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Handspring bets on Treo... Dell thinks printers... Laptop robots... |
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Sylvia Carr Senior Editor, AnchorDesk Friday, May 24, 2002 |
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Times are tough for Handspring. The handheld device maker has lost its No. 2 market share position to Sony (Palm holds the top spot), and it's sitting on top of excess inventory for many of its products. So how's it responding? By betting the business on new wireless communications devices instead of the plain old PDA organizers it started out with. Next week, Handspring's latest cell phone-PDA combo device, the Treo 270, hits the streets with a $500 price tag. The new Treo offers a color screen and Treo Mail software, which lets you redirect e-mail messages from your primary computer to the handheld. It's a pretty bold move, considering the lukewarm response the market's given such devices so far. The Treo 180, the 270's predecessor, hasn't exactly flown off the shelves: Of the 47,000 devices that Handspring shipped, only 13,000 made their way to consumers.
Go to the full story by John G. Spooner.
Not content to dominate the PC market, Dell may soon take on printers. That's been the rumor for a while now. The speculation was recently substantiated by a report from Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff. Though Dell already sells Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, Canon, and Epson printers, it doesn't get a cut of the lucrative printer ink business. According to Neff, Dell is considering a number of options: manufacturing and selling its own printers, buying a printer maker, selling Dell-branded printers made by another company, or working out a deal with other printer makers whereby they give Dell a portion of their ink revenues. Any of these moves would undoubtedly cause big headaches for printer leader HP, which already has its hands full trying to merge with Compaq.
Go to the full story by Ian Fried.
Ever wish your laptop could do more for you? With a simple kit from Evolution Robotics, you can turn your notebook computer into an intelligent robot that can fetch you a beer, or screen visitors before they enter your house. Evolution's kit offers a rolling platform for your laptop, a Webcam, and software that allows your computer to process visual data. The software interprets images, then matches them with a library of visual references--making your laptop robot able to respond to its environment, not just carry out preset actions. And how much will it cost you? $599 for an assembled system, and $499 for a built-your-own kit.
Go to the full story by David Becker.
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