There has been quite a bit of speculation in the blogosphere about Palm's impending announcement scheduled for January 8 during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It has to be pretty darn good if Elevation Partners was willing to kick down more funding.

Monday, Tim Beyers of Fool.com put forth an interesting theory... That Palm's breakout could be related to handwriting recognition which is something sorely lacking in the BlackBerry, iPhone, Android and other smartphones.

He states that where others have failed, Palm has succeeded:

"Surely I can't be the only one to remember the old PalmPilot and its Graffiti recognition system, can I? Graffiti set the Pilot apart because it was an easy-to-learn language, and therefore a better alternative to deciphering barely legible scribblings."

His story talks about how the PalmPilot remains a cult icon to this day, which means that the Graffiti language is not only alive and kicking, but with an application called Graffiti Anywhere, it is accessible to owners of the latest Palm devices, including the hot-selling Centro and Treo smartphones.

Tim's ponderable: "Imagine what might be if Nova were a lightweight, touchscreen Linux OS with advanced handwriting recognition, a new Graffiti for a new era."

Humm... It's an interesting thought.

I just read over at Pocket PC Thoughts about an interesting app called VirtuaMouse One-Hand that's just been released by Innovisoft. VirtuaMouse gives you a virtual mouse pointer that can be used instead of the stylus, whenever the stylus isn't convenient for you.

With VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you can "tap" anywhere that a stylus can tap, easily and without the stylus. VirtuaMouse One-Hand lets you use the virtual mouse cursor as a "temporary stylus" whenever you need it, instead of relying on your stylus for those non-thumb-friendly apps.

To use VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you simply use your Pocket PC's D-Pad/Joypad to control the mouse cursor. This cursor can be used to:

• Easily "tap" any part of an application
• Open any program
• Browse the web
• Read your email

Innovisoft says that VirtuaMouse One-Hand is designed to significantly reduce stylus use in an easy, natural and enjoyable way.

Requirements are Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 SE, 5.x or 6 Professional installed.

VirtuaMouse One-Hand is priced at $24.95, but you can get a free trial and give it a whirl first to see what you think. I would think that the app would work on some of the Palml Treos. Learn more here.

I just read over at CoolSmartPhone.com that the Palm Treo Pro has just popped up on the O2 website. The Treo Pro became available in Europe recently via Vodafone and Palm had a nice event in London and had a fun event at a pub also.

The O2 online shop is offering the Treo Pro for free to business customers with some data plans.

With O2 Business, you can keep your number, have access to My Business Account Online, Unlimited calls to 10 UK landlines, Unlimited calls 18 million 02 mobile customers, 20% discount on 24 month tariffs, Calls to Europe 8p/min, Free 24/7 UK customer service, Free Voicemail, and Unlimited free texts to your team from your secure website a/c.

Spb Software House, the world's top WM software developer, has just announced that they've updated their Spb Online. The mobile TV update doubles the number of mobile TV channels streamed. Commercially launched at the end of September 2008, the subscription-free mobile TV component of Spb Online has hosted over a million of mobile TV viewing sessions, and today it offers 40 mobile TV channels in 11 languages.

Some of the new channels streamed by Spb Online are:

• Deutche Welle (Germany)
• MAD TV (Greece)
• Graafschap TV (Netherlands)
• Channel One Russia
• CCTV (China)
• RTV Pink (Serbia)
• iTele (France)
• and more...

Spb's patent-pending mobile TV technology facilitates fast channel switching, on-screen controls, intelligent video/audio stream adjustment to broadband fluctuations, picture-in-picture mode, and an integrated TV guide with option to set outlook show reminders. Other Spb Online components are Online Radio, Online Games, global Weather service, News reader, and an On-Device Catalog.

Tim Ferrill, over at our sister site WMExperts, reviewed Spb Online back in September

You can get Spb Online here for $29.95.

Dieter, over at our sister site WMExperts, is a Qik fan and he's let us know that Qik has added more WM phones for live video streameing. Qik, the free live-video-streaming app, has added over 20 Windows Mobile phones to their compatibility list. So now the latest Treo from Palm are compatible with Qik.

With Qik, you can share your videos with the entire Internet or just the people you choose. You can share with anyone and everyone what's going on anywhere and everywhere you go.

I just read over at jkOnTheRun that SlingMedia has added fifteen current phones to their lineup of SlingPlayer Mobile compatible phones. The Palm Treo Pro and the Sprint Treo 800w are among those fifteen phones.

Below are all fifteen newly added phones:

• Sprint Treo 800w
• Sony Ericsson X1
• Palm Treo Pro
• Sprint HTC Touch Diamond
• Sprint HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon Samsung Saga
• Verizon Samsung Omnia
• AT&T LG Incite
• AT&T HTC Fuze
• AT&T Samsung Epix
• HP iPAQ 910
• AT&T Pantech Duo
• Sprint Samsung ACE
• Verizon XV6900

According to jkOnTheRun, some of these phones might have worked with the SlingPlayer client in the past, but they're now officially supported. Also, the newest client supports resolutions of 800x480, 640x480, 400x240, and 320x320. Treo Pro owners will surely appreciate that last one; the 320x320.

We told you recently about Palm announcing they'd be holding an "invitation only" press event at the CES in Las Vegas on January 8th. And that Palm was having a contest in which one lucky Facebook fan could win a trip to that special event by coming up with the best dialog in the contest cartoon.

Palm has selected the top 10 entries for the Palm "Send a Fan to Las Vegas" contest. Palm is inviting the Palm community to help select a winner and voting ends on December 29th.

From December 20-29 you'll get to vote from among those 10 top-scoring entries listed over at Palm's Facebook page. You can read the rules right there on the page where the top 10 entries are listed.

So head over there and read the top 10 and start voting!

Our sister site WMExperts is reporting via The Boy Genius Report that the Palm Treo Pro is heading to Best Buy. Seems that BGR ninjas have gotten their hands on an internal Best Buy form that shows the Treo Pro 850 in stock as of December 8, 2008. Well, I guess that date is a little off, huh? But the BGR ninjas say that as long as the device is actually in the system, it's sure to come.

In an update to their article, BGR says that their ninja just informed them that the actual in-stock dates for both of these items looks like January 25th. Well, that sounds about right since WMExperts reminds us about an earlier post saying that the CDMA Treo Pro release date had been pushed back to January 25th from Sprint and January 21st from Brightpoint (resellers, perhaps telesales for business).

Palm, Inc. announced today that Elevation Partners has agreed to make an additional $100 million equity investment in Palm. Under a definitive agreement reached today, Elevation will increase its investment in Palm by acquiring newly issued Series C preferred stock that is convertible into Palm common stock at a price of $3.25 per share, a 31 percent premium to the closing price of Palm commn stock on Dec. 19, 2008.

According to the press release, the Series C preferred stock carries a 0% dividend rate. Elevation will also receive warrants to acquire 7 million shares of Palm common stock at the same price. Prior to March 31, 2009, Palm may elect to cause Elevation to sell up to $49 million of this new investment to other investors on the same or better terms than on which Elevation invested.

From the press release:

"The additional capital from Elevation Partners will enable us to put added momentum behind the new product introductions scheduled for 2009 and will provide us with enhanced stability in unsettled economic times," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. "Elevation has been a great partner to Palm, and we appreciate their continued confidence and support."

Read on for the full article

In a Reuters story that appeared on eWeek's site, wireless service providers are doing some big time planning in anticipation of the surge in demand that will hit the Washington D.C. area in January when an estimated 4 million people will converge there for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. The article specifically named Sprint Nextel Corp as being one of the companies "beefing up equipment at existing cell towers, adding additional telephone line connections and employing satellite trucks to patrol the area in and around the nation's capital."

Apparently Sprint is boosting capacity by 90 percent on its network for mostly business and public safety customers, and 40 percent for the network for mainly individual users. The other major carriers (AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile) will be doing the same with T-Mobile indicating that its investment will be "in the millions of dollars."

Ouch! Not only does that sound expensive, but the money has to come from somewhere, right?

With all this talk about virtual app stores for smartphones, it's refreshing to see a deal come through for brick-and-fluorescent-lights stores. The deal even includes some apps to be sold on memory cards for instant gratification.

Handango, a retailer of smartphone apps globally has cut a deal with Best Buy to bring smartphone apps to BestBuy's retail stores nationwide. Through the partnership, Handango will offer Best Buy Mobile customers a content catalogue of apps, including business and productivity titles as well as entertainment and games. These will be for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Palm, and Symbian S60 smartphones. Nice to see little ol' Palm in that list, eh?

The apps can be purchased using Best Buy's in-store digital "Mobile Genie" system, whatever that is. Handango's In-Hand client, re-branded for BestBuy, will be downloaded onto each device so customers can continue to purchase apps with Handango and Best Buy even after they leave the store.

Quoting Bill Stone, Handango's CEO: "Customers will now be able to purchase top titles a la carte with simple pricing, have them downloaded and installed by BestBuy Mobile's expert staff making it easier than ever to personalize their devices."

There's a short news release about the deal at this link, or just (gasp!) visit a real store instead of an online one.

Consumer Reports recently posted their January 2009 issue online and have some articles on smartphones and cellphones. In the article where they rank smartphones, Consumer Reports have given top ranking to the Samsung Blackjack II (AT&T), with a a score of 69 out of 100.

The Palm Centro (AT&T) came in at number 7 with a score of 61 out of 100. Following right behind, the Palm Treo 800w (Sprint-Nextel) came at number 8 with a score of 61 out of 100. And the Palm Treo 755p (Sprint-Nextel) came in next at number 9 with a score of 61 out of 100. Surprising, the Apple iPhone 3G came in at number 10.

I was very happy to see those Palm smartphones ranking in the top 10! I'm still loving my Centro and can't wait to be able to use it daily again after the Smartphone Round Robin is finished.

Rubinstein's efforts are about to bear their first fruits. On Jan. 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Palm is due to unveil the long-awaited operating system, code-named Nova, as well as the first of a family of products that will run on it. "People's work and personal lives are melding," Colligan says, adding that Palm is aiming for the "fat middle of the market."

I was just reminded over at Palm Addicts that Palm will be announcing their Q2FY09 results tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. PT.

Of course we'll have full coverage here at TreoCentral tomorrow so stay tuned.

Palm Infocenter is reporting that Marc Blank of ChatterEmail has announced his departure from Palm. Blank posted this message yesterday over at the ChatterEmail Forum:

As of December 14, 2008, neither Josh nor I are affiliated with Palm, Inc.; therefore, neither of us will be monitoring this board or handling support [...] What's more, we are not privy to any plans that Palm might have for supporting new and existing customers

Palm purchased Marc's popular ChatterEmail program and brought him into the company in early 2007. Seems like everyone figured that Marc's email program was going to be part of Palm's next generation operating system since the ChatterEmail acquistion was mentioned at the same time as Palm announced their new operating system. There was never an official statement saying so though.

Marc has been posting in the TreoCentral forums for a long time and has always been very helpful to our forum members regarding ChatterEmail. We certainly wish Marc and Josh the best!

The Official Palm Blog is reporting that the Palm Treo Pro is one of the first handsets to have received 3G network certification in the AT&T Specialty Vertical Device program.

Specialty Vertical Devices refers to a broad range of devices that AT&T doesn't stock or sell directly. They include trunk-mounted modems, handheld units, communication modules, point-of-sale devices, fleet tracking "black boxes", and more.

According to The Official Palm Blog, the AT&T Network Compatible Treo Pro is available now through AT&T Business Alliance Channels, including CDW, Insight, CNM Wireless, and VOX Mobile.

So maybe AT&T will actually be carrying the Palm Treo Pro soon. That would be great!

I'm sure you've all got some big holiday wishes this year. Maybe you've been lusting after the latest smartphones out there or eyeing all the new laptops and digital cameras. Well, Claüs is rounding up holiday wishes right now.

Just send Claüs a text and tell him what you want. If you've been nice, you just might get your wish! I hope you've all been nice and not naughty this year.

The Offical Palm Blog refers to Claüs as the "season�s superhip Centro-fied Santa". I love that pic of Claüs sitting on the icy chimney while he's playing with his Centro. And check out those shoes! Hey Claüs, drop me a pair of those sneakers down my chimney, would ya please? ;-)

Head on over to Palm for the details and official rules.

I just read over at Palm Addicts via the BBC News Website that there is a virus making its rounds on Facebook.

According to BBC, the virus 'Koobface' is targeting Facebook's 120 million users. Koobface is designed to get hold of sensitive info like credit card details, and it spreads by sending a message to people's inboxes, pretending to be from a Facebook friend. Hmmm, Koobface had just targeted MySpace back in August. Stupid hackers!

According to BBC, Koobface sends a message that says, "you look funny in this new video" or "you look just awesome in this new video". If you click on the link provided, you're asked to watch a "secret video by Tom". And when you try to play the video, you're asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. If you do, the virus gets in and attacks your computer.

If only these hackers useless clumps would use their brains to do something more useful. They're a dime a dozen though and what goes around, comes around.

So, be careful if you're a Facebook user! Don't open any messages from people you don't know, especially if the message says something like "you look funny in this new video". I get emails that say that or something similar everyday and I just delete them all.

You can read more here.

Fictionwise is have a sale on their holiday ebooks at the moment. To help you get in the holiday spirit, Fictionwise is offering over 400 "Holiday" eBooks for 30% Off. The sale runs from now until Christmas Day.

Below are some of the Holiday Titles that caught my eye:

• Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea by Mary Higgins Clark & Carol Higgins Clark
• Holiday Illusion by Lynette Eason
• Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries
• Hometown Recipes for the Holidays by American Profile
• Holiday in Death by J.D. Robb
• The Christmas Train by David Baldacci

There are hundreds of Holiday Titles to choose from, so head over to Fictionwise and see if you can't find a good eBook to read over the Holiday!

You can buy gift certificates at Fictionwise, so surprise some of your eBook reader family and friends with some eBooks stuffed in their Christmas stockings!

We've already posted a bit on the Cla�s campaign here at TreoCentral, but I'm bringing it up again because it's just so great. In addition to some really great and quirky TV commercials, there's also a full-on FaceBook profile for maximum viral effect at http://www.facebook.com/claus as well as other viral videos. They're truly funny and have won me over, check out the one above to see what I mean.

Now "viral marketing" gets a bad name and often rightly so -- it's often heavy-handed, boring, or a combination of the two. Sure, 'remxing Cla�s' into a DJ is a little corny, but it's so well done it's an endearing kind of corny that works.

Most importantly to me as a Palm supporter, though, is that it's the first time in memory that Palm has put out a great television campaign, something Mike Overbo and I have long-agitated for in our TreoCast Podcast. The fact that it's combined with a very well-executed online strategy seems to indicate that even though Palm is facing some tough times, they've finally struck upon the right way to spend their ad dollars.

Bravo, Palm.

Reuters.com is reporting that, starting today, New Corp's online social network MySpace will make video clips from its members' pages available for viewing on the Palm Centro and other devices including the BlackBerry Bold, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95 and the Samsung Instinct.

MySpace members will be able to view video on their homepages and their friends' pages. Plus, they'll be able to view professionally produced video from TMZ, National Geographic magazine, The Onion, the National Hockey League and more.

The service is free and will be supported by advertising.

According to Reuters, MySpace is partnering with RipCode to make video available on mobile phones.

The video clips will be streamed from MySpace pages instead of downloaded onto mobile phones, so it looks like the clips won't be available on the iPhone since it runs downloaded video.

I guess I'll have to check out some videos via MySpace on my Centro.

You can read more here.