mLearnCon News and Updates

It's odd to think of Hewlett-Packard as an underdog, but when it comes to media tablets everybody is looking up at runaway market leader Apple. Sounding more like a cheeky upstart than the world's largest technology company, HP over the weekend boasted that its forthcoming TouchPad tabletwould "become better than number one," an obvious reference to Apple's best-selling iPad.

"In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP's products from our competitors, we became number one," said HP senior vice president Eric Cador said at a press conference in Cannes, according to The Telegraph.

"In the tablet world we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."

HP may soon have a chance to put its money where its mouth is. An unconfirmed report last weeksuggested that Wal-Mart will be carrying a 32GB TouchPad and could have product in its retail stores as early as June 1.

The company has not named an official release date beyond saying the TouchPad will be available this summer.

Priced at $599 for what appears to be a Wi-Fi only version of the 9.7-inch tablet, the TouchPad would appear to be fairly competitively priced with Apple's iPad 2.

But simply producing a similar device for a competitive price isn't the only challenge HP faces. The TouchPad is HP's first attempt at using its in-house webOS mobile operating system in a consumer-oriented tablet.

So far, tablets running Google's Android OS like the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and Acer Iconia Tab A500 have proven most competitive against the iOS-based iPad — or at least seem to have the most momentum, with Android 3.0 Honeycomb now a factor in new and soon-to-be released tablets.

Read more here from PCMag.

We love both Android and iOS, but the open nature of Android just means it can do things others just can't. Here are our favorite Android apps and features that you won't find on its Apple-clad brethren.

We didn't hold anything back in this list: rooting, jailbreaking, editing system files are all fair game. If there was some way to do it on the iPhone, we left it out. So, while there are a lot of great things about Android that don't come out of the box on the iPhone—like free turn-by-turn navigation or pull-down notifications—there are still ways to get those features on the iPhone. So here's our list of the ten features you just can't get, no way, no how, on a jailbroken or non-jailbroken device.

10. Alternate Keyboards

From text predictors like Swiftkey to theinnovative like Swype and the downright adventurous like 8pen, you have a lot of different keyboard choices on Android. Typing on a tiny phone keyboard isn't anyone's idea of fun, so it's great that Android provides so many options to make it as painless for people as possible, and super easy to install. The iPhone has other keyboards, but they're usually separate apps that require you to import text to another program—it's just the kind of system-level functionality that's hard to get around.

9. Automation

One of the most powerful, useful Android apps around is Tasker, the automation program that lets you turn your phone into a superphone. You can turn settings on and off for certain applications, by location, time of day, and pretty much any other condition you can think of. With the right commands in place, Tasker can access the deepest and darkest settings on your phone, which is something you just can't do on other platforms. Be sure to also check out our second list of Tasker setups, three handy Tasker profiles from our readers, and how to roll your own "Find my iPhone" for Android. Similar apps like the battery-saving JuiceDefender would also fall into this category.

Get more tips from the LifeHacker full article here.

From Digital Daily by John Paczkowski

Exclusive: Palm Loses Mobile Design Guru Matias Duarte to Google

Looks like Palm is suffering a bit of post-acquisition talent drain.

Mobile user interface master Matias Duarte has left Palm and evidently hired on at the most obvious of places: Google.

Duarte, who led development of Palm’s webOS UI as the company’s senior director of human interface and user experience, has jumped ship, Palm (PALM) confirms. And while the company refuses to tell me where he’s going, multiple sources say it’s Google (GOOG), where he’ll presumably be working on Android, the company’s open-source platform for mobile devices–noncompete clauses permitting, of course...

Read the rest from John HERE

Read about the tweets of the HP/Palm buyout from industry experts, except for the following tweet from an online comedian.

From ReadWriteWeb

The Smartest Tweets About HP/Palm

See tweets from the experts HERE.

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From NASDAQ.com

H-P acquires Palm for a relative song

H-P acquires Palm for a relative song Hewlett-Packard snapped up ailing Palm, Inc. (PALM) this week, paying just $1 billion for the once-proud consumer electronics firm.

READ MORE

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From NetworkWorld

Palm users 'giddy' over HP's buyout

High hopes for WebOS's future; but plenty of concerns that 'unsexy' HP will fumble the Palm ball

Read the article HERE.

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BUT, not everyone is happy with the deal. Just ask Bono.

 

From SlashGear

HP’s Palm buyout prompts shareholder legal investigations

Read the article HERE.

 

From TFTS

Bono Lost Money On Palm-HP Sale [Irish Rocker's Firm Lost An Estimated $200 Million On HP's Purchase Of Palm]

Read the article HERE.

From CNET

Palm, the company that invented the PDA but has struggled to stay relevant in recent years, will be acquired by computing giant Hewlett-Packard.

The companies announced Wednesday, after Wall Street trading ended, that HP will buy Palm for $1.2 billion. The $5.70 per share offer amounts to 23 percent above Palm's closing price. The deal has already been approved by both companies' boards of directors and is expected to close by the end of July.

Read the full story from CNET here.