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Once upon a time Palm was a leading company in the mobile device space. Then Palm lost some serious market share, tried some new things that didn’t go over too well, and was eventually acquired by HP… who then canceled all Palm-related projects and dismantled the team before selling most of the remaining assets to LG, which uses them for smart TVs.
The full story’s a lot more complicated, but the point is that it’s been a few years since you’ve been able to buy a mobile device with PalmOS or webOS software. But maybe that’s going to change… because a visit to Palm.com now redirects to mynewpalm.com and an old Palm logo.
Update: There’s also some evidence to suggest that TCL may be the company reviving the Palm name.Â
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web. You can keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
- Is Palm making a comeback?
The folks at the largely defunct webOS Nation website posted the news about mynewpalm this morning. [webOS Nation] - Meet the new Palm, it’s not the same as the old Palm
Blogger Mike Cane did a little digging and found that this isn’t the Palm we know and maybe kinda love. A company called ToyShock has acquired the Palm trademark and could be using it for something entirely new and unrelated to the products produced by the now-defunct Palm. [Mike Cane] - The company that owns the Palm trademark also holds marks for, well… a lot of toy-related things
In case you’re wondering what kind of business Toyshock is, they also have trademarks for Fantastic Baby, Rainbow Girls, and Bombom Bubbles. In other words, mostly toys. But the Palm trademark is for use with smartphones, PC tablets, and PC tablets for video games. So maybe some new hardware is on the way… even if it’s Palm in name only? Â [Justia] - BubbleUPnP for Android now transcodes files on the fly when you want to use a Chromecast with unsupported formats
Want to send an H.264 file from your phone to a TV through a Chromecast? No problem, there are plenty of apps that’ll do that. But what if you want to send a file that the Chromecast can’t natively support? Now you can transcode it in real-time on your phone… just don’t expect your battery to last very long under the strain. [Android Police] - Report: bq Aquaris E4.5 will be the first Ubuntu smartphone, coming in Feb, 2015
We already know that bq and Meizu are among the first companies planning on launching smartphones that run Canonical’s Ubuntu touch software. Now we have an idea of when to expect at least one of those phones… maybe. [Ubuntu Users] - XDA has a nice, long recap of the legal dispute between Cyanogen, OnePlus, and Micromax
The OnePlus One was the second phone to ship with a commercial version of Cyanogen OS. But after Cyanogen Inc signed a deal making Micromax the only company allowed to distribute phones with Cyanogen OS in India, the agreement with OnePlus almost went up in flames. We covered this a bit on Liliputing, but there are far more gritty details in this report for folks who don’t mind a little schadenfreude. [xda-developers] - Intel’s Easy Migration tool for Chromebooks helps you migrate contacts, photos, and other data from a PC or phone
Of course, migrating your Google Contacts from an Android phone to a Chromebook is pretty much automatic since they’re all backed up to your Google account… but some of the other features could come in handy. [Intel]
There was a Palm OS (not webOS) emulator for iOS, and Android as I just discovered. Maybe they could package that into an Android device.
Edit: It was called StyleTap.. but it’s $50… I can buy three (maybe more?) used Palm OS devices for that.
There’s a cheaper 68k based Android emulator (PHEM), for $1
This is why I think TCL’s Alcatel may be behind the new Palm: https://ederic.ph/1v58bqV
when back the BeOS? I need BeOS as open source!
Do a Google search for ‘Haiku’ …
Brad is a cool dude who brings us word of devices from afar.
Gee! And you contribute precisely what to this community?
He’s a spammer who has been trying to leave comments telling you to buy tablets from his store. He’s been unhappy with my efforts to delete his posts and block his username/email (so he keeps popping up with new accounts).
Keep whackin’ that mole, Brad-san. I don’t know what he said about you (comment deleted), but we don’t want his kind here any more than you do.
And I remember the nightmare that was Palm/Mac synch toward the end… Can’t tell you how relieved I was to get “only one company to blame for problems” vertically integrated synch when the iPhone came out; took Apple awhile to get it stable (though I never had the MobileMe blues as bad as many), but it was better than my rickety Palm toolchain from day one. As noted, of course, this likely has nothing to do with “My New Palm.”
Respect.
I want a Palm Pilot! Stylus!
Graffiti!
The new Samsung Galaxy Note comes with kinda stylus, pressure-detection, precise position, try it at local store, it’s pretty okay.
Well, I think they will have a tough time trying to grab a piece of the market these days.
So they’re thirsty for more? Good Luck Palm.
This ain’t ‘Palm.’ Palm is dead. This is like when you see old names in discount stores like Zenith that have been in the grave for decades, the trademark got sold to some anonymous Chinese outfit and they stick it on over the unpronouncable noname the stuff would have sold under. You can bet the rent money it won’t even run any descendant of PalmOS. I’d bet on Android.
LOL it’s prolly an Android app.
Historically speaking we should probably be thankful for that.
Towards the end Palm seemed to always mess ONE thing up. Something technical, something in the software. Something.
R.I.P. Palm.
I loved the Sony Clie’ line of Palm OS handhelds.
The TH55 was ahead of its time.
I’m still using a Palm TX to keep track of all kinds of notes, lists and contacts for work, personal etc. Love the stylus. Use it alongside a Blackberry phone which is less fun.