Live Blog: HP Tablet AnnouncedLive Blog: HP Tablet Announced

On Wednesday, February 9 at 10 a.m. PST at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center HP is expected to announce and show off a tablet, and perhaps some other surprises. I'll be live blogging right here. You can either leave this open in heavy anticipation, or ask me to send e-mail reminders to your personal account every five minutes (for which I'll merely need your e-mail address and SSN, along with all of your passwords).

My colleague Gina Smith will also be there writing and providing video and, hopefully, feeding me popcorn like Cameron Diaz; and we'll be snapping plenty of photographs.

For a preview, help your self to a commentary I posted earlier.

Lining Up To Enter <BR>The HP Event

9:15 AM PST: We are here at beautiful Fort Mason in San Francisco on a spectacular day. The Bay is sparkling, Alcatraz beckons (for some of us), and somewhere inside the theater HP is making all the final preparations. The line to get in is already pretty long...and growing.

9:40 AM PST: We are staged with video equipment right outside the main theater, waiting to get in. The rumors among those in line are about a new, really small phone, and a tablet, at the very least. No surprises there. The usual suspects, media-wise, are all here. It seems we all see each other weekly. I am making a game about who is showing up at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the earliest. So far it's my colleague Gina Smith at 7 a.m. Saturday.

9:58 AM PST: We are inside. Just ran into the ex head of communication for SAP, Bill Wohl. He's now heading up communications for all of HP (Chief Communications Officer). Leo Apotheker (now HP CEO, formerly the embattled SAP CEO) called him and now here he is. Great to see a familiar and dynamic person at high levels at HP.

We're Inside

10:00 AM PST: This place is absolutely jam-packed. It's nice to see this many people come to an event NOT hosted by Apple, Google or Microsoft. Sitting beside me is our Sr. Director of User Experience, taking photos, and Gina Smith, who is heading up Byte. Dan Resciniti is shooting video. Sadly, Gina forgot to bring the popcorn. She promised to feed me Xanax if I want. (And for the record, Leo Apotheker, AKA Waldo, is not here.)

10:05 AM PST: My colleague Eric Zeman just tweeted that he must be seated next to the smelliest person in the room. Now I want to find him and see who it is! Maybe get a photo.

10:08 AM PST: I'm getting a headache from the LCD Sound System song "One Touch Is Never Enough."

10:12 AM PST: HP is late starting this event. Fitting. Luckily the music has changed. I felt like the Crips were driving by for a few minutes.

10:15 AM PST: More rumors: HP isn't going to give us any tablets today, but everyone in attendance gets an HP server. (Sorry, when they make you wait it's fun to just make up rumors.)

10:16 AM PST: Lights dimming. Music volume raised. Time to begin.

Todd Bradly, EVP of Personal Systems Group on stage.

10:20 AM PST: Bradley is talking about first experiences, and how we need to hold onto those. He says that's what the technology industry is all about. (And he uses the word "awesome" -- my favorite overused term.) HP is about creating amazing experiences for customers that want to be better connected to their world.

HP is creating building blocks for connected experiences. New experiences. Hints that there will be several new products.

HP pocket calculator, portable PC, first inkjet printer, mentions first voice ocillators that Disney used. He is talking about HP as a company known for its innovation. ANd that it can do it at scale. It serves 1 billion customers in over 170 countries, 210,000 service providers, 88,000 retail locations ... an unprecedented global reach.

10:21 AM PST: Bradley: "In the last 60 seconds, HP shipped 120 PCs. 120 Printers." OK, we get it. HP Is amazing. (Wind up, wind up, wind up.)

10:22 AM PST: Now he's talking about bringing that scale to the WebOS development efforts. He's talking about how HP is deploying vast resources (engineering, development, research) to WebOS.

Web OS

10:23 AM PST: Bradley is talking about relationships with the developer community -- and the work HP has put in there. Now that's debatable. Let's hope that's now changing. That will be key to success here.

10:24 AM PST: Bradley is noting the explosion in the number of devices, the amount of web-based content, and the growth in number of services surrounding the mobile industry (YouTube, NetFlix, Twitter, Snapfish, etc.). He says that nobody has come up with a device that exploits this entire ecosystem. "A solution that gives you effortless access to that digital universe no matter which HP device you use."

10:25 AM PST: Sounds like the idea here is to connnect everything HP via WebOS for on the go web experiences and connectivity. (Whew. Glad I put that in my preview piece.)

"Think, Feel & Connect." A tagline for this effort?

10:26 AM PST: Now Bradley is bringing out Jon Rubenstein, who heads up mobile for HP (SVP & GM, headed up Palm.)

Big appause: Rubenstein is very well liked, seems like a genuine and smart person.

10:27 AM PST: Rubenstein talking about Synergy. Not the term, but the product -- the way HP/Palm connects data in the cloud, especially social data. This was a big innovation Palm created with WebOS back in early 2009.

"Today marks an important new beginning." And "We have a lot to show you today."

Jon Rubenstein

10:28 AM PST:First, WebOS. Rubenstein: "WebOS is two years old. Rubenstein is talking about all of the WebOS accolades, from the press. Too bad the press aren't the buyers."

Latest release: WebOS 2.1. Takes multitasking, universal search, synergy ...takes them further. 50 more features added. But now HP is taking it beyond this. He says that most companies are taking things larger and larger. But what works well for some is something smaller but with all the world class smartphone features.

10:31 AM PST:"Thinking small." -- the HP Veer. Looks like a mini Palm Pre phone. Looks pager-size (like the old school pagers). He says it's about the size of a credit card. "Me, I never leave home without it." Vivid 2.6 inch capacitive touch, full qwerty keypad. Built in GPS. Gesture area. Falsh. 5 MP camera. USB and 3.5mm audio jack with magnetic camera.

HSPA+, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. 8 GB storage. Uses Snapdragon 7230/800MHz processor. Mobile hot spot for up to 5 wifi devices. Available in early Spring. Hasn't said what carriers.

Veer

10:33 AM PST: Now Rubenstein is talking about normal, mainstream phone features. Smartphone for professionals -- productivity with personal passions: the Pre3.

10:35 AM PST: Looks like a Pre. On screen this looks thin. Largest Querty keyboard. Gesture area for nav. 3.6 inch 480 x 800 WVGA display. 2.5x resolution of the Pre. 5 MP camera with auto-focus, HD fvideo, forward facing camera. HSPA+ or EVdo rev A. Wifi, Bluetooth, 8GB or 16 GB of storage. Accelerometer, promximity and light sensors. 1.4 GHz snapdragon processor.

Available: this Summer.

Touchstone technology: You just set your device on this round device (this has been available). Context aware -- it will show the right content based on where they are docked.

HP Touchpad

10:38 AM PST: Now we're going big: The Tablet -- the HP Touchpad. Big applause.

It looks like...a tablet.

There will be a touchpad family.

10:39 AM PST: Weighs a bit more than 1.5 pound. 13.7 mm thick. 9.7 inch 1024 x 76;8 display, 1.3 MP webcam. Supports video calling. Beats Audio technology. Stereo speakers.

Supports Wifi (all flavors), 16 or 32 GB sorage (2x memory of Pre 2), Gyro, accelerometer, compass. Qualcomm dual core 1.2 GHz snapdragon processor.

10:41 AM PST: WebOS user interface being used here -- the multitasking is even more compelling he says. Activity cards grouped into card stacks (this is the same as the phone, but I imagine it would be so much better on a tablet).

He says the e-mail experience is unmatched.

With Synergy -- enter your WebOS user name & password and all of your information just shows up -- calendars, e-mail, Instant messaging and so on.

Comes bundled with Quick Office, can use Google Docs, Dropbox and Box.net, supports VPN, and (again) video calling). Integrated with wireless printing.

Full web/Flash experience.

So far I'm hearing "Just the same as all the rest."

Stand and Keyboard

10:44 AM PST: Ultra compact wireless keyboad will be available too. And a touchtone doc will recharge the tablet. The devices (the tablets) can work together -- sharing information among themselves wirelessly.

10:44 AM PST: We're going to see a demo. Sachin Kansal, Dir Product Management. He's jacked.

10:46 AM PST: Kansal starts with the Pre3 (the keyboard looks like the same keyboard as the regular Pre, which I don't like -- I hope it feels better; it looks like it could be bigger). He sends a message, puts it on the Touchstone to re-charge the device, and it switches into exhibition mode, showing appointments or becoming a photo frame.

10:48 AM PST: Now Kansal is going to the tablet. He hears a text message on his Pre3, but now he can see the same message on its Touchpad. Lots of applause, suspiciously from the front row (nothing like HP folks pumping up the crowd), but this is nifty. Seamless integration of devices. If you have all HP devices.

10:49 AM PST: Each of the applications represented by a card -- each is kept in the state the user left it. And you flip through these cards. Very easy. This is WebOS, of course.

Calendar syncs with multiple sources -- Google, Outlook, Facebook (Huh? Is there a Facebook calendar -- he actually said that).

You can stack cards -- say a web site tied to a to-do list. The example he gives is a to do list to buy a diamond for Valentine's day.

Calendar Feature

10:52 AM PST: The e-mail he is showing, with HTML content in it, isn't rendering properly. "Still optimizing," he explains.

10:53 AM PST: The e-mail client has the concept of panes, where you can get, say, a larger view of your entire message, without the list of messages, or of the inbox. You can just move things (panes, I guess) around. This is similar, it seems, to the fragments that Google showed for Honeycomb.

10:54 AM PST: (All of this is very nice. But I keep wondering if they are going to talk about how they will get developers to write for this paltform.)

With e-mail, you can create "cards" for each e-mail. That's a very nice way to manage through important e-mails. Sort of like multi-tasking e-mail.

10:55 AM PST: He is now showing flash. It works. OK. Good. Check.

Why did it have to be a Kung Fu Panda trailer?

10:56 AM PST: Showing the browser. It does not look like it has tabs, though the history & bookmarks are easily accessible and nicely displayed.

10:58 AM PST: Notifications: they pop up in the upper right, you can also tap the icon and see a summary of them, and then to launch the app from a drop-down menu. You can see a bit of the notifications in the drop down too.

Universal inbox brings together all of your messages.

The e-mail client

10:59 AM PST: From the touch keyboard you can hold down the keyboard key and change the size of the text. Small thing, but nifty.

11:00 AM PST: Sorry: Not clear if this keyboard feature just makes the keys on the keyboard smaller.

You can tweet (not just tweet, but a good example) from JustType. Just start typing and you get a menu of apps, and if you pick Twitter, it tweets out what you've typed.

From photo app, you can view not only those taken from the tablet or imported in, but it also integrates photos from places like Facebook and other photo sharing sites.

A print button from the photo app. Can send to any networked & wireless printers. Supports auto discovery, picks the photo tray. "It just works," he says. And you can see Facebook comments right within the photo, and you can send a Facebook message right there within the app.

Now he's finally talking about development.

11:04 AM PST: HTML5, OpenGL 3D games. He's showing a game that was put together in just a few days. A flight simulation game. Reflections from water, and the sun. 3D effects. They will be sharing more with developers tonight, he said.

A flight simulation game created in just days

11:06 AM PST: Now he's talking about content, publishing of media. Partnering with Amazon on Kindle. And he is showing Sports Illustrated. It has interactive capability, he says. But he doesn't show it. Come on!!

11:07 AM PST: The Amazon Kindle app. Yes, I see. It works like the Kindle app on the iPad.

Maybe HP should just pay developers to write thousands of apps. Good use of cash.

Now showing video calling.

Yes, I see. It works. Like video calling on a Motorola Xoom running Android 3.0.

11:09 AM PST: Truly, this device looks great. I don't mean to make it sound like it's not. The UI is fantastic, the device looks beautiful, it's got all the right features, core apps, and the specifications are top notch.

Media On The Tablet

11:10 AM PST: Now he is using the Pre3 with the Touchpad, showing a browser page on the tablet, and it is also showing on the Pre3.

Touch2Share.

Pairing WebOS devices. Exchanging info between them.

11:11 AM PST: There could be a lot of promise in Touch2Share (Touch-to-share?). Very interesting.

Rubenstein is back onto the stage. Says "that is awesome, right?" and the HP throng up front gets all tingly.

It's "Touch-to-share."

11:12 AM PST: Dreamworks Animation is a partner. Dreamworks movies will be available at launch.

DreamWorks Jeff Katzenberg talking about the Touchpad. He is endorsing it. Says the other tablets have been limited in terms of what they can do, and when they can do them. He can watch a new sequence, skype in the director, and print information on a printer, access an HP phone.

Thinks it will go from a device that's cool, to one that's part of me, Katzenberg says.

Available this Summer. 3G and 4G enabled versions.

Video Chat

11:15 AM PST: No pricing announced yet.

Rubenstein talking about Qualcomm. He's bringing out Dr Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm CEO. Jacobs says the future is wide open in the mobile space. For HP's sake, let's hope so.

390m chipsets shipped in 2010, Jacobs says. Smartphones, tablets, notebooks, netbooks, e-readers, GPS devices, feature phones. This allows them to be at leading edge of R&D. (TI's OMAP 5 announcement this week was also pretty exciting.)

With the HP/Palm deal, combined with the Verizon iPhone win, Qualcomm is on a roll.

Jacobs says that each product is a system-on-a-chip. The room is maybe a little bored. He should have brought Qualcomm PR people to clap for everything he says, too.

Jacobs is saying the same thing over and over. We're great! We're innovative. We're the best. We're leaders.

11:22 AM PST: Apparently Jacbob's company's processors let the Palm products deliver the "Full Web." I suppose that's a little about flash. I suppose on the iPad and iPhone I'm getting just the partial web.

11:23 AM PST: Unless there's something about price (there has to be, right?), about some nice apps that will be there from day 1, what carrier, something, let's wrap this up and see if there are devices to play with.

11:26 AM PST: Another partner: Beats. (Something to do with Dr Dre; I'm not nearly hip enough to know what this is about.) Jimmy Lovine, CEO. He comes out with a really cool hat, and really cool sunglasses, and really cool shoes and a really cool leather jacket and he keeps saying the word coooooooool. He wants to fix the degredation of music that has happened with digital music.

Lovine keeps dropping names that I don't know. But I'm supposed to know. Oh, Paul McCartney -- I knew that one.

Dre, Kanye, Will.i.am -- they all worked on this with Lovine. There are 1 million laptops now with Beats audio.

Lovine is the CEO of Interscope, it turns out.

Pre3 in use with the Touchpad

11:32 AM PST: Stephen McArthur, SVP of Apps and Services. Talking about developers and apps. (Someone behind me just said "the event that will never end.")

11:34 AM PST: HP has a plan to build the largest installed base of connected users. This, he says, will attract developers. No other company, he says, could credibly, go after this goal.

WebOS: built for the next gen of mobile web development, McArthur says. He's going to show some examples.

11:37 AM PST: McArthur talks about Facebook and games that take advantage of multitasking. Kandutech created Voogle. Creator is 14. He is sitting directly in front of me.

11:39 AM PST: PDK: helps developers port apps to WebOS. More to come about the SDK -- tonight there will be a developer gathering.

11:41 AM PST: Welcome relief: SI's swimsuit video, with Brooklyn Decker.

11:44 AM PST: Time Inc, Randall Rothenberg, chief digital officer. He wants to thank U2 for coming out. I missed that. Oh, he meant "You, too."

More paunchy white men on stage.

11:45 AM PST: Rothernberg says that if you are a Sports Illustrated subscriber you can get it on the Touchpad. TIme will also put all of its titles there and make it easy to get the ones you want.

11:47 AM PST: Rothenberg is showing Time Magazine. Very nice interface. Is this a WebOS app? Or HTML5? He doesn't say, and it's hard to tell.

11:51 AM PST: Rothenberg, like Dr. Jacobs and Jimmy Lovine, is excited to be here. It feels like it's almost half-time at this event. Maybe when it's all done tomorrow, we'll get to play with these things.

11:54 AM PST: I see lots of apps on the screen -- Pandora, Yelp, Foursquare, Linked In, Facebook, DirecTV (that's interesting), GoWalla.

A more genuine applause from the entire crowd, not just the HP people sitting up front.

11:57 AM PST: Now we're getting into something interesting. "Do the math on 2 PCs per second [sold] and 2 printers per second." And "This is the start of something big." He doesn't say any more than that, but this is clearly how HP is going to attract developers.

Close Ups of the Pre Family

11:58 AM PST: In other words, if you're not just going to write for a phone and tablet that may or may not succeed wildly, you should write for the WebOS ecosystem. For millions of devices, instantly. Now that could actually be a compelling proposition.

Now an inspirational video -- a mashup of Wild Side, Lou Reed. Everybody tweet. Uh, yeah.

12:01 PM PST: Almost done. Maybe the length of the event is warranted. A lot going on here. I'd have liked to have heard more about WebOS on the PC; more about development platform. But they announced quite a bit. Maybe if they had said "one more thing" in between each thing ... oh, wait, that's the other guy.

12:02 PM PST: They just admitted they gave us an enormous amount of info. Serena Williams is here. MC Hammer is here. (Will Serena feed me popcorn?)