Brand: MacNews

MacMinute’s TARGET=”_top”>Executive Briefing for January 26 — a recap of all the news we have posted over the past week — is now available. If you think you may have missed something, here is your chance to catch up…

Palm is set to announce its i705 on Monday, a next-generation handheld featuring always-on, secure wireless e-mail access through the Palm.net service. C|net reports that the device will also include a Secure Digital expansion card slot, 8MB of memory and a monochrome screen with a resolution of 160×160. The i705 will reportedly sell for US$449.

David C. Bailey, vice president and research analyst with Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co., said that Apple “continues to lead the PC industry in innovation” in an interview at The Wall Street Transcript, as noted by MacSurfer. Bailey is bullish on Apple because he expects the company to revamp its desktop lineup in 2002, much like it did with its notebook products in 2001.

Symantec today released a public beta of Norton Utilities X 7.0b047, its disk repair utility for Mac OS X, as noted by VersionTracker. The beta version includes Norton Disk Doctor, FileSaver, UnErase and Scheduler. To encourage users to participate in the beta test, Symantec will be giving away a copy of Norton Utilities to the first 25 users that submit undocumented bugs, as well as an additional 25 copies to randomly selected participants.

iCab Preview 2.7 is a new version of the alternative Web browser for Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X. Version 2.7 adds an improved hotlist, history, and download manager windows; improvements under Mac OS X, and more. The preview release of the browser is free to use, but the authors are already accepting registrations of US$29 for the final product.