Palm promises bright future ahead. Can they deliver?

For all intents and purposes, Palm was dead. And then HP scooped them out of the financial blackhole of failure. Having a once great company as Palm saved from death by a deep-pocketed HP with promises of great things to come is a pretty good thing. So what do we have to look forward to?

“Very exciting things” says a Palm spokesperson at a recent AT&T webinar. Though any roadmap, future product details, or even some vague hardware/software specs to get all wide-eyed over weren’t divulged due to Palm’s ongoing acquisition by HP.

“I’m not allowed to talk about future roadmaps, especially because we’re in the process of being acquired by HP, so I can’t say. But yes we have a road map. We are working on future devices. And [a] new version of the OS. So I think, you’re going to find the next year very exciting.

We’ve heard plenty of empty promises by Palm and many other tech companies before. So until they actually start producing and releasing these claimed devices and products, it’s business as usual here. Do you think Palm can get back in the swing of things? Or, did HP just waste tens of billions of dollars on a dead tech company? Leave it inside…

Galaxy S Pro a champ on paper. But what about that UI?

For CDMA lovers, the Android seen has been quite active as of late. Sure you have a couple lust worthy GSM devices floating around here and there, but just look — Droid X, Droid 2, and now Samsung Galaxy S Pro — CDMA is having a field day. The last one on that list is pretty interesting as on paper, the Galaxy S Pro is quite the looker. With 1GHz of ARM Cortex A8 processing power, 512MB RAM, 8GB of internal storage, WVGA AMOLED display, 720p video recording, and EV-DO WiMax support, the Galaxy S Pro looks hot!

And then there’s the TouchWiz 3.0 UI. What do you guys think? Honestly, I feel it cheapens the phone, especially one with the “pro” title in it. TouchWiz is just so…PlaySkool. Not to mention, TouchWiz is a heavy handed theme atop Android meaning updates will be slow to never.

Will the Galaxy S Pro hardware carry it forward or is it being hampered by TouchWiz? I’d personally love a Galaxy S Pro in stock Android garb and running on GSM. That right there would be a mighty fine deal, wouldn’t you say?

Privacy nightmare: Google found to have collected not only wireless network data, but logins, passwords, and email contents too…

The backlash against Google’s WiFI collecting tactics isn’t about to let up anytime soon. In fact, I’d say Google is a world of hurt right now after new information is coming to light, stating that Google took not only WiFi network information, but screen names, passwords, and even partial pieces of email messages! If that’s not the most disgusting mis-use of technology and invasion of privacy, I don’t know what is. Currently, the only government body to even have access to this wealth of information is the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL), though they’ve already vocalized their extreme displeasure. But several other governments such as Spain and Germany have also requested access to Google’s collected data, meaning the nightmare is only starting.

Judging by the scope of the data collected and given the fact that Google’s street cars have already crawled across vast parcels of earth means Google has a ton of blood on their hands. We’ll keep following this one.

Any readers out there feeling uneasy about Google’s actions. Android users — how does this affect your love for your all Google device? Leave it in the comments.

**After getting several emails and replies via Twitter, I suppose I should further clarify my original thought — Even though Google claims this was all accidental, I don’t see how they could go on for as long as they did without knowing what they were collecting. However, people conducting private business or even merely using open networks aren’t without fault either. Using an open network for anything that requires logins, passwords, or sensitive information is stupid. Better?

[Update] Droid Incredible being sent out to pasture…already?

Take this with a grain of salt folks, but the picture above would lead us to believe that Verizon is putting out an early funeral for the Droid Incredible. At first, it seems pretty odd given that the device is only a couple of months old at best. But if you look at the Droid X and Droid 2 that are coming down the pipe line, the Incredible sort of loses it’s luster. Though if you’ve got a thing for HTC’s Sense UI, I can see why you’d pick the Incredible over either of the two newcomers. Still, the future of the Incredible isn’t looking so hot.

Update: Whew! Turns out there was second SKU for the Incredible. The SKU being phased out above is one that doesn’t ship with a memory card whereas the newer SKU that will continue selling does include said card. Carry on folks.

Don’t like the JooJoo? What about the JooJoo OS X edition?

Regardless of what a few specific individuals (read: Fusion Garage exec’s) say, the JooJoo by Fusion Garage is pretty much a bomb — in stock form that is. What if you could order one with a different OS — one with a bit more functionality, say OS X? Them you’d have something, right? Well, I’m not too sure what exactly would make the JooJoo hardware “lust worthy”, but slappin’ OS X on it and giving it another go couldn’t help, that’s for sure.

The image above depicts such a tale of two cities, though is void of any real information to pass along. Though we have to ask — Would you really drop $500 on a JooJoo when an iPad is leaps and bounds better in the tablet world? Yeah, I didn’t think so…

White Evo 4G soon coming to BestBuy.

The HTC Evo 4G is one helluva phone. Through and through, it’s got a lot going for it. Though one thing that bothers some people, particularly the more “hipster” crowd, is that boring black garb that seems to encase oh so many electronics. From time to time, phone manufacturers switch it up a bit by offering different case colors for consumers to choose. In the case of the HTC Evo 4G, it’s black or….black. Until now.

A new tip from an Engadget reader has HTC releasing a white HTC Evo 4G on July 11th exclusively through BestBuy. According to this same tipster, the white Evo 4G will remain a BB exclusive until August 8th at which point it will branch out to Radio Shack and Sprint retails stores en mass. I have to say, the white paint job does look pretty cool on the Evo’s larger than life casing.

If you really can’t wait, word is you can go on ahead and put in your pre-order status at BestBuy starting today. So if it’s a white Evo 4G you crave, now is the time to act.

Anyone diggin’ the new color?

Buffalo outing USB 3.0 12x Blu-ray burner for archiving junkies.

Have 50GB+ of digital junk sitting around needing to be archived? Usually I’d say get a couple of external hard drives and be done with it. Cheap and easy. But I can see the need for high-capacity physical media as well. For the time being anyway, Blu-ray is pretty much your best bet at cramming the most 1′s and 0′s onto a portable and easily sharable disc. Putting said data on the disc is another thing entirely however.

Since Blu-ray burners and such are still rather expensive, the lower-end range of hardware is still rather slow. 1-2x is what you can expect in the cheap seats. And as you can imagine, 50GB at 1-2x will take a small eternity. But Buffalo has a solution in their new 12x USB 3.0 external Blu-ray burner — the MediaStation BR3D-12U3. While not exactly “cheap” at $349, the fact that it is 12x speed and USB 3.0 compatible in a time period where USB 3.0 accessories are still rather rare is a big plus. Adding to the pluses of this drive include 1080p upscaling, giving even “normal” video content an extra polish that will at least make it look a tad closer to true HD.

Look for the MediaStation BR3D-12U3 to hit store shelves later this month.