Palm announces webOS platform

Palm just got official with its new webOS platform, running on the new Palm Pre. According to the company, anyone who knows CSS, HTML and XML will be able to develop for the OS without having to learn any new languages — sounds kind of like it’s a jacked up browser with memory management, like Google Chrome. The UI itself is simple and touch-based, with flick scrolling through lists and gesture support that goes “beyond the screen.” The launcher comes up over apps without leaving them, and you can quit apps by just swiping up — multiple apps and windows are managed using a “deck of cards” metaphor. The Synergy sync system automatically manages your contacts — all you have to do is log into Facebook, Google, and Outlook. You also get consolidated IM from multiple services — so, so sweet. Typing on the keyboard brings up an instant search which pulls up apps, contacts, and even web queries. All apps have access to an Android-like popup notification system, and urgent messages pop up, causing running apps to automatically resize so you can see everything. There’s also a dockable control area that any app can use for persistent controls — Palm’s using it for its music player, for example. More pics after the break!

Update: The press release is now live.

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Palm announces webOS platform originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Casio outs Exilim EX-Z400, EX-Z270, EX-S12, and EX-S5 shooters

Four more compact cameras from Casio: EX-Z400, EX-Z270, EX-S12, and “sleek and sturdy” EX-S5. The top end of these lower-end shooters is the Z400 (pictured above) which features a wide-angle 28mm, 4x optical zoom, 3.0-inch LCD, CCD-shift anti-shake, and 550-shot battery. The Z270 drops the LCD down to 2.7-inches while the 12.1 megapixel S12 drops the zoom to 3x. Bringing up the rear is the 10.1 megapixel EX-S5 with YouTube capture mode for those who want (or need, frankly) to keep it simple. Sorry no 30fps burst or super slow mo’ in this lot. Prices will range from $300 for the Z400 on down to $180 for the S5 when these pop for retail in March.

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Casio outs Exilim EX-Z400, EX-Z270, EX-S12, and EX-S5 shooters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Casio’s EX-FS10 and EX-FC100 compacts burst faster than your DSLR

Casio knows a thing or two about high-speed image capture as demonstrated over the last year and half. Now they’ve squashed that innovative circuitry and imaging technology into compact cameras offering high-speed 30 shots-per-second, 6 megapixel still image burst rates and high-speed movies at up to 1,000 fps. Amazingly, Casio’s 9.1 megapixel EX-FS10 does this in a 16.3-mm thin compact shooter with a not so amazing 2.5-inch LCD and 3x zoom lacking any kind of optical image or sensor stabilization. The 9.1 megapixel EX-FC100 is larger thanks to a 5x zoom, 2.7-inch LCD and CMOS anti-shake technology — yet it’s still small enough to easily fit in the palm of your hand unlike Casio’s other fast bursting cams. These compacts will (attempt to) automatically select only the best image (no blur, eyes opened, subject smiling) captured in high-speed burst mode or slow things down on the viewer so that you can select the best image yourself. HD movies? Yup, that too in a 720p pixel resolution. Of course you also get that goofy ability to insert moving subjects into static images. The EX-FS10 should hit by March for $350 in blue, gray, red and white while the EX-FC100 will roll out in gray and white for $400.

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Casio’s EX-FS10 and EX-FC100 compacts burst faster than your DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Firebird with Voodoo DNA hands-on

We just hit up HP’s booth to check out the new Firebird gaming rig, and it’s pretty slick looking, although it’s a lot bigger than we expected / hoped. The side panels are actually a cool translucent smoke finish, and the blue LED lighting might be the first classy gaming PC light kit we’ve ever seen. HP was demoing the Firebird with Left 4 Dead and Crysis, and the gamers on hand seemed pretty pleased — we’ll have see how the $1,799 machine’s 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad and dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800S graphics cards benchmark out when it’s released on February 1st. Check it all in the gallery!

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HP Firebird with Voodoo DNA hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live: Palm Keynote

In a few moments, we will see the fruits of the Palm team’s many months of labor, and the Palm fan’s answer to what the Post-Treo revolution looks like. Updates.

It’s a lot for them to live up to, but we’re resetting our expectations and approaching the lagging company’s new model line with an open mind.

We’re guessing we’ll see a brand new phone, perhaps running the new OS, but who knows. What we do know so far is that Palm is rumored to announce a touchscreen slider running the Nova operating system, that according to descriptions, is squarish in appearance.

Palm first announced plans to release a new operating system back in May 2007, but they’ve delayed it so many times, I’m halfway convinced this event is just to announce they’re delaying it again.

10:40 AM: This event has a more epic feel than the average CES press conference. I’ve already seen a lot of recognizable faces around here, including the omnipresent Robert Scoble. As someone said nearby, “it feels Apple-y.”

10:45 AM: I’m getting the feeling that Palm is trying to seduce us with the romantic mood lighting, mellow music, and abundance of Vitamin Water. Is this their attempt at a reality distortion field?

10:55 AM: Not a lot going on right now, but Palm’s product marketing manager is talking big game about the upcoming announcements (in vague terms, of course). She says we should be pleased.

11:01 AM: Event starting. Jon Rubenstein is talking about how he used to work at Apple. Then he packed up and moved to Mexico.

11:04 AM: Rubenstein says that mobile devices are the next wave of technology. This might be the obvious statement of the day.

11:06 AM: Jon Rubenstein has just brought Palm CEO Ed Colligan up to the stage.

11:07 AM: Colligan says lifestyle and usability is more important to Palm than raw features and “buttons”. Talking about the instant on capability of the original Palm Pilot as an example. He wants to try and make the technology “invisible”.

“Mobile is in our DNA. We don’t do computers, we don’t do refrigerators or set top boxes. We do mobile.”

11:08 AM: It’s interesting how Palm has to resell itself today, but is reaching back to its roots. In contrast, Jobs believes that looking back means being crushed.

11:10 AM: Colligan says he has a new twist on the same product. Talking about how we use so many websites and our data is all over the place. Smartphones let you browse that information, but they don’t make it easy to access it. Simplicity seems to be the overarching theme here.

Colligan suggests it would be cool if we could seamlessly have our images from Facebook show up in the same place as our email and calendars.

11:14 AM: The whole new Palm OS is built with developers in mind. Developing apps, Colligan claims, is so easy.

New device coming now!! It’s called the Palm Pre.

Palm Pre “will help you live your life more effectively.” The design looks like an oblong rounded rectangle.

It has a 3.1 inch 480×320 multitouch screen that slides vertically to reveal a keyboard. The slider action is curved, sort of like the SE Xperia X1. It also has 3MP Camera, LED Flash, EVDO rev.A, WiFi, bluetooth, a gesture area on the screen for navigation and use, a removable battery, micro USB, USB mass storage support,and a 3.5mm Headphone Jack.

There’s a gesture zone between the screen and button that lets you carry out pre-programmed actions with a few finger movements.

11:21 AM: The new UI is called Web OS, and it’s designed to be so simple, you only need to focus on the information and content you want, not the OS itself.

They’re demoing the Web OS UI right now. It looks a really responsive, aesthetically appealing design. It has alot of the same flick navigation as the iPhone and it looks really polished. The UI has a quick view that organizes data into “Cards” that can be rotated with your finger and it shuffles from card to card.




The phone itself reminds me of the Treo 680 in shape, except all there is on the front is a screen and a button. The main UI has a gesture zone, that lets you perform certain


One of the big new features is something called Synergy, which can pull contacts from all your sites (Facebook, Gmail, AIM, etc…), gather and organize them into one coherent list on the Palm Pre. It has dupe checking so you don’t have the same contacts listed multiple times. It does the same thing for calendar events.

Web OS has been designed to work with your finger. All the demos are being done without a keyboard and stylus. Synergy can easily go from checking email, to scheduling meetings in a calendar, to IMing someone in your contact list.

Threaded SMS is still in Web OS, and you can even send IMs from the same window.

You can use the keyboard to do more than send texts and emails. The Pre has a predictive text feature that will bring up menus and apps based on what you type. It will cross reference your input with what you have on your phone, and it presents the info almost like search results. You can even take your input string and look for google results. They call it Universal search.

The web browser has a big URL bar at the top that can also be used to enter a search query. It renders full pages. While demoing the web browser with SF Gate, the presenter became fixated with a link that read “The Joy of Vole Sex.” The crowd got a rise from that.

In other news, web pages render pretty quick, and navigation doesn’t seem choppy at all.

The music UI is now on display. he just went from one “card” to the music UI, selected a song, then quickly switched back to his email screen. The app switching looks really really fluid, and lets you keep all your data in front of you, so you don’t lose track of what you’re doing.

When you’re working in an app, the apps adapt when notifications (texts, emails, missed calls, etc.) pop on on the screen, so you dont get completely sidetracked. When writing a sticky note, for example, the sticky takes up the whole screen, but when you get a notification, the sticky morphs into half size, and the notification takes up the bottom half.

Rubenstein is back on stage, to introduce a wireless, inductive charger for the Palm Pre. It’s called Touchstone. It looks like a hockey puck.

Colligan is back on stage now and says its the “one phone you can use for your entire life and really enjoy it.”

Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint is now on stage. He says Sprint will carry the Pre, and says it will feel comfortable for first time users, and really likes how easily you can move between apps.

Hesse just gave us a shout out on stage! He’s talking about our big 3G Coast to Coast test. He was also sure to mention how well Sprint fared in that test. He then talked business nonsense for a few minutes and disappeared. But he did mention that the Pre will be a good fit on the Sprint network.

The Palm Pre will be available first half 2009, and will have partners such as Facebook, Pandora, Google and others providing content and apps for the phone.

They’re touting how easy app development for Web OS is. You basically just need to know JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

And that’s the end of the event. To recap, we saw the Palm Pre, Web OS, and a movement to integrate the internet seamlessly with these two new products.

Echostar announces Sling Monitor for in-home placeshifting

That funky angled screen is the just announced Sling Monitor (yes Virginia, it is HD), designed to work with the SlingLoaded ViP 922 DVR to take video anywhere in the house via WiFi. With 922, you can perform the usual Sling-type activities streaming video over the net and as many as three devices in the home, including HD over wireless. The model right now is 14.9-inch, but according to President Charlie Ergen nothing definite has been decided yet before the expected launch this summer.

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Echostar announces Sling Monitor for in-home placeshifting originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sennheiser’s HD 800 Headphones: Audiophiles Only Need Apply

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LAS VEGAS — Some people think "audiophile" means "someone who loves music," but they’re wrong. Audiophiles carefully consider their choice in speaker wire and spend thousands, if not tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on their audio set-up. With a lofty price tag of $1400, Sennheiser’s HD 800 headphones are for them.

"It’s going to be the new standard for audiophile headphones," explained Eric Stubbert, industry team manager for consumer electronics at Sennheiser. Like most audiophile headphones, these ones are open, meaning that sound escapes from each side. The key to the HD 800’s wide-ranging frequency response, according to Stubbert, is a "completely new" ring-shaped transducer.

This hole was necessary because Sennheiser increased the size of the transducer to 56 millimeters in its quest for deeper bass, but at that size the transducer was no longer capable of moving fast enough to reproduce high frequencies. The hole to the transducer allows the headphones to reproduce low bass and high treble with clarity.

Each pair of Sennheiser HD 800 headphones is hand-assembled in Germany. Audiophiles might also be pleased to note that the headphones’ cable is made from silver-plated, oxygen-free, Kevlar-reinforced copper.

(Sennheiser is also showing off the wireless earbuds that impressed us last year at CES ’08 — and the year before, when we tested Kleer’s reference design.)





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IPEVO’s Kaleido R7 wireless digital photo frame

IPEVO's Kaleido R7 wireless digital photo frame

Yeah, we know, we’re kinda tired of the whole digital photo frame thing too. Usually their styling is a little too classical, too modern, or just too cheap. So, while perusing the halls at the Digital Experience on the eve of CES, we were happy to see something with a fresh, clean design that also offers plenty of functionality: IPEVO‘s upcoming Kaleido R7. It’s a 7-inch, 800 x 480 TFT LCD with 512MB of memory, plus an SD card slot if you’re into physically moving your pictures around. The idea, though, is to connect wirelessly, and the frame seems able to sync with any tool you like, whether it’s Flickr, Picasa, iPhoto, or just a vanilla RSS feed on a PC or Mac. You can even send pics straight from your iPhone. The frame also can be rotated vertically or horizontally and sports a simple array of controls for navigation. It’s a little bulky, and a little funky, but we like it, and though its $199 asking price is a bit steep if you have tons of photos in tons of places and are looking for a solid way to get them all displayed, this could be a good option when it drops in March.

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IPEVO’s Kaleido R7 wireless digital photo frame originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViewSonic turns off spell check, launches Fuhzion line of 3D display devices

ViewSonic turns off spell check, launches Fuhzion line of 3D display devices

3D displays are hotter than Hansel right now, and ViewSonic is getting in to the new (old) tech of goggle-driven depth with a line of displays dubbed Fuhzion. First up is the 22-inch VX2265wm LCD, announced last year and sounding quite similar to the Samsung 2233RZ from yesterday. It’s a 1680 x 1050, 120Hz panel with a 2ms response rate, enabling it to tackle the quick cycling that will be required to reproduce a 3D image. The other addition to the line is the PJD6220-3D DLP projector, an updated (or at least renamed) version of the company’s existing PJD6220, illuminating 1024 x 768 pixels at 120Hz and a respectable contrast ratio of 2000:1. The projector is due next month for $1,499, while the VX2265wm drops in the next few weeks for a rather more reasonable $399 — another stat that happens to match Samsung’s offering.

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ViewSonic turns off spell check, launches Fuhzion line of 3D display devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vizio presents 240Hz, LED backlit updates to the XVT series

Just nabbed a 55-inch 1080p Vizio XVT for Chrismakwanzika and feeling good about yourself? Consider a return, because the specs on the new models are here and the list is long. Music, 1080p movies (MPEG-2, h.264 & WMV9) or pics from a USB drive? The whole line has that with Vizio’s Multi-media hookup, while LED backlighting, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 5 HDMI ports are kept exclusive to the $1,999 55-inch VF551XVT1A. 42- and 47-inch models share the 240Hz motion technology that’s become so popular with their larger relative, but only rock 50,000:1 contrast and 4 HDMI jacks for $1,099 and $1,399 respectively. 32- and 37-inch aficionados can expect 120Hz refresh rates for $749 and $999 respectively when they ship in the fall, while the rest of the pack are summer babies. Of course, by then you’d probably want to wait for a Connected HDTV….we love this time of year.

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Vizio presents 240Hz, LED backlit updates to the XVT series originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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