Nokia has announced the Symbian EPOC OS savvy Nokia 9290 with significant Java capabilities, but it won't be shipping in the United States until mid-2002.

Metricom via Wireless WebConnect! has announced a new service option for San Francisco Bay Area residents that offers 64-Kbps local Ricochet wireless services for only US$40 per month.

Landware has released Pocket Quicken 2.0 for Palm OS that offers over 100 new features and enhancements. It is compatible with all US & Canadian Windows desktop versions of Quicken 99 and above. Apple Macintosh Quicken support will be available in the 3rd quarter of 2001

Advanced Merchant Solutions has released Pocket Verifier for Palm OS that would allow a merchant to accept credit cards and checks anywhere Internet access is available. A Windows CE version and a WAP version are expected to be released soon.

SkipWire has announced a new logon and account feature called MySkipWire that enables users to create a personal library of electronic content that can be downloaded to Palm OS devices. MySkipWire is based on a partnership between SkipWire, Qvadis, McGraw Publishing, and DiskUs Publishing.

If you are traveling to France soon with a Psion device then you might want to check out "The Michelin Red Guide 2001 for France" being offered by Palmtop. This version provides "details on all 13,654 French hotels and restaurants of note in 4,552 cities, villages and districts."

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)