Sony saw the palm-size devices as the natural successor to the portable cassette tape player, a category that the company invented in 1979 with the introduction of the Walkman.

Chris Shipley, publisher of DemoLetter, an industry newsletter, agreed: "I don't think you want a Windows computing experience in a palm-size device.

He tapped the middle of the heel and a small, palm-size device slid out.

"But they aren't going to be giant palm-size devices," Mr. Yuen said.

The way people now have cellular phones and pagers, they will have palm-size devices that can send and receive digital data.

You ran two stories on the front page of Circuits about the Visor, a palm-size device.

The project will use data collected from a variety of sources throughout Berlin to make real-time information about traffic conditions available to the public over the Internet, cell phones and palm-size devices.

GETTING information into a palm-size device has become easier because handwriting-recognition software has improved.

Keyboards for palm-size devices are available, but until now, none have been the size of a regular keyboard.

A new company, Think Outside, in Solana Beach, Calif., announced this week a folding keyboard, called the Stowaway, for palm-size devices.