Palm Announces Thin Color m505 -- Palm, Inc. has unveiled the Palm m505, which offers the long-awaited combination of a color screen in a thin case the size of Palm's popular Palm V series. In addition to a 16-bit color screen, the new handheld features a USB HotSync cradle and vibrating alarms. New to the Palm platform is an Expansion Card slot that accommodates postage stamp-sized MultiMediaCard and Secure Digital memory cards initially offering up to 16 MB of additional storage, as well as content-specific cards such as a dictionary/thesaurus, travel guides, and games. The future will bring Expansion Card devices such as digital cameras and music players. The m505 also runs Palm OS 4.0, which boosts the operating system's security features, adds software for wireless Internet access, and enhances how alarms are handled (in addition to lots of under-the-hood changes for color support). Palm also announced the Palm m500, offering the same features as the m505 but with a grayscale screen. The Palm m500 will be available at the end of April for $400; the m505 is expected to arrive in May for $450. [JLC]

<http://www.palm.com/products/palmm505/>
<http://www.palm.com/products/palmm500/>