Common Paradox Tech Blog

Both Phone Arena and Engadget are reporting that Verizon’s version of the Pre will be ‘different,’ Phone Arena going to far as to say that the ‘Palm Pre Plus’ is what’s in Verizon’s system.

Given that we’ve seen the P101VZW in Verizon’s system before, it doesn’t come as much surprise (the Sprint version doesn’t have that extra plus 1). Our hunch is still that we’re looking at a memory bump, but that’s more of an educated guess than inside info.

We’re also expecting the Pixi on Verizon with WiFi, as webOS is meant to be. That’d be the P121VZW, if you roll by FCC IDs instead of product names.

Thanks to Tcub for the tip!

On today’s investor conference call, CEO Jon Rubinstein just confirmed that webOS 1.3.5 is coming soon and will have a bevy of improvements, including:

• Allowing for installation of more apps
• Enhances WiFi and app performance
• Improved battery life
• Increased speed and responsiveness on the Palm Pixi

We’re still listening in and hearing good things about what’s coming. Namely: Palm will showcase the Ares development platform and other developer initiatives at CES, they expect "thousands" of apps "in short order," and they have another set of marketing initiatives that they’re planning on unleashing soon. 

We’ll check back with some transcriptions shortly and will update this post with any news that sneaks into the Q&A.

Update: In response to a question, Rubenstein just noted that Palm doesn’t "believe in building large portfolios of products." In context it seems pretty clear that the priority for Palm right now is getting Pre and Pixi released on as many carriers as possible, not releasing some sort of magical new webOS tablet at CES: "[...] our objective right now is to expand with more carriers and more regions."

Update 2: After the break, quotes from CEO Jon Rubinstein on new carrier partners, why Palm is confident about the long term, on webOS 1.3.5, on opening the door to "thousands" of applications, and on Palm’s pace for introducing brand new products.

read more

We’ve started a not-so-secret society here at Gizmodo: The Mile High Club. It’s full of people testing out in-flight Wi-Fi speeds while taking silly pictures of themselves and you’re invited to join. Here’s how.

A goofy picture isn’t mandatory to gain membership to Gizmodo’s Mile High Club, but you do need to run a Speed Test while using in-flight Wi-Fi and send us the results. So either take a screenshot or copy the data and email it to me (along with any in-flight webcam pictures) under the subject line “Mile High Club.” Please make sure that you also include the name of the airline you’re flying (and, if possible, the cities you’re flying to and from).

In exchange for your email, you’ll get no membership cards, no tshirts, no cookies, and no invitations to member-only events, but you will receive a “thank you” from me and be able to count yourself as part of our little club. And yes, Brian Lam is our founding member.

They’re a little late to the party, but Continental will soon be offering wireless internet on some flights. Starting in Q2 2010, 21 of their Boeing 757-300s will be outfitted with Gogo, the same service used by American, United, Delta, and AirTran. The planes travel mostly domestic routes, and a Wi-Fi connection will start at $4.95. Better late than never, guys! [SlashGear]

So the Palm Pre on Verizon is a lock and the Pixi (with WiFi!) is looking like a strong possibility. Only a few checkboxes left to tick off, including pinning down real release dates and training up the employees.

Well, thanks to a tip to phoneArena, we have a clearer picture on those last two. Apparently online training is occurring as you read this and will continue through January 4th. "Why Palm? What is webOS?" is the title of the 20-minute online course for Verizon employees and while we feel like we have a pretty good answer to both, it’s nice to see that Verizon is taking the time to reintroduce their peeps with Palm after what has been a long hiatus.

As for that training end date, it gives us hope that the "January" date we’d originally heard for the Verizon Palm Pre is a real possibility. Sprinkle in some CES presentation fairy dust (hopefully) and Palm may have themselves a much larger pool of potential customers very, very soon.

The recently released e-book reader from Barnes & Noble, the Nook, has been rooted by the community of enthusiasts at nookdevs.com. The complete instructions for hacking the device and obtaining root access are detailed on the site. The Nook went on sale in late November and aims to compete with the dominant Amazon Kindle, a device which has spurred its own community of hackers and modifiers.

The Nook retails for $259, and is an Android-powered device with built in AT&T 3G service and WiFi, along with an e-ink screen that is found in most other readers. The instructions for rooting the device require that the device is opened up and that the SD card which stores the operating system be removed. The process seems a little too simple, almost as if the device was designed to be hacked. The storage is on a removable card, which can then be loaded in another machine where the process of acquiring root access to the operating system is carried out.

Thesearethedroids.com has a running list of the hardware components in the Nexus One, gleaned from the Android 2.1 ROM. Read onward for lengthy and confusing chipset names!

* Proximity Sensor/Light Sensor: Capella CM3602 per sensors.mahimahi.so in Nexus One ROM Dump.
* Accelerometer: BMA150 3-axis Accelerometer per sensors.mahimahi.so in Nexus One ROM Dump.
* Magnetic Compass: AK8973 3-axis Magnetic field sensor/AK8973 Orientation sensor per sensors.mahimahi.so in Nexus One ROM Dump.
* Wifi Radio / Bluetooth / FM: BCM4329 in lib/modules
* In libaudio.so I found “Routing audio to Speakerphone with back mic” reference.
* In libaudio.so I found “Stereo FM speaker” also referenced.
* Audience A1026 Noise Canceling Chip – No link but here is the A1024 found in libaudio.so

We’ll update this list as more evidence comes to light. [TheseAreTheDroids]

Can you run an iPhone without an AT&T voice or data contract, and could a Verizon (or Sprint) MiFi be used instead (insert iPhone on Verizon! humor here). That’s what TiPb reader Angie wants to know:

Can you use an iPhone with wifi? like I have Verizon MiFi and cannot afford the AT&T [...]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Answers — Can You Skip AT&T and Use an iPhone Over Verizon (or Sprint) MiFi?

The good and gentle folks over at Engadget dug up the FCC filing for the P121EWW, that’s the Verizon Palm Pixi to you. The exciting bit? This Palm Pixi appears to sport WiFi. We suppose this lays one question to rest: whether it was Sprint or Palm who made the call to keep WiFi off the Pixi.

We were already expecting the Palm Pre to hit Verizon early next year and based on our look at various code numbers, it seemed pretty clear that the Pixi would as well. Add in that we now know that the Pixi will also land on AT&T and Palm is getting close to reliving their multi-carrier glory days (Sorry T-Mobile users, not a whisper in your direction yet).

Sprint Pixi owners: experiencing any remorse?

Thanks to Keith for the tip!

I don’t want to write about Le Web this year. Really I don’t.

This time last year, while I was still at the Guardian, I stumbled back to my Parisian hotel room at the end of the first day of the conference and fired off a thousand words rounding up the highs and not-insignificant lows of the event. Those words, along with the title my editor added to them - Freezing cold, no internet, boring: it’s a French web 2.0 conference! – have followed me around ever since.

The truth is, I’m bored with Le Web. I’m bored with the expectation that I’ll be reviewing it again this year. I’m bored with Loic’s clever (and relatively successful) ploy to get me on-side by asking me to moderate a panel called The European Gang. And most of all I’m bored with Maslovian jokes about heat, food and wifi.

But fortunately this year I’m not at the Guardian. And fortunately twenty-seven-thousand of my TechCrunch colleagues were in attendance at LeWeb 09 to provide proper coverage of the event so I don’t have to write an entire column about it. Was it worth going? Sure – I was in London anyway, I didn’t pay for my ticket or accommodation (I stayed in a friend’s family apartment) and it’s always fun to dick around in Paris with my friends. Should you have been there too? That depends.

If you’ve ever been to a conference in the Valley then you’ve seen most of the stars – Marissa Mayer, Jack Dorsey et al before, so probably not. All of the big announcements – the PeekFon, Jolicloud’s netbook OS, Twitter’s upcoming Chirp conference, and the company’s imminent acquisition by Google – were covered by TechCrunch Europe. If you live in Europe and can’t justify a trip west, then sure. It’s was a really professionally-put-together conference, with A-list speakers, giving a taste of America without having to get on a plane. You’ve probably already had to make the same decision about Eurodisney.

Beyond that, there’s not really much I can say – except that the administrative problems from last year were resolved (kudos Geraldine and Loic) – if anything it was too warm, and the only wifi problems were in the speakers’ hotel. The only speakers I saw were Yossi Vardi who looked like a mad old uncle who had just discovered YouTube, and Queen Rania of Jordan whose speech was my highlight of the conference – not for the content (which was clearly written by someone else) but rather for Loic’s brilliantly obsequious “fank you your majesty” response. Good to see the French bowing and scraping to royalty again. That can only end well.

More from this week on TechCrunch after the jump…