This is set to change in the near future. Palm has just urged its developer partners to internationalize “their binaries”, so that the actual certification after the launch of the store just has to check the creatives.

The interesting parts of the full email are below:

We are very excited about the upcoming launch of international e-commerce for the Palm App Catalog. To follow up on our announcement in January we want to provide you with some additional information to ensure that your paid applications are ready for international distribution as soon as possible. We’d also like to inform you that in addition to the planned European launch, we will be launching e-commerce support in Canada and Mexico.

In preparation for the launch we encourage you to localize your application and metadata immediately for each country and language you plan to select for distribution, prior to Palm’s international e-commerce launch. This includes language specific categories and tags for improved discoverability in non-English speaking countries. If you prefer to ship an English only application, or an application that is in English but presents localized/local content, that is acceptable.

Application submissions will be accepted for international distribution when the Palm Developer Center portal is updated to accommodate the expanded list of countries for paid applications. Please look for follow up communications with additional details regarding submissions.

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o Localize your app binaries in advance to reduce review time: If you have an existing application, we strongly recommend that you localize your application prior to the launch so that you only need to submit a metadata update (pricing, localized descriptions) on the day we launch.

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First of all, a look at the vendors on an OEM level – this figure includes both dumbphones and smartphones alike:

Another classic metric is the one showing the platforms – here is ComScore’s take on this matter:

Further information can be had via the URL below:
http://www.comscore.com/index.php/layout/set/ …

Palm’s Pre Plus has just hit their desk – and left them somewhat impressed:

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The Palm Pre Plus is a nice update of the original Pre, but unless you’re absolutely desperate for more memory or for the Mobile Hotspot feature, it isn’t worth the upgrade cost or the switch from Sprint.

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Unfortunately, the keyboard is still bad:

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The Pre Plus’s keyboard is fairly good, but you have to adjust to it. . There isn’t much space between the keys, and they are rounded and only slightly curved on the top surface. At first I found myself using my thumbnails, which was both slow and frustrating because I often hit the wrong keys.

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Further information can be had via the URL below:
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=16314 …

A group of PreCentral users now got an overclocking kernel of their own done. It is compatible with webOS 1.3.5.1 ONLY, and overclocks the CPU to a whooping 800MhZ. The video below shows further info:

Should you feel adventurous, hit the link below:
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre-tips- …

German news portal FinanzNachrichten.de shares the press release below:

Verizon Wireless customers with the Palm® Pre(TM) Plus can experience the most popular console games on the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network.

Pre Plus smartphones operating on the Palm webOS(TM) platform offer customers exciting gaming functionality, including 3D graphics. The games range from action and strategy to mobile versions of popular console games, all from the leading content providers in the mobile gaming industry.

Some of the games available to Verizon Wireless customers with Pre Plus smartphones include:

– “Asphalt 5″ — “Brain Challenge®” — “Glyder 2″ — “Let’s Golf” — “Assassin’s Creed(TM) – Altair’s Chronicles” — “Brothers In Arms®: Hour of Heroes” — “Gangstar: West Coast Hustle” — “Hero of Sparta” — “Dungeon Hunter” — “Monopoly” — “Need for Speed Undercover(TM)” — “SCRABBLE” — “Sudoku” — “Tetris®” — “The Oregon Trail” — “The Sims(TM) 3″ — “Apollo” — “X-Plane”

Palm Pre Plus is available exclusively from Verizon Wireless for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers can find these games, along with many more apps, in the Palm App Catalog located on Palm webOS smartphones. More information on great apps for Palm webOS is also available at http://www.palm.com/applications.

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Sounds pretty interesting to me – since when do carriers send out a press release about a “software update” for one of their phones?

Developer phone purchase has now been resumed:

The devices are discounted by 20 percent and are sold in US dollars, which leads to a rebate of about 33% for Europeans. However, no data plan or anything is included – and as European carriers usually don’t give you lower monthly rates for bringing a cell phone of your own, well, you get the idea…

Further information on this – admittedly rather useless – offer can be found below:
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/developer-phones.html

P.S. To the Palm folks reading this: what about carrier-unlocked webOS phones? They would make you a nice bit of cash…

The video below hits us via Engadget:

BTW: the control scheme chosen is similar to the one on some iPhone games – two “on-screen mouse pads” are used for looking and moving…

His latest column contained the following statement:

Sony led the market in innovation when it entered the PDA space. It offered the first Palm OS devices with removable storage, the first devices that could play back audio and video, and the first high-resolution color devices. All of these clearly drove the market forward. Then the innovations became less innovative and more “gadgetry.”

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As much as I adore Sony’s work in the PalmOS area, this is wrong – the first-ever Palm OS device with external memory was Handera’s TRGpro.

The two images below show the box:

Further information on this vintage device can be had at my coauthor Oliver W Leibenguth’s – if you can read German, hit the link below:
http://blog.compuseum.de/?p=92

Don’t ask me where erikaustria1974 got the tone-less video below – it seems to be a Samsung-internal video showing the benefits of Super AMOLED:

Not much to add here…

It has been announced for some time, and has been available to insiders for some time. However, it might be unleashed on the public in the near future.

The full press release is below:

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Game Developers Conference (GDC) – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today announced that a public beta version of the Palm® webOS™ Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) is now available at the Palm Developer Center (developer.palm.com). Palm is demonstrating new games from early PDK developers in its booth at GDC (No. 2016).

The PDK complements the Palm webOS Software Development Kit (SDK), letting developers use C and C++ alongside the web technologies that power the SDK and mix them seamlessly within a single app. The PDK enables new functionality, including immersive 3D graphics, and gives developers who have built games for other platforms an easy way to bring their titles to the webOS platform. Developers can download the beta PDK and start developing today, but distribution of games built with the beta PDK will require functionality provided in an upcoming Palm webOS update.

“Palm webOS is the go-to platform for great games on two of the three leading carrier networks,” said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. “We have both the developer tools and the hardware necessary for a world-class gaming experience, and an impressive portfolio of webOS game titles from top-notch developers to show for it.”

At CES in January, Palm introduced 12 games built by four leading developers with early access to the PDK:

* “Asphalt 5″ (Gameloft)
* “Brain Challenge®” (Gameloft)
* “Glyder 2″ (Glu Mobile)
* “Let’s Golf!” (Gameloft)
* “MONOPOLY” (EA Mobile™)
* “Need for Speed™ Undercover” (EA Mobile)
* “SCRABBLE” (EA Mobile)
* “Sudoku” (EA Mobile)
* “Tetris®” (EA Mobile)
* “The Oregon Trail” (Gameloft)
* “The Sims™ 3″ (EA Mobile)
* “X-Plane” (Laminar Research)

Since then, more than 20 exciting webOS titles have been launched by these early-access developers:

* “Apollo” (Laminar Research)
* “Assassin’s Creed™ – Altair’s Chronicles” (Gameloft)
* “Brothers In Arms®: Hour of Heroes” (Gameloft)
* “Castle of Magic” (Gameloft)
* “Deer Hunter 3D” (Glu Mobile)
* “Dungeon Hunter” (Gameloft)
* “Earthworm Jim” (Gameloft)
* “Gangstar: West Coast Hustle” (Gameloft)
* “Giant Fighting Robots” (Laminar Research)
* “Guitar Hero 5 Mobile” (Glu Mobile)
* “Hero of Sparta” (Gameloft)
* “Real Soccer 2010″ (Gameloft)
* “Real Tennis” (Gameloft)
* “World Series of Poker: Hold’em Legend” (Glu Mobile)
* “X-Plane Airliner” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Carrier” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Extreme” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Glider” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Helicopter” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Racing” (Laminar Research)
* “X-Plane Space Shuttle” (Laminar Research)

“The Palm webOS PDK is extremely powerful and far-reaching, as evidenced by the number of titles we’ve been able to bring to the webOS platform in a very short time,” said Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing, Americas, Gameloft. “It’s quite difficult to make a great phone that’s also an outstanding gaming platform; Palm has been successful delivering both.”

More information about the beta PDK is available at the Palm Developer Center (developer.palm.com). More information about games for Palm webOS is available at www.palm.com/applications.

Further information can be had via the official PDK page:
http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1936