News In Brief

Product Pipeline

Hot New PDAs: Handspring's Treo 600, due this fall in versions for both CDMA 1X 2000 and GSM/GPRS networks, is the first cell phone-PDA hybrid to run on the Palm 5 OS. It also boasts a built-in camera and a thumb keyboard. Expect to pay about $500. Meanwhile, Palm's refresh of its Tungsten T, the T2, shown here, boasts twice as much memory (32MB), Graffiti 2, and software for playing MP3 files and video clips, as well as for viewing photos. Its estimated street price is $399. Also available in the fall: Sony's interesting new Clie, the $700 PEG-UX50, which includes wireless LAN and Bluetooth networking.

A Beefier AOL: New AOL 9 Optimized software, slated to be available soon, is expected to bring AOL closer to par with Microsoft's feature-rich MSN 8 software. AOL 9's QuickViews lets you mouse over icons and preview info, such as the most recent e-mail senders' addresses. Also included: firewall protection, improved e-mail filters, and enhanced instant messaging icons.

Serious Savings: Ink jet printing hits a new low with Hewlett-Packard's new printer--a new low price, that is. The compact HP Deskjet 3520 color ink jet printer prints at 2400 by 1200 dots per inch, comes with a fold-up paper tray, and carries a $40 price tag.

Bend It Good: Does your thumb-drive storage device get in the way when it sticks out from your laptop's USB port? Ideative's $13 FlexUSB allows you to rotate the drive up to 90 degrees in all directions. The device works with USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices.

Did You Know?

Lost productivity related to spam costs companies an average of $874 per employee per year, says a study conducted by Nucleus Research, which surveyed 76 U.S. companies, talking both to employees and IT managers about their spam experiences. That figure is based on a 2080-hour work year and hourly pay of $30, the study says.

Top 5 Downloads

1. Pop-Up Stopper 3.01, 467KB. Eliminate irritating pop-up windows with this free program.
   
   
2. RegClean 4.1a, 800KB. Clean your Windows Registry of corrupted or unused Registry keys.
   
   
3. Spybot Search and Destroy 1.2, 3.5MB. Protect your privacy by removing spybots and replacing them with empty dummies.
   
   
4. Sygate Personal Firewall 5.0 Build 1175, 5MB. Secure your sensitive files from threats both inside and outside your network.
   
   
5. SpamCatcher, 2.3MB. Eliminate spam by creating rules that identify and blacklist bulk e-mail.