The Internet in your pocket... all of the time. Bloomberg Boot Camp... a report on today's technology. The inventor of the original Palm... Jeff Hawkins... .when he said his new company, Handspring, would eventually focus exclusively on wirelessly connected devices. The company's new Treo... which combines a Palm operating system device with a cell phone... .is just the start. It turns out... the folks at Microsoft, who make the rival PocketPC platform... agree with Hawkins' vision. The company has announced a new Phone Edition of its PocketPC 2002. Product manager Ed Suwanjindar...

"Actually there will be a new generation of PocketPC hardware that includes integrated wireless and data radios that will let people synchronize their email, browse the Web, conduct instant messaging chats and also place phone calls... .all in form factors that are very similar to today's Pocket PCs."

The devices will be on the market in Europe this summer and are scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. later in the year... and are designed to take advantage of higher speed data networks...

"We very much want to make sure that people can get the most out of these devices today, but we also developed with an eye towards the future."

The product manager says users will be able to leave the radio in the device on to receive phone calls and short messages... even while the Pocket PC is off. And they will be able to send and receive email at scheduled intervals. It won't be always on the way a RIM Blackberry is. Pricing, with carrier subsidies, should be similar to the PocketPCs on the market today. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.