The addictive game Angry Birds is now available for the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. Available in the Palm App Catalog for $2, your Pre must have the latest version of webOS, 1.4.5, under the hood. According to a press release issued by Palm, Angry Birds will be made available for Pixi owners later. The game’s creator, Rovio, had asked the webOS community if they wanted the game for their platform and the response was extremely positive.

For those Rip Van Winkle types who are not familiar with the multi-level game, using a slingshot you launch birds-each with a different power-toward a number of green pigs protected by wood or stone housing. Spurred on by the massive success of the game on the iPhone and iPod, the developers want to put the game on other platforms. While the game is among the top selling apps in over 60 countries, so far Android users have been shut out.
source: Palm

HP’s PC division head confirmed in an interview that it will show the fruit of its marriage with Palm early 2011 in the form of a tablet, running webOS. HP put on the shelf its plans for the Slate – a Windows 7-powered tablet, but it is no doubt using the hardware expertise acquired on the way to come up with a webOS device just months after it acquired Palm. What would it be is anyone’s guess, but webOS is great at multitasking and many other things, so a tablet with it backed by HP’s mammoth production and marketing capabilities might stir up the market quite a bit.

Speaking of alternative mobile operating systems for the exploding tablet market, Bloomberg reports that BlackBerry will be releasing its BlackPad in November with an OS created by QNX – a Canadian software company it bought in April. It turns out that these guys are producing the in-car multimedia and navigation user interfaces in our Porsches, Audis and BMWs, so we are assuming that BlackBerry is aiming for a classy experience with the BlackPad. The QNX operating system has actually been around since the 80s and is now used in Canadian nuclear plants, so we’d dare to say it must be stable.

We are embedding a video of the latest QNX in-car touchscreen creation we could find, called the “Flash Motor” – the BlackPad’s user interface may or may not look anything like that. It’s QNX’s part of a project called the “LTE connected car”, using in-dash touchscreen for infotainment and controlling the car.

It has nothing to do with the BlackPad for now, but you can still check it out to see what the OS is capable of – UI is demoed as well as browsing, a YouTube client, etc. The QNX guys are heavy users of Adobe Flash in their software, so it will be relatively safe to assume Flash won’t be an issue, unlike on some other tablets we know of.

source: Yahoo! & BGR

Discover the QNX “Flash Motor” – a car with a difference from Paul Wyatt on Vimeo.

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The latest version of webOS, that was released by Sprint for its Palm phones, seems to have unlocked some gaming capabilities on the Palm Pixi munchkin. Since webOS 1.4.5 brings OpenGL support to the handset, it is now able to run 3D games for mobile. Need for Speed: Undercover was installed on it to test the 3D prowess of the Palm Pixi, and it behaved quite well, with playable framerate, but slow loading times. If you are a Pixi user and have gaming pedigree, that is certainly great news.

While some are just receiving their mobile gaming capabilities, others are running Rage at 60fps. That is precisely what John Carmack from id Software (hint: DooM 1, 2 and 3; Quake 1, 2, 3 and 4) demoed with an iPhone 4 in his hands at QuakeCon 2010. Carmack was using id’s Tech 5 graphics engine, and, scaled for the iPhone, the “megatexture” experience of Rage looked amazingly smooth. He even went as far as to say that the demo is able to “kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2… “. Certainly an impressive feat, if we forget that the whole action is shown on a 3.5” screen, a big part of which is to be occupied by your thumbs.
source: Engadget and Gizmodo

On August 3rd, Palm’s job board posted an open position for ‘Director – Sprint Retail Sales’. The posting references “the implementation of products/services based on the VP–Sales – Sprint’s direction”, as well as “product launch activities”. These points suggest that Palm will continue its close relationship with Sprint, and, what is more important for us, may soon launch new products!

Back in late April of this year, HP announced the purchase of Palm, Inc. for $1.2 billion. The promising partnership combines HP’s large international infrastructure and resources with Palm’s proven webOS operating system. Perhaps the HP-Palm power-couple, with the help of Sprint’s growing 4G network, can stand against the Android OS’ burgeoning market share. Time will tell.
source: Palm Job Board via PreCentral

HP placed themselves in the spotlight recently, but unfortunately for them, it didn’t involve anything related to their wonderful and eclectic mix of consumers products. The abrupt resignation of ex-CEO Mark Hurd might’ve given the company some face time in the media, however, things might shift once again after news surfaced regarding a webOS powered tablet. There was an all-hands employee meeting held yesterday when Personal Systems Group VP, Todd Bradley, mentioned some interesting news surrounding a new project that’s commencing and is being referred to internally as “Hurricane.” This project is reported to be the all too knowing webOS powered tablet which will bypass the busy holiday season and make its launch some time in Q1 2011 – which we’d imagine would provide them ample time getting this fine tuned and ready for the competition. Since they’re going to miss out on the important holiday season, the bar will naturally be set a bit higher since they’re already in the process of completing webOS 2.0 – which is something that’ll hopefully breathe in some new life to the once fledgling platform.
source: Engadget via Unwired View

How would you like to watch streaming satellite television from your iPhone, BlackBerry or Android handset? According to the AP, you soon will have this option. BlackBerry and iPhone (iPod Touch and iPad owners too) users will be have this function starting next month while in October, Android phones will have this capability. Besides having to download a free new app from Dish, special hardware will be required like a Sling Box which costs in the range of $200 to $300. Or, Dish subscribers can pay $200 to $400 to upgrade their DVR to one with Sling Box features. You will have to pay $10 a month for multiple DVR service, but you will get to record with it. A little note here-Sling Box is owned by EchoStar whose Chairman is Charles Ergen, the CEO of Dish Network.

With the new Dish app needed for viewing the programs, you will get to change channels remotely-unless someone is watching a different channel back home. And while the SlingBox can access programs that you  have recorded on your DVR, you can’t record on it. The current app for Dish subscribers is available for the iPhone (iPad and iPod Touch) but is limited to programming your DVR, browse TV shows and for using your phone as a remote control. The app will be upgraded to allow for streaming of programs on to the phone. Both the BlackBerry and Android apps will include the functions on them when they are launched. Dish and Echo Star are a perfect combination to provide streaming satellite television. Back in 2007, EchoStar bought Sling and later spun off Dish Network.
source: AP

Regardless or not we’ll end up seeing some kind of new hardware from Palm this year, it’s not stopping developers from fine tuning and enhancing apps created for the platform. It’s evident in the most recent release of the Facebook app for webOS version 1.2.30 beta which continues to emulate the desktop experience on a mobile level. Although this isn’t a groundbreaking update, it does add some new features such as the support for selectable news feeds, toggling feed comments on/off, and the ability to clear multiple notifications at the same time. In addition, you’ll find the customary amount of enhancements and bug fixes to better the overall experience. Since it’s not yet available to download through the App Catalog, you can basically just click the source link to get yourself a copy of the update.
source: Palm via Palm’s Facebook