If some of today’s modern day consoles just don’t feel up to par with what you long for, then you may want to check out a Super Nintendo emulator that just made landfall with webOS handsets. Available for the enticing price of free, the SnesEMU v0.0.3 app will  be highly valued to those individuals who wish to experience some long forgotten classic console games in the palm of their hands – literally!

When it comes down to controls, you can either use the on-screen transparent buttons – which can rather be difficult to handle. Or you can simply assign a button on the keyboard that doesn’t take away from your view of the screen. Still, you’ll need some time and patience to get a feel for it since the keyboard may not be as good as your usual game pad. Nonetheless, you can kill plenty of time and relive some of those classic games.
via PreCentral

After the first screenshots of Palm’s (or should we say HP’s) next webOS version leaked, we are now treated to a short video preview of some of its new features. We don’t know how long will that video be up, considering the way Palm halted the admissions for the SDK shortly after some virtual keyboard screenshots were leaked.

Judging from the video it seems that the MobileMe and DropBox integrations we saw earlier are actually part of QuickOffice. The preview shows a bit about the cards management, and some new notification features, so you can watch it below to explore what Palm and HP have in store for their future touch-enabled devices. We cross fingers they don’t pull the plug on the video too soon.
source: PreCentral

Would you believe that it has been well over a year since the world was first introduced to webOS? During that time, we saw Palm’s quick ascent to the top where they ultimately plummeted down to reality as they were eventually bought up by HP. However, we’ve started to hear rumors of late regarding a refreshingly new face-lift to the once highly prized platform. Everyone still sporting a webOS smartphone are actually waiting in anticipation for webOS 2.0, but it looks as though we’re all getting a slight preview of the upcoming update.

Chinese website wibozi.com posted some revealing images regarding webOS 2.0 which should naturally get users up on their feet – especially when 24 screenshots provide us all some quick insights about it. Based on the captured images, we can expect to find multiple IM account types, Google Docs support, remote files storage with QuickOffice, Cisco VPN support, and Dropbox to name a few. Obviously this may be considered a boatload of new information to absorb, but isn’t that supposed to happen whenever a mobile platform is on the verge of releasing a highly anticipated update? Especially when it’s more than over due at this point?
source: wibozi.com (translated)

Captain Kirk sported some interesting gear that would naturally appease the most hardcore Star Trek fan out there, but the real life Captain Kirk nonchalantly whipped out one smartphone that some would be surprised to see the old captain packing. During the taping for The New York Times’ online Screen Test series, William Shatner, or simply the Shat, spent the time talking about the beloved series, but interestingly enough, took out his cell phone to take a call from his daughter. No, it wasn’t some kind of Star Trek oriented looking handset, but instead, just simply the webOS powered Palm Pre. It’s hard to see which version he is carrying, but you can distinctively hear the default webOS ringtone playing as he’s receiving a phone call. Although it wasn’t the focal point of the video, it’s nice to see someone like the good captain keeping it real.
via PreCentral

Palm webOS owners have something to look forward to, despite having some rather quiet happenings of late, as Facebook beta for webOS has been updated to version 1.3.1. Although there are no new notable features accompanying its release, Palm states that there are “some bug fixes and performance improvements” that are found with it. Overall, you can just expect to see a more responsive experience when using the app. On other webOS news, the official version of the Facebook app for webOS has also been moved up to version 1.3 – which essentially brings forth worthy features such as landscape viewing, filtered news feeds, and many more items. So if you’re more in line to sticking true with official app releases as opposed to checking out beta ones, then head on over to the App Catalog and catch yourself the latest download of the Facebook app.
via PreCentral

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.

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

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

While Germany’s O2 is the only carrier to officially offer the webOS 1.4.5 upgrade to its customers, and AT&T owners will probably be the last to receive it, a self-proclaimed “Sprint employee” tells the PreCentral forum that webOS 1.4.5.1 will be available from Sprint on July 7th after most European carriers will have already made 1.4.5 available to customers. On the Palm site, it does let us know what changes to expect from this download, mostly some repairs to minor problems. On the browser, for example, if you enter text on certain web pages, the screen focus now will remain on the text being entered. The upgrade will also correct a rare problem that prevented some podcasts from downloading correctly and addresses several security issues with the software. The forum writing “Sprint employee” also dropped a few more items that the upgrade will bring to Sprint users such as fixing the e-mail so that the Sprint branded e-mail default signature is correctly branded. There will be some improvement to battery life and videos will be able to get sent via multimedia messaging. Sprint TV will have a couple of changes with an upgrade to version 3.5.4 and parental controls will be enhanced. Meanwhile, Palm has made the webOS 1.4.5 SDK available to all developers including the just out of beta PDK. The upgrade will allow 3D gaming PDK apps to be supported by the Palm Pixi.
source: PreCentralForums, Phonescoop