SAN ANTONIO and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- In an answer to the growing demand for crossover devices, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Palm Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced the availability of the Palm® Centro™ from AT&T. Centro is designed for the expanding base of customers who want a better way to manage their busy lives. The device is available for just $99.99. 

Centro offers customers more choices to stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers by using voice, text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail or the Web. Featuring a color touch-screen and full QWERTY keyboard, Centro is the first Palm OS® product to launch with AT&T services, such as XM Radio Mobile, Push to Talk and MusicID.

Centro is the smallest and lightest Palm product to date and works with the nation's largest digital voice and data network. Initially, the Palm Centro from AT&T is available in new "glacier white" with green keypad accents, and, in approximately one month, AT&T will debut a second color -- "obsidian black."

"The demand for crossover devices is skyrocketing, and the Centro hits a sweet spot for many customers looking for a QWERTY device with a solid suite of messaging and multimedia features," said Michael Woodward, vice president, Business Mobility Products for AT&T's wireless unit. "At a great price that can be coupled with a variety of AT&T's messaging and data options, we are thrilled to offer Centro to our 70.1 million customers."

Today's question comes from Neil. Do you value a Jog Dial, or side buttons that can be used to scroll long pages or eBooks?

Personally, I find this feature to be a must have options because navigation is so much easier with one on board.

Diamond Twister was recently sent to me to review, and I must admit that my heart sank when I saw that it looked like Bejeweled 2. This of course is not a bad thing, but how can it be playable on a standard mobile phone? It is a game of frantic thinking combined with measured logic and I do not need to be fiddling with awkward controls at the same time.

OK, that’s the negative stuff over with- absolutely everything else about this game proved to be a positive experience, and at times a thoroughly addictive sensation which easily rivals the PDA or desktop experience. If you have played Bejeweled, Diamond Twister will be easy to pick and play and you may find a few surprises along the way. There are countless visual effects, 64 levels of difficulty and 8 game modes all housed within a real adventure story.

I tested the game on a Sony Ericsson K800i and found the controls to be spot on- you push the joystick down to select a gem and then push it in the direction of your choosing. Within 5 minutes I was pushing gems around without even considering the control mechanism and actually found it just as easy as tapping a stylus on a screen to swap gems. The advantage is that you can play this game one handed when waiting in a queue or sitting on a long conference call (did I really say that?), and you will soon find yourself dragged in to the immersive environment that seems to jump out of the tiny screen.

It is not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination, but it is one that you will improve on if you take the time to practice. The levels have special areas that will give you double points and there is a target to reach on each, before the bar reaches zero at the bottom of the screen. Indeed, the different modes mean that there is lots of longevity built in and for the asking price it is difficult to ask for much more.

This is a short review because most of you will be aware of Bejeweled, but remember that this is not plain old Bejeweled- it is much more than that and improves on one of the best mobile games of all time. The biggest compliment I can give Diamond Twister is that I am playing it more than Bejeweled 2 on my PDA, and that is a real achievement for a feature phone game.

Available from Gameloft for £3 or $4 (US site) (prices may vary per carrier). Gameloft produce a wide variety of mobile phone games, and more reviews will be posted soon.

PDA247 is 6 years old!

As is traditional, we are going to celebrate by holding a competition, and this time you can enter whatever content you like!

It's completely up to you what you send in, but there are some specific areas that are worth remembering. We need a new forum banner (400x45 pixels maximum size) which should fit the current design, we are tempted to try new web site banners (1 for each site needed) and besides those you can send in software, hardware or accessory reviews. You can send in articles about the PDA world in general or maybe a few items that are newsworthy.

Whatever you choose to send in please make sure that you title your email "6th Birthday". You can also enter via the forum thread detailed below. Here's the prizes so far-

To enter please send an email with your entry (entitled "6th Birthday") to shaun (at) mailstm.co.uk or post your entry in this forum thread.

The closing date is midnight (UK time) 21st March 2008, so you have some time to think up a good entry.

I was looking for the location of a Harvester restaurant the other day and was surprised to find this page which includes satelitte navigation files for each Harvester site in the UK.

TomTom, NavMan, Garmin and even Google Earth are covered so there is no excuse not to get to the right location. May be worth avoiding the big buffet in the middle though- you never know who has been touching it...:)

Bye Bye my Treo? a platform loosing steam? has been posted at Frédéric Boulanger's Journal- "bye bye palm? I'm sorry after so many years but that's it, No more patience for it anymore.  I didn't want to believe it but the writings are on the wall, I will have to make a decision. Mainly two problems

The battery life, even after latest firmware upgrade, I'm still baffled sometimes in the morning to see my phone's battery dead. I have add those problems with the 680 since I got the device and I don't have the time for this anymore. On the road this problem is just exasperated I can't last a full day with one charge.
The eco system which used to be Palm's strength is loosing steam. I several wonderful applications, but they are no longer updated. For example the best portable email around is snappermail, but it hasn't been updated in over a year and there is no schedule for a new release. I'm using IMAP from google now, and i have a problem with snappermail, there is no way to find support for the problem. The vendor website has little activity and the google web site has little palm activity."

A sad state of affairs: open source in the UK is new at the 451 group (thanks to Karen)- "I stated yesterday that open source had not been widely adopted in the UK without really backing the statement up. Fortunately SiriusIT, the UK-based open source services firm, has revamped its site with a blog entry explaining the situation with the example of open source adoption in the schools sector.

“The ICT procurement framework for schools was introduced with the best of intentions. Becta, a Government quango, sought to bring structure to the school ICT sector…

“The events described had the effect of introducing extreme conservatism in the education sector. This had an important consequence. The ability to adapt to change was severely curtailed and development was placed under the control of distant third parties. At first this did not appear obvious nor did it seem a problem…

“Becta’s procurement framework mean that alternatives that could meet schools’ needs in terms of energy consumption, extending life of equipment, eliminating licence costs and taking advantage of new technologies such as the ultra portable low-cost laptops are not possible.”

As Glyn Moody notes: “The frightening thing is that exactly the same situation obtains in the world of government IT in the UK. It’s a systemic failing that is holding back open source uptake in this country, with huge knock on effects in terms of costs and failed implementations..."

The open source release of the new R.E.M. video is a little off topic, but one which is a good step forward for fans. The song is brilliant, as we would expect from these guys...

R.E.M. today released 11 videos for the first song from their forthcoming album, all in MP4 format in HD and under an open source license. "Supernatural Serious," is the first single from the band's next album, "Accelerate," due to be released April 1st.

Viewers are encouraged to remix the videos and share them on the song's YouTube page. The band will not be doing a Radiohead and offering the album for free, but this is an interesting twist somewhere in between that approach and the standard industry practice.

The HD format will allow remixers to pan and scan within the video, but it also makes for a monster file size to work with. R.E.M. is big-time stuff though, so presumably there's a healthy number of production artists just waiting to work their magic on the file.