HP TouchPad

At HP's Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas, hardly a word was spoken on their WebOS efforts in 2011. And it's not hard to see why: the few phones and single TouchPad tablet that sprang from the acquisition of Palm bombed so badly that the only wat to recoup losses was a massive fire sale. But surprisingly, HP's new CEO Meg Whitman didn't seem phased: at her keynote this morning, she reiterated HP's commitment to the WebOS platform.

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HP TouchPad owner but webOS 3.0.5 not doing it for you? A delicious, dripping Ice Cream Sandwich may be on its way to you sooner rather than later, with news - and a video demo after the cut - that the CyanogenMod team has managed to get custom Android 4.0-based ROM CM9 running on the short-lived slate.

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The HP TouchPad is getting a few improvements today with an update to webOS 3.0.5. It's not a major update, but it's nice to see that HP is still supporting the discontinued tablet and the webOS ecosystem, which had been teetering on the brink of extinction. Luckily for webOS fans, HP declared open-sourcing the platform last month.

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Angry ex-webOS team members have blamed poor code decisions by software-naive execs for the platform's demise, as well as power struggles amid the OS' adoption by HP. Jon Rubinstein - at the time CEO of Palm - opted for WebKit as the underlying engine on which webOS apps would run, something Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm, tells the NYTimes was a huge mistake. "We just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design" the ex-software chief argued, suggesting that WebKit simply wasn't up to running applications at the same speed as users experienced on, say, the iPhone.

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HP has already made the decision to open source its WebOS platform, but according to a VentureBeat insider source, the company had initially wanted to sell WebOS along with other Palm assets for $1.2 billion. This is the same amount that HP paid when it acquired Palm back in 2010, meaning it was trying to offload a failing purchase without taking a loss.

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It's an odd situation we're in here with HP's webOS mobile operating system now being open sourced and its TouchPad tablet having had such a summer that we'll never forget - and it's all come to a new strange point as the folks at webOSNation have gotten their hands on a tester unit of the smaller version of the tablet for a full review: HP TouchPad Go for the win! What's found, in short, is that this is essentially the same tablet as its larger relative, it's just presented here in a smaller package and at much cuter ratios. They're running webOS 3.0.5, Beats Audio is fully incorporated, and this device's dual-core 1.5GHz processor is in full swing.

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HP's "sell out" TouchPad fire sale saw less than 8,000 of the webOS tablets change hands, official figures have confirmed, arguably making the slate sale more hype than substance. According to the single 16GB eBay listing and two 32GB listings (here and here), HP sold 2,316 of the $99 16GB TouchPad refurbs, and a further 5,534 of the $149 32GB models, for a total of 7,850 units.

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HP's restarted TouchPad fire sale saw eBay brought to its knees on Sunday, as desperate bargain-hunters swamped the auction site and payments provider PayPal in the hope of scooping a $99 tablet. The deal - announced last week - kicked off at 7pm EST with the 16GB TouchPad at $99 and the 32GB model at $149. Unsurprisingly, the cheaper model was gone within minutes.

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While the good news that webOS as a mobile operating system would now be Open Source did come down the chute with much rejoicing this early afternoon, HP's stance on no future with HP hardware for the OS remains true. As it was announced earlier this summer right before The Great TouchPad Exodus of 2011, HP will no longer be producing hardware with webOS on it natively. This of course doesn't mean that someone couldn't hack a bit of the ol' webOS onto an HP product in the future if they wanted to, but their current status with webOS is the same as the rest of the "other leading operating systems" at the moment.

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This week HP announced that their mobile operating system webOS will be contributed to the open source community. While HP assures us that they will be active in the development and support of webOS in the future, they're now offering the operating system up to the "development power" of the open source community where they're sure both applications and web services will be developed en masse for the next generation of mobile devices. HP assures developers that webOS offers a number of benefits backed up by an easy to work with set of standard web technologies - in short, here you go world, have fun!

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HP is preparing another fire sale for its HP TouchPad tablets just in time for the holidays. The limited time sale will begin at 6:00PM Central time on Sunday, December 11, and is only available through HP's eBay store. Both the 16GB and 32GB models will be available, but quantities are limited.

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HP will announce a decision regarding the future of webOS within the next two weeks, CEO Meg Whitman has confirmed, as the company attempts to hold off Apple and readies its first Windows 8 tablet. Apple could well overtake HP in 2012, Whitman said in interview with French paper Le Figaro, though the chief exec said the products she has introduced into the pipeline should make the company more competitive when they arrive in 2013.

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