![]() For example, Microsoft says: "The integrated. Most of the other big-ticket improvements - if you can call them that - are designed to appeal to corporations, where the Pocket PC has found the warmest welcome. And Pocket PC's with Bluetooth transmitters can now use a Bluetooth cellphone as a glorified modem. For example, as you search your address book, each letter you write homes in on the name you want, so that writing only G-A-T pinpoints Bill Gates. ![]() Don't think that you'll watch "Bruce Almighty" on your transcontinental flight unless you'd be satisfied with the opening credits.) Some features are intended to catch up to those of rival Palm organizers. (Video consumes a huge amount of memory, however. There's even a tiny version of Windows Media Player 9, which, according to Microsoft, offers improved video quality. There's an auto-correct feature for spelling errors, and an auto-complete feature for e-mail addresses. What else? A new built-in program called Pictures can display digital photos and even perform simple editing like cropping, right on your palmtop. Don't ask me whose it was - this hotel didn't offer free shampoo, let alone free wireless Internet access - but I was surfing the Web in seconds. Last week, as I switched on a Pocket PC in a hotel room, I was startled to discover that I was within range of somebody or other's wireless network. As a result, a Pocket PC can alert you to wireless hot spots you might not have known existed. This configuration system beats the pants off the old system of joining a network: dialogue boxes filled with network jargon. One tap of the stylus, and you're on the Internet. The instant you walk into an office, hotel, Starbucks or McDonald's where a wireless signal is available, the network's name pops up on the palmtop's screen. On Pocket PC models capable of connecting to wireless networks (known as 802.11 or Wi-Fi), the juiciest new feature is automatic wireless-network connection. But most are so tiny, you'll find them only with an electron microscope. The nips and tucks in Pocket PC 2003 are all steps forward. Some of the models are new others are last year's models fitted with the newer software. This software drives, or will soon drive, palmtops from Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Dell, Panasonic, Gateway, JVC, ViewSonic and so on. For proof that palmtop software has reached maturity, if not old age, just look at the new Pocket PC 2003 operating system (which Microsoft - in its dreams - hopes that people will refer to as Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC). Buying a palmtop these days is an event no bigger than buying shaving cream or inkjet refills. Today, where are the palmtops? They're in every fifth row of the plane or train, hanging on shrink-wrapped cards at Wal-Mart, yours free with paid subscription. For the discerning gadget freak, life was a breathless adventure. There was one new model every year, and it vaulted straight onto the covers of techno-magazines. Every time Palm Computing sneezed, shockwaves went through the electronics community. REMEMBER palmtops? Back in the golden age (circa 1996), they were thrilling and new.
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