Further to my previous post, there are some interesting new developments in the portable technology field which have caught the attention of many in the online tech community:

• Hard drive 'airbags': IBM has developed a way to cushion laptop hard drives against sudden shock or impact in an attempt to curb one of the most common causes of laptop failure.
• Powerbook G5 'could happen', but there exist 'significant' engineering problems to overcome, according to Mac World UK.
• Apple releases the 15-inch Aluminium-clad Powerbook G4, but it appears to suffer from numerous design flaws. In other news, trendy 20-somethings everywhere report financial difficulties.
• Sharp has completed research on a full-resolution VGA liquid crystal display designed specifically for PDAs. This would be a major boon for PDA manufacturers , as until now their products have suffered from a lack of usable screen real estate, making web surfing a royal pain.
• Handspring releases their next-generation smartphone, the Treo 600. It marks a milestone for functional convergence (the current buzz-word of choice for marketing evangelists), incorporating a phone, watch, TV, radio, MP3 player, and PDA into a single unit and does away with the traditional (and cumbersome) stylus input method.
• Palm has debuted their new line of Zire and Tungsten PDAs. Their top of the line T3 model sports an expandable display, showing that increased screen size is high on the agenda of many manufacturers (invest in Sharp!).

Whilst these developments promise exciting new portable solutions in the future, the current market remains a sordid display of overpriced, unsound technology and increasing droves of unwitting consumers flocking to the Portable Paradigm in a curious display of fetishism. One can only hope that things will have changed by the new year.