Hasta La Gadget!

Oh, hello. A trusted tipster just sent in these internal renders of HP / Palm’s “Topaz” webOS tablet, which is one of two tablets currently being developed in Sunnyvale. That’s right, two tablets: the 9-inch Topaz and a 7-inch model codnamed Opal — a lineup that fits nicely into Palm’s “Something big, Something small, Something beyond” tagline for its upcoming February 9th event. Looking at the render, we’re seeing the no-button design we’d previously heard about (we’re assuming the gesture area rotates with the display), a front-facing camera, a micro USB port on the bottom, and what appears to be a Vizio Tablet-style three speaker arrangement for stereo audio in both landscape and portrait modes — that’s two speakers along the left side and a third on the right. (That’s just a guess, though.) We’d also note the back appears to be a glossy material, which might rule out a giant Touchstone for charging — Touchstone backs have heretofore been soft-touch, but anything can change, we suppose.

We’re told that units will start to arrive at Palm HQ in June as production ramps up for launch later this year — a timeline backed up by an internal marketing slide we received that lists WiFi-only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions of the Opal arriving in September 2011, and on AT&T LTE in July 2012. The slide also indicates the Opal will have a particular e-reading focus, which makes sense for a 7-inch device, and there’s a mention of “premium audio,” which nicely reinforces our speaker hypothesis. Unfortunately, we don’t have any word on specs or pricing yet, but these things had better be packing some serious heat for cheap if Palm is really planning to wait until September to launch them — they’ll be going head-to-head with the Xoom, the PlayBook, and presumably the iPad 2. We’re still digging for more, so keep an eye out — things are going to get crazy leading up to February 9th.

Update: We’re told that they both have unspecified 1.2GHz processors, and that Topaz may arrive before Opal. We’ll let you know if we learn anything else.

Exclusive: HP / Palm’s webOS tablets — pictures, plans, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on October 25, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

HP Slate Will Cost $799
Engadget has both some images and a video of the HP Slate in action, which will run you a cool $799 when it is released. Specs include a 1.86GHz Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB SSD for storage.

Summary of Apple Announcements
If you haven’t read about all of Apple’s announcements last week this will get you up-to-speed on the new MacBook Air, OS X Lion, Mac App Store, and iLife ’11.

Windows 7 Sells 240 Million Licenses
Microsoft announced that in the first year of availability they’ve sold over 240 million licenses of the Windows 7 OS, which makes it the fastest selling operating system in history.

Microsoft Office 365 Available Next Year
The cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 will offer online versions of the Office suite for a monthly fee starting next year.

HP Unveils webOS 2.0
The next generation of Palm Pre and webOS will include things like Flash Player, Skype, an updated Facebook app, and many enhancements throughout the entire operating system.

Hulu Blocks Google TV
Google TV users might be a little discouraged to find out that Hulu doesn’t work, at least for right now. There was a modification you could make to change the user agent, but that has since been plugged by Hulu. So you’ll just have to wait for the Hulu Plus subscription service to be made available.

Xbox.com Gets an Update
The redesigned Xbox.com now has a browser based Avatar editor, the ability to play web games with your Xbox LIVE friends, and more.

Dad and Son Send HD Camera and iPhone to Space
A father/son duo created a nice weather balloon rig that reached a maximum altitude of 100,000 feet, and captured it all on video. Thanks to the onboard iPhone they were able to retrieve the balloon about 30-miles from where it launched.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Insomnia Keeps Your PC Awake
Windows users can download this handy little utility if they want to prevent their computer from going to sleep. As long as the window remains open the PC will remain in “insomnia” mode.

Anandtech’s In-Depth Windows Phone 7 Review
If you enjoy reading long and detailed reviews about gadgets this is one you won’t want to miss. It covers just about every aspect of the new mobile OS.

Change Your Aero Color Based on Weather Temperature
Windows 7/Vista users can enjoy this nice free app that will adjust the color of the Aero glass to match the current temperature outside.

Opera 11 Alpha Available with Sample Extensions
The testing phase of the next major Opera milestone has begun, and there are some sample extensions available for you to take for a spin.

Desktop Email Notifications for Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, and More
This free utility will let you monitor and manage messages from all of your email accounts.

Play Most Video Types on Android with VPlayer
The free VPlayer app for Android lets users watch videos in DivX, Xvid, MKV, WMV, FLV, and RMVB formats.

No Hassle Way to Download and Convert YouTube Videos
The DownloadTube.org site lets you paste in a link to any YouTube video, and have it converted into a more widely supported video format.

Keep iTunes Libraries in Sync with MediaRover
MediaRover is a free Windows and Mac utility that will keep your songs and playlists in sync across multiple machines.

KeySharky Adds Hotkey Support to Grooveshark
Firefox and Chrome users can grab an add-on that provides customizable hotkey support for the Grooveshark music streaming site.

TinyUmbrella Updated for iOS Users
TinyUmbrella is a free app used to save your SHSH blobs so that you can rollback to an older version of iOS if needed. The app has been updated to include a new UI, and has some other features that are pretty nice.

–Downloads–

• Digsby Build 84 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FeedDemon 4.0.0.1 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Firefox 3.6.11 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Foobar2000 1.1.1 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 8.0.552.5 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Growl 2.0.5 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Miranda 0.9.8 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 ^RC1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• PDF-XChange Viewer 2.057 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Picasa 3.8.117.16 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Pidgin 2.7.4 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Revo Uninstaller 1.90 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• SeaMonkey 2.0.9 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Thunderbird 3.1.5 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.2.0 ^RC1 [Homepage] [Mirror]

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The news we were all hoping for finally hit this week: HP is getting ready to show off its new webOS-based tablet.

Sadly for those of us in Las Vegas, it’s not going to happen at the Consumer Electronics Show here. Instead, HP’s planning an “exciting webOS announcement” for February 9 in San Francisco.

The invitations (shown above) went out today, and while they don’t mention a tablet, it’s a good bet that a webOS-based slate will be on the agenda — plus, perhaps, HP-branded successors to Palm’s tepidly successful webOS-based smartphones, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi.

Hewlett-Packard acquired Palm in 2010 for about $1.2 billion, a purchase that more or less saved Palm from yet another ignominious decline into obscurity, but left many observers wondering what HP was thinking.

The Palm and Pre (and their successors, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus) were ambitious attempts to compete with Android phones and the iPhone, and the phones offer striking industrial design, elegant user interfaces, clever multitasking and a web-based development environment.

But the phones haven’t proven popular with consumers, thanks in part to poor battery life and the relative lack of webOS applications.

HP’s intentions became clearer in July, 2010, when HP CTO Phil McKinney started promising a webOS-based tablet and webOS-based printer to come in “early 2011.” For such devices, a lightweight, web-based mobile operating system makes a lot of sense, and competitors have less of a head start than in the smartphone market.

Oh boy — here we go. HP has just issued an invitation to the press for a webOS event in San Francisco on February 9th. The minimal email asks attendees to ‘Think Big. Think Small. Think Beyond.’ — and that definitely sounds like a multi-product launch to us. If we were betting types, we’d put money on a phone (perhaps rumors we’ve been hearing about the ‘world’s smallest’ smartphone will turn out to be true), a tablet, and lots of talk about the future of webOS. One thing missing? The name Palm. Looks like that brand could be on the way out. Regardless, we’ll be there live delivering the news in true Engadget fashion… so get ready!

HP invites press to an ‘exciting webOS announcement’ on February 9th originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All the pieces, they’re a-comin’ together. If you’ll recall, we spotted a smattering of HP Palm codenames in webOS 2.0 code early last month, and now, those very names are popping up elsewhere. Over at DirectCast, a couple of casting calls have emerged for HP Palm, with both of ’em seeking young, carefree hipsters with lovely hands. They’re willing to pay a solid grand if you fit the profile, presumably to hold one of these impending devices on camera for some sort of advertisement. A PreCentral reader actually signed up, and then received some even more interesting information — he was informed that the shoot will involve the HP Palm Broadway, Manta and Topaz. The Broadway was indeed one of the devices spotted in the aforementioned code, and while Manta wasn’t there, “Mantaray” was. Topaz, of course, looks to be Palm’s forthcoming tablet. This is all just expanded speculation for now, but if you were holding out hope for new HP Palm products, feel free to let your imagination run wild.

HP Palm Broadway, Manta and Topaz name-dropped in casting call originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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