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The Color of a Palm Device
For months, handheld user groups have speculated about whether the Palm M130 is really a 12-bit and not a 16-bit color device, as the company claimed when introducing the product last March.
The speculation was correct. The M130 does use a 12-bit screen. Through a color-blending process called dithering, the company was able to create more than 58,000 color combinations, but this falls short of the 65,536 colors that the product is supposed to support.
Palm officials said the mistake was an honest one. The company has apologized to customers, but, as of last week, no refunds had been given.
Hewlett-Packard faced a similar problem two years ago with its first Pocket PC Jornada devices. HP did offer refunds.
Cingular to Cut Jobs, Minutes
Those in and around Cingular Wireless are living in interesting times.
The telecommunications company last week announced it will lay off as many as 3,000 employees while slashing the number of minutes included in its national calling plans. Customers who sign up for Cingulars national plans will no longer receive bonus night-and-weekend minutes, and those signing up for local plans will receive 3,000—rather than 3,500—night-and-weekend minutes.
All this comes amid speculation that VoiceStream Wireless is looking to merge with Cingular.
Cache Flow Shifts Focus
Cache flow last week changed its name to Blue Coat Systems to reflect a new focus on selling security appliances.
The company unveiled the SG800, designed to inspect and filter Web traffic entering the network through TCP port 80. The appliance is installed behind the network firewall and inspects inbound and outbound Web content, including Web pages and instant messages.
The network administrator uses a GUI-based console to set policies for the company, departments or individual users. The SG800s operating system, which was custom-built for the appliance, contains several dozen triggers that can set off a number of actions.