<Tr> <Td> The Palm Treo 700p is one of many smartphones produced that combines Palm PDA functions with a cell phone, allowing for built - in voice and data . </Td> </Tr> <P> On 28 April 2010 it was announced that Hewlett - Packard would acquire Palm for around US $1.2 billion . Although HP kept the Palm brand initially, all new PDA devices announced at press announcement on February 9, 2011, were branded as HP devices, not as Palm devices . TCL Corporation announced in January 2015 that it had acquired Palm's intellectual property from HP at the end of 2014, announcing plans to restart the company with crowdfunding being a key element in the development of new Palm smartphones . </P> <P> Pilot was the name of the first generation of personal digital assistants manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (by then a division of U.S. Robotics). </P> <P> The inventors of the Pilot were Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, who founded Palm Computing in 1992 . The original purpose of this company was to create handwriting recognition software, named PalmPrint, and personal information management (PIM) software, named PalmOrganizer for the PEN / GEOS based Zoomer devices . Their research convinced them, however, they could create better hardware as well . Before starting development of the Pilot, Hawkins said he carried a block of wood, the size of the potential Pilot, in his pocket for a week . Palm was widely perceived to have benefited from the notable if ill - fated earlier attempts to create a popular handheld computing platform by Go Corporation, Tandy, and Apple Computer (Newton). </P>

When did the first palm pilot come out