Palm: a timeline from the Palm Pilot to the Palm Pre

PC World has a nice slideshow titled, "A Palm Technology Timeline." This article reminds us of the late 1990's when "Palm was King." Remember the Palm Pilot 1000 that came out in 1996? It used AAA batteries and the first model didn't even have a backlight. Can you believe that people spent $300 for a little device that had a 16MHz processor and 128KB of memory? Then, Palm became quite progressive with thinner models, color screens, SD card slot for memory expansion, wireless capabilities, and more. The Palm V and the Palm Vx were some of the most popular models because they were so thin. Now, Palm has been acquired by HP, so what's going to happen?

To see the slideshow on PC World, click here.

Epocrates will be a top free medical app on the Android Marketplace

It's no surprise, but there aren't too many true medical apps for Android right now that are free. You can purchase medical references, but the Android Marketplace is not full of feature-rich medical apps that can be used by physicians and other health care professionals. QuantiaMD is a great free medical app, but it's not near the top because it's being pushed down by consumer health apps. Plus, you need to be a registered health care professional to access QuantiaMD, so you won't get any consumers "testing" this medical app.

Now that Epocrates has their app on the Android Marketplace (still in beta), it won't be long before this becomes a top free medical app. Health care professionals all need access to a drug database. Plus, the pill finder is a great feature that any health care professional can use to help patients identify their medications.

I still remember the old days of the Palm Pilot when Epocrates dominated those devices. Every physician and medical student who had a Palm Pilot used Epocrates. Pharmacists and pharmacy students used Epocrates. Those were the days of grayscale screens. The original Palm Pilot didn't even have a backlight.

Now, we live in an era where smartphones are gaming devices and video players. They hold gigabytes of storage space and essentially function as mini computers with fully-functional mobile web browsers. Smartphones are now becoming a GPS navigation system for the car. They're becoming our pocket cameras. We can't imagine leaving home without our smartphones.

Epocrates Rx for Android and webOS

Have you tried Epocrates Rx on your Google Android or Palm webOS smartphone?  The software is currently beta and you won't get any updates, but it's stable and it runs well. You can view photos of pills, check for drug-drug interactions, and use important tables and calculators. 

I know that many physicians rely on Epocrates on a daily basis. Are you one of those users? I still remember when Epocrates launched its company in 1998 and when PDAs were starting to enter the medical industry. Those were simple days of grayscale Palm Pilots and AAA batteries. Now, we have a wide selection of powerful devices like the Motorola Droid and the Palm Pre.