Palm today announced a second phone that will use its webOS operating system. The Pixi is a smaller (and likely cheaper) sibling to the Palm Pre, the first webOS phone, and its promises many of the same noteworthy features.

Available on Sprint "in time for the holidays," no price has been announced for the Pixi, but it’s expected to cost less than the Pre—the price of which, in related news, Sprint has just cut by $50, to $150 after a $100 rebate.

The new phone lacks the Pre's Wi-Fi connectivity and is slightly smaller, measuring 2.17 in. x 4.37 in. x 0.43 in. It weighs 3.51 ounces and has a 2.63-in. multi-touch screen, 8GB of internal user storage (same as the Pre), and a 2-megapixel camera with LED flash.

Like the Pre, the Pixi has a proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear, and an accelerometer that automatically reorients web pages and photos when you tilt the phone.

Palm says the Pixi will have a separate Facebook application on its the desktop instead of the Web hotlink Pre users have now. Pre users will be able to upgrade to the new Facebook app when it becomes available. —Mike Gikas

Today’s the day the Beatles Rock Band music game, along with remastered versions of their albums, becomes available. Curious about these launches, but haven’t had time to get up to speed on them?

Here’s a quick guide:

Beatles Rock Band. Among the more successful video games of recent years, Rock Band, like rival Guitar Hero, offers music fans the chance to play and sing along—using instrument controllers and special microphones—with classic rock songs. As for the game itself, you’re scored on how accurately you hit colored buttons on the instrument controllers in response to on-screen prompts or how well you hold pitch when you sing.

Where other editions of Rock Band come with 58 classic-rock and alternative songs from various artists, the Beatles game comes with 40 songs, all Beatles titles. The software itself costs $59 and is available for the Wii, X-Box 360, or Play Station 3. If you need to buy a console, they cost $200 and up, despite some recent price drops.

If you don’t already own controllers for Rock Band (or for Guitar Hero, most of which work with Rock Band), the best deal is probably to spend $70 or so on a bundle comprising drums, guitar, and microphone. But since the Beatles game is the first “music game to offer harmonies," you may want to buy an extra mic or two, at $20 and up apiece. You can also buy controllers that are replicas of the Beatles own guitars, like Paul McCartney’s violin-shaped Hofner bass.

The Beatles reissues. As Beatles fans are aware, tomorrow also marks the availability of the first remasterings of the full Beatles catalog in more than 20 years—an eternity in digital time. Most reviewers raved about the improved sound of “Love,” the 2006 Beatles’ Las Vegas show (and CD), which includes remastered versions 20 Beatles songs from the team responsible for this week’s reissues.

But there are also reasons to grumble about this week’s re-releases, even before hearing them. The extras are confined to making-of video documentary on each album. Also, though the albums have been remastered in both stereo and mono (the latter being the preferred format by some Beatles fanatics), the reissues do not combine both versions on one disc—as recent reissues for many other 1960s bands have done. Rather, when bought singly, the reissues only carry the stereo version of the album. To get the mono, you must buy the entire catalog, in a box set that lists at $300—if you can even get it (it sold out in advance at many retailers, though a second run is promised). And the titles aren’t being issued in Blu-ray or DVD formats, and hence there are no 5.1-channel surround versions as of yet.

To many observers, including me, the formatting decisions look like an attempt to sell diehard fans those thirty-something-minute-long Beatles albums not just once more, but several times more over the coming years. That’s a little unseemly from a band that’s traditionally been classier than most. —Paul Reynolds.

September is the time of year when Apple refreshes its iPod line, so it's fairly safe to assume the press conference Apple is holding Wednesday, starting at 10 am Pacific time, will include news on the company’s media players.

We'll report on the event later in the day. Meantime, here are my predictions on what those announcements will be:

Higher-capacity iPods. Probably double the capacity of what's available now, for about the same price. That means a 64-gigabyte (GB) Touch, 32GB Nano, and 8GB Shuffle.

A camera and GPS capability for the iPod Touch. Speculators have been disappointed before on this topic, but this time the stars are properly aligned for adding a camera to at least one iPod. The company’s iPod Touch, essentially an iPhone without the cell-phone carrier connection or camera, is the natural first candidate, especially given that the latest iPhone boasts a 3.0-megapixel camera with editing capability. Also, the multiple GPS apps now available for the iPhone, including one from TomTom, could work on the Touch, were it to add a GPS chip, which reads position via satellite without need for a cell network connection.

Goodbye hard-drive models. Except for some niche portable video players made by Archos and iRiver, hard-drive MP3 players have all but disappeared from the marketplace. (Microsoft is dropping hard-drive models from the refresh of its Zune line, scheduled for mid-September.) The demise of Apple’s 120-GB Classic iPod seems likely.

An update to iTunes. Apple often combines iPod announcements with updates to its music-management software. Back in July, the Financial Times reported that Apple was working with major record labels, whose CD sales have steadily slipped, to spice up album downloads with more compelling extras that include "interactive" album material. Look for an announcement of iTunes album downloads that will insert a digital booklet of photos, lyric sheets and liner notes.

There’s also been speculation that the Apple event, being the same day as the Beatles catalog is re-released in remastered form (more on that in another post), will include a long-awaited announcement that the Fab Four’s music is being added to the iTunes Store.

Anything’s possible tomorrow from Apple (including announcements unrelated to iPods or iTunes), but it’s worth noting that the invitations for the event include the line “It’s Only Rock and Roll But We Like It.” Borrowing from a Rolling Stones song to help in announcing a Beatles deal seems odd, to say the least. —Mike Gikas