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Palm webOS design VP Peter Skillman has left the troubled company to head the MeeGo user-experience at Nokia. Skillman joins Matias Duarte, the UI designer for webOS, as the second senior ranking webOS employee to leave for another mobile OS.

Palm revealed the webOS 2.0 SDK beta today and with it, the company gave an outline of the new features expected in webOS 2.0. The Linux-based OS will support multi-tasking through a feature called Stacks, which organizes similar applications into tidy, um, stacks. webOS 2.0 will also support JavaScript node.js, which opens it up to a variety of existing modules, and improved HTML5 support was also highlighted.

Hewlett-Packard confirmed during its Aug. 19 earnings call that a device running its recently acquired Palm WebOS operating system will ship sometime in early 2011. Although the company executive who confirmed the "product" offered no other details, the general assumption is that HP will load WebOS onto a tablet-like device.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is preparing a "Zeen" Android e-reader that interfaces with a new HP printer, says an industry report. Meanwhile, HP has postponed its WebOS-based "Hurricane" tablet to 1Q 2011, and the company -- beleaguered by the recent resignation of CEO Mark Hurd -- lost the lead designer of the WebOS-based Palm Pre, say reports.

Acer is switching its consumer-oriented EP101TC tablet (pictured) from Windows CE to Android, claims NetbookNews. Meanwhile, HP has trademarked the word "Palmpad," which is likely to be the name for its upcoming WebOS-based tablet, says The Inquirer.

Currently, Linux systems take the very high end machines (any machine more powerful than a fully tricked out MacPro {read supercomputers and mainframes}), and the very low end machines (phones, routers, palm-tops, PVRs). In both cases, someone is missing. Microsoft. I do not hate Microsoft. Many people would think that I did (being a Linux fan, and to a lesser extent an Apple fan), but I really don't. I just think that they have failed to adapt to a changing market place, and I feel that they are stifling the progress of IT. Apple, on the other hand, has been aiding. Apple didn't reinvent the phone. Apple showed the a Blackberry/Palm styled phone could be made for the average person. They made it, and they sold it rather well. The iPad has shown that tablets actually are in demand, and for once someone has proven that Windows is not a requirement for consumer computers. The reality is that most people think of a computer operating system as inseparable from the computer itself. So, where are we headed?

In a post on his blog, developer Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD-Jon, says that, "Google does far too little curation of the Android Market, and it shows." Among other things, Johansen, the co-founder and CTO at doubleTwist, is well known for his involvement in reverse engineering the content-scrambling system used for DVD licensing enforcement and for doubleTwist, an iTunes-like application for managing and synchronising content on various devices including Android mobile phones, BlackBerry devices and Palm smartphones.

Hewlett-Packard has completed the Palm acquisition. And if you read between the lines it sounds like HP will leverage Palm’s technology for more than smart phones and tablet computers. Indeed, HP seems poised to deploy webOS on netbooks. Here are the details.

No more fees and new promotions both hope to stimulate the Linux-based webOS ecosystem. In an effort to boost webOS app development, Palm dropped its US$ 50-per-app fee required to get an app featured in Palm's official app catalog. Palm is also retroactively refunding any US$ 50 fee accrued during webOS development.

Embedded Linux is more popular now than ever, but because of its ease-of-use, flexibility, and, importantly, free licensing cost, developers have taken the mobile OS in a variety of directions. Google's Android, Intel and Nokia's MeeGo, and Palm's webOS are just three Linux-based distros found on mobile device today, with Ubuntu Lite both entering the tablet scene later this year.

During a conference call HP chief executive Mark Hurd told the Wall Street Journal that HP plans to extend Palm's webOS not only to smartphones and tablets but to other devices, including web-enabled printers. "We expect to leverage webOS in a variety of form factors, including slate computer and Web-connected printers," Hurd said.

Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to buy Palm Inc., the money-losing handset maker that was once a Silicon Valley icon, for $1.2 billion to challenge Apple Inc. in the smartphone market. Palm’s common shareholders will receive $5.70 a share in cash, a 23 percent premium over the closing price, Hewlett- Packard said in a statement today. Elevation Partners LP, Palm’s biggest investor, gets $485 million for its preferred shares and warrants.

This is the fourth Linux-based smartphone development we have covered in Linux User & Developer. Check out earlier issues of the magazine for the coverage on Openmoko, Palm Pre and Google Android. This alone proves that Linux is already a big thing for smartphone or embedded development…

Google has opened the door to iPhone-like 3D games on certain Android handsets, offering support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard with its latest Android Native Development Kit (NDK). Mountain View announced the third release of its Android NDK in a Monday blog post. The chief addition is Open GL for Embedded Systems 2.0 native libraries, bringing the platform in line with Apple's iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre.

Sprint and Verizon Wireless have released Palm's upgraded 1.4 version of the Linux-based WebOS for Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones. Ofering much-anticipated video capture and editing functionality plus improved messaging features, WebOS 1.4 arrives shortly after Palm announced lowered investment guidance due to disappointing smartphone sales.

LXer Feature: 26-Feb-2010

I was going to just cover the 2nd and 3rd days of SCALE 8x but after getting back home and sitting myself down in front of my favorite compy and started thinking about it, I figured I might as well go all out and give you a full recap of my road trip from Phoenix to Los Angeles for SCALE 8x and back. 

We have tested a few interesting Intel Atom-powered nettop computers lately from the ASRock ION 330HT-BD that bears a Blu-ray drive and an Intel Atom 330 CPU with NVIDIA ION graphics to the ASUS Eee Top that packaged the entire system within a touch-screen monitor. In this article we are trying out the CompuLab Fit-PC2, which is definitely the smallest Atom-powered computer we have tested to date. The Fit-PC2 easily fits in the palm of your hand and it packs an Intel Atom Z530 processor with a Poulsbo graphics processor, a 160GB SATA HDD, and 1GB of system memory.

Palm hits the gas pedal: with a six-figure monetary award for the most downloaded webOS applications the California company wants to heat up the app development market.

Verizon Wireless announced Jan. 25 availability of two modified versions of Palm's WebOS-based smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and the newly WiFi-enabled Palm Pixi Plus. Meanwhile, Palm announced that its WebOS developer program is now open to all developers, and plans to launch a WebOS plugin development kit, says eWEEK.

AT&T announced plans to launch five Android devices from Dell, HTC, and Motorola in the first half of the year, as well as two Palm WebOS phones, say reports. In separate announcements, AT&T and T-Mobile said they had completed upgrades to provide HSPA 7.2 service across their 3G networks, says eWEEK.