Earlier today, Hewlett-Packard announced the upcoming release of webOS 2.0 and the Palm Pre 2. This announcement doesn’t come much of a surprise though due to numerous “leaks” that have spread all over the Internet prior to this event. WebOS 2.0‘s main features include – Multitasking, Just type, HP Synergy and Exhibition. The Palm Pre 2 on the other hand will feature a glass screen, a 1 GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera, a vivid touchscreen and a sleeker, streamlined design.

The Palm Pre 2 will launch this coming Friday, October 22 in France and will be available soon here in the U.S. via the Verizon Wireless network and also in Canada. Retail price and release date (U.S.) are not yet available as of this time. I’m sure Hewlett-Packard will do everything it can to make sure that the Palm Pre 2 sells better than it’s predecessor which badly undersold to company expectations.

What do you guys think of the Palm Pre 2? Will it do better than it’s predecessor? Anyone planning on getting a Palm Pre 2 when it becomes available here in the U.S. or in your local store?

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

HP Introduces webOS 2.0, the Next Generation of Mobile Innovation

Coming first on new Palm Pre 2 in France, the United States and Canada

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 19, 2010

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HP today announced HP webOS 2.0, the most significant update to the platform since its launch in 2009 and a substantial step in HP’s vision to transform how people think, feel and connect.

The first device to run webOS 2.0, HP’s new Palm Pre 2 smartphone, will be available Friday in France from SFR and is scheduled to be available in the coming months in the United States from Verizon Wireless and in Canada.

“With webOS 2.0, we’re advancing the innovations we introduced 16 months ago, expanding the features that make webOS great for consumers, enterprises and developers,” said Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager, Palm Global Business Unit, HP. “We’ve made tremendous strides since the platform launched, and now we’re taking our biggest leap forward with powerful new features that make it easier to get more things done with your webOS device.”

webOS 2.0 offers consumers compelling application experiences not available on any other platform, while providing developers an unparalleled level of openness to integrate their applications and services. The next generation of webOS makes it easier to get more done:

• True Multitasking – Pause a game, tap an email notification, check your calendar, read a restaurant review, send an email reply, then switch back to the game without closing anything.^(1,2) webOS lets you easily manage multiple open applications and notifications using natural touch gestures. New in webOS 2.0, Stacks logically groups together your open apps so they work the way you do. Whether you’re reading email or planning a night on the town, Stacks keeps related items together so managing multiple tasks is even easier.
• Just Type – Start an email, create a message, update your status, search your favorite websites – all before you’ve even opened an app.⁽¹⁾ With webOS 2.0, whenever you want to do something on your phone – whether it’s emailing, texting, searching or almost anything – just type. And Just Type is open to developers, so they can integrate with the search function and add their own user-customizable shortcuts, called Quick Actions.
• HP Synergy – webOS was the first mobile OS to connect you seamlessly to multiple web services. With the Synergy feature, you just have to sign in to your Facebook, Google, Microsoft® Exchange, LinkedIn and Yahoo! accounts and your information automatically populates your phone.⁽³⁾ webOS 2.0 will extend the support for Synergy so developers can easily plug new Messaging, Contacts and Calendar application sources directly into the core webOS experiences.⁽⁴⁾
• Exhibition – A new way to use your webOS phone, Exhibition lets you run apps designed specifically for the Palm Touchstone Charging Dock, turning charge time into useful time.^(4,5) Set your phone on the dock and Exhibition launches automatically, showing you anything from today’s agenda to a slideshow of your Facebook photos. Exhibition will enable developers to display aspects of their existing app experience or create specialized apps for use when users have their webOS device in charge mode on the charging dock.
• Adobe® Flash Player 10.1 Beta – With version 2.0, webOS now supports a beta of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 in the browser, which provides access to rich, Flash-based web content.⁽⁶⁾

webOS 2.0 also includes many more new features, including the following:

• Favorites – With webOS 2.0, you can tag your favorite contacts so they appear as favorites in Phone and Contacts views. When you search for them by name, they instantly show up at the top of the Contacts, Email, Messaging and Phone apps. Favorites make it simple to get in touch fast.
• Skype Mobile™ (Verizon Wireless only) – For Verizon Wireless customers, webOS 2.0 supports Skype-to-Skype calls and messaging while in the United States to anywhere in the world, and low-rate calls to international landlines and cell phones.
• Text Assist – webOS 2.0 offers greatly expanded capabilities to spell check, auto correct, set up macros and customize the dictionary.
• Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite – An all-new document viewer from the leading provider of mobile document viewers offers support for Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and provides integration with a variety of services, including Google Docs and Dropbox.
• Facebook 2.0 – Available via the Palm App Catalog, Facebook 2.0 will support Facebook IM via Synergy in the Messaging application,⁽⁴⁾ as well as Stacks, status updates via Quick Action and the Exhibition feature.
• Browser – The browser adds support for more HTML5 features, including geolocation support. OpenSearch plug-in support makes it easy to add your favorite websites to Just Type web search.
• Messaging – The unified Messaging app in webOS 2.0 adds Yahoo! IM and buddy management. Customers can now connect to their buddies through SMS, MMS, Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM.
• VPN – webOS 2.0 supports the most popular ways to connect to a corporate network, including IPsec and Cisco AnyConnect mobile-optimized VPN, which supports SSL (TLS and DTLS).
• App Catalog – The redesigned Palm App Catalog makes finding and discovering great apps even easier.⁽⁷⁾ And the new Software Manager helps you keep your apps up-to-date.
• Launcher – A redesigned app launcher lets you add, label and reorder launcher pages.
• Phone – The webOS 2.0 Phone app lets you easily dial your favorites and offers reverse area code lookup and Skype Mobile integration (Skype Mobile for Verizon Wireless only). Accounts – The new Accounts app provides a single place to manage all your Synergy accounts.
• Bluetooth® keyboards – webOS now supports Bluetooth keyboards and Bluetooth SPP peripherals, enabling applications such as barcode readers and realty lock boxes.
• A host of developer features – In addition to Exhibition, Just Type and Synergy APIs, webOS 2.0 adds Node.JS, enabling developers to create services in JavaScript. They also can now use the webOS Plug-In Development Kit (PDK) to combine C/C++ with web technologies in a single app.

More information about the features of webOS 2.0 is available at www.palm.com/softwareupdate.

Introducing Palm Pre 2

HP also introduced the Palm Pre 2 smartphone, the latest evolution to the Palm Pre lineup. Pre 2 is the first Palm phone with a gigahertz processor and features a 5-megapixel camera, a glass screen and a sleeker, streamlined design that still gives users the ideal combination of a vivid touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard.

More information about Palm Pre 2, including features and specifications, is available at www.palm.com/Pre2.

Availability

Palm Pre 2 featuring webOS 2.0 will be available Friday in France from SFR and is scheduled to be available in the coming months in the United States from Verizon Wireless and in Canada. The webOS 2.0 update will be delivered to existing customers in the coming months, with exact timing to be announced at a later date.

Developers will be able to purchase unlocked UMTS versions of Pre 2 in the United States to use as a canvas to build the next generation of webOS applications and services. More information about the purchase program will be available at http://developer.palm.com/devdevices.html.

With the HTC Evo, Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate/T-Mobile Vibrant) and Apple iPhone 4 out in the market, RIM’s (Research In Motion) response and move to keep them in the smartphone game is the release of the BlackBerry Torch 9800.

Aside from the new interface, new Web browser and a number of new apps, what makes the Torch unique is that its the first and only BlackBerry to offer both a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. These features gives the user the option to choose between a physical keyboard or a virtual keypad, making it an ideal choice for users who type a lot – chatting or sending email or text messages all day. The BlackBerry Torch 9800 is only the second BlackBerry device that runs on BlackBerry OS 6.

Product Photos:

Tech Specs:

Display

• 3.2” HVGA+ touch screen (480×360)
• Font size (user selectable)
• Light-sensing and proximity detecting screen

Camera & Video Recording

• 5 MP camera
• Continuous auto-focus
• Image stabilization
• Flash
• 11 scene modes
• 2X digital zoom
• VGA (640×480) video recording
• Geotagging

Battery & Battery Life

• 1300 mAHr removable/rechargeable lithium-ion cell
• Standby Time: GSM® – up to 18 days, UMTS – up to 14 days
• Talk Time: GSM – up to 5.5 hours, UMTS – up to 5.8 hours
• Music Playback: up to 30 hours
• Video Playback: up to 6 hours

Data Input & Navigation

• Trackpad located on front face of device, ESC key to the right, Menu key to the left
• Touch screen with on-screen keyboard: portrait SureType®, QWERTY and multi-tap, landscape QWERTY
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard with backlighting

Voice Input & Output

• 3.5mm stereo headset capable
• Integrated speaker and microphone
• Hands-free headset capable
• Bluetooth headset capable
• Integrated hands-free speakerphone
• M3, T3 (open position only) Rating for hearing aids (PDF)

Media Player

• Windows Media DRM 10 for music & video
• Video format support: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV3
• Audio format support: MP3, AMR-NB, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMV, Flac, Ogg Vorbis

Bluetooth

• Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR; Headset, Handsfree, Serial Port Profile, Stereo Audio (A2DP/AVCRP), SIM Access Profile, Dial-up Networking and Messaging Access Profile.
• Bluetooth Stereo Audio (A2DP/AVCRP)

Memory

• 512 MB flash memory / 512 MB SDRAM
• 4 GB eMMC + 4 GB media card included
• Expandable memory – support for microSD card up to 32 GB

Wi-Fi

• 802.11 b/g/n
• WPA / WPA2 Personal and Enterprise
• Cisco CCX certified
• Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server
• Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry Internet Bundle
• Support for UMA (carrier-dependent)

Wireless Networks

• Tri-band 3G UMTS networks: 2100/1900/850/800 MHz
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks: 850/900/1800/1900MHz

Initial reviews from all over the Internet all point out that the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the best smartphone BlackBerry has ever produced to date. However, it seems being the best BlackBerry smartphone won’t be enough to beat the iPhone and other top smartphones or even capable of winning over iPhone users or users of some of the best Android-powered smartphones.

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 will be available here in the US via AT&T on August 12th and will retail for $199 with a two-year contract.

What do you think of the BlackBerry Torch 9800? For the same price, would you pick it over an iPhone 4, Samsung Captivate or other new Android-powered smartphone? Please share your thoughts.

India recently unveiled a prototype of a $35 touchscreen tablet computer which they plan to mass produce next year. The total cost? $35. The tablet pc will run on Linux, has no internal storage but can store data via memory card. It also has a built-in word processor, video conferencing capabilities, a web browser and last but not least, it can also run on solar power.

Running Linux and using external memory (memory card) enabled the developers to keep the price low. The total cost to build this touchscreen tablet computer including the motherboard, memory, display, etc is around $35 but the Indian government plans to subsidize the cost of these tablets so students and low-income families can avail of them for only $20. Further plans include dropping the price to $10.

At $35, this tablet pc is much better than the $100 laptop developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for the One Laptop One Child Program. If the Indian government will be successful in producing this tablet pc, it would do a lot of good for the students and low-income families in India. Aside from that, this can also be a source of income for the government if they decide to mass produce it and export it to other countries.

I’m sure it will not only be students or low-income families who will be interested in these type of tablet computers. Business and other organizations would definitely be interested in a touchscreen tablet computer that mobile workers can use for word processing, video conferencing and other cloud-based applications that costs less than 10% of the cost of an Apple iPad.

What do you think of India’s $35 tablet pc? Would you be interested in buying one? Aside from students and low-income families, who do you think can benefit from a low cost tablet pc like this? Please share your thoughts.

via BBC News

[image source: AFP]

I love gadgets and everytime I see a new piece of technology or new electronic gadget, I can’t help but get excited. While browsing the web the other day, I came across a concept mobile internet device called the Intel MID designed by Jan Rytir. This sexy piece of gadgetry is a mobile internet device that’s specially designed for internet browsing anywhere.

Based on the design, the Intel MID mobile internet device has the following features: 180x80x20mm dimension, full QWERTY keyboard, OLED touchscreen, trackball, 2 USB slots, microphone and audio input, SD card reader, stereo speakers, docking connector and something unique to this device, 7 completely configurable action buttons.

Additional Images:

Although the Intel MID is a thing of beauty and a totally different device on its own, I can’t help but see the similarity with the Sony Xperia X1. I’m talking about the curved design of the QWERTY keyboard. Based on the design and physical features/specifications, IMO the Intel MID is way better than the iPhone 4G concept. But then again, both of these gadgets are only concept.

So what do you guys think about the sexy Intel MID concept mobile internet device? What other features/specs would you want to see added to it? If this Intel MID concept would be picked up by one of the big companies like maybe HTC and made into a real product, would you get one? If I could afford it, I definitely would!

[via Yanko Design]

The mysterious netbook that had images floating around lately was confirmed today when Lenovo posted teaser images on their photo feed. It turns out to be a concept system called the Lenovo Pocket Yoga which has a very similar design/concept as the Sony Vaio P although this one was conceived two years ago.

Based on the leaked photos, the Lenovo Pocket Yoga has touchscreen support via stylus and has the ability to be converted into a tablet pc by flipping the display backwards.

It looks like Sony is not the only gearing towards creating pocketable netbooks. The Lenovo Pocket Yoga is still considered as an “experiment” or “concept system” and there are no specs available for it as of now but it won’t be surprising if they release it or something similar in the near future.

Additional Photos:

The Lenovo Pocket Yoga looks nice and very portable. This device is ideal for people who are always on the go and need something to do certain tasks while traveling or while out of the office like check emails, create/edit/send documents, take down notes and surf the web. It would be nice if they’d also have it in black leather.

What do you think of Lenovo’s Pocket Yoga concept UMPC? What features would you want it to have? Would you buy one if they released it?

[via Electronista]