Hasta La Gadget!

With the proliferation of Ultrabooks, laptops are shipping with fewer ports and smaller screens. One of the benficiaries of the streamlined designs is DisplayLink, whose technology can turn a single USB port into a bevy of connections. At IDF 2012, the company showed off new gear from several vendors, including EVGA, HP, Lenovo and Targus. First, there’s a handsome little puck from EVGA, called the UV Plus+39, that plugs into your laptop’s USB 2 or 3.0 socket to grant you HDMI and DVI output at up to 2048 x 1152 resolution for $85. Next up, Lenovo’s self-explanatory USB 3.0 to DVI adapter that supports the same max resolution as the Plus+39 for $80. Lastly, a pair of docks from Targus and HP. HP’s 3005pr USB 3.0 Port Replicator turns your laptop’s USB 3.0 port into four USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, one HDMI, DisplayPort, and RJ-45 jacks, plus audio in and out connections for a mere $150. Targus’ $250 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Dual Video Docking Station has similar connectivity to HP’s solution, but swaps DisplayPort for DVI and adds the ability to charge 90W laptops using its included array of power adapters. Having trouble deciding which one’s for you? Perhaps our photos in the gallery below will help you decide.

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.

Filed under: Peripherals

DisplayLink shows off adapters and docks from HP, Lenovo, EVGA and Targus at IDF 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Sep 2012 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in 2010, when HP acquired Palm, hopes were high about the company. The $1.2 billion deal allowed HP to make use of Palm’s OS on its tablets and smartphones. It was expected that the deal would finally allow HP to take off in the smartphone market.

But all these hopes came crashing down when webOS devices absolutely failed to gain traction. Since then, HP has focused on its traditional PC market and was not expected to come back to making smartphones anytime soon. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: WebOS write-off costs HP $3.3B, HP resurrects WebOS using Gram ,

After purchasing Palm, putting webOS on smartphones and tablets, and then giving up, it seems that HP has finally decided it needs to offer a smartphone. Pressured on the point in an interview with Fox Business, HP’s CEO Meg Whitman said that the company “ultimately has to offer a smartphone.” But when, where, how, and what are still up in the air. More »

Having unceremoniously ditched its webOS phone strategy, HP is planning to release a new smartphone as a point of entry device for emerging markets, the company’s CEO has revealed. “We have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device” Meg Whitman told Fox Business News, though the chief exec did not say when the first new HP phone might be on the market, only that it wouldn’t be a rush-job.

“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]

HP smartphone in pipeline confirms CEO is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The HP SpectreONE ultra-thin all-in-one PC features a 23.6-inch flush-glass full HD display and a unique curved back. Measuring at just 11.5 millimeters thin, the computer is equipped with the third generation Intel Core processor with an nVidia GeForce 2GB graphics card, optional ExpressCache and optional SSD. It also delivers connectivity with HP’s TouchZone near-field communication (NFC) technology and a full array of ports, including two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI-in and a Beats Audio headphones jack. The HP SpectreONE will be launched in November 2012 for $1,299 upwards. [Engadget]