In John’s review of the new HP TouchPad, he claimed that “WebOS is the real star of this show. The OS offers true multi-tasking and uses a system of “cards” and “stacks” to display active applications.” I think it’s worthwhile to remind everyone that WebOS is built atop the Linux kernel, and that has several interesting ramifications. HP has continued Palm’s dedication to user experience, and WebOS should make it abundantly clear that “Linux” need not be synonymous with “complex and arcane”. But there’s a lot more than just superficial window dressing to consider.
Read on for more. → Read More
HP’s webOS tablet, the TouchPad, doesn’t officially hit until July 1st, but that hasn’t stopped some of the big retailers from putting their demo units out for the public to fondle. Sure, you could just watch the official demo videos, but nothing beats actually seeing something in action. Or seeing someone else see it in action, as in this YouTube video taken at a Kansas Wal-Mart. No sign of that 7-inch version we heard about, though. Anyway, keep your eyes open come July: we’ll have a full review up as soon as we’re reasonably sure we know what to think of the thing. [via Engadget] → Read More
The world has been waiting for an official Facebook tablet app, and waiting, and waiting. But that app may not appear on the iPad first (although Facebook is working on an iPad app for sure). Instead, Facebook’s first tablet app will appear on the HP TouchPad, which comes out this Friday and runs the WebOS it bought with Palm. Unless the iPad app also launches this week, the TouchPad will become the first tablet with an official Facebook app. Given the tension between Apple and Facebook, a concurrent launch on the iPad seems unlikely. Update: Facebook has reached out to clarify that “this app was not built by Facebook but by HP.”
How do I know? I got my hands on some screenshots of the Facebook app for the TouchPad. You can see them here. But what I wonder is if this is also what the app will look like on the iPad. All I can say for sure is that these pics are from Facebook’s tablet app running on WebOS. → Read More
You don’t hear news like this too often these days, but according to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, HP is planning to shift part of its notebook production from China to Japan in the next few months. The Californian company plans to eventually manufacture all computers for sale in Japan in factories in Akishima near Tokyo. → Read More
If you are reading TechCrunch you probably already realize this fact: Flavor-of-the-month consumer Internet companies have a way of hogging the spotlight. If you didn’t, we conveniently published some evidence of it yesterday.
But that reality predates us by at least a decade. In 1999 when the world talked about Silicon Valley, they usually meant sexy dot coms. In 2005 when people were writing headlines about “the return of Silicon Valley,” a lot of people working in technology were justifiably irritated. After all, tech behemoths like eBay, Yahoo, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard never exactly left.
That focus on the sexy, social, consumer Web over everything else has only gotten more pronounced as those many of those one-time flavors of the month like Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and Groupon have become bonafide giants. The difference is that now the divergence in attention actually makes sense. → Read More
If you look at how Apple fares on the public markets today, compared to other tech powerhouses, you’ll notice that the Cupertino computer giant is currently valued at roughly $301 billion, which is close to the sum of the market cap of three of its closest rivals: Microsoft (~$200.3 billion), Hewlett-Packard (~$72.8 billion) and Dell (~$29.3 billion).
Market cap is of course just one metric – and arguably not even the best one – to make comparisons between companies. It is, nevertheless, a most excellent trend barometer and a simple way to compare valuations. → Read More
The HP Touchpad, the great Palm hope of tablet lovers everywhere, will be officially available for $500 for 16GB and $600 for 32GB on July 1 in the United States. It will be available in the UK, France, and Germany “a few days later” and Canada in mid-July. The rest of the world will see it trickle out over the summer.
We’ve been waiting for the Touchpad since February and, in a few short months, it has appeared to be ready for launch a few times until June looked like the target date. Sadly, it was not to be but that is remedied by this jubilant news.
Check out our hands-on here and read the PR after the jump. → Read More
Speaking at All Things D’s D9 conference today, HP CEO Leo Apotheker answered some audience questions and cleared up some concerns over whether webOS would simply be HP’s exclusive in-house OS, or whether they would be spreading it around.
When asked about the licensing situation, Apotheker responded that “It’s a great OS — why wouldn’t we want to offer it to other companies?” → Read More
HP! SanDisk just crashed your party! Deep in the seedy show that is Computex Taipei, SanDisk is showing off one of its latest partner devices. Yep, they have a fully functional HP Touchpad
The SanDisk booth rep seems rather excited to show it off in front of the camera and runs through nearly all its functions in the 4:49 video. Overall the device seems to have changed very little since we played with it at its launch back in February. The biggest improvement seems to be the response time. It wasn’t exactly slow before, but it seems downright snappy now. → Read More
Video conferencing company Polycom is acquiring the assets of HP’s Visual Collaboration business, including the Halo Products and Managed Services business according to a release issued by both companies this morning. The acquisition, which is valued at $89 million, is expected to close in Q3 2011.
Part of the deal, HP and Polycom have established a strategic relationship in which Polycom will be an exclusive provider to HP for telepresence, including both resale and internal HP deployments. The two companies have also agreed to make Polycom’s video applications available for HP’s WebOS platform and TouchPad line. → Read More
HP’s upcoming tablet, the Touchpad and not the PalmPad in case you missed the memo, will be better than number one. You could call it number one plus. That’s exactly what HP’s European head recently stated at a conference in Cannes and this silly quote is now spreading around the gadget blogosphere.
The Touchpad will likely be a great; HP doesn’t make bad hardware. It will likely be solid, reliable and well built. That’s not good enough, though. Look at Honeycomb tablets right now. Most of those, especially the Xoom, fits that description yet it can’t find a footing in the still-niche market. It’s all about the ecosystem and I’m very curious how HP thinks the Touchpad will overtake the iPad and the App Store. → Read More
If this leaked internal listing is legit, it looks like HP’s TouchPad will be coming to Wal-Mart for $599 for a 32GB model. We heard that it would be $699 earlier, and likely that price will still exist for the 64GB version. Will there be a cheapie one for $499? No word. We’re pretty sure it’s going to hit in June, though, so stay tuned for further leaks as the launch date approaches. [via SlashGear] → Read More
It’s looking like the HP TouchPad and HP Pre 3 aren’t too far away from release. Back at the Think Beyond event in February, the devices were promised to appear this “summer,” and since then, a more specific time frame has been laid out. According to multiple statements made by HP CEO Leo Apotheker, the HP TouchPad should show up in June. But what about the Pre 3? → Read More
Why is this man smiling? HP’s new Datapass service works with HP’s latest crop of WLAN compatible laptops and includes wireless coverage throughout most parts of the US (essentially anywhere you get Sprint access.) Download prices are pretty steep: $5 for 75MB and $30 for 1GB but they are offering 100MB free to new trial customers. → Read More
Here comes the Veer! Is the world ready for a 2.6-inch touchscreen phone? Who knows! That’s the fun part. HP just sent out invites to a May 2nd “Launch Party” which, as the name suggests, is likely for the launch of the Veer. However, Monday May 2nd might not be the day the Veer hits the general retail market although the first week of May sounds about right. Now this doesn’t seem like a press event — at least we didn’t get an invite. Instead it seems that this is for retail associates of some level because after registering, a note pops up indicated that a Best Buy or AT&T ID or business card is required to attend. AT&T, eh? Yeah, the small phone hitting the ol’ telephone & telegraph company. Of course the rest of the pertinent launch info is missing. Pricing and exact launch date isn’t mentioned in the invite. Hopefully HP and AT&T doesn’t price this phone out of its likely niche market. Anything more than the $50 iPhone 3GS will doom the Veer in a Kin-sort of way. [Cvent via PreCentral] → Read More
The very first generation of Google Cloud Print-ready printers have been loaded onto the trucks, and are en route to your local gadget shop. HP calls the technology ePrint, and it’s found on its range of Photosmart, Officejet, and LaserJet Pro printers. → Read More
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