AdvantGo's 2003 My AdvantGo Service Survey says that 50 percent of the mobile service users (84 percent of whom are male) say that they take their PDAs on dates and 11 percent say they would sooner dump their mates/dates before parting with their PDA or cell phone.

I'm not sure what this tells you. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.

Toshiba America Information Systems is working on a slate-style tablet about the size of a big postcard. Intel meanwhile has created a "micro-tablet" about the size of two credit cards and it's a full-blown PC according to Intel. OGO and Antelope Technologies are producing devices that are more useful and have more power. To find out more about these devices contact Toshiba at www.toshiba.com, Intel at www.intel.com, OQO at wwwoqo.com and Antelope at www.antelope.com.

Intel has cut prices on some of its fastest notebook processors. The mobile Pentium 4-M (2 Gigahertz to 2.4 Gigahertz) has been cut by 38 percent. A 16 percent cut has been made on three mobile Celeron chips: the 1.7 Gigahertz; the 1.8 Gigahertz and the 2 Gigahertz. These cuts came just as Intel introduced new chips in these categories. The new mobile Pentium 4-M 2.5 Gigahertz processor is $562 and the mobile 2.2 Gigahertz Celeron chip is $149. This should reduce the price of some current machines, although I wouldn't count on that happening any time soon. Right now, I'll settle for a new 2.4 Gigahertz machine for a reasonable price.

IBM Corporation's ThinkPad G40 is a desktop replacement notebook. The model 23885BU is a 3 Gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 desktop processor with a 15-inch XG-plus screen, a 40 Gigabyte hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, 256MB of RAM, a 56Kbps modem, Ethernet and 802.11b ports, a 12-cell lithium-ion battery, a floppy drive and 4 USB 2.0 slots. Check out IBM's offering at www.ibm.com.

For all you corporate Road Warriors (and any Unix lovers) out there, Tadpole Computers, Inc. (Cupertino, CA) is shipping a 64-bit Unix mobile workstation called the Sparcle. This notebook is binary compatible with Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s SPARC chip technology and the Solaris Operating System. The high-end unit has a 650 Megahertz SPARC III chip, 2 Gigabytes of memory, an 80 Gigabyte hard drive, 3 hours of battery life and weighs 6.5 pounds. Prices range from $3,000 to $6,000, which is considerably less than Tadpole's previous offerings. Is this the first 64-bit mobile work station?

Microsoft Corporation is introducing the new version of its Pocket PC operating system. The new features in this revision to the operating system are mainly phone-related, with LAN and WAN support. The Hewlett-Packard Company, Gateway, Inc., Toshiba Computer Systems Group and Dell Computer Corporation are licensing this version, called Windows Mobile 2003 Software for the Pocket PC. It is supposed to have better security and support for IP security, virtual private network client and the 802.1x protocol. The system also supports Bluetooth profiles, according to Microsoft, along with better voice and data phone functions. It includes a mute button, separate volume controls for the phone and the Pocket PC, email and Short Message Service signatures. HP will use the new operating system on some of their new iPaq devices. Gateway will support it with their new 100x PDA (their first entry into this market). Toshiba will also have some devices using the new OS.

Keep your eyes open.