September 1, 2000

Portable penguin
Linux is on the portable agenda

Not all portable news centers on Bluetooth, and as this issue’s cover story (“Secret agent”) explains, Linux is making inroads in the Internet-appliance arena. At the recent LinuxWorld show, Agenda Computing even packed the power of the penguin (for the uninitiated, the Antarctic bird is the Linux mascot) into a handheld format.

The 4-ounce Agenda VR3 packs a 160-by-240-pixel, 16-level grayscale display into a package with a 66-MHz MIPS microprocessor and Agenda’s own handwriting-recognition software. Prices start at $149 and go up as you add memory. Modem and flash-memory modules round out the options. The company promises shipments in October.

—Maury Wright