Palm announced that their earnings call (Q4 FY2009) will be taking place on Thursday, June 25 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern (1:30 p.m. Pacific). It will be hosted by Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, and Doug Jeffries, chief financial officer.

To listen to the call via audio webcast, go to Palm's Investor Relations website. If you want to participate via telephone, dial 866.356.4441 (domestic) or 617.597.5396 (international). There is no pass code required for the live call.

When you've got an established operating system with a large user base, it isn't surprising to see a whole slew of vertical (as in industry specific) applications appear. Which brings us to a recent announcement from Skyscape, a worldwide leader in providing trusted medical information for mobile devices.

The "Millioneer" (the qualifying customer who pushes Skyscape's customer database to over one million users) is Dr. Omar Saleh from Mississippi. Associated with the Diagnostic Radiology Department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Emergency Departments across rural areas of Mississippi where he works as an ER physician, Dr. Saleh relies on his Palm Centro to tap into Skyscape. He remarked:

"There has been a tremendous buzz about Skyscape among physicians and nurses. When I decided to add clinical resources to my Palm Centro, based on the recommendations from my colleagues I visited the Skyscape website and was impressed by the breadth and depth of the portfolio offered by Skyscape."

Dr Saleh is subscribed to Skyscape's DrDrugs®: Drug Guide for Physicians and Archimedes 360° Medical Calculator for his smart phone. To learn more about Skyscape's product offerings, go to www.skyscape.com.

By the way, as the Skyscape Millioneer, Dr. Saleh has been rewarded an Apple MacBook, an iPod Touch, and a $200 shopping spree in the Skyscape store.

Looks like the Hyatt has made some moves to be more mobile-friendly (and not in an Apple App Store way). According to this story posted at FierceWireless.com, the Hyatt just launched its mobile Web site, which will provide guests with the ability to locate and book a hotel, view or cancel reservations, and check in or out through any mobile device. The new mobile site can be accessed on any Web-enabled mobile phone, automatically redirected from Hyatt's homepage at www.hyatt.com.

This mobile site is Hyatt's mobile site powered by Usablenet, a mobile partner for leading brands including American Airlines, Amtrak, Limited Brands, Nissan and Pfizer.

The "magic" is that when you launch the Hyatt website from your browser (i.e. Blazer on the Treo Centro, it arrives formatted for the screen. I gave it a try and was impressed. No left to right scrolling necessary.

The options offered included:

• Day of Travel: Check In/Out and Travel Tips
• Book a Hotel: Find and Book a Hotel and Hyatt Special Offers
• Gold Passport (their frequent traveler program)
• Contact Hyatt with access to their 800 number and other means of getting a hold of them (including international numbers).

It looked impressive and is worth bookmarking for anyone who travels frequently and prefers staying at a Hyatt.

This week, New York Times writer, J.D. Biersdorfer tackled a reader's question about how to get contact and calendar information out of a "dead" Palm device.

You have two options: try to get the Palm organizer fixed or try to harvest the data that it synchronized to your computer transferred to Microsoft Outlook. The latter option, however, may not do you much good if you never (or rarely) synchronized the organizer to the computer's Palm Desktop program.

This is a reminder for all of us... make sure you sync and backup your data. In fact, set yourself an appointment to do so. Better yet, make that a recurring appointment.

Backup options, such as Resco Backup and Right Back Up by Stand Alone, Inc. are available starting at $9.95.

Palm just lowered the price of the Unlocked GSM Centro to $199. It is available in three colors: Ruby Red, Glacier White and Colbalt Blue.

For those who need GSM and may be ready to retire their older Palm OS-based Treo, this is a great way to upgrade without being locked into a contract.

This offer is available on Palm's website. A quick look over at Amazon showed the unlocked GSM Centro still priced at $249.

The Palm Centro™ smartphone - Unlocked GSM (its official name) comes with "Everything you need and nothing you don't!" per the Palm online store. For $199 you get:

• Palm® Centro™ Unlocked GSM
• Removable and rechargeable battery
• AC charger
• USB sync cable
• User Documentation
• Getting Started CD

Do you have a Palm Treo, Palm Centro or other Palm OS-based device? If so, check out this deal. PalmGear.com and In-Fusio Inc have teamed up to offer Advanced Brain Trainer Edition 2 for FREE now through Sunday.

Just enter coupon code ABTEASTER during checkout.

This memory training application includes four modules to improve your calculation, logic and reaction time: Shopping list, Cool Cat Memo square, and Shape counter. There are three game modes: Exam, Practice and Arcade.

It comes with a "coach" who will analyze results and advise you on what to do to improve your brain in areas that include memory, focus, reaction time, and logic.

Hop on over and take a look!

Looks like the Treo Pro will be gaining some additional traction up in RIM country. Per a story by Michael Bettiol of The Boy Genius Report (BGR), TELUS, one of Canada's leading telecommunications companies, is slated to begin selling the Windows Mobile-based Treo Pro sometime soon.

Their source was apparently some ads that have appeared in several newspapers across Canada. While the expanded availability is being celebrated, the anticipated pricing could be an issue with the TELUS Treo Pro selling for $50 over Bell Mobility's price. You may recall that in February, Palm announced the availability of the Treo Pro on Bell Mobility's high-speed mobile network (EV-DO Rev. A), marking its debut in Canada.

BGR also noted that the TELUS ad lists 3-year contract pricing, which could be an issue.

If you want to see the ad for yourself, click here. The technology used is kind of fun. You'll also notice that TELUS has the Treo Pro right in the middle of their smartphone offerings, with the BlackBerry Pearl and Pearl Flip on the lower end and the BlackBerry Storm at $50 more on the higher end.

eMarketer posted a story talking about mobile-only households that included a state-by-state breakdown. These stats are actually from 2007 and were compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And the reason they are tracking this type of information is "to assess potential implications for data collection from health surveys and other research conducted using random-digit-dialing methods on landline phones."

So here are some interesting tidbits:

There were ten states that had over 20% of the households and adults with only mobile phone service: Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. You read that right: 20% of the states had over 20% mobile only users!

In 2007, nearly 15% of all US households were wireless-only, with wireless-only adults making up 13.7% of the population.

The numbers for 2008 are still being figured out. Through the halfway point, the numbers were 17.5% and 16.1% respectively. Clearly trending up.

In case you were curious, the states under 10% include: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and where I make my home, California (I blame Comcast and their Triple-Play product offering).

No doubt that the major wireless carriers are monitoring these stats closely.

Jamie Lendino's review of the Sprint Treo Pro was posted on the PC Magazine webiste on Wednesday. While remarking that it is "a solid, responsive handset for business customers who need Windows Mobile compatibility," and giving it a "Good" rating (3.5 out of 5 stars), he definitely called out the fact that its lateness was not a good thing.

"Timing is everything. And Palm can't get it right," is how his review opened.

He followed that with this complement:

"Sprint's version of the Treo Pro is one of the better Windows Mobile options out there-mostly because Palm hasn't tried to turn it into an iPhone with ineffective finger-friendly overlays that drag down performance."

Other highlights include:

"You'll need the built-in stylus most of the time, but at least the display is bright and clear."

"The small keys on the Centro-like rubber keypad feel cramped, but typing on the device is blissfully quiet and surprisingly accurate."

While he seemed to enjoy voice quality, he had issues with reception. He was definitely disappointed with the performance of Internet Explorer Mobile 6.

Circling back to the timing thing, he noted:

"The Treo Pro for Sprint would have made more sense had it come out at the same time as the unlocked model. That GSM version, while quite good, appealed only to enterprise-level shoppers with AT&T and T-Mobile SIM cards because of its high up-front cost. Sprint's version brings those benefits to a much lower price point, and adds a welcome speed bump and more third-party software."

Timing is Everything

Hopefully, The Sprint Treo Pro will be the last Palm product that's late getting out the door. Maybe, just maybe, the Pre, true to its name, will actually show up before it is expected. Wouldn't that be grand?

Aircell provider of the Gogo(R), inflight portal which enables "a robust Internet" experience at 35,000 feet, has just announced a pricing plan for Wi-Fi enabled smartphones like Palm's new Treo Pro, Apple's iPhone and selected BlackBerry devices. Passengers can now connect using their handheld devices for $7.95 on any Gogo-equipped flight of any length. That's a $5 savings over the laptop price. Currently, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Virgin America are offering Gogo-equipped flights.

The new $7.95 handheld pricing option allows smartphone users to surf the Web, download entertainment, check e-mail, stay connected to their social networks and basically use their handheld devices to their full extent on the Gogo Inflight Internet service. Laptop users can still connect to Gogo for $12.95 on flights lasting longer than three hours and $9.95 on flights lasting less than three hours.

More information about Gogo can be found at: www.gogoinflight.com. It's a good idea to register ahead of time here. There is also an option to sign up in flight.

Mike Heck of InfoWorld's Test Center just posted his thoughts on the Sprint Palm Treo Pro, which officially goes on sale Sunday, March 15. Since Sprint is the first wireless carrier to ship a device that uses Microsoft's Internet Explorer Mobile 6 browser, which will soon become available on other Windows Mobile 6.1 handsets, this is like a two-for-one review with more oomph on the IE side.

Since many enterprise applications are written for IE 6, and IE Mobile 6 uses the same rendering engine as the desktop version, he was curious to see how the Treo Pro would do. And for comparison purposes, he also gave it a try with an alternative browser -- Opera Mobile 9.5 beta.

Mike's testing occurred on Sprint's EV-DO network in the Philadelphia area where he was able to obtain consistent connections in the 1,000Kbps to 1,200Kbps range (considered the upper end of the EV-DO Rev. A specifications). Basically, a test page that he could download in two seconds from his desktop was being downloaded on the Treo Pro in five seconds, which he described as "a very good showing."

He ran into some challenges accessing complex sites -- in particular Google applications, YouTube, and Facebook. Palm didn't have an immediate answer for him.

"If you're shopping for a Windows Mobile-based handset, the Palm Treo Pro is one of the best. If you want the cost subsidized, and the IE Mobile 6 browser, Sprint's offering may be a solution."

Humm... "May be a solution" isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement. Similar to what Bonnie Cha at CNET said, it is clear that the Sprint Treo Pro is a player and should be added to the consideration set.

He also rated it Very Good (8.5 on InfoWorld's scale).

Today, South by Southwest (SXSW), the legendary film, music and interactive festival, will kick off -- attracting approximately 11,000 registrants to Austin, Texas. This year attendees will have the opportunity to tap into some mobile assistance as they try to maneuver around this expansive three-ring circus of events.

SXSW has teamed up with The Social Collective to provide anywhere/anytime access to all the official films, music showcases, parties, interactive panels and other events via a site accessible from mobile web browsers: http://my.SXSW.com.

Per the press announcement issued last week:

"The launch of my.SXSW's mobile experience will make finding contacts, finding great events, and finding the locations of the different venues dead-simple, quick and portable. With The Social Collective's modular design, enabling the mobile version of the hosted software was easy and painless. The resulting mobile web application carries the SXSW trademark and brand, just like the rest of the integrated social networking, messaging and scheduling features of my.SXSW."

my.SXSW can support personal schedule export into Microsoft Outlook, which can be synchronized with smartphones such as Treos and Blackberrys. Also, registrants can use my.SXSW to sign up for SXSW Alerts, which provide real-time schedule updates via SMS.

On a day that started with some euphoria, as the amount of money raised by Palm was elevated to over $80 million due to an increase in the size of public offering, the "real news" of the day was the statement issued by Palm where the company moved to distance itself from comments made by Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners. A summary what was submitted in the Form FWP (Free Writing Prospectus) - Filing under Securities Act Rules 163/433 can be found on our sister site, PreCentral.net. You can view CNBC's Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, Jim Goldman's thoughts on Palm's Profit Picture.

Circling back to the early morning euphoria, it all started at about 9pm PDT Monday night, when Palm issued a press release, Palm Announces Pricing and Increased Size of Public Offering stating that the company increased the size of its previously announced public offering of common stock to approximately 23.125 million shares, including approximately 18.5 million common shares underlying 49% of the units of Series C preferred stock and warrants acquired by Elevation Partners in January 2009. The public offering price per share will be $6.00, which means that upon the closing of the offering, Palm will receive net proceeds of approximately $83.9 million.

At All Things Digital, in his Digital Daily column, John Paczkowski referred to this as a "Bake Sale" and proclaimed that it was a "resounding success."

"Clearly, the $83.9 million Palm (PALM) netted from the sale went a long way toward reassuring investors that it can afford to give the Pre the strong launch it deserves."

On Tuesday, PALM rose to as high as $7.00 before closing at $6.92.

Disclosure: I do not own stock in Palm.

It may come as a surprise to many of you that this Sunday, we will be moving our clocks ahead one hour for the start of the daylight savings time season (which officially begins at 2 a.m. Sunday).

I'm all for extended twilight, but was having no problem with the sun setting at 6pm. Especially in March when it still is kind of chilly to be out running around at the end of the day. Tell that to the government, right?

Believe it or not, this is actually the third year that daylight savings time has fallen on the second Sunday in March -- all in the name of saving more energy. At least, that was the game plan. But according to Bob Aldrich, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission, extending daylight saving time had "little or no effect on energy consumption in California."

I know I'm not looking forward to a sleepy Monday as my body tries to adjust to losing an hour of sleep. And according Al Neuharth in his Plain Talk column at USA TODAY, chickens and their handlers aren't pleased either.

"They won't lay their eggs in the dark, so we have to hook up a light in the chicken house. Then we can't let them out for their morning run in the dark because the raccoons get them. You need to start a campaign to get this time change stopped," said Centi Thomson of Canaveral Groves in Cocoa, Fla.

My advice is to lay off the caffeine on Saturday so you can get to bed earlier. Also, be extra careful when you are driving. Per the National Road Safety Foundation's spokesperson, David Reich:

"Drowsiness, a condition most drivers fail to recognize, can be as dangerous as drinking and driving. Studies show 60 percent of us have driven while feeling sleepy, and more than a third admit to having fallen asleep at the wheel in the past year."

That being said, enjoy your weekend and plan accordingly for Monday.

[clock pic courtesy of Examiner.com.]

Note: Click on pic to enlarge.

Asurion, provider of equipment protection programs for many major carriers including AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, has raised the deductible 100% for participants of the Equipment Replacement Program at Sprint for those who have smartphones (which are now lumped into the Tier 2 classification). Starting April 19, 2009, customers with losses on phone models in Equipment Tier 2 will be processed at the $100.00 non-refundable deductible, regardless of the date the phone was purchased.

All Treo and Centro phones sold by Sprint fall into the Tier 2 category. Previously, the Equipment Replacement Program charged a fee of $4 per phone, smartphone or mobile broadband card, per month with a $50 non-refundable deductible per approved claim. So far there has been no indication of any monthly fee change.

The economy is doing a number on everyone, so it is hard to believe that this increase will be isolated to just Sprint. Customers of AT&T (iPhone, BlackBerry, HTC, Palm) and Verizon (BlackBerry, Palm) will probably be next on Asurion's notification list. Clearly, for the Centro, this deductible is hardly worth it. But for other smartphones, including the Pre, it may be an inevitable necessity. Guess we all need to continue to hunker down financially and definitely treat our Palm devices with extra care.

Special thanks to Maurel for the tip

Note: Click on pic for larger view.

For the second time in 2009, Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg, raised his rating on PALM. Just after CES in early January, he upgraded PALM to Hold from Sell. Today, he bumped it up to a Buy and also increased his target on the stock to $10, from $6.

A story by Eric Savitz at Barrons.com quoted Goldberg comments from his research note:

"We see clear signs that [Palm is] capable of executing to plan and shipping the Pre at least on time..."

At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, "we found a lot of carrier interest in the device as well."

"Palm has been beaten down for so long that even a modest success could generate significant earnings leverage."

Scott Moritz of TheStreet.com noted in his story that "earlier this month, Credit Suisse put an $11 price target on the stock, predicting the phone will further juice the stock price.

PALM closed at $7.55 on Monday with a flurry of activity at the end of the trading day. It is up in after hours trading.

Grant's rant is causing quite a stir on the 101 Freeway between Palo Alto and Mountain View in the SF Bay Area.

"Senator Joe Simitian: Your cell phone law sucks."

Grant Paulson of Pleasanton spent $10,000 to post billboard containing his thoughts on the hands-free cell phone law that has been in place since July, which was authored by Simitian.

A story by Gary Richards of the Mercury News details Paulson’s motivation.

"All I want is to have a choice," said Paulson, president of GP Fire Protection, a company that installs fire sprinklers. "When I get a call from someone on Bluetooth, it's comical. I'll say, 'I can barely hear what the hell you are saying. Are you on Bluetooth or a speaker phone?' They say yes, and that's why I hate this law so much. The clarity is awful."

Paulson is pushing for a statewide ballot measure to repeal the law because it takes away personal freedoms.

Many drivers in the area that were contacted by the Mercury News found the 75-word message a distracting nuisance. "To read it, one needs to slow to a crawl and stare hard to the left." And the The Daily Post of Palo Alto reported that Simitian thought the advertisement was "a hoot" although he was concerned someone might get "rear-ended" trying to read it.

The story mentions that the CHP has written more than 60,000 tickets to drivers using handheld phones or caught text messaging, including 9,200 in January, the most in any single month. The total fine for a first offense is around $100.

My thoughts... I still see people doing unsafe behavior behind the wheel (almost like they are tempting fate). Though I understand Grant's rant, the $10K price is a steep one. Then again, I wish I had $10K to post a billboard reminding folks to turn on their bleepin' headlights when it is raining (or anytime windshield wipers are being used). On second thought, that's a bad idea because chances are the people who should read that message are probably too focused on texting to pay attention.

Palm's stock (NASDAQ: PALM) broke a 52-week intraday high earlier on Friday, reaching as high as $9.51 before pulling back to close at $8.70.

One contributing factor was what Eric Savitz at Barrons.com referred to as a "bullish report" on Palm's stock that came out on Friday morning from Credit Suisse analyst Deepak Sitaraman, who initiated coverage of the company with an Outperform rating and an $11 price target. In his research note, Sitaraman stated that Palm is "at the cusp of a meaningful product cycle" that should push units and revenue up sharply.

He's looking for Palm to sell 3.3 million units in calendar 2009, jumping to 6.5 million in 2010. Furthermore, he expects revenue in FY 2010 to more than double to $1.9 billion from an estimated $907 million in FY 2009.

Over at TheStreet.com, Michael Goodman noted, "One has to keep in mind that when shareholders have seen their stock fall to $1.14 within the past two months, a long-term move to $11 from $9 is still cause for celebration."

His take was a lot more cautious as he pointed out potential barriers for Palm that included Sprint (whose business is "shaky" with a strong outflow of customers), and AT&T (if they reconsider their data plan pricing, that could boost the iPhone's value proposition). He believes Palm's best bet "may be to outperform all of the iPhone wannabes."

Since Palm's CES announcement, they have been upgraded by Morgan Joseph (Buy from Hold), Global Crown Capital (Overweight from Underweight), Citigroup (Hold from Sell), and UBS (Neutral from Sell). Only JP Morgan downgraded the stock from Overweight to Neutral.

It's been nearly a month since I wrote "PALM Investors: Some Stoked. Some Cautiously Optimistic", but the feeling is still the same. Many are pulling for Pre to be a winner. But only time will tell.

For sure, Palm needs a strong showing out of the blocks. A misfire like Sony just had with its Vaio P (see Walt Mossberg's column) would be a disaster.

Palm just filed a SEC 8K form that documents the board changes that took place this week and, for the record, discussed compensation (AKA "Other Events").

For those unfamiliar, the 8-K is a form that companies file with Securities and Exchange Commission when they have a specific "trigger" event transpire, and then they have a responsibility to file a follow-up form or document within a few days that details exactly what happened, how it affects the company, and its impact on shareholders (Ref: AskDaveTaylor.com).

There are nine sections to the 8-K form. Palm's filing focused on Sections 5 (Corporate Governance and Management) and 8 (Other Events).

As already communicated in a post by Jennifer, Donna Dubinsky offered to resign from Palm's Board of Directors in connection with the company's sale to Elevation Partners. The Board accepted Ms. Dubinsky's offer of resignation effective as of February 2, 2009.

Rajiv Dutta, who retired as the President of eBay Marketplaces and Executive Vice President of eBay Inc. in October 2008 and as a member of the board of directors of eBay, Inc. in July 2008, was appointed to fill the vacancy created by Ms. Dubinsky's resignation. Elevation Partners had designated him for nomination. The filing goes on to explain that Mr. Dutta will serve as a Preferred Director and that since he qualifies as an "audit committee financial expert" he was appointed to the Audit Committee of the Board.

Read on for the full article

At least something is moving in the right direction in this challenging economic environment... According to a post by Nick O'Neill appearing at AllFacebook.com, "the unofficial FaceBook Blog," Mark Zuckerberg told Davos attendees last week that Facebook has over 25 million people accessing the site via their mobile devices on a monthly basis. To put that into perspective, you may recall that last November, we had a story where an engineer on Facebook's mobile team stated usage numbers had grown from 5 million to 15 million. So if we are comparing apples to apples here - there was a 10 million user gain in 10 weeks (mid November to the end of January). That's pretty impressive!

But ARE we comparing apples to apples?

The AllFaceBook.com post also offered these numbers:

As of today, the company has over 4 million daily active users just between their top 3 mobile applications. According to our Facebook application statistics, Facebook for iPhone has approximately 1.64 million daily active users, Facebook for Blackberry has approximately 1.56 million daily active users, and the general mobile application has just under 1 million daily active users. This doesn't include all the users on Palm applications as well as general mobile users which are not technically required to add the mobile application to visit the site, which means there could easily be more than a million other daily mobile users.

Seems like the "active user" number is almost as squishy as the number of people who viewed the Super Bowl this year (ref: Nielsen Media Research now says the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl game was the most-watched in history. Nielsen said 98.7 million people were watching Pittsburgh's 27-23 victory Sunday night, 1.3 million more than watched the Giants' win over the Patriots last year. On Monday, Nielsen reported that this year's game had 95.4 million viewers).

You can bet that Facebook for Palm, a promoted feature of the Palm Centro, is playing a key role in someone's numbers, if not this 4 million amount.

MobiTV Makes Moves to Stay Ahead of the Pack

Per a story by Carolyn Schuk at BroadcastEngineering.com, it looks like mobile and broadband TV provider MobiTV is working on a platform that will let viewers interact directly with content. This move makes sense as more and more options for viewing programming become available on the "third screen." MobiTV is well established and definitely needs to find ways to stay ahead of the pack that’s closing in on them.

What's being described as a "new model of viewer engagement," was unveiled last week at the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) conference, which took place in Las Vegas. In partnership with Intel and Lionsgate film studio, MobiTV introduced its newest use of unique possibilities offered by mobile TV: using the return channel on a handset or mobile Internet device to let viewers interact directly with content. The demo took clips from AMC's "Mad Men" series and showed how someone would interact with the content and the advertising.

That last point is huge. For the last several years, companies have been circling around the third screen trying to figure out what the advertising model would be.

Jack Hallahan, MobiTV VP of advertising and branding, noted that this platform would be ideal for episodic television, like Mad Men and The Sopranos (note: or perhaps Lost, except that it would probably melt down the handset—AL), "While you're watching, you can click on a character and get back stories and plotlines." He also said, "when Sterling-Cooper lands the Heineken account, you not only see a Heineken ad, you can interact with it - for example, find out about the company's history or the calorie content of Heineken Light."

It will be interesting to see which platforms will get this capability first. Though MobiTV has been super supportive of Palm, my bet is that the iPhone and BlackBerry will get first dibs. The Pre could squeeze in there if it takes off.

According to a story by Aaron Baar that appeared at MediaPost.com, "mobile applications for financial services companies--particularly banks--could become the new 'killer app' for telecommunications." ABI Research says that the number of people banking through a mobile device could hit half a billion worldwide by 2013. Senior analyst of consumer mobility, Mark Beccue, stated, "Mobile financial services have the potential to be bigger than mobile TV and premium mobile content in terms of numbers of subscribers. Everybody's trying to do it, and they're all scrambling."

It all comes down to how comfortable consumers are with online banking, which is the logical first step. If they trust online, they may be more likely to trust mobile.

The story also notes that in the U.S., the mobile banking leader is Bank of America, which had 1.5 million subscribers as of the end of 2008.

Verizon Wireless and Disney/ABC Television Group/ESPN just announced what sounded like good news-- That a comprehensive portfolio of news, entertainment and sports video programming, including full-length episodes of shows from ABC Entertainment, ABC News and Disney Channel, as well as content from ESPN, will be made available to Verizon Wireless V CAST Video and Mobile Web customers. The last part is the bad news, because for some reason, the Palm Centro is not on Verizon's list of V CAST-enabled phones. Very strange since the BlackBerry Storm made the cut and is the only smartphone on that list.

Anyway, the agreement covers mobile distribution of on-demand, full-length episodes to V CAST Video, complementing existing short-form content currently available from ABC and ESPN. Full-length programs will include:

• ABC Entertainment: "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost" and "Ugly Betty"
• ABC News: "Nightline," "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," "World News with Charles Gibson" and "20/20"
• Disney Channel: "Hannah Montana," "The Suite Life on Deck" and "Phineas and Ferb"

Full episodes of these programs will be available on demand on V CAST Video the day following their television premiere. Also, Verizon Wireless customers will now be able to access and view expanded programming from ESPN, including short news clips and other sports-related content.

Not sure if Verizon is purposefully discriminating against Palm Centro customers or if this is just an issue with Palm OS not being compatible with V CAST. But it appears that the data plan for the Centro is exorbitant (Unlimited Data Usage $44.99/month; Email and Web for Smartphone $29.99/month) compared to V CAST, which has a $15.00 VPak monthly subscription fee, which also includes access to Verizon Wireless' ESPN MVP, Get It Now® and Mobile Web services.

Follow-Up: I just had an online chat with one of Verizon's "Live Person" sales reps:

Ashley: Hello. Thank you for visiting our chat service. May I help you with your order today? You: Quick question. Why can't you get VCAST with the Palm Centro? Ashley: I'd be happy to help you with that. Ashley: Unfortunately this phone is not V-Cast capable. This is just how the phone is made. Would you like help finding another phone? You: humm... I need to do more research. Thanks for your time.

For those in Canada who aren't Rogers Wireless customers, there is good news: the easy-to-use, Palm OS-based, app-friendly, CDMA version of the Centro is slated to cross the border and be available through Bell Mobility on February 2.

Per a post by Michael Kwan of Mobile Magazine, "the good news is that the launch promo has the Palm Centro going for $49.95 with a three-year contract." To put that in context, when Rogers Wireless unveiled their Centro in June 2008, the pricing was announced as $199 CAD for existing customers and $299 CAD for new customers. In comparison, Bell Mobility is offering the following prices:

• Special launch promo (3-year contract): $49.95
• Post-promo (3-year contract): $199.95
• 2-year contract: $249.95
• 1-year contract: $349.95
• Month-to-month: $399.95

Note: It wasn't clear if these are CAD or USD prices.

In his post, Mr. Kwan remarked, "Personally, I think waiting for the Pre is a better idea." But remember that the Pre is not backwards compatible. So those who currently use a Treo and love the apps they've got may find the affordable Centro quite attractive. And besides, if it took Bell Mobility this long to carry the Centro, how realistic is it to think a Palm Pre is around the corner?

According to Tricia Duryee of MocoNews, The Weather Channel and MSNBC.com have added video and integrated ads into the videos on their mobile sites with the help of Transpera, a Santa Monica, California-based company that offers the industry's first comprehensive platform for monetizing videos on mobile phones. Transpera's award winning mobile video delivery and advertising platform provides online content owners, network operators and advertisers with a turnkey solution that connects all the necessary pieces involved in successful and profitable mobile video deployments.

Transpera currently hosts the video section of The Weather Channel mobile Web site and also powers the video delivery and ad-insertion into these pages. What this means is that mobile users, like those with a Palm Centro running the Blazer browser on an unlimited data plan, will have access to The Weather Channel content such as video forecasts for 100 U.S. cities, updated frequently throughout the day just by typing http://mvideo.weather.com.

Quick test drive: On my Centro, I went to The Weather Channel site and clicked on the Traveler’s Forecast. The Kinoma player somehow became engaged and within seconds, a mobile video clip appeared. It ran smoothly with no audio or video glitches.

Duryee remarked:

"This move is pretty interesting. In the past, it seemed big brand names like these exclusively delivered video in applications because it was easier to know what kind of phone and network the user was on, and could guarantee a certain level of quality. The fact that they are now extending it to mobile sites shows that they are getting more confident about the capability of networks and handsets, and the number of users they are getting—there's no point in integrating ads if there isn't the traffic to justify it."

Note: The MSNBC site is slated to do mobile videos starting in March. Also, expect to see embedded video ads of 10-30 seconds in length soon.

When 4,000 consumers (in the UK and US) were asked about problems related to mobile usage, 95% of them indicated they would be more likely to try new mobile services if setup was easier. Findings from the survey, commissioned by mobile device management (MDM) specialist Mformation, also indicated that "complex setup issues are also preventing 45% of people from upgrading to new, more sophisticated mobile phones. Moreover, 61% of these mobile users say phone setup is as frustrating as changing a bank account."

In a write-up by CrunchGear's Devin Coldewey, he remarked, "I can see that, however I think the iPhone and G1 are doing things right." Which pretty much means that Palm with WebOS and the Pre, has a shot at easing users' frustrations. Coldewey talked about the importance of improving the user experience and why the iPhone has become so successful because "it feels like it's doing what you want, not like it's letting you pick from 3 options."

Another the interesting thing is the Mformation survey results parallel the findings of another recently released report. According to NPD's "Mobile Phone Usage" report, 45% use their phones just for calls, and only 20% for "all-in-one multimedia," which includes a wide range of activities ranging from music listening, video viewing, Web surfing and picture-taking to text messaging, mobile gaming, adding ringtones, and Bluetooth connectivity. In a story ("Almost Half Use Cell Phones Just For Talking") by Les Luchter at Mediapost.com, it is noted that nearly half of U.S. consumers still use mobile phones solely for their original purpose--to make phone calls--with Verizon Wireless customers least likely to use their phones as "all-in-one multimedia devices.

Not only does this indicate an opportunity for Palm, but it also is a call to wireless retailers and operators to take this "slowdown" as an opportunity to educate consumers as to the capabilities of their handsets, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD, in a statement.

By the way, the NPD Mobile Phone Usage Report came from an August online survey of 4,681 pre-identified mobile phone owners ages 13 and older.

Just think. It was two years ago that the iPhone was unveiled at Macworld 2007 in San Francisco during the keynote by Steve Jobs. You'll recall that the reverberations were felt out in Las Vegas where the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was taking place. This past weekend, Palm achieved something Apple didn't.

According to a story posted today at RTTNews, Palm's latest offering, the Pre, won the Best In Show (BIS) as well as the People's Voice Award at the Consumer Electronics Expo that concluded at Las Vegas on Sunday.

The awards, instituted in 2006, were handed out by CNET, in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association. The Pre, which had to face some stiff competition, became the first mobile phone to win the Best in Show award.

Also, in the RTT News story, it was noted "the Palm Pre was designed with women in mind, as women with long nails find it hard to use iPhone, whereas the slider keyboard is handy for them. Similarly, the Pre's shiny surface can be used as a mirror. Also, the phone does not have tangled cords, as it can be used with a wireless charger."

Seems like the Podfather's magic is working.

Not to be forgotten... Treo Pro for Sprint (the Windows Mobile based smartphone) is about to debut. There are reports circulating that the Palm Treo Pro has gotten its FCC approval for CDMA. And according to a post by Malatesta at our sister site, WMExperts.com, it shares the powerful 1500 mAh battery of its GSM brother which is a tremendous "boost" over the 1150 mAh in the current Windows Mobile Treo being carried by Sprint (the Treo 800w).

You'll recall that the weakness of the Treo 800w's battery has been pointed out by a number of reviewers, like Adama D. Brown, Brighthand.com, who wrote:

"I'm not at all happy with the Treo's battery life. It's just barely adequate for use as a phone -- add Direct Push, or a little Wi-Fi use, and you're sucking down battery power like it's icewater in the Gobi Desert. Heavy users had best plan to either leave chargers lying around wherever they go, or buy a larger extended battery."

The Treo Pro, with its WiFi and GPS capabilities will certainly be a battery hog, so this is great news for Sprint customers.

Malatesta also points out some other interesting tidbits from the FCC documents which mostly have to do with when the filing took place (September 12), which was just weeks after the Treo 800w was released. So there is some speculation about the timing of the 800w vs. the Treo Pro.

The takeaway, for sure, is that Palm is working really hard to get back into the game. And based on what happened to the favorites in the NFL playoffs over the weekend, who knows? They could be contenders.

We interrupt the Palm Nova watch for some breaking news... Seems that MobiTV, has cut a deal with CBS that enables them to deliver full-length episodes and clips from CBS Mobile, a channel featuring primetime hits like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Numb3rs," "CSI: NY," and "The Young and the Restless." Viewers will also be able to access video on demand news, sports and comedy clips from CBS Mobile.

Full episodes featured on CBS Mobile are available to MobiTV subscribers on AT&T Wireless and Sprint the day after broadcast, adding to MobiTV's lineup of more than 40 channels of content from partners including ABC, NBC, ESPN and Discovery Networks™.

MobiTV has a monthly subscription fee of $9.99. For details, those with Palm OS Treos and Centros should click here. For those with Treos running Windows Mobile, click here.

It's nice for a change to be on a Palm watch, as opposed to the Apple watch that is typical this time of year. Seems like there is a lot of buzz about Nova and Palm's upcoming announcement.

The CrunchGear post titled "Exclusive: New Palm phone to have slide-down keyboard, large touchscreen" by John Biggs seems to have attracted the most attention. He wrote, "We have information from a trusted source that the latest Palm smartphone running the Nova operating system will be launched Thursday. The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen."

And regarding Palm's Nova, it was a cover story in the San Francisco Chronicle's business section on Sunday by Ryan Kim, titled: "Palm needs Nova to shine." That's a pretty big deal for a SF newspaper that tends to leave Palm news to AP writers.

Read on for the full article

In a previous post, it was mentioned how the Fool's Tim Beyers felt handwriting recognition would be something Palm could include in Nova that would leapfrog what others are offering. His write-up was quite positive and somewhere along the line, he may have been accused of being "Pollyanna-ish," because his follow-up post titled "How Palm Could Lose Everything" took a more sobering look at Palm and its potential.

According to Beyers, closed systems (like those offered by Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion) are "crushing" open systems (think anyone offering Windows Mobile or Android).

In particular, he noted that "Palm uses an open environment," and "Investors haven't been well served by that choice" because the wireless carriers like closed systems better.

Read on for the full article

There has been quite a bit of speculation in the blogosphere about Palm's impending announcement scheduled for January 8 during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It has to be pretty darn good if Elevation Partners was willing to kick down more funding.

Monday, Tim Beyers of Fool.com put forth an interesting theory... That Palm's breakout could be related to handwriting recognition which is something sorely lacking in the BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and other smartphones.

He states that where others have failed, Palm has succeeded:

"Surely I can't be the only one to remember the old PalmPilot and its Graffiti recognition system, can I? Graffiti set the Pilot apart because it was an easy-to-learn language, and therefore a better alternative to deciphering barely legible scribblings."

His story talks about how the PalmPilot remains a cult icon to this day, which means that the Graffiti language is not only alive and kicking, but with an application called Graffiti Anywhere, it is accessible to owners of the latest Palm devices, including the hot-selling Centro and Treo smartphones.

Tim's ponderable: "Imagine what might be if Nova were a lightweight, touchscreen Linux OS with advanced handwriting recognition, a new Graffiti for a new era."

Humm... It's an interesting thought.

In a Reuters story that appeared on eWeek's site, wireless service providers are doing some big time planning in anticipation of the surge in demand that will hit the Washington D.C. area in January when an estimated 4 million people will converge there for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. The article specifically named Sprint Nextel Corp as being one of the companies "beefing up equipment at existing cell towers, adding additional telephone line connections and employing satellite trucks to patrol the area in and around the nation's capital."

Apparently Sprint is boosting capacity by 90 percent on its network for mostly business and public safety customers, and 40 percent for the network for mainly individual users. The other major carriers (AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile) will be doing the same with T-Mobile indicating that its investment will be "in the millions of dollars."

Ouch! Not only does that sound expensive, but the money has to come from somewhere, right?

This just in... According to a post by Palm blogger, Jon Zilber, Santa has undergone a sort of a makeover that all started when he was given a Palm Centro. Inspired by the possibilities this fine device introduced to his world, he has turned his life around. He is now in great shape (you won't recognize him), is sporting new threads, and even has a new nickname (the euro-hip "Claüs"). The Centro has gotten Claüs to embrace Web 2.0 too. He has his own Facebook page and has switched his preferred communication method to texting over snail mail. Per the blog post, the new Claüs will be making appearances in some eye-catching ads too.

You might want to visit him early and often this holiday season on his Facebook page which will feature videos and downloads (now available, the "Share the joy of the Claüs Remix CD").

If the Centro can cause this much of change in Santa, imagine what it can do for you!

We all know that signing up for that 2-year wireless service contract will get us a price break on a spanking new Centro, Treo Pro or other mobile phone. But what about those monthly fees that seem to be approaching cable bill like amounts?

MarketingVox.com reported on the results of a survey commissioned by Transverse and conducted by iGR, that stated two-thirds (61%) of mobile users would be willing to view advertising on their mobile phone in return for a discount on their monthly bill. Not surprising is the amount of reduction – 50%.

The sample for the survey consisted of 810 wireless subscribers age 18-65. Details can be found here.

In today's economy, finding new ways to get the most bang for your buck has practically become a new sport. So why not leverage your Centro/Treo or other text messaging enabled mobile phone to get alerts for items going on sale?

Last week Amazon launched a new service that will alert consumers by text message about low-priced items of the day. The mobile promotion, available at www.amazon.com/gp/anywhere/sms/goldbox for full details.

Amazon isn't the only retailer trying to help people shop smarter. Wal-Mart has also announced a mobile messaging service called, "Walmart Holiday Mobile Alerts," where you can sign up to receive up to three alerts per week. For example, on Saturday, I was notified on my Centro that Wal-Mart was selling fresh turkey for $1.18 per pound. I was also given a link where I could view other specials in the categories of Electronics, Apparel, Home, Entertaining and Rollbacks.

Looks like direct marketing has kicked it up a notch this holiday season.

Last week, American Airlines announced that passengers traveling from selected airports (Chicago's O'Hare, Los Angeles International and John Wayne Orange County) will be able to receive their boarding passes electronically on their mobile phones or PDAs, saving the time it takes to print out and present a paper boarding pass at the airport. The mobile boarding passes use a two-dimensional (2-D) barcode, which must be entirely visible (the backlight needs to be in the brightest mode possible) when going through the security checkpoint. If the scanner cannot read your barcode, you will be directed to a kiosk where a paper-boarding pass can be printed.

The process for obtaining a mobile boarding pass is straightforward: When travelers check in for their flight using American's Web site, AA.com – either the desktop or mobile versions – they have the option to receive their boarding passes on their cell phones or PDAs. If this option is selected, they will get an e-mail with an Internet link to their boarding pass. Anyone with bags to check can also use this new option by scanning the boarding pass on their cell phone or PDA screen at American Airlines self-service machines, ticket counters, or curbside check-in facilities.

There doesn't appear to be a fee for the mobile boarding pass. This could be a time saver and very convenient if the scanning equipment works. Just think, no more fumbling with an 8 x 11 piece of paper!

According to a post by Wayne Chang, an engineer on Facebook’s mobile team, usage of Facebook's mobile products has grown from 5 million to 15 million active users since the beginning of the year.

This growth is being attributed to the convenience of being able to post status updates while on the go from Centros and other mobile phones. He stated, "Now you can converse with your friends on Facebook by commenting on their updates no matter where you are."

The Facebook app is a staple of the Treo and Centro. You can download it directly to your Treo 680, Treo 755p or Centro (if, for some reason, you don't have it), by typing mobile.palm.com/facebook into your smartphone's web browser.

Along with doing status updates, the Facebook app will let you: send and receive Facebook messages, and respond to friend requests; view and post photos; browse friends' profiles, post messages to their wall, and send friend requests or search for old friends through Facebook; and, open Contacts and dial your friends with just one touch.

The numbers are in, and it looks like the use of text messaging was a clear-cut winner on Tuesday night. Per Sybase 365, the global leader in mobile messaging services, there was an unprecedented surge in SMS traffic during the 10 minutes immediately following the official announcement that Barrack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America. Between 8.00pm and 8.10pm PST, the volume of messages surged over 3 times the "normal" volume for that time of day. The hour between 8.00pm and 9.00pm PST was 9% greater than the same hour on the previous day.

Sybase 365 reported that as polling stations closed across the country and specifically between 4:00pm and 9.00pm PST, more than 1.2 billion SMS messages were sent across the country. Throughout Tuesday, the total number of text messages sent was 10 percent higher than the previous day.

Just to put that into perspective, last May AT&T reported that a text messaging record of 78 million messages dedicated to the 2008 season of American Idol.

1.2 billion vs. a mere 78 million? No doubt this is further proof that this election season, voters embraced technology and social networking.

Those of you with Sprint Centros

For the first time Thursday, a National Football League game -- the Cleveland Browns vs. the Denver Broncos -- will be broadcast on Sprint mobile phones as part of the wireless company's exclusive partnership with the league. That partnership deal is valued at about $500 million over five years. Over the next seven weeks, Sprint will phone-cast the eight games that are televised solely on the NFL Network, the league's cable channel. For the past three seasons, the NFL has struggled to persuade major cable operators to include its channel in their basic programming packages.

Sprint will be the only wireless carrier to offer the NFL Network game telecasts via its exclusive NFL Mobile Live application and on Sprint TV, free of charge to Sprint data subscribers. The first televised game features the Cleveland Browns hosting the Denver Broncos on NFL Network's Thursday Night Football broadcast. NFL Network's six subsequent Thursday night telecasts will be available to Sprint subscribers as well as the final NFL Network game on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Only from Sprint

Get Sprint's NFL Mobile Live and watch live broadcasts of NFL Network games and listen to live audio of all regular season games.A Plus, real-time Red Zone alerts, Game Center & more. FREE with any data plan. Features vary by device.

I have the Sprint Power Vision Access package and will be giving it a try.

Last week, Palm's stock took a beating ("Did Fools Rush In") but managed to recover. An informed reader (Thanks Phil!) let me know that the volatility was actually due to hedge fund liquidations. Today Palm (PALM) shares are being impacted due to downgrades made by analysts at Avian Securities and Morgan Keegan. Per a story in Barron's by Eric Savitz, Avian analyst Matthew Thornton cut his rating on the stock to Neutral from Positive. Based on discussions he had with management and a survey of U.S. retailers, he believes that smartphone sales will come in below expectations for the next several quarters.

In the same story, Savitz mentions that Morgan Keegan's Tavis McCourt downgraded the shares to Market Perform from Outperform. However McCourt's concerns were different. He believes that Palm's cash position will significantly erode ($248 million at the end of the latest quarter to $75 million over the next year) which leaves "little room for error."

A lot seems to be riding on the new products due to launch in 2009, and McCourt stated that "until we become more certain that Palm can execute this turnaround without additional capital, we believe it is prudent to downgrade our rating."

To round out analyst activity, Lawrence Harris from C.L. King wrote about potential new product offerings (Treo Pro by AT&T and Treo 800w by Verizon) in time for the holiday shopping season, which may serve as a sort of counterbalance to slowing Centro sales at Sprint. He feels the Centro will feel more competitive pressure from newer entry-level text messaging oriented devices offered by all the major carriers.

Let's see... The margins will probably be better on the Treo Pro and Treo 800w, so if they can get some traction, Palm should get a boost. The other thing to note is that the downgrade by Avian's Thornton put the target price on PALM in the $5 from $9 range. To put that in perspective, today the stock is bouncing around between $3.19 and $3.70 so far. What's that saying about clouds having silver linings?

For a few hours today, Palm's stock teetered along at record lows (hitting $2.70). As the market rallied to close up nearly 900 points, Palm seemed to be pulled along to close at $3.32. So what happened? A tour of the message boards (i.e. Yahoo! Google Finance) didn't turn up much besides a reference to a Samsung Epix review by our sister site, WMExperts.com. After revisiting the news sections of the various finance sites, I saw a connection -- on the top of the PALM news was a story titled, "Sell This Stock. Now." from Fool.com. Really? So I took the time to read the 650 word article and guess what? Palm was merely mentioned in a list of competitors to Garmin:

"Today, there's even more vicious competition, with previously unexpected players like Apple, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), and Palm (Nasdaq: PALM)."

And Garmin wasn't the stock that should be sold either. It was an example and a way for the author, Nick Kapur, to communicate the following:

"If you own shares of a company that has no real barriers to hungry competition, and it doesn't have anything in the works for the future, then what do you have? Not that much, really."

If you've been following the posts on this site for the last year, it is clear that Palm does NOT fit that profile. In these turbulent times, it is best to just take time to breathe (and read beyond headlines).

Perhaps this entry should read, "you'll miss me when I'm gone." A post from our sister site, WM Experts, should serve as a word to the wise… or at least, the wise owner of a Treo 750.

You may recall that last month, Jennifer provided the first warning about how the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 update for the Treo 750 expires on October 31, 2008. You read that right… in essence, the WM6 update turns into a pumpkin on Halloween. How appropriate is that?

But seriously, if you own a Treo 750 and haven't done it yet, go to the Palm Support site www.palm.com/us/support and get thee the download! You don't need to install it until you are ready. Heck, you can keep it in a folder on your desktop for as long as you'd like. Just don't put yourself in a position to regret not doing it. Consider yourself warned.

Just when things were going well (i.e. the Treo Pro garnering great reviews. The Centro gaining market share, etc.), comes some financial guy to throw cold water in your face. And in this economy, it seems like we are experiencing a steady drenching of cold water.

So here is what happened. On Tuesday, Palm got itself included in a list of 140 U.S. companies that Standard & Poor's says are in danger of not being able to pay their bills in the next few months. Swell! Per the story posted at the Time.com site, among the troubled firms on the agency's list are such household names as clothing retailer Eddie Bauer, amusement park operator Six Flags and pizza chain Sbarro, doughnut baker Krispy Kreme and mobile technology titan Palm, as well as a number of the nation's largest airlines, including JetBlue and the corporate parents of United and American. Per Sam Rovit of Bain Corporate Renewal, "We are seeing companies across a wide variety of sectors that are struggling." Mr. Rovit also stated that he expects a "tidal wave of bankruptcies among large companies."

Humm... It seems like Mr. Rovit missed what Palm's CEO, Ed Colligan, communicated during the earnings call last month - that is, that "Palm's cash position was fortunately still sound and will allow them to navigate this period while still positioning Palm for a timely launch of future products. After that, they look forward to delivering consistent and growing revenue, profits and cash flow."

So who do you believe?

In this economy, retailers are taking a closer look at their inventory to ensure they are carrying a product mix that best meets the needs of their customer base. Therefore, it isn't surprising to hear when some SKUs (as in "stock keeping units") are placed on the "End of Life" list. According to a story posted by Kris at Palm Infocenter, Palm has put the 3202WW Palm Hard Case (SRP $39.99) for the Treo 650 and 700w/wx/p line on "the list." Considering that this particular case was designed to accommodate an antenna (no longer a staple in Palm devices), this move makes sense. Palm’s website currently lists it at full price, so if you own an "antenna'd" Treo and are seeking a new case, you might want to check back for "blow out" prices.

The other EOL move has more to do with confusing SKUs. Apparently the 3291WW Palm Vehicle Power Adapter for Treo 800w Vehicle Power Adapter (with micro USB plug) has received its EOL notification. Palm carries another micro USB car charger, the 3437WW (SRP $29.99), which will be updated to reflect its compatibility with the new Treo Pro as well as the older 800w.

The moral of the story? The only constant is change. And if you have an older device that you want to "dress up," keep your eyes open for deals.

Note: Click on pic to enlarge.

All next week, as part of the launch of the Treo Pro in the UK, Palm Europe is doing a very hip event that feels almost Apple-like. Within The Truman Brewery on London's fashionable Brick Lane, Palm will have a pop-up gastro-pub named The Black Sheep. For five nights it will be the home (and stage) for mavericks, innovators and those that refuse to follow the herd. The underlying message here is that the Treo Pro is for those who want to "Be Different."

Interesting... Seems like sort of a twist on Apple's "Think Different" campaign (1997), which sought to capture the spirit of the original Macintosh launch - as witnessed in Apple's most famous "1984" Super Bowl ad.

Per the announcement distributed by Palm Europe last week (and posted by Phones Review of the UK), "slated to appear at The Black Sheep are: Piers Morgan former editor of News of the World and Daily Mirror, Karren Brady CEO of Birmingham City FC, synth-pop pioneers Human League giving a one off performance (on October 14), along with a primetime comedian and a Beijing Olympic gold medallist!"

Guests will also be invited to enjoy "a stunning two-course meal by Michelin starred chef Brett Graham, head chef at The Ledbury in London's Notting Hill, and have the opportunity to sample the new Palm smartphone."

Fun times. Since most of us won't be able to cross the pond to participate, we can do the next best thing - check out The Black Sheep website.

The marriage between mobile device and marketing has been something businesses have been trying to do for years. This most recent move towards the altar just might work out.

Last week, a company called SnapTell, that offers image recognition-based mobile marketing solutions, announced that the Winter issue of Martha Stewart Weddings (available on newsstands December 29, 2008) will be the first women's magazine to utilize fully activated or "live" advertisements throughout the publication.

SnapTell's Snap.Send.Get solution, which the company states works with "virtually all camera phones" and does not require the consumer to download any special software, can take an image snapped by readers of any featured advertisement, and respond back instantly with content (coupons, special offers, additional information, etc.) from the advertiser.

Since Martha Stewart Weddings is the top selling bridal magazine, this experiment will be getting a lot of visibility and may serve as a proving ground for other interactive efforts. Let's just hope the advertisers make offers the readers can't refuse. Otherwise, this idea will end up in the "nice try" pile along with the CueCat scanner.

When the 60th Primetime Emmy® Awards ceremony takes place this Sunday evening, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, keep your eyes open for the appearance of some stylish Palm Centros.

Palm and Don Ed Hardy ("Ed Hardy") have teamed up to create custom, bejeweled Centros, which will be gifted at the Presenters Gift Lounge backstage. Note: Click on pic at right to enlarge.

Don Ed Hardy is a painter, printmaker and tattoo artist. In fact, with 40 years of tattooing and legendary status among the tattoo community, Don Ed Hardy is known as "the godfather of modern tattoo", for his sophistication, depth and sense of experimentation. California native Don Ed Hardy is recognized around the world for his technical brilliance and mesmerizing imagery.

You can find Mr. Hardy's (no relation to the Brighthand.com editor) handy work at his website, http://www.donedhardyicing.com/, or on Palm's Facebook page.

Go take a look for yourself and check back often on Facebook. According to the Palm blog post by Jon Zilber:

"Not only can you check out more images of these bejeweled Centros (they're hella-blingy, according to my daughter), but you can also catch up on celebrity Centro sightings, get advance word about upcoming Palm events and promotions, take in a video or two, join the discussion, and more."

Let's see... Centro on Oprah, Centro at the Primetime Emmy Awards, Centro on Facebook... Where will it turn up next? My bet is a cameo on HBO's Entourage.

The Emmy Awards will air live Sunday on ABC.

The market may be down, but things are looking up at Palm. Morgan Joseph & Co. Inc., a full service investment-banking firm dedicated to serving middle market companies, has initiated coverage on Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) with a Buy. They set the price target $10.

Per a story appearing at Streetinsider.com, an unnamed analyst at Morgan Joseph remarked:

"Smartphones now address a completely new demographic: the mass market. In keeping with Moore's law, evolving technology affords pushing applications previously enjoyed on high-end devices to a wider segment of the cell phone market. Sell-through rates of Palm's Centro device, now available at all three major U.S. operators at a $99 price point, helped drive sales of 3.2mm units, up 19% Y-Y in FY08, which we believe clearly demonstrates broad-based demand...Relative valuation measures show a depressed share price, but this is not the cornerstone of our Buy rating. We believe demonstrated improved financial metrics should easily drive expanding valuation multiples for PALM shares."

PALM is up 2.19% mid-day, $7.45 a share.

Getting access to a PC remotely, whether at home or at work, has often involved complicated procedures and the need to remember PINs and passwords that may be required to be changed every 30-days. Almost seems not worth the hassle.

No worries, Overland Park's Positive Networks, a leading provider of security products and services, has just announced that PhoneFactor, its phone-based authentication technology, is now available to LogMeIn users free of charge. It turns any phone (mobile or landline) into an authentication device, plus it has been optimized to secure access to computers using LogMeIn services.

Side note: You may recall that a year ago, LogMeIn was part of an announcement Palm made about bringing remote PC access capability to the Foleo mobile companion. LogMeIn provides secure connections between remote PCs over the web - enabling easy desktop remote control, data backup and file sharing.

Read on for the full article

Here we go again... Do you remember when patent-holding company, NTP shook down BlackBerry's parent, Research in Motion (RIM), to the tune of $612 million and then later turned their attention to Palm, claiming that certain Palm products infringed seven NTP patents? It now looks like a company called WiAV Solutions is borrowing a page from NTP's playbook with a slight twist: They are going after Palm, RIM and Apple all at once. Per an article appearing in the AppleInsider, the 23-page complaint asserts that these companies are violating as many as ten patents WiAV is allowed to use that concern either the use of the GSM cellular network standard in smartphones or the Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) format for compressing voice in the process of making a phone call.

You can get a hold of the filing, which happened on July 30, here. So far, an official statement hasn't been issued by Palm about this. And it doesn't seem to be impacting the stock price either.

A company called I D YOU, LLC based out of Allen, Texas has come up with a service for smartphones that will provide the Caller ID for numbers NOT already in your contact list. Called Privus Mobile service (www.privusmobile.com), it claims to be "the world's first and only real Caller ID for your mobile phone."

For those callers not already found in your contacts list, or for the numbers you just don't recognize, Privus Mobile can give you real-time access to the caller's name and number so that you can accept or deny incoming calls. The downloadable application also gives you the option to save the caller's name and phone number to your contacts automatically. And for missed calls, Privus Mobile lets you decide whether the caller deserves a callback or deletion.

Available at www.privusmobile.com, it appears to work with Windows Mobile based Treos but not the popular Centro. A full list of compatible devices can be found on the site. At $24.95 for three months and $89.95 for 12-months, this service isn't cheap. But if you are a heavy user of a WM Treo, it might be just what you need. The company is offering a free three-day trial so you can see for yourself if it delivers on its promise.

SNL Kagan, a comprehensive resource for financial intelligence in the media and communications sector, has just issued a press release that pretty much confirms what the big wireless providers are counting on... namely that the use of data services will grow astronomically in the coming years. Okay, maybe not astronomically. Here are some of their findings:

• SNL Kagan expects mobile data revenue to increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% from $24 billion , in 2007 to over $100 billion in 2017, compared to barely a 5% CAGR for total service revenue over the same period.
• SNL Kagan predicts that by 2017, wireless subscribers will reach 90% per capita penetration. The significance is that as the market nears saturation, wireless providers are relying on the sales of new data services for revenue growth.
• The largest source of mobile data use continues to be messaging and mobile email, with 62% of wireless subscribers utilizing these services by 2017.
• Mobile web users, growing from 18% of wireless subscribers in 2007 to 52% in 2017, will comprise the second-largest category.
• SNL Kagan expects mobile video/TV to ramp the fastest, with a 10-year CAGR of 22.5% versus 12.7% for games and 13.1% for music.

This "good" news should be greeted with a degree of caution. In a recent alert issued by the American College of Emergency Physicians warned of the danger of accidents involving oblivious texters. The ER doctors cite rising reports from doctors around the country of injuries involving text-messaging pedestrians, bicyclists, even Rollerbladers and equestrians. If people don't change their behavior, the CAGR of "mobile-use" related accidents could also grow astronomically.

According to a post by Barron's Eric Savitz, Palm (PALM) might have an upside surprise in its fiscal first quarter (which ends in August). In a research note published on Monday, RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky raises that possibility referencing the company's 10-K filed on Friday. In it, Palm disclosed a Q4 backlog of $238 million, up from $185 million one year earlier, and $121 million two years earlier.

"He writes that past precedent finds Q1 revenues have been 1.6x-1.9x Q4 backlog. Use the lower number, and you would get $413 million, or well above the current Street consensus of $324 million. Abramsky says that would imply a loss for the quarter of 4 cents a share, versus the Street's estimate of a loss of 18 cents."

Needless to say, the upside is being driven by the new Treo 800w at Sprint, as well as the Centro orders coming in from the three major carriers (Sprint, Verizon and AT&T).

Perhaps this should be viewed with cautious optimism. There are a few other points made in Savitz's post worth noting.

I talked about it on Friday and Palm delivered. Just click here to reach Palm's support site to download software to enable voice dialing over Bluetooth wireless technology on the Palm Treo 800w from Sprint. The web page states:

"This software download will enhance the convenience of hands-free calling, as it will enable the use of your Bluetooth headset or car kit to initiate "voice calls on the Treo 800w via Voice Command voice dialing software.”

We'd love to hear from anyone who has downloaded this. Please share with us your experience.

"Busy local mom Lisa Hilyard, 38, says that her Treo smartphone keeps track of everything from grocery lists to her two kids' whereabouts. "It keeps me on task," Hilyard said. "If I need to remind myself to do something, it will go off and I'll say, 'Oh yeah, I forgot I have to do this.' "

According to a web page Palm just posted in its support section, voice dialing over Bluetooth for the Treo 800w is coming soon. No doubt, that has folks snoopy dancing. Per our sister site, WM Experts, this was a highly anticipated feature that somehow didn’t make the cut when the product was announced earlier this month:

"...One of the more anticipated features was the ability to use Microsoft's Voice Command 1.6 over Bluetooth (after all, that brilliant apps comes built into the device's ROM). This would allow you to hear the program's responses and reminders over your headset and just as importantly, bark your commands via the headset..."

This is a good sign because it appears that Palm is moving with a sense of urgency to increase customer satisfaction. Also, responding to competitive pressure from the iPhone 3G, they probably want to establish that voice dialing is "good to go" as soon as possible. Palm’s post says to "return to this page in the coming days for the download and details."

The concept of ICE, short for In Case of Emergency, is a brilliant one considering the number of people who carry a cell phone. It is nice to know there is a way to speed dial an emergency contact should the need arise. Many carriers have made this a standard feature within the Contacts area of the phone.

This week, the U.N. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) took this concept a step further by proposing a standard way to indicate the emergency contact that would be understood globally and universally.

According to this AP story, the ITU, an impartial, international organization which helps coordinate the operation of telecommunication networks and services within government and the private sector, has proposed that people start the contacts in their phone address books with the Arabic numerals ("01," "02," and so on), which tend to be universally recognized.

For example, a dad's contact number would appear as "01father," with "father" substituted with the equivalent word in other languages. That way, firefighters, police and other emergency workers would know to look first under those numerals to find the next of kin and other key contacts.

Since people are just getting comfortable using the ICE approach, it may take a while for this proposed system to be adopted. Per the story, ITU said it would work with the nonprofit organization ICE4SAFETY to promote the alternative.

Psst! Hey, Verizon customers! Hear this... If you've been eyeing a Treo 755p but have delayed pulling the trigger on getting one, you might want to jump online and act now. According to a report by Kris at PalmInfocenter, a Verizon spokesperson has confirmed that they are "phasing out" the Treo 755p in favor of the newer Centro. And if you go to the Verizon website, you can snatch yourself a 755p for the same price as a Centro, $99.99.

Now to put that in context, in December 2007, when Verizon introduced the 755p, you could get it for $299.99 with a 2-year contract (after $100 instant online discount $50 mail-in rebate) or $579.00 directly from Palm without a contract.

And as a refresher on what's hot about the 755p from Verizon, back when it launched, Andrew from our sister site, Treonauts wrote about the Treo Voice Dialing software (included in the box) which allows you to place a call, launch an application, even initiate a text or email message with just the sound of your voice. That's something iPhone folks dream about. He also remarked, "...I personally feel that the lighter and slimmer form-factor with no protruding antenna will make a significant difference for those Treonauts looking for a slicker alternative - it's certainly much better looking than the Treo 700p."

Treo 755p vs. Centro? Verizon customers better act quickly before the decision is made for them. One more thing to note: The Verizon spokesperson said they will continue to provide customer support for the Treo 755p. You can probably count on Palm to support you as a Plan B.

A lot happens in Vegas, as we all know. That's why websites like VisitLasVegas.com are helpful when planning a trip there because you can reserve tickets to shows ahead of time. But what do you do if you happen to be already in Vegas and find yourself with some extra time on your hands? Chances are, you haven't schlepped your computer with you.

The old-fashion way is to track down a concierge to help you out. The "new-fashion" way is to get help from "Mobile Concierge" and "Box Office in Your Pocket," two new applications brought to you by VEGAS.com, the largest seller of Las Vegas show tickets and source for Vegas information.

According to their announcement, these applications are the first-ever deployment of mobile show ticketing in Vegas combined with mobile concierge services.

Read on for the full article