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Late last week came word that PalmSource would announce two new licensees at its developer seminar, which begins today. The first came yesterday, with Tapwave announcing it would make a device devoted to games.

PalmSource has just announced that Aceeca Limited, a New Zealand electronics company, would be its second new licensee. It will be using the Palm OS in a new diagnostic measurement handheld to address the needs of enterprise and industrial instruments markets. With its new device, called the Meazura, Aceeca is helping to create a new class of products called Industrial Digital Assistants, or IDAs.

The Meazura features a proprietary expansion slot, called the MZIO, that allows third party developers to add custom modules. MZIO was developed by Aceeca to specifically meet the requirements of interfacing sensor signal conditioning circuitry as well as external memory cards to the main microprocessor and internal memory. It gives developers various options for communications with the system processor and memory and minimizes the amount of development effort required to interface with virtually any sensor. These mobile sensors will allow government and scientific agencies to monitor things like vibration, displacement and temperatures and provide mobile in-the-field measurement solutions for a wide range of industries, including agriculture, automotive, aviation, geology, machinery maintenance and medical.

This handheld runs Palm OS 4.1 on a 33 MHz Motorola Dragonbal microprocessor. It has 16 MB of SDRAM and 4 MB of Flash ROM. It gets its power from a 1900mAhr Lithium Ion rechargeable battery.

Aceeca plans to release the Meazura in June 2003.

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