Handspring has announced the latest addition to their line of Visor products, the Visor Edge. Borrowing from Appleis PowerBook G4 with a striking metallic case, the Visor Edge offer a more compact size, and higher style, than previous Visor models. It appears the the Visor Edge is targeted directly at Palm computingis Palm V series by offering high performance and uncompromised style.
Handspring announced an online marketplace to support developers for its platform. According to Handspring:
Visor Edge
Handspring today introduced Visor Edge, an extremely thin, infinitely expandable handheld computer that brings ultimate portability and flexibility to the popular Visor family of expandable handheld computers. Visor Edge is Handspringis first slim-design handheld, combining a sleek and lightweight metal casing with the optional expandability of the Springboard platform.
Visor Edge offers a crisp monochrome screen, a rechargeable battery and all of the enhanced performance benefits of the popular Visor Platinum edition. Based on Palm OS 3.5.2H2, Visor Edge is also the first Visor product to be available in a metal casing, which comes in three new metallic colors: silver, blue and red. Availability of colors will vary in the retail channel but all can be purchased at Handspring.com. With a small and easily detachable Springboard slot that simply slides onto and off of the back of the product, Visor Edge is compatible with all existing Springboard modules that support Palm OS 3.5, including VisorPhone. The detachable slot gives people the option to use Springboard expansion products as needed while affording the benefits of a more slim design when modules are not in use.
Handspringis developer marketplace will support the rapidly growing base of developers on the Handspring platform. Handspring, in partnership with eLance, today announced the launch of an online marketplace for Handspring developers, partners, and service providers to rapidly and efficiently do business with each other.
The Handspring developer marketplace is a virtual community that provides fast, hassle-free sharing of resources for developers and a variety of service providers, from software vendors to component makers to designers and marketers. Visitors can offer and contract such services as contributing to the development of a Springboard module as a marketing consultant or engineer, writing Palm OS applications, developing a driver, or designing a module casing. Developers seeking services can post a project in the developer marketplace at no cost, receive bids from service providers, and then award the project to the most attractive bid. Professionals providing services create a service profile, bid on projects, and accept projects from others on the site.
Visitors to the virtual marketplace can now easily find and contract with eLance community members and Handspring partners and service providers, utilize an online workspace for collaboration and manage payments through the siteis global payment and billing system. By streamlining the process of finding the right service provider from a global pool, the marketplace can significantly reduce the time and costs of new application development. More than 8,000 developers have signed up for the Handspring developer program and more than 35 modules are shipping with many more announced to-date.
The Visor Edge is available for US$399. You can find more information about it, as well as the new online developer support program, at the Handspring Web site.