If you’re a webOS/Palm Pre die-hard, and looking forward to the refinements of the Pre 2, we have a little something for you. It looks like a thirty second advert for the updated, pebble-shaped handset has made its way onto YouTube. The official spot, dubbed Sizzle, features some of the new niceties in webOS 2.0 and several critical applications — including Angry Birds and Facebook. The clip is waiting for you after the jump. Enjoy.

[Via PocketNow]

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Don’t worry, folks — we’re just as shocked as you are to learn that HP will finally bring its first Windows 7-powered slate to market. Hewlett-Packard is setting its sights squarely on business users with its new HP Slate 500, a $799 tablet PC that sports an 8.9-inch (1024 x 600) capacitive multitouch display and weighs just 1.5 pounds. The Slate 500 also comes with a 1.86GHz Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, a digital stylus (usable thanks to a Wacom active digitizer), a 3-megapixel rear camera, a VGA front camera for video chat, a battery said to last for about five hours of usage per charge, and the lovely diamond pattern on the back case that we all know and loathe. HP’s new tablet will not support cellular data connectivity — only Wi-Fi. Yes, $800 is a bit steep for Wi-Fi tablet, but less so when you slap an enterprise sticker on it. And yes, we definitely still want one.

While AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers are beginning to enjoy their first taste of Windows Phone 7 devices, Verizon Wireless reportedly has a bundle of new smartphones ready to help keep subscribers’ minds from wandering this holiday season. New rumors place four sexy new smartphones on Verizon Wireless store shelves early next month: the Motorola DROID Pro, DROID 2 Global and CITRUS, and the just-announced Palm Pre 2. All four of these fine phones are said to be launching on November 11, leaving plenty of time for shoppers to get familiar with them ahead of the holidays. While none of the aforementioned handsets have the hype or $500 million marketing blitz enjoyed by Windows Phone 7, they’re all respectable offerings that will help bolster Big Red’s lineup ahead of you know what.

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The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise following a series of leaks, but HP finally made the Palm Pre 2 and accompanying webOS 2.0 official this morning. Starting with the latter, the newest iteration of Palm’s highly acclaimed OS boasts features such as “True Multitasking” (zing!), “Just Type”, the rebranded “HP Synergy” and more. WebOS 2.0 also introduces us to “Exhibition”, a feature that allows apps to trigger events when a Palm phone is placed on a Touchstone dock or removed from the dock. As for the Palm Pre 2, there are really no surprises as far as specs are concerned. The rumored 1 GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera and glass touchscreen are all present and accounted for. Further details are scarce, so the only surprise is the fact that the Pre 2 will launch this Friday, October 22, in France. U.S. availability is still unclear, unfortunately — HP says the handset will launch “in the coming months” from Verizon Wireless.

Of course most were hoping for a more significant hardware refresh when HP’s first post-Palm smartphone announcement came around, but we have to start somewhere. Hit the jump for the full press release with all the juicy details.

UPDATE: More specs for the Plam Pre 2 are now available. Highlights include a 3.1-inch HVGA multitouch glass display, 16GB of internal storage, GPS, Exchange support, an accelerometer, ambient light and proximity sensors, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a 3.5mm audio port.

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.

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Ten days ago, Nokia’s head of MeeGo stepped down for “personal reasons.” Now, it appears as though the jettisoned executive, Ari Jaaksi, will take a position with HP/Palm as the senior vice president of webOS. AllThingsD reports that Jaaksi will assume his new role sometime in November. HP & Co. also added Victoria Coleman, former head of Samsung’s research and development center in San Jose, to their payroll. HP certainly is stacking their mobile division’s deck with seasoned, experienced executives from all corners of the industry. Let’s hope the moves bear fruit… and soon!

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On the heels of yesterday’s SFR Pre 2 discover, French blog MobiFrance has published several, clear images of the next generation Pre. While the device looks extremely similar to the original, there are some slight form-factor changes that make the device unique from both the original Pre and the Pre Plus. The front of the device now has a thin black bezel running around the devices screen and a matte-black finish is present around both the upper and lower halves of the device. So far, confirmed specifications for the Pre 2 are: webOS 2.0, 1 GHz processor, and 512 MB of RAM. Let us know your thoughts on the slightly-new hardware.

[Via PreCentral]

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Today, HP announced that AT&T’s Palm Pixi Plus would — finally — be getting the webOS 1.4.5 update. The new bits add several new bug fixes and, most notably, add support for Palm’s Plug-in Developer Kit (PDK). Hit the “Updates” application on your AT&T Pixi to manually grab the new code.

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It seems as though French mobile carrier SFR has shed some light on the unannounced Palm Pre 2. According to the telecom company’s website, the device will rock a 1 GHz processor, have 512 MB of RAM, and run the very sensual webOS 2.0. There isn’t any indication of when a potential launch could occur, but the fact that SFR has published – unintentionally or not — details of the Pre Deuce has to be a good sign. What do you think webOS fans? Is this good news or are you looking for a little bit more hardware creativity from HP and company?

[Via PreCentral]

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Rejoice webOS faithful! Reuters is reporting that HP’s senior vice president, Eric Cador, has been quoted as saying, “You will see us coming early next year with new phones.” The part that made us all warm and tingly inside was when he said “phones” — plural. Mr. Cador reiterated the importance of the Palm acquisition and the hordes of intellectual property HP is now holding. Use said IP wisely Mr. Vice President, and bring on the hardware!

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Last week, we saw an HP slate device, running Winnows 7, make a not-so-short appearance on YouTube. Now, CNET has been sent in a set of images that further corroborate the video’s findings. The tablet, which the site refers to as the Slate 500, shows of a front and rear-facing camera and runs the Windows 7 operating system. The unit has the same, jagged back — although this time in black instead of silver — and is pictured with a leather case and docking station that contains HDMI and USB outputs. CNET’s source says the device will be getting a late October release, which — to us anyway — seems pretty aggressive. With all this talk about tablets running Android, iOS, and webOS, is anyone looking for an all-touch tablet running full-blown Windows?

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We all know tablets are a hot technology topic right now, but does that mindshare momentum translate into cold hard cash? According to HP, the answer is yes. HP’s executive vice president of the Personal Systems Group, Todd Bradley, pegs the tablet market at $40 billion over the next few years. What else did HP’s EVP have to say? How about this: “Next year, Palm will sell 15 million printers that use WebOS,” and “the smartphone market is a $100 billion market.” Those are some pretty lofty numbers. Mr. Bradley also noted that his company’s strategy in acquiring webOS was to have a consistent interface for both phones and tablets. Hopefully, we’ll see that interface, running on production hardware, very soon.

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Hey, what do we have here! It looks like a protoype of an HP slate device has made its way onto YouTube. The device, which runs a flavor of Windows 7, has that familiar slate form factor that is all the rage these days. What are you waiting for? Hit the jump, the 4 minute video is waiting for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0IiKaa8v9M

Well, we might as well close the loop on this one. Last month, we told you how former HP CEO Mark Hurd was ousted by HP, complimented by Larry Ellison, and then hired by Oracle. We also told you how the Oracle hiring prompted a lawsuit from Mr. Hurd’s former employer. Now, the New York Times is reporting that the two sides have reached an agreement on the embattled executive’s future. In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, Hurd will forfeit nearly half of the $28 million compensation package he was given by HP. The former HP chief, and now Oracle President, will give up 330,177 shares of performance-based restricted stock and 15,853 shares of time-base restricted stock (that’s about $13.34 million using today’s stock price). Oracle and HP, who do quite a bit of business together, did their best to reassure stock holders that the two companies are on the mend. “Oracle and HP will continue to build and expand a partnership that has already lasted for over 25 years,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “HP and Oracle have been important partners for more than 20 years and are committed to working together to provide exceptional products and service to our customers,” said Cathie Lesjak, the CFO and interim CEO of HP. So ends this chapter of the Mark Hurd Chronicles.

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HP has filed a civil complaint against embattled CEO Mark Hurd, alleging that the former chief can not fully perform his newly assigned duties with employer Oracle without divulging HP’s trade secrets. Hurd received a severance package from HP which is estimated to be worth roughly $26 million. An excerpt from HP’s civil complaint reads as follows:

Despite being paid millions of dollars in cash, stock and stock options in exchange for Hurd’s agreements to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information during his employment and following his departure from his positions at HP as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President, HP is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Hurd has put HP’s most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril.  Hurd accepted positions with Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”), a competitor of HP, yesterday as its President and as a member of its Board of Directors.  In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others.

HP released a statement saying: ““Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information. HP intends to enforce those agreements.”

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According to Engadget, “several trusted sources” have informed them that an HP webOS tablet is due out in Q1 of 2011. The report says that HP’s VP of the Personal Systems Group, Todd Bradley, informed employees of the release timeline yesterday during an all-hands meeting. The report goes on to say that the mysterious tablet will be known internally by the code name “Hurricane.” Not a lot to go on here, but if you are a webOS junkie waiting for something bigger than webOS 1.4.5, it’s better than nothing!

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