer will carry two models of the Web-surfing handset this month.

Employees in the cell-phone departments at five California stores, contacted by phone today, said Wal-Mart will offer iPhones by the end of December. Employees are currently being trained on how to sell the device, all five said.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs tapped Best Buy Co., the largest U.S. electronics retailer, in September to sell the device as he works to win more buyers. Before then, the iPhone had been sold only by Apple and AT&T Inc., the exclusive provider of wireless service for the phone in the U.S.

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iPod Touch/iPhone Physical Education Software

Yesterday we finished the layouts for heart monitor report and pedometer report.

In addition, we did the first of our five fitness report batteries.

This morning we completed the layouts for Teacher Observation Program.

We will finish the other four fitness report batteries today.

We will need to change one way of doing things because of constraints in FM Touch - we plan to tackle that this weekend, then on to final testing early next week.

iTouch Physical Education Software

Today we finished all the iTouch/iPhone screens for Record Book and Heart/Pedometer Report.

Tomorrow - we will work on the screens for Clipboard and Fitness.

We have a copy of minor issues that we are also working out.

But things are definitely moving along.

iTouch Physical Education Software

We have started on the iTouch Physical Education Software - we are converting
Record Book
Fitness Report
Heart Monitor Report
Pedometer Report
Clipboard
Teacher Observation Program
FITT
and
EXER

In the next few days we should be able to give you a better idea of when they will be available - we are currently projecting Dec 15, 2008.

Volleyball Complete/Softball Complete

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we finished Volleyball Complete and Softball Complete.
Softball Complete demos have been posted.
Volleyball Complete demo is over 50 megabytes so we had to "snail mail" it to our web hosting company.
It will be posted shortly.
Now - on to Problem Solving Complete - but first we will finish the iTouch programs.