Something tells us that someone's been raiding Underdog's medicine cabinet, because the StrongARM just got a whole lot stronger. The latest incarnation of the Little Chip That Could is called XScale, and according to CNET, it's heading for a Palm near you. The older StrongARM was a supremely capable chip, approaching Pentium-level speeds but with a low enough power draw to function perfectly well in a battery-powered handheld device. Palm, however, opted to equip its PDAs with Motorola Dragonball processors instead. But with XScale now offering performance "roughly 20 times [that] of the Dragonball" while using even less power, Palm's having a tough time staying away.

Those of you who, like us, got suckered by Steve when he promised an Apple handheld device to replace the late, lamented Newton "in 1999" may have picked up on an interesting connection here: the last iterations of the Newt used a StrongARM processor, which provided enough raw speed to power its uncanny handwriting recognition as quickly as the average person could write. So is Palm's reported use of the XScale yet another tenuous tie between Palm and Apple, hinting at a deeper secret collaboration between the two companies on a next-generation handheld that'll merge the best features of the Newton and the Palm, while also incorporating fresh innovations and Apple's flair for killer industrial design, thus putting an end to the threat of the PocketPC once and for all? Well, uh, no. Sadly, all but the most die-hard rumor hounds have probably given up hope that Apple will ever re-enter the burgeoning market which it invented, and which it has currently ceded to other companies who are actually willing to milk it.

But, of course, hope springs eternal. In our most optimistic moments, we can imagine a next-generation Newton device with an XScale at its core, running a souped-up Newton OS (or, perhaps even better, a slimmed-down, tweaked-for-handhelds Mac OS) fast enough to run the Palm OS in emulation. That'd give us full Palm compatibility, the Newton's versatile handwriting recognition, and a sleek new design. And while we're at it, we'd also like a pony. Instead, though, Palm fans should buckle up, because it sounds like you're in for some serious speed in the not-too-distant future.