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CONVENTION REPORT
Wireless dominates this year's PalmSource
By S. Fred Green a.k.a. Fredlet
I've been lucky enough to attend the last several PalmSource conventions, and I've started to notice a change over the years. At first it was about geeks doing the dance of joy about new applications and swanky hardware. It was for being able to talk shop about Palm devices to other geeks (me being one of those geeks) without the strange looks and blank stares. Now, I see acres of marketing people talking numbers and discussing ideas "as we move forward" and fewer engineers talking blue-sky possibilities. I suppose that isn't too bad, but it does makes me a bit melancholy for the good ol' days.
Sigh.
Now, that isn't to say that PalmSource wasn't a cool place to be this year. As a matter of fact, the Santa Clara Convention Center, pictured in Figure A, was practically bursting at the seams with marketing people and engineers.
FIGURE A
PalmSource 2000 was held at the beautiful Santa Clara Convention Center.
They told me that next year we'll be convening at the San Jose Convention Center (which is probably 5-10 times larger than where we've been the last several years). In fact, to check out next year's agenda and details, pay a visit to http://palmsource.com.
Wireless
If you want one word to sum up this year's conference…well…I don't think one word is enough. Actually, it would take three words: wireless, wireless, wireless. Quite a few sessions at the conference were devoted to the subject. You can read about them at http://palmsource.com/agenda/trackDetails2.asp?sTrackNumber=300. Everything now is about communication and instant gratification. Carrying over from the previous conferences, Bluetooth technology is still being talked about and there's some progress on it, but mostly people are still using existing technologies such as the wireless Internet on the Palm VII, Omnisky's wireless modem, and the CDMA used in cell phones.
Tie in the wireless aspect of your Palm device with one of the many services out there for figuring out things to do wherever you are, and you're set to go. JungleSoft's location based service, JunglePort, can use both a GPS service, if you have a receiver, and wireless technology to allow you to find great Italian food even if you have no idea where you are. You don't even need a GPS receiver to use this application. You can also input an address or a zip code to narrow down your search. You can find it at http://www.JunglePort.com.
Speaking of new things for the Palm OS, NearSpace (at http://www.nearspace.com) created a nifty little application just for the conference that included the schedule, maps to the session rooms, an exhibitor list, and a help button to show you all the nooks and crannies of the application if you needed it. I thought it was quite handy to not have to drag out the printed binder whenever I had a quick question. I'm betting this is going to be the latest, greatest thing for conferences.
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