HANDHELDS

Prediction: Personal Video Players Coming Soon

Personal video players--small, portable devices capable of showing movies or TV shows--are expected to be available in the United States later this year. At least, that's one of PC World's predictions for 2003 and beyond. Intel's XScale chip combined with a new Microsoft platform called Media2Go is expected to provide the platform for devices coming from Samsung, Sonicblue, and ViewSonic. "Think of [the personal video player] as snackable video for a bus ride, or 2 or 3 hours on a plane, or for a road trip with the kids," Intel spokesperson Bryan Peebler says.

Prediction: PDAs Arrive--Ten Years Ago

PC World's soothsayers are sometimes wrong, sometimes right. In the latter category, in 1993 we proclaimed that the age of the PDA had dawned. A handheld from Tandy/Casio, the Zoomer, used character-recognition and pen input and cost a mere $900. The Apple Newton soon followed, then came the Palm Pilot, and, well, you know the rest by now. As for predictions we got wrong, you'll have to read "Flashback: Our Best (and Worst) Guesses."

News: PDA Performance Boost on the Way

Intel plans to release an update to the XScale processor (often used in PDAs and portable devices) that includes a faster system bus and enhanced battery performance. The system bus speed will double, from 100 MHz to 200 MHz, the company says. The new chip will be called the PXA255.

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