Report: HP Sought $1.2 Billion For webOS Sale.

If a new report by VentureBeat is accurate, it’s a glaring look at how disconnected from the outside world HP has become, and how much they are grasping at straws (if the multiple CEO swaps and running a somewhat successful — webOS at least had potential — mobile platform into the ground weren’t enough already).

In said report, it is alleged that HP sought the same $1.2 asking price that the company originally paid to acquire webOS and Palm assets. While it is true that HP didn’t have webOS/Palm that long, breaking even itself is way too far of a stretch. HP trashed webOS/Palm’s reputation and potential, taking its value and throwing it in the garbage.

On top of the sticker shock, potential buyers were also reportedly looking at a tangled web of strings — HP wanted to retain the ability to use webOS for its printers and develop it accordingly. No wonder no one bought webOS.

[Update] Verizon Wireless Data Down. Again.

It’s that time of the week again — time for another Verizon Wireless data outage.

From what we can tell (based on a score of tweets anyway) is that the outage isn’t a complete black out. Some users don’t have any data access while some are chugging along with 1x/2G service. Basically, it’s a crapshoot if you’ll have service or not and the level of quality said service will be.

Let us remind you this is VZW’s 3rd network problem in a single month. Are they trying to become worse and less reliable than AT&T?

Stay close for updates…

Update

Droid-Life is reporting that it is only LTE devices that appear to be affected. We don’t have a VZW device on hand to confirm/deny such things, so toss us a line if you could…

Update 2

Nearly 24 hours after reports began trickling in, we’re hearing more and more reports that slowly but surely, 3G/4G is coming back. What does your neck of the woods look like?

Update 3

Everything is back to normal according to a new tweet via @VZWnews.

Sound Off: What Did You Buy With That iTunes Gift Card?

The iTunes Store has grown from a simple wonderland for music lovers to an all encompassing playground for digital media junkies. Now there’s an entire range of hardware and software to keep you busy for at least a month.

So we gotta ask: What did you splurge on this holiday season with that fancy iTunes gift card. Apps? Music? Movies? Sound off in the comments!

Canadian Carriers Continue Killing ETFs. (But They’re Really Just Shifting Costs.)

Our friends up north in Canada, specifically the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec, get to enjoy cellphone contracts sans early cancellation fees (or ETFs) thanks to a new(er) amendment that was added to “Bill 60″ which outlaws the practice of collecting such fees. But before you get too excited, we must stress that the truth is in the details…

Review: NuTouch Gloves

We’ve already had some (literal) hands-on time with two paris of Agloves’ fantastic touchscreen gloves (1, 2) as well as a heavier duty pair by Isotoner (review). All three pairs of gloves worked well at both keeping out digits warm and allowing us to still interact with our beloved touchscreens. And today we add another notch to our belt by way of NewerTech’s NuTouch gloves. Hop inside as we try out the latest pair of geek-ware to pass through our hallowed halls…

With 50,000 Apps Now Available, Is 2012 The Year Of Windows Phone?

If you ask most mainstream consumers what mobile platforms someone would consider “popular”, you’ll no doubt hear “iPhone” and “Droid”, of course referring to iOS and Android. Depending on your geographic area, you might also hear BlackBerry tossed in every once in a while. What you don’t hear: Windows Phone. But in 2012, such omissions of Windows Phone could be much less a norm, and in fact a rarity if the number of WP7 apps continue to rise signaling among other things, a rise in developer confidence. Because where there are developers, there are usually users…

5.0.1 Untether Jailbreak Released for A4 Devices! [Update]

Well, for the most part, it’s finally here! The development of the 5.0.x untether jailbreak from pod2g has finally been released to the masses. It was just a short time ago that pod2g handed his findings over to both the Chronic Dev Team and iPhone Dev Team so he could focus his brain magic on getting the exploit working on A5 devices (iPad 2 and iPhone 4S). After handing it off, the iPhone Dev Team built it into an updated version of redsn0w and pwnagetool while the Chronic Dev Team released a Cydia package applying the Untether to your already tethered jailbreak. The tool in Cydia is named Corona 5.0.1 Untether.

The exploit will jailbreak the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4(GSM & CDMA), iPad 1, and the iPod Touch 3G & 4G on 5.0.1 only. So if you haven’t updated, please do so as the SHSH blob window is still open. As soon as you update, please use TinyUmbrella to save your 5.0.1 blobs. You can even use redsn0w to do it now under the ‘Extras’ button. We will provide links to both redsn0w and pwnagetool after the break.

The reason those of us with an iPhone 4S and iPad 2 aren’t included in this jailbreak is because A5 devices cannot be pwned by GeoHot’s limera1n exploit. Apple closed that hole, so the mighty hackers are left searching for new ones. We posted on the progress of the jailbreak and A5 devices last week, pod2g received some help from Cydia superstar Saurik that solved the caching problems he was having. We’ll hopefully have support for A5 devices soon! We’ll keep you up to date on any further developments.

Update

Supposedly there was a launchctl issue affecting certain adopters of both Corona Untether and those that used the redsn0w untether. PlanetBeing found what was causing this and Saurik patched the Corona untether from Cydia to version 1.0.3 that any user can install over their untether. This will fix the problem. I can verify, that if you used redsn0w to install the untether, you can use 1.0.3 to patch it if you are experiencing problems.

Hop on in for some sweet and tasty download links!