Stories about: Palm

At first glance, the T-Mobile G1 (US$179) doesn't seem to merit much attention. It looks like just another bland, HTC-manufactured phone. But use the G1--the first phone to run Google's Android operating system -- for 5 minutes, and you'll start to see why it's one of the best-designed phones you can buy. Not only is the G1 intuitive to use, but its customization options (via Android) makes it a tweaker's delight.

For the IT worker, the phrase "desktop mobility" has many meanings. It can mean having a laptop computer. It can mean keeping all your data in the cloud so that you can access it at any time and from anywhere. It can even mean downsizing your work environment to fit on a PDA or a smartphone.

For a long time, Google has led a largely blissful existence, fostering a widespread perception -- sometimes in direct contradiction to the facts -- that it can do no wrong. Yet the company's controversial Android mobile platform venture threatens to seriously dent this notion, at least with some of the people it needs most.

A Chinese Bluetooth technology vendor released a new version of its Bluetooth application software for ultra-mobile PC users running the Linux operating system.

Social networking powerhouse Facebook launches in Japan, Solitaire gets an interesting honour and Greenpeace finds hazardous chemicals in popular gaming consoles. All that news and more on this week's World Tech Update.

A new security system from Fujitsu aims to catch employee tailgating, where someone follows an authorized staff member into a secure area.

Verizon Wireless is throwing its support behind mobile Linux, becoming the first US operator to join the LiMo Foundation, a group developing mobile Linux technology.

If there's one thing the digital revolution has taught us, it's that we shouldn't get too attached to anything. Technology has a way of seizing long-held ideas and entrenched industries and turning them upside-down.

In this weeks news: HD-DVD bites the dust, Bill Gates scorns Internet censorship, a hybrid bus helps the environment, and more.

Along with the unveiling of prototype handsets using Google's Android mobile application development platform at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, came the promise -- one more time -- of write once, run anywhere.

The notebook computer is doomed. OK, that's a little strong. And as one of the people who worked on the first laptop PC, the GRiD Systems Compass Computer Model 1101, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for mobile PCs. But as we move into the era of infocentricity, defined by Web 2.0 network services, the "everyone gets a CPU" model needs to be replaced by "everyone has access to an interface to the Web."