VISOR PUTS A COMPUTER IN YOUR PALM

What device costs about $150, can fit in the palm of your hand, and has the processing power of an early 1980s computer?

The answer: a personal digital assistant. PDAs were introduced in 1996 and now are used by everyone from kids to the vice president of the United States.

Approximately 5.7 million PDAs were sold in 1999, according to Dataquest Inc. While Palm Computing leads in the PDA market, competitors are catching up.

One recent innovation is the Visor, made by a start-up called Handspring, based in Mountain View, Calif.

"I just kind of felt like I wanted to get involved with a smaller company, but I still love doing the hand-held products," said Greg Shirai, product manager for Handspring.

The Visor, which uses the Palm operating system, is cheaper than most other hand-held products and has another important difference -- the springboard slot. An opening on the back of the product allows the user to drop in modules that change the product into more than just an organizer.

"You can drop in the modules and then suddenly your organizer becomes a game device," said Shirai.

A company called Imagiworks is designing a science probe module for the Visor in which users can take dirt, water and temperature readings that then can be loaded onto a computer and analyzed.

In addition, there is a MP3 module in the works that would allow users to download music from the Internet and play the songs on their Visor.

Despite these enhancements, the Visor faces fierce competition.

"There's competition in two areas," said Shirai. "Palm Computing has some things like the Palm IIIe, which is similarly priced. The Palm IIIe and the Visor have very, very similar functions.

"The other competition that we've always felt is paper," he added. "You know, there's a lot of people today who carry around these little organizer books and Day-Timers, and they're perfectly happy with that."

Handspring has lowered the Visor's price -- it starts at $149 -- in order to attract more buyers.

EDITED BY: David Lasker, 15, and Clay Smith, 12.

REPORTERS: Jacob Hollingsworth, 11; Chris Reissaus, 12; and Tyler Smith, 12.