The Examiner.com reports that they got information from HP insiders. Under code name “Hurricane” it is rumored that HP and Palm are prepping a slate tablet running Palm’s latest operating system WebOS. Their timeline says Q3/2010. Read more on Examiner.com. With HP in the back that slate could become a real competitor to the iPad. We are very curious about it…
Although Steve Ballmer presented an HP Slate at CES 2010 in january, HP now abandons their Windows 7 slate project. TechnCrunch reports they got an HP inside source telling HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a slate operating system.
This news does not come really unexpected, as HP last week acquired Palm and they indicated in a presentation a slate with Palm’s WebOS.
The diligent ppl from PreCentral.net report, what this automn will come from Palm:
Read all of the news in detail at PreCentral.net…
Researchers from Intrepidus Group said in an advisory published on Friday last week that Palm’s WebOS operating system is subject to web application vulnerabilities.
These bugs can all be traced back to that fact that WebOS is essentially a web browser and the applications are written in JavaScript and HTML.
The bugs and vulnerabilites released are for WebOS 1.3.5. Palm has fixed all of them in WebOS 1.4. Anyway the Intrepidus Group said there are still undisclosed bugs in WebOS 1.4.
Via Intrepidus Group…
As of version 1.4 it seems Palm has managed to get WebOS out of beta status. Anyway there are still some things that could be a tiny bit better. We therefore compiled an (incomplete) list ;-) of packages, we are currently using on our Pre’s.
The Requirements
These packages require a Palm Pre put into developer mode and an installed Preware installer.
Both steps are easy as saying “1, 2, Pre”…
The Incomplete Preware Packages List
Done and happy? Ok then, here we go:
| Package | Description | PreWare Folder |
| Battery Saver | Turns on airplane mode each night at a defined time | Application |
| Brightness Unlinked | Brightness of Keyboard and Brightness of Screen can now separately be adjusted | Applications |
| MyTether | Turns your Pre into a WiFi to 3G router. Extremely helpful on vacation. | Not on PreWare, get here only… |
| Terminal | Allows Accessing the Linux Terminal from within the Pre | Applications |
| 4×4 icons v4 No Arrows Plus More | 4 Icons on Launcher Screen per line | Patch |
| Ad Blocker | Being on GRPS/Edge sometimes, you definitely don’t want to spend bandwidth on ads | Patch |
| Capture with Volume Keys | Shoot Images with the Volume Keys | Patch |
| Confirm Delete | Confirm Deleting an Email | Patch |
| Fullscreen Mode Browser | No Urlbar, No Application Frame, No Notification when scrolled down. Extends the browser to the full screen size | Patch |
| Reduce Minimum Brightness | Changes Minimum from 10 to 0 | Patch |
| Fullscreen Mode Browser | No Urlbar, No Application Frame, No Notification when scrolled down. Extends the browser to the full screen size | Patch |
| Send All Contacts via Email | Creates a vCard containing ALL contacts and attaches it to an Email | Patch |
Shouts fly out to the WebOS-Internals team and the guys at the Precentral Forums. That’s awesome work you’re doing.
Leaked vid showing multi-tasking on iPhone 3GS
It seems someone has got his hands on a developer beta of iPhone OS 4.0. The vid below shows how multi-tasking is gonna be implemented on the iPhone. We say: yes eventually multi-tasking, but no: Palm’s webOS approach to multi-tasking is unbeaten at the moment. Apple should consider buying Palm. They are cheap and half the staff is former leading elite Apple people anyway ;-)
Apple’s golden rule: product lifecycles are two years, amigos
Sadly although Cydia users know that multi-tasking is possible even on first gen iPhones, Apple will not enable multi-tasking on devices older than iPhone 3GS.
iPhone 2G users already made a bitter experience when MMS was not enabled on their devices with the 3.0 update.
Notorious WebOS Internals Team has managed to compile and run an X-Server on our beloved latest gadget Palm Pre, thus allowing to run Open Office. As Rod Whitby states:
Just a note to say that we do have a roadmap of being able to install native Debian X11 GUI applications (like OpenOffice) via Preware. But don’t hold your breath, cause it looks like we need to write a whole new FUSE filesystem driver to be able to do it. Think weeks to months, rather than days.
Via PreCentral.net…
Jon Zilber of Palm today announced in their blog that besides Electronic Arts also Epic Games support the webOS platform. Epic Games is in the middle of porting their Unreal Engine 3 onto Palm’s webOS. Epic’s Unreal Engine is well known from games like Unreal Tournament.
Epic is going to offer licenses for developers to create new and astonishing games for the Palm webOS platform.
Together with Palm’s Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) it will soon become very easy for developers to port visually appealing games to the webOS platform.
» Palm: Palm webOS games get Unreal…
» Palm: Plug-in Development Kit…
» Epic: Free Download Unreal Engine 3…
[Update] Engadget got a vid:
Darron Black of Griffin Inc. has ported Nokia’s Qt library (speak: cute) to WebOS. Although the Palm Pre is a competitor fon from Nokia’s perspective, they seem to actually follow their Qt Everywhere strategy.
Moreover Nokia obviously likes it a lot, as they explicitely feature Qt on the Pre.
Watch Qt’s possibilities here:
Found via PreCentral.net…
John Paczkowski of AllThingsDigital mentioned that sources close to Palm told him, Palm’s Plugin-Development Kit will allow easy porting of Apple iPhone games to WebOS. That could also explain how fast Electronic Arts ported “Need for Speed” to WebOS.
» PreCentral.net: Palm to demo porting iPhone games to webOS ‘in a matter of days’ at GDC…
» AllThingsD.com: Palm’s PDK to Allow Easy Porting of iPhone Apps…