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Palm investor to kick in an extra $100 million

This post was updated at 1:06 p.m. PST with the stock's closing price and comments from an interview with Elevation Partners Roger McNamee.

Christmas came early for Palm.

The struggling handset maker announced Monday that investor Elevation Partners has agreed to infuse Palm with an additional $100 million, in a move designed to provide a boost to its new product launches in 2009.

Shares of Palm soared on the announcement, rising as high as 49 percent in intraday trading Monday to $3.71 a share. And by the time the regular session ended, Palm finished the day … Read more

Marware Game Grip for iPhone and iPod Touch

The Sony PSP is a gaming system first and a media player second. The iPhone and iPod Touch are the other way around: media players first and gaming systems second...or third, or fourth. (And, yes, I say that the iPhone is a media player before a cell phone.) Regardless of what they are, there's no reason not to take full advantage of a device's secondary features. Enter the Marware Game Grip, a $50 case for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Now, if you're thinking that $50 is a bit over the top for a silicone device … Read more

VMware dials up mobile virtualization

VMware has announced a major push into the mobile market, with a new virtualization platform tailored for handheld devices.

VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform, or MVP, announced Monday, builds on technology VMware bought from Trango Virtual Processors last month. According to VMware, the platform will "help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster" through the use of virtual machines.

Business users were also a focus in VMware's announcement, which suggested that MVP would let IT departments roll out a "corporate phone personality" across employees' personal handsets, leading to … Read more

Surprise: Nintendo DSi launching in Japan Saturday

Rumor had it the Nintendo DSi, a new, slimmer version of the DS Lite, would ship first in Japan in early summer of next year. But in a surprise move, Nintendo has said the recently announced handheld game system is ready to ship.

According to Michelle Wyman, a spokeswoman for Nintendo, the DSi goes on sale Saturday in Japan for 18,900 yen, which is about $192.16.

The device does away with the Game Boy Advance card slot to make room for a smaller footprint and new features like a VGA camera and an external camera rumored to be … Read more

Pocket projector gets an early screening

It looks like 3M is trying to bring back the good old-fashioned vacation slideshow.

The company is reportedly close to rolling out a miniature, portable digital video projector, the likes of which could be used to project digital photos, PowerPoint presentations, or cat-on-a-treadmill videos wherever you see fit.

The lucky ducks over at Popular Science got an early look at the MPro110 and report that after plugging it into a DVD player, they were able to project a movie up to 11 inches wide on various pieces of furniture, walls, and co-workers' body parts. The picture fared much better (and … Read more

Peek e-mail device for sale now at $99

It was supposed to start selling at Target stores on Monday, but Peek decided to get things started a little early. The e-mail-only device, called the Peek, appeared Thursday on the start-up's Web site.

And it looks like it was a smart idea. Silicon Alley Insider notes that two of the three colors already appear to be sold out. (That would be black cherry, and aqua blue, though boring old gray, er, "charcoal gray," looks like it's still in stock.)

We've already gone over what we think the limitations of the Peek are (see CNET … Read more

Palm Treo Pro: Not digging it

Underwhelming--that's the word that comes to mind when I look at the new Palm Treo Pro.

Yes, nicer looking for sure, with a strong influence from the lower-cost Centro model (and looking rather like the upcoming BlackBerry Bold). It also has 3G and Wi-Fi, which is great, the newest version of Windows Mobile, and GPS, though these can also be found on existing competitors. So it's got a decent package of features, but what's so compelling about it that isn't offered elsewhere?

In this day and age, offering a screen that takes up less than 50 … Read more