Treo 700p: more rumors?
Posted By RichC on May 13, 2006
Another slipped date about the Treo 700p smartphone being rolled out by Sprint this month; this one looks to have been a mistake (or scam) release which included the date of the new 700p Sprint model. In the online version of TechWorld, a article appeared and then was quickly pulled down, but not before this PDF was printed of the page. Since I’m following the release of the Sprint Treo 700p closely … these rumors intrigue me.
11 May 2006
Palm version of Treo 700 arrives
By Ben Ames, IDG News ServiceMonths after the Windows version (which we reviewed in January)
Palm is launching a Palm version of its Treo 700 smartphone next
Monday. Launched in the US, with 3G (EV−DO) wireless, the Treo 700p is the first Palm smartphone on 3G, and the second of four new devices Palm will launch this year.
With e−mail and Office functions, a digital camera and MP3 music player, it should appeal to both consumer and enterprise users, said Steve Sinclair, a senior product manager at Palm.
Smartphones are now crucial to Palm’s business. In March, swelling Treo sales pushed the company past earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2006 despite falling demand for the PDAs which the company started out making.
Palm says that success is also helping it to win a greater share of the smartphone segment, as the company posted 111 percent growth in units sold from 2004 to 2005, while the market grew just 65 percent. Research in Motion (RIM) still leads the 4.85 million unit smartphone market with 53 percent market share, Palm said. But Palm holds a strong second place with 33 percent. Other vendors, including Samsung, Hewlett−Packard, Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson, each have 3 percent or less.
Like the existing 700w, which runs Windows Mobile OS, the 700p uses EvDO networking, offers a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, and stocks 128 Mbyte of memory, all driven by a 312MHz Intel XScale processor. One benefit for the Palm version is ability for laptop users to use it as a wireless modem, connected with either a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable or Bluetooth wireless.
Despite their similarities, the Treo models could appeal to different users. “The 700w and 700p are comparable in the sense they are both designed to be able to handle anything really well, but I expect the platforms to drift toward different segments,” Linsalata said. “For mobile enterprise, Microsoft has a stronger hold, while the Palm version could drift toward a more balanced role.” Even in the US, the Treo 700p is not yet in stores. Palm said telephony carriers Sprint and Verizon Wireless would soon announce pricing and availability.
It hit pretty close to home yesterday when a local teacher in our Lakota district was arrested. According to local news reports, Angela Johnson a Lakota East High School teacher, was alleged to have sent unusual gifts (underwear) to a male student and sent inappropriate text messages by cell phone since January. Its sad to see someone who has the trust of the community, after investing years of education, waste it all by knowingly interacting with a student. I doubt her employment can continue in our Southwestern Ohio school district, yet since the student was eighteen I suspect she will not be facing jail charges? Hopefully with this kind of attention and quick response by administrators (and resources officers), the school district is able serve notice to other teachers to be ‘overly careful’ in how they interact with students.
When video segment from a Clearwater Florida Fox26 news station appeared on a forum, I soon remembered the welding and cutting machine and realized it was being used to produce the hydrogen to power a car. Dennis Klein is the patent holder and inventor according to a couple of articles and looks to be targeting a new market. It will be interesting to see if there is enough true to the claim of breaking water into Hydrogen at the scale of efficiency being talked about. I wonder if Mr. Klein is in the running for the 
I came across a nicely organized start up website today that deserves a quick look. Benjamin Turner, a student studying mechanical engineering, runs the site 
Counties often have part-time judges to ease the load on the courts and in some areas this might save taxpayers a significant number of dollars. Unfortunately it looks as if part-time judges, at least in my county, are paid very well for sitting on the bench one day per week and aren’t necessarily saving the county any money. Not only do they receive an annual compensation package over $70K, they are practicing lawyers the balance of the week. (that’s a pretty sweet deal) Nevertheless counties often see this as a necessary evil … but in our case we’ve hired not only one, but three! They’re all paid well and even receive taxpayer funded continuing education that seems to benefit their private law practice more than the work they do for the county. (besides … the 4 plus grand per year for these trips to Las Vegas seems like abuse of my tax dollars)
The magazine article quickly gets to the diesels strength in its review as it points to the fuel economy they achieved on their test loop: 42mpg highway and 33mpg around town. (equipped with the DSG 6 speed automatic) I suspect that most owners of the grown up Jetta will average just under the 40mpg mark. This is shy of my 45 mpg lifetime average in my smaller 5 speed 2003 Jetta TDI … but they are no longer the same sized cars. The new Jetta is powered by the Pumpe Duse 100 HP TDI engine and was, as expected, slow off the line. The reviewer comment that there was a “trace of turbo lag from a stop, which can be seen in the longish 11.6-second 5-to-60-mph run, but a more aggressive launch reduces the time to 10.3 seconds.”
For those who love diesels, the new Jetta isn’t so quiet as to be with out some of the startup noises. “When the engine is cold, a bit of diesel clatter can be heard from inside the cabin” states Tony Quiroga, “but once the engine is warm, there is mostly a mellow hum with only the slightest hint of the characteristic percolator-like gurgling.” He goes on to comment that the TDI versions is only slightly louder than the gas versions but at speed its background sound. After reading the comments, I still see the new Jetta an excellent buy and would gladly pay $25,000 for a well equipped Jetta over a ‘snooty‘ hybrid. (that jab was just to tease my friends over at 
Just finishing meeting a friend for lunch at one of our local favorite Mexican restaurants, Casa Grande (previously 
Cinco de Mayo was the day that the much prized European Mayonnaise was due to arrive in Mexico aboard the RMS Titanic. (May 5th, 1912) Europeans centuries have prided themselves on making the finest Mayonnaise in the world and that taste was appreciated by the citizens of Mexico. The loss of life the day the Titanic hit the iceberg overshadowed much of the cargo that was lost by all but the lovers of Mayo in Mexico. They marked the loss by establishing May 5th as a day to remember this event. Just as with many holidays, over time the true meaning is lost and commercialization of the day has taken over. Thankfully through the power of the internet, you know the true story behind Cinco de Mayo (The Sinking of the Mayonnaise) and can keep its true meaning alive. 
I still am confident that renewables are important as they are a carbon neutral source of energy, but are not a complete replacement for petroleum. In other words, I’m not burying my head in the “shale” and ignoring the obvious … that of the US oil reserves in ‘Shale Oil.’ It comes as a shock to many that under the mountains of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming there are billions of tons of oil rich shale. This rock is similar to the ‘oil sands’ of Alberta Canada, but contain far more petroleum per ton than the oil sands. Besides that, the estimates are that the United States has far more oil shale than Canada has oil sands. 