Tag Archives: CES 2010

[e-Biz] The Slate Tablets Are Coming

Tablet PCs seem to be the next big thing. After Apple’s smartphone revolution with their iPhone, it seems the next big market revolution might be the Tablet PCs.

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft introduced one of the Tablet PCs – a prototype of the HP Slate – last week on the CES 2010. In his presentation the HP Slate is of course running Windows 7, what else, but there are rumors it might also be shipped with Google’s Android. We suppose Amazon’s Steve Bezos will not really like it, because Steve Ballmer showed the HP Slate running the PC Kindle application.

Dell seems also be ready to enter the Touch PCs’ market with the Dell Slate. Gizmodo.de got photos of a prototype of Dell’s Slate. Dell’s Slate has a 5-inch screen, most likely an OLED, a SIM slot and a 5 megapixel camera.

If Apple was a typical tech company they would also have showed something to the public on the CES, but Apple isn’t. Anyway there are enuff rumors floating around about Apple’s Touch-Mac – rumored to be named Apple iSlate. According to Reuters Apple might be launching the iSlate in Q2/2010. It is expected to have a 10 or 11-inch display and a aluminium case. TheStreet.com reports that Apple’s Slate will be shipped with a P A Semi CPU, instead of Intel based Atom CPUs. This could be also the reason, why Atom CPU has been removed from Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s latest update 10.6.2. It is widely expected that Apple will announce the iSlate on Januar 27th, 2010.

Kara Swisher of AllThingsD interviewed Mr. Podfather Prefather Jon Rubinstein of Palm at the CES. Although he seems to have been highly involved in the development of Apple’s iPhone back in the days when he was Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, he said he never used an iPhone. Well… All in all he wasn’t telling too much, but when Kara asked him, if Palm will do a Tablet aswell, Rubinstein answered: “(..) we designed webOS to scale and it could be used in different form factors.”

[e-Biz] Palm’s Presentation on the CES 2010

I. Summary

Quite a bunch of news for the Palm community has been presented by Palm’s CEO John Podfather Prefather Rubinstein. Find the whole video presentation at the end of the summary.

II. WebOS Update 1.4

WebOS 1.4 will be released in February, 2010 (in the US at least, we Europeans are still waiting for 1.3.5). WebOS 1.4 will feature:

  • Video Recording
  • Adobe Flash 10.1
  • better Battery Life and
  • improved performance

III. WebOS Plug In Development Kit

For developing native 3D games Palm secretely extended their development tools with a plug in kit, that allows to write code in C or C++.

IV. Native 3D Games

Moreover Palm showed they are in the know what their customers will like and how to explore more markets besides the Linux community. As of today some 3D games have been released to the U.S. American AppCatalog:

  • Need for Speed Undercover
  • The Sims 3
  • Monopoly
  • Asphalt 5: Elite Racing
  • Let’s Golf!
  • Glyder 2, and
  • X-Plane

IV. Palm Pre Plus coming to Verizon

A special version of the Palm Pre is coming to Verizon Wireless, only 7 months after the initial release of the Palm Pre to the Spring network. Verizon’s Palm Pre Plus is coming with 16GB Ram, a reworked slider mechanics and a tethering plan. Verizon is said to have one of the best 3G coverage in North America. We suspect the Palm Pre Plus to be SIM locked.

V. The whole video presentation on the CES 2010

Enjoy Mr. Podfather Prefather John Rubinstein…

[Pre] webOS 1.3.5, webOS 1.3.5.1 and the CES 2010

European customers are still waiting for webOS 1.3.5 update. The European carrier Telefonica (o2 and MoviStar)  seems not to have approved it yet.

Meanwhile it seems versions 1.3.5 had issues. According to PreCentral.net, Palm Pre customers on Sprint (USA) and Bell (Canada) are able to update to version 1.3.5.1 since Januar 5th, 2010. Version 1.3.5 has been released in the US and Canada on December 29th, 2009.

Issues with homebrew apps on 1.3.5 and 1.3.5.1

It is known, that webOS 1.3.5 breaks homebrew installer PreWare. Known workaround is using WebOS Quick Install to remove and then reinstall PreWare. It should be working well again.

There are also issues with homebrew apps that don’t contain  an appinfo.json file. Apps not properly prepared would not be getting moved from /var to /media/cryptofs/apps. Package Manager Service 0.9.24.3 has fixes for this problem.

And the latest 1.3.5.1 also breaks myTether. This seems not resolved yet.

Amazing news

In the meantime people from the WebOS Internal forums have discovered, that webOS 1.3.5 includes Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL). SDL allows hardware accelerated graphics and sound and is available on different platforms for free and open source. Via homebrew installer PreWare a playable alpha version of Doom using SDL has already been released.

Europeans still waiting

Although Palm is said to be unveiling something big on the CES 2010 tomorrow, we don’t expect Telefonica to approve 1.3.5 until then for Europe.

It is rumored, on the CES Verizon Wireless will be officially named the new partner for a device called Palm Pre Plus (Palm Pre 3).

Links

» PreCentral: webOS 1.3.5.1 Available for OTA Download
» PreCentral: webOS 1.3.5.1 goes live for Pre users on Bell
» PreCentral Forums: Status of Preware and 1.3.5
» PreCentral Forums: Preware + mytether unavailable after 1.3.5.1
» WebOS Internals Wiki: Doom on Palm Pre
» Wikipedia: Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL)…
» WebOS Blog: Was kommt zur CES 2010 von Palm? (Google translated link)…
» PhoneArea: Verizon to get Palm Pre Plus

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