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Gigabyte announced a Linux-friendly mini-PC that supports Intel’s 4th Generation (Haswell) Core processors clocked at up to 1.8GHz. The Brix comes in four different models, depending on the dual-core Core variant, supports dual HDMI/DisplayPort displays at up to 4K resolution, and offers and SPDIF, mSATA, four USB 3.0 ports, WiFi, Bluetooth, and gigabit Ethernet connections.

For me, the story of webOS is, up to this point, a sad tale. But what does Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm and the guy responsible for webOS, think?

Members from the open source world will gather in Columbia, South Carolina for the Palmetto Open Source Conference (POSSCON) on March 27-28, 2013. For anyone looking to score a last minute ticket, the event is sold out. Last year, more than 600 people from 20 states and more than 20 colleges and universities, and 75 business and government organizations, came together in the spirit of open source to share knowledge and grow the open source community.

LXer Feature: 03-Mar-2013

It was quite the eventful week in Linux news. Linus goes off on (UEFI) Secure Boot option in the kernel, LG acquires webOS from HP, how the “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy program works and SCALE 11x kicks "trades" and takes "shows", Enjoy!

HP has had a difficult relationship with WebOS, the mobile OS it obtained after acquiring Palm. After the failure of the TouchPad, HP decided to open up WebOS, and the sourcecode for the newly open source project was released last year. While Open WebOS has not graced any products since, LG has decided they want to buy the project and IP from HP.

HP is selling its webOS-related assets to South Korean electronics manufacturer LG. The two companies have issued a press release. LG is not, though, planning to use webOS in smartphones or tablets; its interest in the operating system is apparently for use in internet-enabled smart TVs. LG has now purchased the source code, associated documentation, developers and engineers working on webOS and all webOS web sites. LG is not purchasing the patents related to webOS but it will receive licences for all of HP's webOS-related patents, including those patents acquired by HP when it acquired Palm.

LG Electronics Inc. has acquired the webOS operating system technology from HP, the companies announced today. To support its next-generation Smart TV technology, LG has entered into a definitive agreement with HP to acquire the source code, associated documentation, engineering talent and related websites associated with webOS. As part of the transaction, LG also will receive licenses under HP’s intellectual property (IP) for use with its webOS products, including patents acquired from Palm covering fundamental operating system and user interface technologies now in broad use across the industry.

HP is reportedly working on a series of Android devices, the first of which could be a high-end tablet powered by Nvidia's Tegra 4 processor. The move is a sensitive one for HP, which tried to crack the mobile market in 2010 by purchasing Palm for $1.2 billion, but saw that investment go down the drain.

Mobile application development is the process by which software is created for handheld devices. This article focuses on tools which help developers create applications for mobile phones. The purpose of application frameworks and libraries is to enable developers to spend their time on the creative and interesting part of development, alleviating the repetitive overhead associated with common development patterns.

I've got fond memories of physical keyboards embedded in smartphones. My Palm Treos -- I had three -- were superb at composing email and SMS text responses. I even made notes for a book I was writing on one Treo. I speculate that the hardware keyboard is the principal differentiator keeping BlackBerry's brand alive, along with its super-secure, cheapo messaging system that was used to organize riots in the UK last year, of course.

I have always had a fascination with the idea of alternative operating systems and over the years i have come across and played with (even developed applications for) a variety of them. However there has always been a few I've followed closely which have stood out, head and shoulders above the crowd. I have compiled a short list and description of what in my opinion are the top 5 best alternative, open source operating systems out there.

'We've got our swagger back,' says webOS cheerleader HP CEO Meg Whitman foresees a great future for webOS, the mobile operating system that her company acquired in the $1.2bn Palm deal and is now contributing to the open source community – and part of her reasoning is based on her distrust of Google.…

Now, I’m no stranger to ebooks. Long before the release of the first generation Amazon Kindle, I read Dracula on a Handspring Visor. Once I moved into the world of smart-phones with the Palm Treo, I read many great books with the excellent offline reader Plucker. In fact, I’ve been dissing paper quite vocally since as early as 1999. That said, I love reading on my Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch.

HP has taken some flak for suggesting it bought Palm so that it could build WebOS into PCs and printers, but positioning WebOS as a universal UI for consumer electronics is a good strategy.

HP today announced it will contribute the webOS software to the open source community.

Be happy developers, B2G is not designed to be another platform. It is actually a project to extend what developers can do with the web, especially on mobile devices. Even apps like phone dialers can be created with HTML5, B2G aims at bringing the web to the palm of your hand so that the web developers are no less than those developing OS-specific stacks. B2G is not intended for applications that will only run on B2G or Firefox, but on any device with HTML5 capabilities, including desktops. After Adobe shut down Flash for mobile devices admitting that HTML5 is the future, it seems Mozilla was far ahead from the beginning, eh?

Amazon is rumored to be negotiating with HP to buy its Palm division, including its WebOS assets -- either to create an update to the Kindle Fire tablet, or just to gain patents. Meanwhile, an IHD iSuppli analysis suggests Amazon is selling each Quanta-manufactured Fire for $10 less than it costs to build....

HP evidently sees a brighter future for its webOS platform after moving the team into the Office of Strategy and Technology (OS&T) as it figures out what to do with the software. The other half of the business HP acquired from Palm – the hardware element – will continue to reside in its Personal Systems Group that will likely be spun out once the globocorp has considered all the options on the table.

Sales of the "discontinued" HP TouchPad have been brisk after its price was cut to as little as $99, and hackers are working overtime to port Ubuntu and Android to the WebOS-based tablet. Meanwhile, analysts speculate on who might acquire HP's WebOS operations, which include a 2,000-plus patent portfolio that one analyst says could recoup the cost of HP's Palm acquisition.

HP announced it would discontinue its current WebOS operations, including their Smartphones & TouchPad tablets running WebOS.