This isn’t as easy a decision as you might think.  The HP TouchPad has a very useful 10 inch screen, but there’s a weight that comes with this.  The RIM Playbook is much ligahter as it’s smaller, but the 7 inch screen isn’t quite as capacious.  Then there’s the fact that the HP TouchPad has been discontinued (I picked mine up in the fire sale late last year) which does affect both the number and quality of available apps, and updates to the operating system itself.  That said, the RIM Playbook’s future is also in some doubt and the prices of these tablets are now falling too.

There some fundamental differences between the two machines.  Cameras are one good example where the TouchPad has just a 1.3MP webcam on the front while the Playbook sports both front and rear cameras, with the rear one being a healthy 5MP resolution.  The Playbook also has an HDMI output, which the touchpad lacks.  The Touchpad is a far sleeker-looking device however with an operating system that’s simplicity itself not just to use, but to completely master.  The TouchPad also has a slightly faster processor, running at 1.2Ghz when compared to the 1GHz of the Playbook and the GPS and route-planning on the tablet are lightning fast.

In short though, there are huge numbers of reasons why you might want or prefer one type of tablet over another.  For example the iPad 2 is extremely light and has a big 10 inch screen, while some Android tablets are just as light and come in a wide variety of form-factors and weights.

In short then I thought this might be a great opportunity to kick off a discussion over which of these two tablets is better, and which one you think I should keep.  WebOS is a very effective and highly polished operating system.  Currently QNX on the Playbook isn’t quite there if you don’t have a Blackberry smartphone (I use a Windows Phone) and will continue to miss out some critical apps until the next operating system update eventually arrives.  It’s due this month but has been pushed back many times since last fall.

So which tablet do you think I should keep and why?  Which is the better tablet, the best hardware, the most accessible operating system and the most expandable system?  Which works best with cloud services and has the bext software support?  It will be interesting to hear your views on these two machines.

This is there the all-in-one PC fitted in nicely, not a laptop and not a tower but a single, stylish machine that could still look good and not out of place in your main living room.

Now new sales figures for the third-quarter of 2011 show that Apple’s iMac apparently secured one third of all sales for all-in-one PCs.  This is a very impressive sales figure for a computer that many believed was slowly dwindling as Apple were moving their focus onto mobile devices.

The figures, reported by Blomberg, put Lenovo, who are fairly new to the all-in-one computer form-factor, in second place with 22.7% of all-in-one sales (Apple had 32.9%) lead by strong sales in China and HP brought up third place with 21.4%.

This is very interesting news and will be welcomed by fans of both Apple hardware and operating systems.  There can be no doubt that consumer PCs might still be ugly boxes had it not been for Apple and the company’s lead designer Jonathan Ive, now Sir Jonathan, as he was recently knighted in the New Year’s Honours list in the UK.

Perhaps odd in these figures is to see what many believed to be the world’s biggest computer company, HP, falling to third place.  HP’s all-in-one computers are of an extremely high quality and have lead the way in introducing multi-touch to PCs in the home.  Comparatively the iMac is some leagues behind, both in terms of power and features.

What the next few years hold for the PC remains to be seen.  As we approach the launch of Windows 8 we will no doubt see many more multi-touch PCs and laptops appear.  This will undoubtedly mean manufacturers focusing more on all-in-one PCs though laptops will begin to feature multi-touch too (my own Dell laptop has a multi-touch screen and I expect many more to appear this year).

Then there’s the ultrabook, which despite Intel’s claims of retailing below $999 doesn’t look set to hit that price point.  Will it be as huge a success as Intel claim?  Unless the price can be reduced significantly this is unlikely but there is talk of PC and laptop manufacturers focusing far more on these high-end products as the margins are much better.

This will probably mean that computer and laptop prices will rise on average in the coming two years and that tablets will fill in the lower end of the market.  These figures should come as congratulations to Apple though, and to Sir Jonathan, for their hard work in redefining the modern computer.

The vulnerability can be exploited remotely if printers supporting the remote firmware update process are not properly protected by firewalls. Local attacks are another possibility.

Consult Researchers Find Security Vulnerability In Printers for additional information about the vulnerability.

A press release issued by HP on December 23 confirms the availability of firmware updates that mitigate the security vulnerability. HP LaserJet printer owners are asked to visit the HP Support website to download the firmware updates to their systems. Here they need to select Drivers & Software, enter the product name or number into the form and select the product from the listing to be taken to a page where they can download the latest printer firmware for that model.

HP is furthermore offering security guidance for imaging and printing on this web page.

The press release provides no details on the changes made by HP or on the printer models firmware updates have been released for. HP stated however that the company is communicating the availability of firmware updates “proactively to customers and partners”. It is however not clear at the time of writing how update news are communicated to HP’s customer base. The HP website for one is not listing the firmware update on the main page, nor on the support start page.

No customer of affected printers has reported unauthorized access to HP, according to the press release.

HP LaserJet users should seek out the HP Support page to find out if a firmware update is available for their printer. The firmware should be installed as soon as possible to protect the printer from the vulnerability.

Columbia University researchers have discovered a vulnerability in some Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printer lines that could allow attackers to install a modified firmware to steal information, run attacks from within a network or cause physical damage to the printer.

Attacks can be carried out from different vectors. Printers that support a remote firmware update process could allow attackers to take control of a printer’s firmware over the Internet in less than a minute if the printer is not protected properly by a firewall. The researchers during a scan were able to find more than 40,000 devices that they said could be infected within minutes.

Local attacks are another possibility. The researchers were able to send print commands from Macintosh and Linux computer systems to trick the printer into reprogramming itself. It is not clear at the time of writing if Windows environments are safe or also affected by this.

Printers that the researchers analyzed do not verify the source of the firmware with the help of digital signatures. A HP spokesperson stated that all modern HP printers do require digitally signed firmware upgrades since 2009.

Even worse for consumers and companies, there is no way of telling if a printer’s firmware has bee compromised short from physically disassembling the printer and analyzing its chipset output.

According to RedTape, HP is currently analyzing the claims made by the researchers. HP could release a firmware update of their own to resolve the vulnerability. Compromised printers however may have been programmed to block new firmware updates. That’s bad on the one hand as companies would have to throw away the printer in this case (or talk to HP to find a solution) and good in another as they have just identified a compromised printer in their network.

The researchers have started analyzing printers manufactured by other companies recently but no results have been posted yet. They say it is likely that printers and other devices with Internet access are also vulnerable. (thanks Jojo for sending in the tip)

According to a report by NeoWin an unnamed HP employee has been quoted as saying “There’s a 95 (percent) chance we all get laid off between now and November, and I for one am thinking it’s for the best.”

In the last couple of months several companies have expressed an interest in buying WebOS, and as a TouchPad owner I can say it’s a remarkably capable and usable tablet OS.  So far nothing has come of it and HP haven’t given any indications that they would wish to sell it.

But could the company just kill it without selling it?  While unlikely this is a possibility and it begs the question where does this leave existing TouchPad owners?

Some people will install Android on it, and I suppose this is always the nuclear option for some.  Many people however will have no idea how to perform such an operation and will be left with a device that will no longer be supported.  In it’s simplest form this just means that the operating system won’t be refined and developed over time.  At it’s worst it means that any bugs and flaws in the system that could be exploited by others won’t be fixed.

Even if WebOS is sold it will be a very significant amount of time before the new owners can begin rolling out updates.  In short this is very bad news for TouchPad owners generally if the rumour turns out to be true.

To add weight to this, HP announced this week that they will be producing Windows 8 tablets for 2012, and we can assume they are already testing prototype hardware now.  It’s even been rumoured the TouchPad hardware might live on with Windows 8 on board, though this is unlikely.

Of equal concern is what will happen to owners of the HP smartphones that are also running WebOS.  These people will need security updates and patches more than tablet owners, because of the direct billing capabilities built into phones.  These people will need firm answers from HP, and pretty soon.

HP has previously said it was committed to WebOS, though the company has changed its mind so much in recent months that nobody would really believe them now whatever they said.  Only a couple of months ago they were talking about offloading their entire PC division, but now they’ve decided that they would really rather hang on to it.  This is company with serious decision-making issues!

For now we’ve just had another update to WebOS rolled out.  I love my TouchPad and wouldn’t want it to be the last.  WebOS is extremely capable and has huge amounts of potential.  In my view it is quite simply the finest tablet operating system available currently.

It’s such a shame then that it’s been so poorly managed.  Do you have a WebOS phone or tablet?  What do you think about this rumour?

Runner up manufacturer, Dell, has dropped a place down to the third place spot with Lenovo, who are relatively new to the desktop market in the grand scheme of things, taking second place with an enormous growth of 36% on the previous quarter.

HP now sits at 18.1% of total worldwide PC sales (up from 17.8%) with Lenovo on 13.7% (up from 10.4%) and Dell dropping to 12% (down slightly from 12.6%).  In fourth place is Acer with ASUS following up the table in fifth position.

There can be little doubt that in the last year Lenovo have produced some simply fantastic design, challenging Sony for the overall design and quality award.  Indeed I have recently been using a budget Lenovo B570 and one of their business Z Series laptops and it was very difficult to tell one from the other.  The only real difference on the surface was that one cost three times the price of the other.  Suffice to say I have now been firmly recommending Lenovo machines to friends (although my own new laptop is a Dell).

The biggest surprise though might be Acer who saw a drop in market share of over 20% on their previous quarters figure, a loss of 3% market share overall.  The company has perhaps been producing middling hardware in the last year and may now be suffering for it.  This is not helped by the fact that there are only a finite number of quality technology plants worldwide and companies including Apple have slowly been swallowing them up for their own mass consumption.

The future for the PC market is looking good though.  In the report, they say…

In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 17.8 million units in the third quarter of 2011, a 1.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2010. The U.S. PC market experienced year-over-year growth for the first time in three quarters. While the consumer market continued to be weak with disappointing back-to-school sales in the third quarter, the inventory was kept mostly in check as industry expectations were relatively low.

…but the report also highlights a 2.9% decline in Europe, perhaps because the European economy has been under incredible pressure in recent months.  The news in Asia is better though with a 6% increase.  Overall the picture is good news…

Worldwide PC shipments increased by 3.6% in the third quarter of 2011 (3Q11) compared to the same quarter in 2010

…which is a healthy growth and no doubt helped by the blossoming market for Tablets and smartphones.

Final figures aren’t yet available and there’s no word on where companies such as Apple and Samsung sit in the rankings.  Both companies have been doing extremely well, though not so much in PC sales, but who both seem constantly locked in legal battles with the other, which could impact their bottom line when the next earnings figures are released for each company.

The HP though is a quandary.  While HP announced suddenly last week that they were dropping the TouchPad completely, but still supporting WebOS, the tech world went into shock.  After all, the TouchPad had barely been released when it was canned, and many outlets hadn’t even taken delivery of their stock yet.  As a tablet with the WebOS operating system on it though it’s had a huge amount of positive press in the last year and when the fire sales began with the tablets selling from only $99 (£89) around the world the only way to get one now will be on eBay.  The entire worldwide stock of TouchPads is sold out completely.

I was one of the people who bought a TouchPad in the fire sale, for all of you obviously so that I could review it.  But what is it like to use and more importantly, have all the people who’ve bought one wasted their money?

Let’s start with the actual hardware.  It’s an iPad’esque tablet with a standard ratio 1024 x 768 resolution IPS screen (though it’s a couple of hundred grams heavier than the iPad 2).  It contains a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1Gb of memory and comes with either 16Gb or 32Gb of storage; the 64Gb version is unlikely to ever see the light of day.  On the front there’s a 1.3MP webcam, but no camera on the back.  It’s got a volume rocker and a micro-USB port for charging and connecting to a PC or Mac where it shows up as USB storage to allow you to transfer files to it.  Battery life is good at around 7.5 hours.  This might lag a long way behind the iPad but unless you were an exceptionally unlucky early-adopter, your touchpad just cost you less than a quarter of the iPad’s price.

The back is piano-black plastic and the front is glass.  Some people have criticised the build saying it’s not up to the iPad 2′s standards.  It’s not, but in fairness it’s still excellent and one of the best built tablets I’ve yet seen.  There are stereo speaker ports on the bottom, or side edge (depending on how you hold it) which are truly excellent.  I had some trouble with the sound, ie. I didn’t have any at all and was getting worried.  A quick search online however revealed a software bug that was fixed by simply restarting the tablet.  I eventually found the shutdown and restart options rather worringly hidden behind a reset button in the OS and the speakers sprang into life.

I’m going to give a special mention to these speakers as they are simply the finest speakers I’ve ever encountered in a mobile device, and simply phenomenal for such a small device.  The range and distortion-free volume will project across a busy room giving pleasure to everyone there.  They might not be up to the quality of a good set of desktop speakers, but for a portable device they’re hard to match.

So what about the operating system?  Well I should start by saying that at times it can feel a bit laggy.  It’s slow to rotate the screen and occasionally feels a bit sluggish.  Apparently the tablet version of WebOS was developed by shoe-horning it onto an iPad 2 on which hardware it apparently performed much faster.

In general usage though WebOS on the TouchPad is very fast and extremely intuitive.  Programs and browser tabs are treated as cards which you can stack into piles and move around to form groupings.  To close an app or a browser tab you simply flick it off the top of the screen.  This interface is completely effortless, utterly intuitive and an absolute joy to use.  This simplicity extends to all aspects of the OS and while it might not allow you much control, which as a Windows user is one of the first things I miss, it’s extremely well organised and workflow becomes simple and joyous.

The on-screen keyboard is also a joy to use and even has a proper number row across the top unlike iOS and Android that includes all the standard symbols available on the shift key.  WebOS won’t let you slow it down with too many apps either.  If it detects performance will slow it will prompt you to close an app before opening a new one to keep performance speedy.

Where WebOS will be let down will be with app support.  So far there aren’t many TouchPad apps (identified by the “for TouchPad”) wording in the app store and with news that HP won’t be producing the hardware any more this will probably scare most developers away.  It’s best to assume that what we currently have so far as apps, and operating system updates too is going to be it.  The TouchPad you’ve just bought isn’t going to change much if at all during its lifetime.

To sum up the value of the HP TouchPad and whether it was worth the money for all those people who bought one it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.  It will forever be a limited device in apps and updates.  If you are the type of person who will want to do more with it in the future this will quickly drive you nuts.  If like me you’re happy to just have something that cost peanuts for a little light email and web browsing when you’re crashed out on the sofa, then it’s the bargain of the decade.

WebOS is every bit as polished a tablet operating system as iOS and indeed is far better in a great many ways, most notably the way it handles applications and multi-tasking.  The hardware is excellent all round and the IPS screen is absolutely glorious.  If you’re waiting on delivery of your shiny new TouchPad, you’re very right to be so excited.

So far as WebOS goes, this was a stellar mobile operating system that HP acquired when they bought Palm last year.  HP said they had big plans for WebOS, announcing new phones running the OS, a couple of tablets running it and even plans to port it to touch-screen PCs in a dual-boot system with Windows.  They’d updated the operating system and it was the most anticipated tablet operating system since iOS.  All in all things were looking very good for the new upstart.

Then HP decided they needed to rid themselves of the devices and so fire sales began.  The company reduced the cost of the 16Gb TouchPad down to $99 (£89) and the 32Gb version to $149 (£115).  This was amazing considering that the TouchPad reportedly cost $328 to manufacture, $10 more than the iPad 2.

So on the face of it, anybody who actually bought a TouchPad in the fire sales was getting a complete bargain, right?  Well thousands tried, watching Twitter and the #touchpad hashtag for any word on when the next sale would begin.  I spotted that Dixons group, one of the largest electrical suppliers in the UK, was having a sale here on Monday from 6pm so I got online and registered in advance with their website.  As to be expected the website crashed and many people failed to get anything.

It was a similar story at other retailers, Staples in the UK sold about a thousand more TouchPads than they actually had, and the next day had to phone round customers to cancel the orders.  Amazon meanwhile was criticised for delivering cases that people had bought with their TouchPad, while cancelling their order for the TouchPad itself.

I was one of the lucky ones, picking up a 32Gb touchpad on Tuesday morning.  But questions are now being asked if it’s going to be worth it.

This is because while HP have announced they will continue to support WebOS, after what I can only call a fiasco, it’s entirely possible that all the software developers for the platform will have been frightened away.  Indeed Microsoft has been offering free development tools and Windows Phones to all WebOS app developers who want to move to their platform instead.

For WebOS to succeed in the future, hardware partners will need to be attracted to produce hardware running the OS.  The lack of available apps and a dwindling number of developers, coupled with HP’s scare last week over the future of the platform and the uncertainty this brings, will make it extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible, for the company to attract new hardware partners.  It’s entirely possible that this highly-acclaimed operating system could die here with this tablet.

In a way this makes me feel like it’s the height of the home computing revolution in the 1980′s, something I whitter on about now and again, in that here we’ve seen a potentially fantastic device and proprietary operating system muscled out by market forces.  Back then we lost so much innovation in computers from Sinclair, Commodore and the like that it’s hard to put a price on what the actual cost of losing it all might have been.

My own WebOS TouchPad has literally just arrived this morning, and as I write this it’s still in the box, as you can see in the image above.  In the next few days I’ll publish a full review of the device here and try to answer the all important question “have people who’ve bought a fire sale TouchPad wasted their money?”

To make matters even more confusing the company, according to Bloomberg and reported by tech blogger Paul Thurrott, plans to sell off it’s PC business, the biggest PC making business in the world that is, and move solely into servers for the future.

This is almost not funny and is really difficult to believe.  HP is the world’s biggest PC maker though they obviously now feel that the profit margins just aren’t enough for them.  To kill off such a promising mobile and tablet operating system that’s had such great reviews seems like crimes against technology.

In a press release the company today said…

…plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

The only good news here is that, presumably, the company will be looking for a buyer for WebOS.  I can’t help but wonder though what company will be interested in a mobile OS that’s already been with two owners in the last year and half when competing companies including Nokia have killed off their own mobile operating systems?

In the press release the company went on to detail all manner of financial figures that will be it’s justification for getting out of the smartphone, mobile computing and PC business for good.

The last company to make such a bold move was IBM, though for them this wasn’t unexpected.  The company also moved exclusively into servers and now has a greater annual revenue than Microsoft (again!)

This is sad news for WebOS fans however and fans of HP’s personal computers.  The company has brought out the most interesting and innovative all-in-one and touchscreen PCs for the last few years, beating rivals including Sony with award-winning hardware and great touch-interface software.  The acquisition of Palm, and with it the WebOS operating system seemed like a great fit for a company with big plans to move further into these areas and I for one have been looking forward to the launch of the first WebOS tablet for well over a year.

Questions now remain, not only over which company will be brave enough to take on WebOS, but which company will buy HPs enormous PC business.  Chinese firm Lenovo bought IBM’s laptop division and has flourished ever since.  It’s unlikely that one of the big PC builders currently, including Dell and ASUS, would have the cash to buy-in to this business.  It seems likely then that venture capitalists will see the opportunity to buy an established and already highly successful business.

Currently, HP holds 18 percent of the worldwide PC market with Dell coming up second on 11 percent.  In the USA, HP’s grip on the PC market is even bigger with a massive 26 percent of the country’s new computers carrying the company’s branding.

There will no doubt be continuity of support and warranties with all HP computers so anyone who is thinking of buying, or who has just bought an HP computer shouldn’t be concerned.  Recent purchasers of the new WebOS tablet and smartphones though could be facing a future where support and updates are uncertain.  We’ll bring you updates as they are announced here at gHacks.

This article is written to inform you about the site re-skin and the promotional campaign.

The third generation TouchSmart PC comes with a touch-enabled full HD 23 inch widescreen display and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit to take full advantage of the multi-touch capabilities of the screen.

hp touchsmart 600

The Touchsmart 600 models are equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Core i3/i5 processor, slot loading DVD drive or Blu-Ray player, 4 Gigabyte of computer memory and 1 TB SATA 3G hard drive. Specs depend on the Touchsmart 600 model.

Take a look at the videos below that showcase the capabilities of the tablet PC.

The tablet PCs come with several custom software programs like HP Touchsmart music to manage a music collection or HP Touchsmart Photos to view and edit photos directly on the touchscreen.

Additional information about the HP Touchsmart 600 desktop tablet PC is listed on the HP website. The HP TouchSmart 600 PC is available starting at £1000 inc VAT.

The HP Security Laboratory has created the application SWF Scan which can be used by both developers and end users to analyse Adobe Flash files for more than 60 vulnerabilities. Usage is pretty simple and straightforward although interpretation of the findings might require a deeper understanding of Adobe Flash or extensive research on the Internet. The application works with both local Adobe Flash files or those embedded in websites.

Users will first have to find out the direct url to the embedded flash file on the website. All web browser provide those capabilities. Firefox users for instance right-click the page and select Page Info from the context menu to get a list of objects that are embedded in the website. A click on the Media tab and a manual search for files of the type embed should be enough to find the url of the Adobe Flash file. A right-click on the flash object will open a menu with the option to copy the url to the clipboard.

Once the url has been copied to the clipboard it can be pasted into the interface of the HP SWF Scan application. A click on the get button next to the url bar will initiate a connection attempt of the Adobe Flash security scanner. If the file is a valid Adobe Flash file it will automatically try to decompile it displaying the findings in the sidebar and the actual source in the right window.

A proficient Flash user can now analyze the code on his own. Everyone else is better of clicking on the Analyze button in the header of the security program. This will analyze the decompiled source code and provide a summary to the user.

The summary contains a list of vulnerabilities that have been found in the Adobe Flash file. This vulnerabilities mean that the Flash file might be vulnerable to certain exploits. Flash developers can then rewrite part of their application to fix the discovered vulnerabilities. End users on the other hand may be delighted to know that an Adobe Flash file does not contain any of the known vulnerabilities.

SWF Scan is a free download after a mandatory registration at the HP website. It is currently only available for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The disk storage format tool displays a simple dialog after execution. The connected and recognized USB devices are listed on top. After making a selection there the user can select a file system for the USB device including the NTFS file system. It is furthermore – but not at the same time – possible to make the USB disk storage device bootable from DOS which is an excellent way of installing new software or running diagnostic software programs on a computer system without having to boot in the operating system itself.

The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool will recognize many but not all USB devices that are connected to a computer.

The disk storage format tool has a size of roughly 2 Megabytes and needs to be installed on the computer system before it can be used.

HP Smart Web Printing (thanks Archer for the tip) adds a button to Internet Explorer and Firefox after installation. This button was immediately accessible in Internet Explorer. It is added to the Navigation Toolbar in Firefox which is disabled on my system by default. I had to enable the toolbar and drag and drop the button to another toolbar in Firefox to be able to access it.

Clips can be selected by pressing the HP Smart Select button and the sidebar that displays all created clips can be opened with the shortcut SHIFT CTRL K or by selecting the menu of the button.

The HP Smart Web Printing application integrates itself nicely into both browsers and provides a very interesting feature to be able to print exactly the area of the screen that should be printed. Definitely a must have for users who print regularly.

Their problem was that they always had to change the settings when they wanted to print a picture that they took with the digital camera. Here is what I did so that they did not have to change those settings all the time. You all know that it is possible to add additional printers to your system. What most users do not know is that you can also add the same printer again and configure it with different settings. What I did was I installed the printer again in Windows Vista.

This had the result that I now had two printer profiles. I started by naming them accordingly. One was named Print Text Documents while the other was named Print Photo. Since the profiles are independent of each other it was easy to keep the text document settings of the default printer and optimize the settings of the photo printer to print pictures in best quality.

No magic involved here, sorry. Whenever they want to print a photo they simply use the second profile with the name Print Photo. It’s theoretically possible to create additional profiles if need arises.