HP going open source with WebOS

This isn’t technically an Android story, but we know there’s lots of Palm Pre and HP Touchpad users out there in the reading audience. After months of indecision over the future of WebOS, HP has decided to release open source code for the operating system, allowing anyone from hobbyists to manufacturers to create versions of WebOS for different devices. There won’t be any more hardware from HP featuring WebOS, at least not in the immediate future. WebOS started as a new operating system, built from the ground up by Palm to compete with the iPhone. When the first two generations of the Palm Pre failed to impress and its former PalmOS and Windows Mobile Treo phones kept losing ground in the market, PC manufacturer HP bought the company...

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Android’s US Market Share Nearing 50 percent in Latest Nielsen Report

Android continues to lead US smartphone market share, and the gap is growing according to the latest figures from Nielsen. For the third quarter of 2011 Android’s share reached 43 percent, up from 39 percent, compared to Apple’s 28 percent, which saw no change. Android saw its gains at the expense of RIM and Microsoft, whose dropping share combined for 25 percent of the smartphone market. Symbian and webOS featured such a small showing that Nielsen dumped them into the “other” category with 4 perent total share. Nielsen reports 43 percent of all mobile phone users own a smartphone, with Apple ranking as the top vendor despite conflicting reports from other analytics firms. [via Nielsen]Related articlesAndroid serves up 56% of mobile...

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Is HP just making up excuses now to keep webOS in the dark?

HP’s gone a little bit up and down over the last few months. Actually, many would say that there has been a lot more downthan up, and I would tend to agree. I am a fan of any company out there that stands behind their products to the end, and shows that they are pushing ahead despite the hardships. I’ll support those companies along with them, even if I know there’s an obvious dead end ahead. It’s one of the reasons I bought a TouchPad in that crazy fire sale that was happening. Even when I was seeing HP’s dismissal of the hardware front, I was holding out hope for the software. And now that HP is supposed to make a decision on webOS itself, I find myself holding my breath here and there, waiting to hear something.While we’ve been reporting...

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HP decides on Palm and webOS future this week

I’m not quite sure what the game plan HP had in mind when they purchased Palm some time ago, but it seems as though that is one plan that had fallen apart at the seams. The HP TouchPad did receive some buzz when it was introduced, but then again the tablet’s sales were stopped barely a month into its release. Signs point towards HP deciding on the future of Palm and its operating system, webOS, later this week after rumors of the company completing the initial bidding process for its webOS unit. An all-hands meeting is touted to be held tomorrow in order to reveal the future plans on whether HP will be selling or spinning off the group. That would basically mean $1.2 billion or so down the drain after acquiring Palm, so it remains...

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ACME Installer demo shows off Android/WebOS dual-boot on HP TouchPad

There are geeks working hard out there to get Android onto the HP TouchPad that failed so brilliantly. The future of WebOS might be murky and the future of updates is something that many that own the TouchPad may be worrying about. With a port that allows Android to run on the TouchPad the little HP tablet would get a second life and more usability for the average geek. A video has landed on YouTube that shows a demo of ACME Installer with dual boot for the TouchPad.The demo shows a geek with the ACME Installer mounting the TouchPad to a Mac and then moving some needed files over to the tablet. Once the files are over on the TouchPad, the files can be executed. To do this they create a folder called cminstall, copy a zip file over,...

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Now Amazon's in the frame to buy webOS

It's now pretty clear that the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet we saw launched through the week is just a placeholder for Amazon's grander slate ambitions, and we're expecting bigger and better from the online retail colossus in the months to come. But now VentureBeat has given things a new twist by suggesting part of those ambitions may involve snapping up webOS and reworking it for its own needs. In case you've forgotten, webOS is that much-loved mobile OS running on board the HP Pre3 and TouchPad – loved so much in fact that no-one seems willing to be able to make it work. Palm developed it, then just about went bust. HP was next to step in, buying out Palm and webOS and promising to change the world. But a couple of months ago it decided...

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