It’s not the most elegant of mods ever, but you can chalk that up to the electromagnetic-blocking nature of the metal battery cover used on the HTC HD2. That said, this mod does show how to get a Touchstone charger working with pretty much any device (not just the HTC Evo 4G) so long as you’re willing to sacrifice the aesthetic attributes of its USB charge port.

Simply put, the mod works like this: strip a Touchstone coil and board out of a Pre or Pixi Touchstone back, wire it up to a compatible charging plug, and either secure it to the phone in some manner. The metallic nature of the HD2 does require that the back be left out of the equation so that charging can take place, but for the vast majority of other phones it should be little issue to jury-rig this setup so that the Touchstone coil is inside the casing. Video after the break.

Via: Lifehacker, Hack a Day; Source: YouTube

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Obviously the concept was ahead of its time then, and is still a bit out of reach today (at least in the remapping of cityscapes as the video envisions). But bringing it back to webOS, Sood couldn’t help but wax poetically about HP’s latest acquisition:

I'm glad we finally bought Palm and now the possibilities are truly great. If you have not tried webOS you truly owe it to yourself just to try it. It's so freaking awesome. The biggest complaint right now is people want to see more hardware choices - I think we all know that.

So game developers, this was HP's vision 3+ years ago. If you could think about using our hardware and future hardware -- think scalable resolution, multiple cameras, fast graphics, awesome screens, touch, accelerometers, GPS, Bluetooth, WIFI, always connected, etc.

Just put it all together and create something truly unique.

We are in great concurrence with everything Mr. Sood has to say here, and we can only hope that HP’s guidance and giant bags of money will make this kind of awesomeness possible.

Source: RahulSood.com; thanks to everybody that sent this in!

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• Now that the newest version of Preware allows you to blacklist vendors, tobias funke is curious to know which spammy spammers you've ousted from your view of the App Catalog.
• Doz007 left the Pre and webOS shortly after buying the device after it launched on O2.  He's thinking of coming back, and he wants to know: has performance improved?
• Attention to those who use programs to securely store passwords and other sensitive information on their phones: JrrInTN wants to know your thoughts on the differences between jVault and SplashID.
• A good number of you still need local syncing of your PIM data, and atremorer wants to know which one you think is the best.  

We look forward to seeing you in the forums!  Not already a member? Be sure to hit the registration link and join us! 

HP CTO Phil McKinney just finished his speech at AlwaysOn and as expected, there were no major announcements to be had. McKinney did discuss some of the roadblocks between where we are and where we need to be with regard to mobile cloud computing - hitting on issues like the US falling behind in broadband infrastructure and companies intervening between app developers and users in oppressive ways.

McKinney also once again mentioned HP's thinking with regard to the future of devices with those flexible displays, though he went one step further and hypothetized about separating the display from the device - ex. your connection could be your watch and you display could be a flexible display, your phone, or heck, even your entire wall as in the slide above. Who wouldn't want a webOS Wall?

Q&A time brought a lot of questions about Palm. McKinney once again mentioned HP's size and scale, natch, but he also pointed out that that he has given phones as prizes to HP engineers who develop good webOS apps:

Inside of HP with the 47,000 engineers I issued a challenge [...] for the HP engineers to go create apps, consumer apps [...] I stopped counting at 750 apps and my mailbox has totally exploded.

Some of those apps, by the way, have popped up in Palm's Beta Apps feed.

McKinney pointed out that Palm does not get in the way of letting developers connect directly to their users. In fact, enterprises are free to create their own app distribution systems. McKinney also pointed out that HP supports homebrew: 

We also support the homebrew guys. You hear about all the guys hacking phones and unlocking the phones, we actually encourage that. You can go out to PreCentral or any of the sites that support the Palm homebrew guys. they'll tell you how to unlock your phone and how you can download the homebrew sites. The homebrew guys have just done some phenomenal work from the standpoint of really unlocking the true power of webOS.

Lastly, McKinney reiterated some of the points we heard last week: "We are also restating that our focus is webOS and Windows 7," meaning that Android is on the outs with HP for sure as is Windows Phone 7. He also reiterated that the Windows 7 Slate is meant solely for enterprise, HP is most definitely working on a webOS Slate device, and finally that Rubinstein wasn't whistlin' dixie when he said webOS 2.0 is coming.

Want to show Phil McKinney the same love he's showing the community? He's looking for some help creating an 'audio brand / entrance theme' for when he heads out to give speeches. The person who creates the best theme will win $1,000 to boot. Check it out here.

Update: the presentation video is online now.

Source: AlwaysOn & ViVu livestream.

Rahul Sood, founder of luxury PC maker Voodoo, HP's CTO of gaming and recent champion of webOS has finally sat down with Palm's directors of dev relations Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer.  Discussion in this rare, audio only podcast includes: Rahul's background with Voodoo, his passion for design, what HP has to offer the webOS community, his thoughts on where mobile gaming is going, and more.

Great to see execs like Sood fired up about Palm and webOS!

Source: Palm's Developer Blog 

If you're interested in the full schedule at the conference, you can find it by way of the AlwaysOn website.   

Source: @PhilMckinney

Facebook Beta for webOS just now has been updated from 1.2.5 to 1.2.30 (we assume that's a 'dot thirty,' aka bigger than .five ;) ) and it's brought a few new features that we're digging, many of which we saw teased just a couple of weeks ago:

• The ability to filter the news feed by category of updates you actually care about, as well as toggle comments on and off.
• The ability to browse the app in landscape mode
• It looks like all notifications are properly marked as 'read' when you view all notifications
• We are also seeing a lot of very nice and subtle animations throughout that look new to us

If you have the Beta installed, just check for updates to get the new version. If not, head on over here and click the handy-dandy install link to get a download link texted to you.

Update 1: Palm's own Justin Ried has just posted a changelog, after the break.

Update 2: We also have Palm's own Developer Center Blog chiming in with an interesting bit about how they have implemented a custom way to present a large list by adding paging buttons - a feature we wouldn't mind seeing in other apps.

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webOS has a little more competition on AT&T these days now that big blue has finally seen fit to allow a world-class Android phone on their network: the Samsung Captivate. Over at Android Central you can not only get a Samsung Captivate Review but also another check out another Galaxy S class device, a Samsung Vibrant Review for T-Mobile.

We don't expect either to make a huge dent in webOS-land like the EVO 4G did, though we wouldn't be shocked if later on the Sprint Galaxy phone, the Epic 4G, does make another run at eroding the webOS fan base in from the traditional Palm stronghold network.

You know the saying: great artists steal. Anything from Samsung's new phones that you'd like to see land on webOS? The Super-AMOLED screen (or at least its 4" size)? The keyboard-less slab design? Some of that Android homescreen widget action?

Users of competing platforms have had the ability to configure unique "profiles" - a particular setup of wallpaper, launcher, ringer and dock settings - for different times of the day and different scenarios for some time now.  It hasn't been until now, with Profiles (which can be downloaded from the PreCentral Homebrew app gallery) from homebrew developer Diov, that webOS users have had an easy to install way of configuring and managing profiles on their phones.

Profiles allows you to configure up to 11 profiles, each with its own unique launcher, dock, and wallpaper set up.  The program comes preconfigured with both Day and Night profiles, and users can create their own by setting their phones up how they like, hitting "edit mode", and tapping one of the profiles.

Like many of the custom app launchers that have sprung up in the App Catalog in recent times, I find the Profiles to be inelegant namely due to the minute-long restart of the UI manager - which causes the phone to be completely unusable - every time you switch profiles. That's certainly not the developer's fault, however. 

It should also be mentioned that this is beta software.  Accidently tapping a profile without first saving your current configuration will cause it to be erased - meaning that any launcher page settings will be gone. A few of us here at PC HQ have also experienced some conflict with customizations based on launcher patches. Update: this has been resolved in the latest version. Be sure to check out the forum thread for the app.

Thanks to Braden for the tip! 

In the latest move that may bode well for HP’s expansion of webOS into the enterprise (we covered its new channel plans last week) the company has hired Mark Angelino as its new senior vice president, Global Distribution, HP Enterprise Business. His job will include managing relationships for the many types of companies (integrators, service providers, consultants and vendors) that help HP get its products into the hands of enterprise customers.

From a Palm perspective, Angelino’s prior positions (including sales and marketing jobs at Sprint Nextel and most recently serving as a senior executive for customer services at Salesforce.com, as well as a “long stint at IBM,”) may bode well for his being able to understand and promote the place of a mobile operating system and multitasking smartphones within the enterprise. We also note that, in making the announcement, HP made a point of highlighting Mr. Angelino’s background in "cloud computing, telecommunications and sales," all very relevant for promoting webOS smartphones and other devices.

We wish Mr. Angelino much success in his new role at HP, and hope to hear great things from him about webOS devices in the near future.

(Source: ITChannelPlanet)