HP will lay off as many as 525 employees from its Palm division this week AllThingsD reported on Tuesday. HP killed off its webOS mobile operating system in mid-August when it also announced it would discontinue the development of webOS devices such as the TouchPad and Palm Pre family of smartphones. “As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce,” an HP spokesperson explained. “Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by ...

HP announced today that the latest installation in the Angry Birds franchise, Angry Birds Rio, is now available for download from the webOS App Catalog. The game sports 60 different levels across two different episodes, and Rovio promises to provide episodic updates throughout the rest of this year. If you’re tired of killing little green pigs, have no fear, the goal this time around is to attack angry monkeys and free other caged fowl. Angry Birds Rio is available for $1.99 on the Palm Pre, Pre Plus an...

When it comes to HP and it’s now Palm-less webOS smartphones, we’ve made our feelings quite clear — we couldn’t be more excited about HP’s upcoming Pre 3, and we couldn’t be less excited about the Pre 2. Don’t get us wrong… the Pre 2 is a fine device in its own right. It’s still way too small and the keypad is still way too unusable for us to even consider owning the device, however. The Pre 3, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. In our hands-on...

Palm has a history of, shall we say, making poor decisions. Hardware components…  launch partners… the Foleo. We had hoped all that would change when HP acquired the struggling company earlier this year, but it looks like it’s going to take longer than we had hoped for the stars to align over Sunnyvale, CA. Exhibit A: the Palm Pre 2. The Pre was a good start for Palm but there were tons of problems with it. The Pre 2 addresses some of those problems — the occasional sluggishness, the chea...

When the Palm Pre disappeared from Sprint’s website last week, many speculated that the world’s first webOS phone was probably gone for good. Now, a leaked document obtained by enthusiast blog PreCentral.net puts another nail in the smartphone’s coffin. According to the document and accompanying report, Sprint’s Palm Pre has been designated as EOL (End of Life) by the carrier, meaning it will no longer be sold. Remaining inventory, which is said to be in the hundreds, will be depleted ...

This isn’t confirmed, but with RIM rumored to be exploring sliding-QWERTY devices for a pretty long time, one of our BlackBerry connects dropped some info on us and we wanted it to share it. Here’s what we know: (more…)

While Sprint’s HTC Hero is housed in a different and arguably less sexy shell than the standard HTC version, the internals are the same. That’s a 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a whole lot more running on Sprint’s CDMA voice and data network. We’ve put together a bunch of things we loved as well as things we disliked about the Sprint version of the HTC Hero after the break along with some photos. (more…)

Following news that Amazon chopped pricing on the Palm Pre to an attractive $99.99, Walmart has swooped in to undercut the massive online retailer — albeit just for the long weekend. Truth be told however, we’re not sure what an extra $20 is going to do if the jump from $200 to $100 wasn’t enough incentive for those debating whether or not to take the leap. What’s more, the deal involves a $100 mail-in rebate whereas Amazon’s $100 price is out the door. Whatever the case, if you&...

With all of the money RIM is dumping into its U2 sponsorship, a bit of irony shined through earlier this week when Palm announced its secondary stock offering. The big news that came alongside Palm’s offering was that Elevation Partners, already Palm’s largest investor, gobbled up another 2.2 million shares of Palm for a cool $35 million. The private equity firm now owns a total of 67.8 million common shares of Palm stock in addition to its 376,000 preferred shares, totaling about 42 percent of th...

If this latest Verizon/Palm Pre rumor pans out, there are going to be a whole lot of angry VZW subscribers and likely just as many chuckling Sprint fans. According to The Street, Verizon has decided to change its plans and skip the highly anticipated Palm handset. Specifically, “[The Palm Pre] had been scheduled to arrive at Verizon in January. But people close to the discussions say Verizon has decided not to support the Pre.” Palm’s first webOS-powered phone had been long-rumored to hit Ve...

After yesterday’s shenanigans we’re not sure how long this offer will stand. Apropos, Pre hopefuls might want to jump on this new price point as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Palm made its second webOS-powered handset official this morning and we suppose there is no better way to celebrate than by buying the compay’s first webOS-powered handset — you know, just to ensure you aren’t eligible for 2-year contract pricing once the Pixi launches. Sprint has just cut the pr...

Have you been watching all the Palm Pre coverage in recent months with jealousy, just waiting for the right time to strike? Well boys and girls, that time may be now. From now until October 10th, Sprint has effectively knocked $100 off the price of a shiny new Palm Pre for customers coming over from another carrier. Here’s how it works: Purchase a Palm Pre on a 2-year contract before October 10th and port a number in from your old carrier. That’s it. Within your first three months of service, Spri...

Remember last month when a developer revealed some hidden functionality in webOS that periodically reports a user’s location back to Palm? Well as it turns out, the reasoning behind the Big Brother-esque move may be even worse than you think. Drum roll please… Location-based advertising. We’ve uncovered a patent application filed by Palm in November of last year that could end up being one of the worst things to happen to webOS since its birth. As described within the application itself, the...

It appears as though webOS junkies may soon have a new way to get their fix — two new ways, even. According to a screenshot allegedly depicting Sprint’s inventory system, not one but two new Palm handsets have materialized; the 120 and C40. Let’s look at what we’ve got: Sprint’s Pre is coded as 100, or P100 in internal systems. At Verizon, it’s pretty safe to assume the Pre has been dubbed P101 as we’ve seen several references to it. Both the screenshot above and the ...