Personal communications

Palm is hoping its new developer's kit can lead to better games and richer apps for its smartphone users.

Palm announced on Tuesday that a public beta version of its new WebOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) is ready for developers to download via the company's Developer Center Web site. The PDK lets programmers create plug-ins using C or C++ to enhance existing WebOS applications.

The WebOS is the software platform for Palm's Pre and Pixi smartphones.

Unveiled at this week's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, the PDK is being targeted to designers who want … Read more

Want better games on your Android phone? They may be coming sooner now, at least for Android 2.0 models.

Google has let programmers tap directly into mobile phone graphics power by releasing a third version of its Android Native Developer Kit (NDK) on Monday.

Android applications typically run in a variation of the Java programming environment, a move that aids in making applications that move more easily from one hardware system to another. But Google also lets those applications bypass the Java layer for some direct communications with the hardware through the NDK interfaces. And the big change in the third revision, or r3, is support for a standard graphics interface called OpenGL ES--in this case version 2.0, the same technology supported by newer iPhone 3GS. … Read more

As I noted last night, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Series is a clean break with the past, from the look and feel of the product down to the way software makers will write programs for the device.

Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that the primary tools for developers will be Silverlight and XNA, while the look of the device, as outlined at last month's Mobile World Congress, is closer to the Zune HD than to any prior version of Windows Mobile.

I had a chance to do a short video interview with Microsoft's Charlie Kindel and get a … Read more

Adobe Systems released a new version of its Photoshop.com Mobile application for Android phones on Thursday night, an upgrade that came with an apparent attempt to tweak Apple's nose.

The new version gets more editing options. It adds "vibrant" to make photo colors richer and "pop" for a pop-art style. Also new are "soft black and white," "warm vintage," "vignette blur," "white glow," and "rainbow," Adobe said.

But more significantly, perhaps, the mobile editing software also now can be incorporated by other programs on … Read more

Google is giving Android users another method for searching their smartphones: finger-drawn letters.

The company has launched a new app called Gesture Search, which lets Android 2.0 users find items by drawing a letter on the screen. Draw an "A," for example, and all contacts, bookmarks, applications, and songs that begin with an "A" appear on the screen.

Neatness doesn't count. If your handwriting is sloppy, and your "A" looks like an "H," Gesture Search will bring up items that start with "A" and "H," according … Read more

Fortify yourself for some frenetic phone-fanboy fighting.

As part of a series of in-depth investigations into the screen quality of the iPhone and the Nexus One, the visual experts at DisplayMate claim that, scientifically speaking, the iPhone's LED-backlit display is a clear winner.

Examine the images for yourself: on the Nexus One's theoretically more advanced AMOLED screen, DisplayMate says, "there are lots of issues, problems and artifacts lurking just below the surface." Thanks go to OLED-Display for a tip-off about the study.

Read more of "iPhone's LED screen is better than Nexus One's OLED, experts claim&… Read more

The U.K. government will not exempt universities, libraries, and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the Internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access.

Lilian Edwards, professor of Internet law at Sheffield University, told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the scenario described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in … Read more

With more people keen to watch finger-chomping siblings, evolving dance moves, and chuckling babies on their TVs, Cablevision is trying out a service that could help.

The cable company announced a new service on Wednesday called PC to TV Media Relay that will let customers view content from their computers on their TVs. Similar to a remote desktop program, the service will wirelessly share whatever is on your PC with your TV screen, including e-mail, applications, and of course Web content.

"With our PC to TV Media Relay service, we are putting an end to the need for families … Read more

Palm's smartphone recovery took a big hit Thursday as the company sharply cut its outlook for the third quarter and fiscal 2010 because "driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated."

How ugly is it? Palm said its third-quarter revenue will be $285 million to $310 million under generally accepted accounting principles. Non-GAAP revenue will be $300 million to $320 million.

The problem: Wall Street is looking for revenue of $424.7 million.

For fiscal 2010, Palm also said its revenue will be "well below its previously forecasted range of $1.… Read more