The history of Palm, as Holwerda tells it, begins before the company was created. Back when one of the several co-founders Jeff Hawkins learned about handwriting recognition and studied it well before the birth of the first Palm Pilot. He even goes back to the 1960s to see the RAND Corporation’s showing of the GRAIL Project and the creation of the RAND tablet. Have a peek at a demonstration video of the Rand tablet with Alan Kay from back in those fabulously exciting times here:

From there – and from several other sources, of course – handwriting recognition was born into the public conscious. From there, 6,000 words later, Holwerda begins what ends up speaking one of several times about the reader. It’s interesting how – since this text is based online in a blog-centric environment – Holwerda makes it clear that the article is long. Extremely, massively long. He makes guide points throughout the body of the text to make sure the reader understands where they are – what a world we live in!

Holwerda goes on to speak on how the Palm V came to be, how the hardware in the Palm collection came to influence the smartphone world and how Palm’s webOS mobile operating system was eventually pushed to the Smartphone. It becomes clear how Palm went down a road where they could have been great – a chart included above shows what his view was and is on how Palm’s approach with mobile could have taken on iOS and Apple in the sweet spot between too few features and too many features – Android going down that tunnel, too.

And There’s the death of Palm and webOS, complete with the “wallowing” promised in the title of the piece. Truly astounding is the read that’ll have you either gripping your kneecaps in anticipation of a new page or crashing and falling asleep at every turn. Do you want to know everything there is to know about Palm? You’re in luck – it’s just been written.

[via OSnews]

The CtW Investment Group is affiliated with the labor group, Change to Win, and is an adviser to union pension funds that total around $200 billion in assets. There are 5.5 million members in the Change to Win labor group, and they all represent workers in various sectors like health care, hotels, and ports.

Pryce-Jones will attempt to get investors to vote against Thompson and Hammergren’s re-election. He also wants to stop the renewal of HP’s auditing firm, Ernest & Young. Pryce-Jones wasn’t able to discuss the reasons behind this, but he says that the CtW group has been questioning Ernst & Young’s responsibilities with HP. Aside from the Autonomy deal, CtW is also upset with HP’s acquisition of both the Electronic Data Systems Corp, as well as Palm’s WebOS, who we’ve just recently learn has been sold to LG.

The meeting today was held between HP’s Raymond Lane and 20 investors. HP stated that it regularly meets with investors before its annual shareholder meeting. They had discussions about the company’s future and the investors’ concerns. The discussions are then continued at the annual shareholder meeting, which will be held this year on March 20th in Mountain View, California. It looks like investors are getting a bit antsy with HP’s direction. Pryce-Jones stated, however, that Lane was credible on HP’s turnaround, and that Lane “laid his reputation” on it.

[via Reuters]

Word has surfaced that HP has finally sold WebOS and LG has purchased the operating system. It seems LG has no plans to use WebOS in the tablet or smartphone market, rather the company plans to use the operating system to power smart TVs. The purchase not only gets the operating system, but some engineering talent behind the scenes as well.

There is still some confusion on the deal between LG and HP. Last year HP spun off most of the remaining members of the WebOS software team to a new company called Gram. It’s unclear at this point if Gram is now owned by LG or whether it will remain part of HP.

With WebOS having failed at every turn over the years, its success as a smart TV operating system is far from guaranteed. All we know this time is that LG now owns the source code, all related documentation, engineers, and websites relating to WebOS. Only time will tell if LG’s purchase was a good idea. There’s no indication of what the deal is worth at this time.

[via Mashable]

The seven-inch Android-powered tablet built by ASUS from a partnership with Google was the premiere launch device for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and it’s now been unofficially webOS-ified thanks to the tablets open-source roots. While it’s a mostly unstable port at this point, a few key features appear to be working just fine, including the WiFi and web browser.

webOS Nation notes that the developer behind the Nexus 7 port got it up and running in about a week over his winter break from college — not a bad feat if you ask us, and it makes us forgive the fact that it’s not quite a stable build yet, since a lot of the essential features are still missing.

While there’s no doubt that webOS on the Nexus 7 is a downgrade in functionality compared to running full-blown Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, it’s nice to see webOS continue on, even if it’s in an unofficial manner and only runs on a few devices currently. Hopefully we’ll see more from the Open webOS team in 2013.

[via webOS Nation]

The project aims to allow webOS to operate as an app on Android devices without having to make any modification to the Android device itself. If Phoenix is able to pull this off it would mean that users would be able to run both Android and webOS simultaneously rather than having to boot into one operating system on the other.

Apparently the project first surfaced a few weeks ago when webOS was able to open as an Android app, albeit briefly. At the time, the webOS app was unable to get past the lock screen without crashing. The people working on the Phoenix project have released a new video showing progress has been made.

The video shows webOS as an app on a Samsung Nexus S and the app is able to get past the lock screen. The video shows that webOS actually runs as an app on the test device, even if it’s slow and sluggish. The reason given for webOS being so slow in the video is because there is no working hardware acceleration. What you see in the video is considered pre-alpha status so stay tuned for further improvements.

[via WebOSNation]

“We’re not entering the consumer tablet fray any time soon. We’ll be doing something next year, but you won’t see a consumer tablet from HP before Christmas” Bradley confirmed. “You’ll see convertibles that are focused on how you use the device, keyboard, clamshell.”

Although specific OS and processor is undecided, Bradley is “not a big [Windows] RT fan either.” The company confirmed back in June that it had frozen plans to release its own ARM-based RT slate, though it denied that the decision had been prompted by Microsoft’s surprise announcement of its own Surface project.

“I’d hardly call Surface competition … One, very limited distribution. It tends to be slow and a little kludgey as you use it. I just don’t think it’s competitive. It’s expensive. Holistically, the press has made a bigger deal out of Surface than what the world has chosen to believe. If you want to go to any of the 30 Microsoft Stores in the United States to buy one, I think you should probably do that” Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP

Of course, it’s somewhat ironic that HP should dismiss Surface after the dire HP TouchPad launch, though Bradley says that the company’s own failures, if anything, give him better insight. “I’m saying that as somebody who understands the consumer market pretty clearly” he argued. “Obviously the decision by our board to shut down the WebOs business caused us to have a significant delay in our tablets. We’re catching up slowly, both with tablets and with convertible devices.”

Those convertible devices – and HP’s other Windows 8 hardware – may well attempt to bridge the traditional divide between enterprise and consumer hardware, and instead try to be all things to all users. Asked about what HP has planned for 2013, Bradley says we can expect to see “a lot of work with devices in the enterprise that are broadly ubiquitous, getting away from commercial and consumer and just having one set of IT products.”

Although both LG and HP apparently signed an agreement some time ago – back in June, in fact – to collaborate on the project, there are still some wrinkles yet to be ironed out. Most obvious (and likely to actively frustrate users) is boot time, with Open webOS taking some time to load up; tablet and phone users might be willing to suffer such a delay, but those settling down on the couch are probably not.

To address that, LG’s L9 motherboards – which use a dualcore processor, and are found at the heart of existing LG smart TVs – have been sent over to HP’s engineers for testing and trialling software tweaks. What could end up being the solution, it’s said, is a TV that only shuts off the display when put into standby, with the processor actually remaining on in the background for a subsequent instant-resume.

Hardware isn’t the only challenge, however. Open webOS would replace LG’s NetCast platform, and needs smart TV-focused apps to cater for that challenge. Netflix is one cited example, with a player apparently being build in Enyo (the platform’s application framework), as well as other web-connected widgets and apps for YouTube, Pandora, and other services.

As for why LG is pushing ahead with Open webOS rather than sticking with Google TV as it previously announced, it’s a complex one. The Korean company is apparently uncomfortable with Google’s demands for using its platform, and turned off by its slow adoption overall; meanwhile, the ever-present specter of Apple and the longstanding chatter of an Apple smart TV has pressured LG into taking precautionary steps of its own.

Those steps will need to be shared with HP/Gram, of course, but with the $1.2bn acquisition of Palm still yet to produce tangible benefits to pacify shareholders, Open webOS poses more potential for tinkering and modification.

According to the job listings, HP is looking for 53 top-class developers to work in both Shanghai, China and Sunnyvale, California. All of the positions appear to be high-paying jobs as well, so it seems that HP is putting a lot of time and resources into its webOS platform, which has been slowly disappearing the past couple years.

However, that brings us to the lasting appeal of the platform. Even though HP is starting to put more effort into webOS, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll become successful. The company has stiff competition from Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8. Is it possible that HP’s open webOS can make a dent in the other mobile OS platforms?

Either way, HP’s looking at a long road ahead. CEO Meg Whitman said that she expects the company to struggle all next year and not make a profit until 2014 comes around. Even then, the company isn’t exactly guaranteed a profit. We can only hope for the best for open webOS and just wait for some new devices from HP to hit the market. Hopefully they don’t crash and burn this time around.

[via TechCrunch]

All of you Apple dissenters will definitely want to watch the iPhone 5 get destroyed by some powerful lasers, and Sharp reassured today that it’s making plenty of iPhone 5 screens, which are rumored to be the bottleneck on production. Today we got a closer look at the vibrator inside the iPhone 5, and learned that it costs less than $1 to charge your iPhone for an entire year. Microsoft has assured that it has tested Windows 8 thoroughly ahead of next month’s launch, and it seems that Kodak will soon be dropping out of the inkjet printer business.

Google now lets YouTube creators re-download their movies in their original format, and the FCC has approved an auction to reclaim broadcast TV spectrum. HP has launched Open webOS 1.0, and Amazon gave us a little video detailing the technology behind the Kindle Paperwhite. Good news for all of you Call of Duty fans: Modern Warfare 3 is free-to-play on Steam this weekend, and there are rumors floating around that HP will soon be jumping back into the mobile market.

Microsoft was spotted lamenting the lack of highly skilled technology workers today, and Notch is refusing to certify Minecraft for Windows 8, despite Microsoft’s requests. For the first time ever, Instagram has beat Twitter when it comes to daily mobile users, Sony has invested $640 million into slowly dying camera company Olympus, and a new BlackBerry 10 video gives us our first look at RIM’s new QWERTY device. Finally tonight, Chris Davies takes an up-close look at RIM’s Q2 results, which were posted yesterday, while Chris Burns has a new review of the movie LOOPER, starring Bruce Willis and Jason Gordon-Levitt. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy your weekend everyone!

The 1.0 release offers some changes that the Open webOS team hopes will offer major new capabilities for developers. The team also mentions that over 75 Open webOS components have been delivered over the past 9 months (totaling over 450,000 lines of code), which means that Open webOS can now be ported to new devices thanks to today’s 1.0 release.

In the video below, Open webOS architect Steve Winston demoes the operating system on a HP TouchSmart all-in-one PC. He mentions that it took the team just “a couple of days” to port Open webOS to the PC that he has in front of him. The user interface doesn’t seem to be performing super smoothly, but you can’t really expect more out of a 1.0 release.

Winston says that possible uses for Open webOS include kiosk applications in places like hotels, and since Open webOS is aimed to work on phones, tablets, and PCs, there’s the possibility that Open webOS could become an all-in-one solution for kiosk or customer service platforms for businesses. Obviously, version 1.0 is just the first step, so the Open webOS team is just getting started with this project and they expect to only improve on it and add new features as time goes on.

This device is more than ready to break up the fray that HP’s now lost Palm group left when webOS was filleted several months ago. Gone now is the webOS software universe – gone to open-sourcing, that is – and in its place comes Google’s mobile OS. With Android 4.0.4 in the benchmark here we can expect at least Ice Cream Sandwich when an HP smartphone comes to the market – or maybe even 4.1 Jelly Bean by that time if we’re lucky! This device also shows a lovely 1366 x 720 pixel resolution display with 1.5GHz on each of its Snapdragon CPU cores.

This news comes right after HP’s relatively new CEO Meg Whitman spoke up on how they’ll eventually have a smartphone to their name in the future. They’re in no rush, she assured, but they will be coming back with a solid device. You can bet that they’re not going to be making the same “mistakes” they made in the past when this device hits the field.

[Thanks for the tip Noor!]

“We are working on this. In the end, I would love to be able to provide all the way from the most fabulous workstations … to desktops, to laptops, to our tablets and convertibles, all the way to the smartphone. But we did take a detour into smartphone, and we’ve gotta get it right this time. So my mantra to the team is “better right, than faster than we should be there” so we’re working to make sure that, when we do this, it will be the right thing for HP and we will be successful.

My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device. There will be countries around the world where people may never own a tablet or a PC or a desktop, they will do everything on a smartphone, we are a computing company we have to take advantage of that form-factor” Meg Whitman, CEO, HP

Whitman also gave no technical details about the upcoming HP smartphone, though it’s not too far a stretch to assume that the company will use its webOS assets. That will be in a markedly different way to the HP Pre3 and Veer, however; HP has been modifying webOS since its release as an open-source platform, and key members of the team responsible for the OS have left for alternative positions, such as at Google.

webOS was generally considered to be ahead of its time, and suffered first from creator Palm‘s lack of funding to make the most of the platform, and then – following Palm’s acquisition by HP – an underwhelming degree of support by HP itself. The computing company was particularly stung by reaction to the TouchPad, its webOS tablet, which was criticized in comparison to the iPad and swiftly discontinued.

With Android under patent attack, iOS 6 making its debut on the new iPhone 5, and Microsoft struggling to gain marketshare for Windows Phone, it remains to be seen whether HP will attempt to revive webOS or follow a different path with either Google or Microsoft’s platforms. Nonetheless, while it’s relatively easy to produce a smartphone, the company already knows from experience that it’s very difficult to produce a successful one.

[via The Verge]

This code is bringing (in beta) a set of 54 components making 450,000 lines of code, and all the elements you’ve seen of the desktop build released to Ubuntu are included of course as well. Developers will be glad to find a collection of 3rd party Enyo apps supported here on the packages System Manager as well as the ones you’d expect from the basic set of apps included on the mobile device build.

HP’s servers will be bursting at the seams with this lovely offering starting today – if you don’t see it, wait a bit longer. You’ll be grabbing such lovely bits as “build-desktop” and “core-apps” never before legally distributed to the public. Grab em all and report back to tell everyone how much awesome developing fun you’re having!

Also check the timeline below for more information on webOS as it’s made its path towards the open environment it’s about to be in now. HP is working with the community to keep webOS an operating system worth working with, and we’re excited to see it continue to expand. Also see our webOS tag portal and HP tag to keep up to date with both groups in the very near future too – exciting things are bubbling up!

This update will bring the Palm group – GRAM – to an era where creating the hardware for the operating system is not a goal. Instead, in addition to focusing on Open webOS as an open-sourced software initiative, they’re aiming to be only partially reliant on HP for funding. If HP should decide they do not want to fund the project at some point, the folks responsible from GRAM are hoping to be able to get outside funding to make themselves a continually viable group.

Have a peek at this supposedly fully straight-up copied and pasted letter taken from the employees of the former HP group and send out this month as a Call to Action.

“Hi everyone,

Thank you for all of your enthusiasm at yesterday’s new brand announcement: GRAM. We hope you will fall in love with the brand just as lots of us have already.

Please note that our Mission, Values and Plan of Action are the same. We are continuing to march forward on our timelines as usual—nothing new there.

We have much work to do, and, again, I solicit your help.

Yes, this is a new brand—it is just the beginning, and there is so much more to do. And yet unveiling the new brand is also a Call to Action:

Try it on. We don’t expect you to love it overnight. We are no longer a consumer hardware brand, we are a different company with focus on software, User Experience, Cloud, engineering and partnering. This change in identity will take some getting used to and that’s normal.

Stealth mode. We are an incubation company, and we are trusting you to keep this company name and product under the radar to give it time to take root and grow. You can wear the logo, help build the momentum of the new identity, talk to your families and friends about it. If someone from the outside asks, you can say, “GRAM is a new company. We are in stealth mode on our product offering.”

Tap your network. Help us hire the best and the brightest, refer your friends and help us in our shared purpose as we continue our rise to the top. You can use the name to help us to recruit.

Be the culture. Spread our Values: People Matter. Integrity and Trust. Deliberate Innovation. Act small, deliver big.

For those of you who could not attend yesterday’s unveiling – we really missed you. Please be on the lookout for the gift bags with our new cool branded items, which we be mailing out to you this and next week. All of you should get one, if not – let me know.

Best

Martin”

This company is, again, no longer a hardware initiative, but will be focusing on software on the whole. They’re also moving forward with cloud connectivity as well as engineering and user experience, whatever they end up making that mean for you. Partnering is one of their focuses as well, so we expect that they’ll be attempting to hook up with hardware giants to make webOS a usable operating system again in the future.

Stay tuned as webOS continues to exist and HP continues to attempt to stay in the mobile universe!

“For Open webOS we are aiming for support on future hardware platforms where SoC’s support Linux 3.3+ kernel and where open source replacements for proprietary components are integrated. Existing devices cannot be supported because of those many proprietary components, including graphics, networking and lack of drivers for a modern kernel (but of course, there is the Community Edition for those interested in improving the TouchPad)” Open webOS project

Having acquired Palm and its software and hardware assets, HP proceeded to run the platform into the ground and subsequently decided to make webOS open-source. The so-called Open webOS result was thrown open to the developer community and other device manufacturers alike, while a separate Community Edition - currently available for the TouchPad – was released a short while ago.

HP’s excuse is that the existing phones and tablets don’t support the Linux Standard Kernel and lack open-source drivers for some of the hardware components; moving forward it plans to work only with new hardware, leaving the Community Edition to handle those with earlier devices. Unsurprisingly that hasn’t gone down well with the webOS community itself, which points out that HP already has access to the necessary drivers for existing devices, and yet has opted not to release them as open-source or, if it cannot, at least work on variants that could be more freely distributed.

As we’ve seen with Microsoft and the decision to make Windows Phone 8 not backward compatible with Windows Phone 7/7.5 handsets, sometimes companies decide it’s better to cut ties with the past than bring everyone along for the ride. Still, with webOS still with minimal market share and highly dependent on the support of existing owners and developers, HP’s strategy could have a significant impact on the platform’s future.

[via webOS Nation]

The phone is condemned WindsorNot, showing a design that’s not too far off the HP Pre 3 or the Veer. webOS Nations notes that the back is flat, and would most likely have been constructed from glass. A microUSB port, volume, power, and ringer switch are also found on the device. The screen is said to be around 3.6-inches, and the home button looks to be physical like on the HP TouchPad.

Most notably, it would have been the first webOS device to work purely with an onscreen keyboard, although the details about how HP would implement that aren’t clear. The video showing off the WindsorKnot has been pulled from Vimeo by Transparent House, but you can check out the pictures above for a taste of what could have been.

[via Engadget]

Although the webOS team worked closely alongside the WebOS Internals to release webOS Community Edition, it’s not the same as Open webOS. The release of Open webOS 1.0 is expected to be released in September and will offer developers the ability to port webOS to their own devices and make use of open source technology integration.

Available online for download, the source code may be used by developers under the Apache License, Version 2.0 so they can combine open source code with their own stuff and sell it as desired. In addition to the release of the Community Edition, some other parts of the webOS have already been made available by the Open webOS team, including the Isis Browser project and the DB8 database service provider.

[via Verge]

Facebook has already marred its relationship with both Apple and Google over data access. In iOS, Apple opted to go with tight integration with Twitter, supposedly at least in part because of Facebook’s reluctance to share access to its users. Facebook integration in Android was contentiously curtailed back in 2011 with Gingerbread on the Nexus S, after Google called the social network out over not allowing members to export their data in a predictable way.

And make no mistake, even with those troubled ties Facebook isn’t exactly struggling to engage with mobile users. The site has seen an unpredicted surge in access from Facebookers on phones and tablets, to the point where it’s roughly a 50-50 split between desktop and mobile. Its problem isn’t getting people to log in, it’s milking cash from them.

Facebook’s mobile advertising strategy hasn’t kept pace with user growth. Neither can it rely on Apple and Google to continue pushing it – or, indeed, to lend their support to Facebook Credits, the social network’s payment method of choice – and in fact Google has its own Google+ rival which has the privileged preload spot in the Android setup wizard. The Facebook App Center, a way of wrapping web and native apps in the site’s social clutches, is a start, but is likely to struggle to compete with the App Store and Play Market.

Equality, then, is out of the question, and it’s little surprise that Facebook believes a direct pathway to users is the best solution. Yes, building a phone rather than a great app will take longer, be more expensive, and lead the site down all manner of unfamiliar avenues with hardware and carrier partners. The company will need a whole lot more than seven ex-Apple engineers to do it. But there’s some interesting mobile tech up for grabs today, if you can look beyond the failures of others.

HP is loosing the reigns on webOS, open-sourcing the platform after it failed to make a convincing play with Palm’s handiwork. As we’ve written before, the heavily HTML-centric OS could tie in nicely with Facebook’s own web focus, especially given how the Facebook App Center treats HTML5 software as just as important as local apps. In fact, Facebook prefers web apps, given they’re subject to the freedom of the browser rather than the tighter limitations of native code.

Meanwhile, if Google’s grab for the core Enyo HTML5 team on the webOS project proves a turn-off, there’s no shortage of ailing smartphone players already in the industry that Facebook could acquire with its $16bn IPO cash. HTC has long been linked with the Facebook Phone project, while INQ has a socially-enabled history of its own; both companies made their own interpretation of “Facebook phones” though saw limited market success. Even RIM could be a target, its current market cap representing the mildest of dints to the Facebook fund.

As many developers and services have discovered to their cost, having a great app isn’t a guarantee for success. That’s doubly so when you factor in a tenuous relationship with – and competition from – the key platforms. A Facebook Phone may well still result in a bad product, but it’s one that Facebook itself would control the destiny of. That freedom from the whims of Apple and Google could be all the motivation Facebook needs.

“We’re pleased with the traction Enyo has gained to date and plan to continue its development along with the open source community” HP said in a statement. “The Open webOS project is on schedule and we remain committed to the roadmap announced in January.”

That project has seen HP take the OS it acquired from Palm and attempt to repackage it for the open-source community, with Open WebOS heavily dependent on Enyo for its app and browser rendering. Downloads of Enyo had already numbered 40,000 just three weeks after its release earlier in the year, but the shift of much of the team responsible had left concerns that HP would not be able to continue its progress.

Still, you can’t fault the Enyo team for looking beyond HP; the company had already laid off 275 webOS employees back in February. According to insiders, Google individually negotiated each new hire over the course of several months, and the team is expected to regroup within the search giant in June.

In a perfect world they’d be selling new models, but even the refurbished price is a good deal. Taking a look at eBay, models seem to sell from around $300, so the Woot offer is worth a look. The tablet may be running webOS, but you can quickly put Android on there thanks to the efforts of those on xda-developers.

You may not be getting a Retina display, but the hardware is still pretty decent by today’s standards: a 9.7-inch 1024×768 IPS display, dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. Head on over to Woot to secure the deal, and then mull over what you’ll do with the tablet while you’re waiting for it to ship.

[via Phandroid]

Installing it is relatively simple: all the necessary components will be downloaded, then you’re ready to go. Double-clicking the home button will bring up a familiar Card interface, presenting a live-view of currently running apps. Gestures also allow you to flick cards away, closing the running app. If you don’t fancy swiping up, then there’s a “close” button option that can be enabled and disabled too.

There’s also a grid layout that will present you with the four most recently opened apps, although if you have more open you can scroll through the list. It’s similar to Apple’s current implementation, but with a better view of exactly of what’s open in the backgrounded apps.

We went hands-on with CardSwitcher, and have to say, it works beautifully. It’s not quite the same as native webOS multitasking, which included other features like card stacking, but it’s close enough. On an iPhone 4S, all graphical transitions were smooth and fluid, and we didn’t see any immediate bugs.

CardSwitcher 2.0 is available on Cydia right now, and will set you back $1.99.

[via Cult of Mac]

Featured: So in all the excitement with the new iPad unveiling, you might have forgotten about the other thing that was introduced. Okay, maybe not, but since all the iPad madness has died down, here’s our extensive Apple TV 1080p review. If there’s one set-top box an Apple fan needs, it’s this bad boy.

The iPad, the non-iPad, and PayPal goes mobile: Yes, there’s been a lot of coverage about the new iPad, but now it’s game time, folks. The device officially goes on sale tomorrow. So be sure to check out our new iPad review round-up for a taste of what the Web has to say. If you’re not interested or don’t have all that dough for a new iPad, here’s something more your style – Forget the iPad, here’s the $40 Android tablet. And finally today, whether you’re toting an iPad, an iPhone, or an Android device, PayPal wants to be your mobile payment provider. That’s all she wrote for today, but check back tomorrow for the Friday wrap-up.

What they’re making available should allow independent developers to further play and develop software for legacy webOS devices, such as the Pre 3 and TouchPad. It’s a seperate release from the main, open webOS project, however. All the necessary components will be available by June.

CTO of webOS, Sam Greenblatt, said on the webOS developer blog that the team “value[s] the contributions the webOS community has made over the past few years”, and that he hopes the release will help developers “better understand the platform and create a constructive environment for moving forward as Open webOS itself is released.”

There are no exact details on what’s being released yet, or an official timeline, but it seems like this is a little “thank you” to the community for supporting webOS when the market wouldn’t. At the end of the blog post, Greenblatt lays out the March committments to the open webOS project, saying that the latest version of the Linux kernel, 3.3, will be ready for release towards the end of the month. It brings improvements in several areas, including drivers, networking, and memory.

[via liliputing]

In second place comes Android, with 44.6-percent market-share in Q4 2011, up from 32.3-percent the previous quarter. Low-cost tablets like the Kindle Fire, NOOK Tablet and slates from Pandigital helped buoy those figures, IDC says, with total Android tablet shipments in 2016 predicted for 100.8m units of a total 198.2m worldwide.

It’s disappointing news for RIM, however, with the sums suggesting that its tablet share with the BlackBerry PlayBook dipped from Q3 2011 to Q4, going from 1.1-percent to just 0.7-percent. webOS, unsurprisingly went from 5-percent in Q3 to zero in Q4.

“As the sole vendor shipping iOS products, Apple will remain dominant in terms of worldwide vendor unit shipments. However, the sheer number of vendors shipping low-priced, Android-based tablets means that Google’s OS will overtake Apple’s in terms of worldwide market share by 2015. We expect iOS to remain the revenue market share leader through the end of our 2016 forecast period and beyond” Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices, IDC

Earlier this week, research suggested that 84-percent of companies intended to buy their employees an iPad next quarter, suggesting that – despite a relative consumer focus – the iOS slate is gaining traction with the enterprise market. IDC’s figures make no reference to Windows 8, as the research firm does not include the OS in with its “media tablet” segment, though it has previously said that it has mixed expectations of the Microsoft platform with it being “largely irrelevant” beyond tablets.

The new iPad, Apple’s third-gen model, is set to hit stores on Friday this week. More details in our Apple Hub.

Nokia says that Nokia Maps for Web will work on iOS devices running 4.3 upwards, Android 2.2 and up, as well as the Nokia N9, and even webOS, although they do note support on those two platforms is experimental. There’s also support for BlackBerry’s running OS 7.0 and up.

Right now there’s navigation support for cars, public transport, and walking, just like you would find with Google Maps. There’s also support for audio directions: when you plot a route with Nokia Maps, you’ll be prompted to download a 2MB audio file, after which a voice will guide you with the typical “turn left” or “turn right” direction instructions, although right now voice navigation is only supported for journeys travelled by walking. Map overlays include a satellite view, public transport routes, and a live traffic view.

We went hands-on with Nokia Maps briefly on an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0.1, and we have to say, it works remarkably well, even if it it a web based app. The resolution of the maps isn’t as high as what you would get from Google Maps, for example, but routing was quick and accurate, and it was nice to see support for London’s Tube network. We plotting a faux route through New York City too, which also gave us public transport directions.

Want to test it out for yourself? That link again: m.maps.nokia.com.

Hewlett Packard announced plans to make WebOS a completely open-source operating system back in December, months after completely abandoning its tablet and smartphone plans. While HP is retaining its ownership of WebOS after purchasing original creator Palm last year, it’s allowing the open source community free reign to modify and distribute the code – not unlike Google’s strategy with Android. The company hopes that OEMs will take advantage of a competing free and open source mobile OS and produce new hardware on their own, though no one has taken up the offer at present.

Unfortunately, a lack of hardware plans means a smaller team is need to stay profitable. “As WebOS continues the transition from making mobile devices to open-source software, it no longer needs many of the engineering and other related positions that it required before,” said HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan. HP will continue to over see and publish WebOS in its open source format, but new devices – at least from the computer giant itself – are out of the question for the time being.

[via Bloomberg]

Whitman made the announcement today during a Wall Street Journal conference, revealing that the new Windows 8 tablet by HP will be primarily based on Intel technology. The decision to go Intel instead of ARM had to do with the still unconfirmed schedule for the ARM edition of Windows 8.

As to how the HP tablet would stack up against competitors such as the iPad, Whitman insisted that she isn’t worried. She doesn’t believe that the two tablets would compete, saying that she uses the iPad for reading books and watching TV, but not for getting any work done. This suggests that HP’s workhorse Windows 8 tablet could be more enterprise-oriented, although surveys show enterprise adopting the iPad just fine.

During the conference, Whitman also revealed that HP is currently busy developing talented execs from within and plans to find its next CEO from within. The company had been hiring from within since 1999 until it recruited Carly Fiorina as CEO, followed by three other CEOs, all outside hires. “I will not feel like I’ve done a good job if my successor is not an internal choice,” said Whitman.

[via BusinessWeek]

Featured: Our featured story today is a column from our Chris Davies, HTC Hero or Bust. Be sure to read what Mr. Davies has to say about the new HTC device and what the impact will be on the market. Also, you should definitely check out this – LG X3 Tegra 3 benchmarks leak. The X3 is looking to be one monster of a phone. No, seriously, those benchmark numbers are ridiculous. You have to check them out. As for other content that made news today, we’ve got a lot of mobile news…

Mobile: Another Mobile World Congress headline to tell you about – RIM sets Playbook 2.0 release for MWC 2010. Aside from that, we take a look at Nokia’s Lumia 610 phone and how it may be the key to the Tango update puzzle. Speaking of mobile platforms that aren’t Android or iOS, HP’s CEO has said that webOS isn’t finished yet.

“What Apple is doing with iOS is great, but it’s a closed platform,” said Whitman, after highlighting the company’s decision in December to open source WebOS. “What Google is doing with Android is great, but with their acquisition of Motorola, I fear that it may soon be closed, and in the global market it’s incredibly fragmented… there’s room for another OS here.”

Whitman wasn’t shy about the failings of WebOs previously, but seemed bullish on its possibilities in its new open source form. She noted that it may take three to four years to fully explore its possibilities. Notably, Whitman gave no indication that new hardware is being developed or even that WebOS development is going on in any meaningful way – not surprising, since so many developers and managers from the WebOS team have disappeared.

Even so, this is the first WebOS-related statement we’ve heard from HP in months that was anything but conciliatory. While Whitman’s statements are a little hollow (particularly the implication that Android is closing its source – it’s not) they indicate that HP is hoping that both OEMs and the open source community will take the software and do something  that they couldn’t.

If other OEMs manage to make more out of WebOS than HP has, it might even be possible for them to return to the mobile hardware market. There’s been no indication that any major hardware manufacturers are doing so, but a stable and relatively robust OS for free is a compelling proposition. If that should happen, expect development to resume, in a way similar to Google’s limited open source approach to Android. At the moment it seems that the company is taking a wait and see approach – not abandoning WebOS as previously indicated, but not fully invested, either.

“Isis Browser is a core application of HP’s webOS platform written using the Enyo framework. As of today, it is a work in progress aiming to incorporate the latest open source technologies, such as QtWebKit and JavaScriptCore, into the webOS platform. The source code of the Isis Browser stack, QtWebKit, and Qt 4.8 is available on GitHub where we will continue our development” Isis Project

Isis is based on the QtWebKit engine, itself released into open-source by Nokia, and the webOS teams have apparently been working some time to bring the platform over to it. The promise is boosted performance and broader compatibility with sites in general; however, there’ll also be “enhanced support” for legacy products, including Flash.

“We’ve benchmarked the new Isis webOS browser and have found it to be extremely responsive compared to other browsers made for general consumption. It has a fast render pipeline and JavaScript execution profile, which is critical to Enyo and other web technologies. It is extensively supportive of HTML5 and CSS3. Standards-compliance is important to developers because they can use technologies like Enyo to develop cross-platform web applications that already work well on webOS” Fred Patton, webOS team

As for the Open webOS Governance Model, that’s been based on the Apache way and laid out as follows:

• Open webOS will made available under the Apache license, Version 2.0.
• Open webOS will use the contributor committal model in use on most open source projects.
• Open webOS will be segmented into multiple projects to give developers ample opportunity to join and remain active in the development effort.
• The Open webOS project website will host a wiki, a source code repository, a mailing list, and a bug tracking system.
• We will use Github or an equivalent tool to as the code repository.
• We will use JIRA or an equivalent tool to track issues.
• Our plan is to allow multiple committers to branch and merge code in the open to allow multiple development branches to occur at once.

These latest releases keep pace with HP’s schedule of open-sourcing webOS, which has been broken down into a series of monthly milestones. Together with Enyo, released last month, today’s tools supposedly allow for ”an immersive user environment that can be built on any web platform”, something we think Mozilla might be pleased about. Iris is compatible with HP TouchPad devices running webOS 3.0.5, meanwhile.

Facebook has plenty of mobile users – in fact in December 2011 over half of active members accessed the site via a mobile device – but it has very little control over that experience. So far, the social network hasn’t even monetized them: mobile visitors don’t see adverts, and in fact Facebook has cautioned potential investors that, if the current situation continues, it could actually see a reduction in revenue despite rising membership. However, it’s being subject to the whims of Apple and Google that really cause sleepless nights.

“We are dependent on the interoperability of Facebook with popular mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as Android and iOS,” Facebook wrote in its IPO filing. “Any changes in such systems that degrade our products’ functionality or give preferential treatment to competitive products could adversely affect Facebook usage on mobile devices.”

The answer, of course, is to build a platform of Facebook’s own: the until-now mythical Facebook Phone. Back in mid-2011, when HP was still floundering with webOS and receiving plenty of uninvited suggestions as to what it should do with the mobile platform, several people painted Facebook as a potential suitor. Then, the idea was that Facebook should buy webOS wholesale from HP, with the computer company likely to cut a good deal if it could get the platform off its hands.

Now, though, there’s no need for Facebook to open its wallet – at least not initially. HP is giving webOS away, having released it under an open-source license. It also addresses an early criticism of the first bout of Facebook-buying-webOS speculation: that it would leave the social network responsible for not only maintaining its own mobile software and services, but a variety of apps out of its usual beat. Browser, email client, calendar app: they’d all have to be dealt with.

Under HP’s open-source plans, though, it will take responsibility for keeping webOS up to date. In fact, the company has said we can expect a significant release every month for the next six or seven, and there’ll be further attention beyond that too. Facebook already has arguably the best dedicated mobile app for its site on the TouchPad, too, a useful shortcut when its app strategy has, until now, been lackluster.

There’d be room in such a scheme for HP to profit, too. Back when the company announced it would be open-sourcing webOS, it also said it would wait to see what third-party adoption was like before deciding whether or not to build a new generation of devices on the platform. At the time, that seemed unlikely, with all the most obvious names each tied up in their own existing mobile strategy: HTC and Samsung had plenty on their hands with Android and Windows Phone, Apple has iOS, Nokia had thrown in with Microsoft, and LG was pushing away trying to reclaim market-share with what it already had.

If a significant name like Facebook jumped onboard, though, that could prove a major draw to webOS. Something certainly sufficient to get HP thinking about whether its own phones and/or tablets might make sense. webOS struggled for the large part because there was no single reason why it was better than Android or iOS: no one point of appeal that HP could build a promotional campaign around. Facebook’s 800m users would certainly be an instant audience.

It’ll take more than just open-source to get a webOS Facebook phone off the ground. After all, Android is free to use, and the social network is still believed to have struggled with that. The core problem at the time, it’s suggested, was money: Facebook management had simply underestimated quite how much building a device from scratch costs.

Those naive failures pushed the company into the arms of HTC and others, resulting in devices like the Salsa and ChaCha; phones bearing the Facebook brand but with software entirely the handiwork of HTC itself and caution from Mark Zuckerberg that, rather than being the true “Facebook Phones”, they were examples of how the social site could be integrated into mobile.

The opportunity to show the definitive example of that is finally coming together, though. Facebook will soon have the cash to invest significantly into a mobile strategy of its own, along with access to an OS that’s been significantly under-developed but still has the backing of a major player in the computing space. Think of it as the social network’s “Nexus” moment only, unlike Google, the focus isn’t on the core software but the overall user experience. Your social life, the new Open Graph apps, Facebook’s existing strengths in games, all colliding.

Facebook knows a huge part of its future will be taking social mobile. Soon enough, Mark Zuckerberg and Co. will have the cash to show its 800m+ users exactly how it believes Facebook on the move should look.

HP subsequently decided to release webOS as an open-source package, turning its focus back to PCs, laptops and Windows-based tablets.

However, while many have blamed HP for mishandling the webOS acquisition and the few devices the company launched running the software, Rubinstein himself has also been fingered for some of the blame. Sources within the company claim he selected WebKit for the underlying engine for webOS with little understanding of the technical challenges that would involve.

“We just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design” Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm claims, insisting that Rubinstein’s decision meant webOS phones and tablets would never be as slick in their performance as, say, Apple’s celebrated iPhone.

Rubinstein has “no immediate plans” according to the sources. Before his tenure at Palm, the exec worked at Apple, where he was instrumental in the company’s first generation iPod project.

Enyo will allow developers to create Open webOS applications that work browser independent, this meaning that WebKit will not be necessary, browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, and more working in this environment. This will allow webOS move beyond the hardware it’s been reliant on thus far and allow it to work natively in any browser. This should, if HP has aimed correctly, allow the ecosystem to be built, rebuilt, and grow.

HP has stated that they expect a major release of new software every one of the next six or seven months at least, these changes blowing the lid off of webOS with each iteration – in a good way! The whole project will be moving to the Apache 2.0 license wherever an yes, the rumors are true, switching to the standard Linux kernel. TouchPad owners can expect a new full webOS build by the end of Summer while hack-friendly folks will certainly be able to move forward sooner than that.

You can download Enyo right now from the brand new EnoJS.com, and expect webOS in the coming months – but none too soon. You can also follow Enyo specifically on Twitter if you wish: @enyojs

HP has also mentioned that all webOS devices out there today may very well be updated to a new version this year, they “looking” to see how viable they are in the short term. What you’re seeing above is a calendar showing off the different upgrades and releases that will happen throughout the year ending in September where we’re sure more additions will be made when the time is ripe. This all seem fabulous to you, webOS lovers?

[via HP Palm]

HP announced back in December that it would release webOS as an open-source platform, ending several months of speculation that the company could sell off or simply axe altogether the OS it acquired from Palm. The decision came after HP proved it could not commercialize webOS on its own; sales of the first webOS tablet, the HP TouchPad, were so unpromising that the company axed it within months.

Veghte thus faces the difficult challenge of best positioning HP in the computing and cloud markets, segments where PC sales have slowed and Apple dominates with its tightly-constructed ecosystem of devices and services. Nonetheless, it seems HP reckons the exec can manage it.

“Every 10 to 15 years, fundamental shifts occur in the IT industry that redefine how technology is delivered” HP CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement. “From mainframes to client/server to the internet, companies that identified the opportunity first and developed the right strategy came out on top. As we move forward, HP intends to stay on top.”

The iPhone 4S launch, it’s suggested, ate heavily into Android sales demand. iPhone purchases kicked off at 25.1-percent of new buys in October 2011, with Android phones monopolizing sales at 61.6-percent, but Apple demand grew to 38.8-percent and then 44.5-percent in November and December respectively, while Android demand dipped to 48.7-percent and 46.9-percent of new buyer acquisitions in the final two months of the year.

In December, 57-percent of new iPhone buyers opted for an iPhone 4S, according to the research firm.

As for other platforms, RIM’s market share for BlackBerry devices sits at 14.9-percent among all smartphone owners, though demand in Q4 was down to just 6-percent of those shopping for handsets in the period. Windows Phone is at 1.3-percent, with a slight uptick in Q4 interest, while Symbian, webOS and Windows Mobile all saw dwindling interest.

“We are well on our way in terms of progress” the team says, and “hope to give you something to play with soon.” Right now there are only two main outstanding issues to overcome: the camera doesn’t work, and video playback isn’t supported. Work on the latter is apparently ongoing.

That still means there’s plenty to see today, including Angry Birds and some smooth animated fish rendering. Connectivity – WiFi and Bluetooth – are both supported and functional, but the CM team still isn’t giving a fixed estimate on when TouchPad owners might be able to actually download the new ROM.

[via Engadget]

The webOS 3.0.5 update will bring a few additional features and some bug fixes, including new support for HTTP live streaming, faster calendar switching, and improved stability when handling videos and MP3s. The full list is shown below:

– Faster switching between Day, Week, and Month views, and faster event display in Calendar.
– Faster scrolling when reading an email message.
– Email attachments are now saved with draft messages.
– Added sender photos and IM presence indicators in Email.
– Improved stability when watching video in the Web app.
– Improved handling of MP3s that are transferred from a computer using USB Drive mode.
– Added a dedicated view of contacts available for a video call, for quicker setup of a video call.
– New alert when video quality might be lower because of network issues.
– When typing, pressing the space bar twice inserts a period. This can be toggled on and off.
– Auto-correction can be turned off directly from the onscreen keyboard.
– Added support for HTTP Live Streaming.

Additionally, HP has rolled out an update to webOS 2.2.4 for the unlocked Pre 2 on AT&T and Verizon, and unlocked Pre 3 phones. For the Pre 2 expect improvements in Skype voice calling and messaging and overall messaging, calendar and contacts enhancements.

[via PhoneNews]

WebKit’s shortcomings, and an accelerated development timescale that forced each app to be initially built from scratch, then subsequently rebuilt by Palm and again for the second time by HP as the webOS framework took shape, resulted in significant returns. Palm saw “extremely high return rates” of the original Pre, a former apps employee claims, as early-adopters discovered it was sluggish and unstable.

webOS also suffered significantly from the loss of Matias Duarte, who jumped ship to Google in May 2010. Known as the architect of the webOS user experience, Duarte’s departure opened the door to in-fighting and power grabbing as HP got to grips with the newly-acquired platform.

“[Matias Duarte] was WebOS … When he left, the vacuum was just palpable. What you’re seeing is frankly a bunch of fourth- and fifth-stringers jumping onto WebOS in the wake of Duarte’s leaving” Unnamed former webOS team member

Since then, HP has been through a number of CEOs and has decided to make webOS open-source. HP has left the door open for potential future hardware running the platform, though that is believed to be heavily dependent on whether webOS finds favor among third-party hardware and software producers. That, Mercer suggests, is still unlikely, as the root performance issues of WebKit remain.

It’s no surprise then that HP had a hard time finding any takers. The value of Palm had dropped significantly since HP’s purchase and the WebOS platform flopped with HP’s TouchPad fiasco and smartphone fumbles with the Pre 3 and Veer. HP was rumored to be in talks with Amazon, Samsung, Intel, Facebook and several others.

The initial asking price of $1.2 billion was likely lowered, but the source suggests that the value would have to be lower than $500 million for any serious considerations. It probably didn’t help that HP also demanded continued access to WebOS for use in its printers.

[via VentureBeat]

You’ll get a full hands-on treatment with this device courtesy of the Nation right below this paragraph, including no less than benchmarks, Ken Burns effects sliding in and out, and Asphalt 6 running quite nicely for superior racing action. As they say, webOS 3.0 works “without compromise” on this smaller device, and it’s a pretty big bummer that the device will never see the light of day because it’s certainly not the least impressive tablet in the history of mobile. On the other hand, the cameras aren’t fantastic, the tablet is thick, and again, this tablet will never be sold to the public.

For a much more interesting and relevant vision for you the consumer, if that’s who you are, head to our timeline below to see how the released version of the TouchPad worked out over the past year. It’s a hundred-dollar madness fest you’ll never want to forget! That, and the idea that there might be SOME TouchPad Go units out there in the wild able to be hacked up is an interesting thought to think through. Let’s run some iOS on that mother!

[via WebOSNation]