The main problem faced by all HP Touchpad users is the scarcity of apps, but of course dual booting into Android is a good way to access apps that are unavailable. If all goes as it should, a better solution could arrive in just a few months, provided you are willing to help Phoenix International Communications in their attempt to resurrect OpenMobile’s ACL for webOS.

In case you are new to ACL, it’s Application Compatibility Layer, and it allows running of Android apps on non-Android devices. The webOS ACL will allow users to run Android apps alongside native webOS applications, and its alpha version appear to be working fine on a Touchpad as you will see in the video below.

Since OpenMobile worked on the project earlier, Phoenix is promising that the final build will be available for purchase and download by July. It’s a Kickstarter project and they have, at the time of writing this, managed $5,991 of the $35,000 goal with 24 days to go.

They are offering various gifts including a copy of the ACL software, their LED flashlight keychain, and even the developer’s Touchpad depending on how much you pledge.

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The post OpenMobile ACL For webOS Coming In July appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

After going through Palm and HP, webOS is now apparently being purchased by LG. The apparent plan is that webOS won’t appear on LG smartphones, but rather it will be used on LG Smart TVs. That’s the current plan, but LG isn’t ruling out the possibility that webOS could be adapted for their smartphones and tablets, too. That won’t be for a while though, as “we’ll apply this to the TV only” for the short term, said LG CTO Dr. Skott Ahn.

This also isn’t to say that LG is purchasing the entirety of webOS from Palm. It is acquiring the websites, documentation, source code and team for the client side, but it’s simply licensing other aspects like the webOS patents, apps catalog, updating system and several cloud-related components.

What’s interesting is that Dr. Ahn also mentioned that Android could be used “together” with webOS in some capacity, though he says the “cards” UI of webOS may provide a better user experience overall. Could this mean that the next skinned version of Android coming out of LG will utilize the webOS-inspired card system? And how will this be applied to the smart TV? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

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The post WebOS to Live Again with LG and Smart TVs appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The days of HP’s WebOS are long behind us now. Since the failure of their WebOS tablet efforts, HP has focused only on Windows devices, but this could soon be changing.

Reportedly, HP is preparing to enter into the Android tablet business by creating an Nvidia Tegra 4 device. With a modern A15 design, the Tegra 4 is a powerful chip, so certainly a good choice if HP is planning on entering on the high-end of the market.

Considering HP has already indicated they aren’t interested in the ARM-based Windows RT, going Android for their ARM needs certainly seems to make sense. That said, take this rumor with a grain of salt until we have more concrete information about such a move.

HP’s mobile efforts haven’t exactly gone well, and so aligning themselves with an established ecosystem like Android seems like a wise move. Still, just because they choose Android as the OS doesn’t guarantee success – just look at Dell’s Android exploits and that becomes pretty clear.

With the PC market starting to decline, HP has managed to hang on as the bestselling brand, but a move to mobile is certainly crucial if they want to grow. Tablets are continuing to expand and HP needs a win here.

Could Android help HP finally break into the mobile market in a big way?

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The post HP Planning an Nvidia Tegra 4 Android Tablet? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It looks like HP is the latest PC hardware vendor to join the Chrome OS club. The HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook has now officially been announced and will set you back $330.

So what do you get with the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook? The laptop ahs a 1366 x 768 display, 16GB SSD storage, 100GB Google Drive space, and an Intel Dual-core Celeron processor. Other specs include 2GB of RAM, 3 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and a 2-in-1 memory card reader. There is also Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 as well.

Honestly, the specs are pretty modest but there is one area where the HP Pavilion stands out from the Chromebook pack: display size. Up until now, 11.6-inch has been the standard screen-size in all current Chromebook offerings. With the HP Pavilion Chromebook you get a much larger 14-inch display.

Unfortunately, this comes at a trade-off. The HP Chromebook has relatively poor performance compared to Samsung’s offering, and like Acer’s budget option it has just a few hours of battery life onboard.

Still for those interested in Chrome OS but not willing to do so on a tiny screen, this could still be an intriguing option and at $330 it is quite affordable, too. What do you think, would you be interested in the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook or not?

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The post HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook Now Official, Sets You Back Just $330 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Are you looking for a deal for a new laptop? You don’t have to wait until Black Friday to score a new notebook at a great price, because a number of HP laptops have been slashed on Amazon for savings of up to $400.

If you have a look at the HP laptops feature page on Amazon, you’ll see that they have selected six notebooks from HP for these significant savings. For example, you can go super sleek with the HP Envy 15-3040NR 15.6-inch laptop in black and silver. It’s powered by a second generation Intel Core i7-2670QM processor and 8GB of RAM, once retailing for $1,300, but now on sale for $1,100.

Perhaps you have a smaller budget. If that’s the case, the HP Pavilion dv6-7010us has also been slashed by $200, bringing your effective price down to just $499.99. For that, you get a 15.6-inch laptop powered by an AMD Quad Core A8-4500M processor, 6GB SDRAM, and 750GB hard drive.

The biggest savings is with the HP ENVY 14-3010NR Spectre 14-Inch Ultrabook, though. That’s where you save $400 off the regular price, bringing your purchase price down to $999. Check out all of the HP laptops on sale on Amazon and take advantage of the free super saver shipping too.

The post Daily Deal: Up to $400 Off Select HP Laptops appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

So what ever happened to WebOS? HP’s WebOS certainly never managed to do all that well in the marketplace but it was still not a half-bad OS in reality. Luckily it has continued to live on as an open source project.

Any chance we’ll see it in any more commercial endeavors? Maybe. It seems that LG and HP once signed an agreement to use WebOS inside an LG Smart TV and it seems that LG is now looking for a way to use the HTML5-based OS inside of a future line of smart televisions. While LG has yet to officially announce anything specific, it will be interesting to see how this pans out. WebOS never managed to live up to its full potential, could it finally find a home in the world of smart televisions?

Rumors suggest the WebOS-running LG TV will debut at CES 2013. It also makes you wonder if LG-developed apps for WebOS could give the dying OS a little bit of an afterlife.
Anyone interested in such a Smart TV running on HP’s mobile OS?

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The post Is a Web OS Smart TV is in the works by LG? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that HP has begun a hiring spree, looking for 50 new employees to help it expand its WebOS team. Wait– what? Isn’t WebOS supposed to be dead now? Not exactly. When HP decided it was time to cut its loses and back away from WebOS, they opened the platform up as an open-source project.

Instead of cutting it loose completely though, HP promised they would continue to be an active participant and investor. This move shows that they plan to keep their word. Does it mean that they are working on new tablets or smartphones? Not at all. This is merely a move to see where they can take open WebOS from here. It also helps with PR that they are keeping their commitment.

Alot remains uncertain for HP. They have pretty much confirmed that they have no smartphones on the docket for 2013, and their own CEO says 2013 is going to be difficult year. While I personally liked WebOS, it might not be wise for the company to be expending extra resources on something that clearly hasn’t been profitable for them.

Even if HP is hiring for WebOS, don’t expect much from them. If anything big happens with the project, I’d imagine it would come from independent developers out there messing around with the source code. One of the more unique webOS projects to surface so far includes open WebOS running on a Asus Transformer Prime.

What do you think? Are you excited about the (limited) future of open WebOS, or is it time to finally move on from it for good?

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The post HP Begins Hiring Spree to Bring in New Employees to Work on WebOS appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Windows 8 tablets and computers are certainly getting alot of attention – both positive and negative – with their impending launch. While many Windows 8/RT tablets are focusing on the average consumer, HP is releasing the ElitePad 900 for businesses that aren’t afraid of the change that is coming with Windows 8 and its new Modern UI (previously called Metro).

The new tablet is scheduled for release in January of next year and offers a reasonable amount of power- for an Atom-based processor, anyhow. The 10-inch slate has a 1280×800 IPS display with Gorilla Glass, is 9.2mm thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds. The battery life is expected to last about 10 hours and it is powered by an ATOM processor with 2GB of RAM. There will be a 32GB and 64GB storage version, as well as microSD card slot for expansion. The new business tablet will even support 3G and 4G SIM cards for those that need mobile broadband. The ElitePad 900 also features an 8MP camera on the back and a video call camera with an 1080p resolution on the front.

What makes it business-worthy? The ElitePad is designed with a range of adapters for its proprietary connector that include an SD reader, full USB, Ethernet, line out, VGA and even HDMI. The proprietary connector also will work with a special dock that can be paired with a wireless keyboard to provide a full PC-like experience with compatiblity for all existing Windows applications and drivers that will run with a lower-end Atom processor.

That’s not all that is in store for the ElitePad. A new Smart Jacket technology also works as a case that adds extra features including a clamshell-style model that basically turns it into a fully functioning laptop. What do you think of HP’s attempt at making a unique tablet hybrid with businesses in mind? Personally, I’m excited and curious to see what kind of pricing this brings. It will also be interesting to see how this does against Microsoft’s own Surface tablet.

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The post HP ElitePad 900 Windows 8 Tablet is Geared Towards Enterprise Users appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

WebOS is dead, and HP has long been without a smartphone offering as a result. Could the time for a comeback to the smartphone market be at hand? HP’s CEO Meg Whitman has recently spoken up about the matter and says that HP is working on something for the future.

According to the somewhat-new CEO, they are in no hurry to get a smartphone out to the public, instead they want to create something solid and learn from their past mistakes. We talking about Android, Windows Phone 8 or the unlikely resurrection of Web OS?

While HP’s CEO didn’t give us that much information, it seems we can fill in the blanks for ourselves thanks to a new GLBenchmark discovery. It seems that a new HP device has shown up under the code-name Bender with HP branding as well. This device is a Qualcomm S4 dual-core Android smartphone.

We also know it is running a 1.5GHz on its cores, and that it features a 1366×720 pixel resolution and version 4.0.4 of Android.

Unfortunately a benchmark tells us nothing about what the phone will look like or when we can expect it. Is it possible that HP could be preparing a triumphant return still in 2012? Or perhaps we will see the “Bender” at Mobile World Congress in February of 2013? If they do wait until MWC, they could easily be overshadowed by the Galaxy S4′s rumored MWC announcement though, so perhaps they will do it earlier or slightly later- it’s really hard to say for sure.

Despite their less-than-successful past endeavors in the smartphone and tablet sector, would you consider an HP-branded Android smartphone?

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The post HP ‘Bender’ Android Smartphone Surfaces, Thanks to GLBenchmark Sighting appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Ah, the modern assembly line- an invention that has made mass production infinitely easier, and made the job of the factory worker infinitely mundane as well. Most modern technology factories carefully guard any attempt by outsiders to get a true inside look of what is going on behind closed doors, so it’s surprising to hear that one Reddit user was given a free inside look through a video recorded on his brand new HP laptop. The video was stored in My Documents and was taken at the Quanta Chongqing Manufacturing City in Chongqing, depicting the everyday life of those at the factory while a worker seems to be testing out the camera on the laptop that managed to take the video. In most cases these kinds of video testings are wiped off the drive, but someone must have dropped the ball and forgot to get this footage taken off.

The good news though is that it at least shows a scene that might have the same workers doing the same task again and again, but it’s not overly fast-paced, there is no signs of clear mistreating of these employees and other complaints we often hear about other factories over in China. While working in factory in China might not be anyone’s dream job, it seems that this particular video footage doesn’t highlight any of the horrors of the industry either, though that doesn’t mean these horrors aren’t out there.

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