Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) on Tuesday unveiled webOS 2.0, an upgraded version of the mobile operating system developed by Palm, the smartphone provider acquired by HP earlier this year.
Palm released webOS in June 2009 and also launched handsets using the mobile operating system such as Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. The phones received positive reviews but their sales were lukewarm.

HP completed the purchase of Palm in July this year for about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, seeing the webOS operating system as an ideal platform to expand its own mobility strategy.

HP said the first device to run webOS 2.0 will be the new Palm Pre 2 smartphone, which will be available on Friday in France and is scheduled to be available in the coming months in the United States from Verizon Wireless and in Canada.

Pre 2 is the first Palm phone with a gigahertz processor and features a 5-megapixel camera, a glass screen and will have a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard, according to HP.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet