Light as a breeze, soft as Symbian OS.

The key benefit of EPOC32 over its 16bit predecessor is the ability to multi-task, perform multiple functions at once. In newer devices, this might mean being able to surf the web using the phone and not lose your content when answering an incoming call.

Symbian OS is an open source operating system for mobile phones primarily used on Nokia advanced or data enabled smart phones. Symbian OS runs exclusively on ARM processors and has evolved from Psion’s EPOC which was developed as a basic operating system for early electronic organizers. The Psion EPOC OS was refered to EPOC16 beginning in the late 1990′s to help differentiate it from the newer 32bit Operating system EPOC32, which eventually became Symbian OS. Psion software created a joint venture with several mobile hardware manufacturers, Ericsson®, Motorola®, and Nokia® called Symbian and eventually took on the name Symbian Software, renaming EPOC32 Symbian OS.

Many third party manufacturers were able to license the 32bit EPOC OS for their organizers and other mobile data devices. Since the late 1990′s,Symbian OS has become one of the most popular mobile device operating systems available.

Symbian OS has also modified to include soft features such as global positioning software (GPS) which will become as common as a camera in the very near future. Service providers and other companies could then publish location based services that interact with the GPS found in a mobile phone, appearing on the display once the user is near an application.

New operating system WebOS

HP has been talking about the PalmPad approximately since the company bought Palm and its WebOS operating system in the spring, although the company has constantly said the device won’t actually be shipped until the end of the first quarter.

But a Fox News story today has some very interested details. The Fox reporter’s source forwarded him a diagram that is purported to be the approaching PalmPad. It has few labels except for a note about an optional PalmPad dock. The report says HP will bring in not one, but three slightly different models of the WebOS-based tablet, and that “they’re cooperatively a spin-off of the never-released HP Slate.”

That got us idea, so we looked back at our own story about the HP Slate 500–which was announced by HP in late October with a price tag of $799. We realized that the PalmPad diagram in Fox’s report is the same as HP’s Slate 500 diagram in our earlier report, except for all the labels missing in the PalmPad diagram save for the dock, whose label has been changed from “Optional HP Slate 500 dock” to “Optional palmPad dock.”

There are several possible conclusions here: Fox’s source distorted the diagram and details–it’s very odd that they would say the HP Slate was never released when the HP Slate 500 was introduced exactly two months ago. Or they mean a different HP Slate. Or maybe HP recycles general diagrams for internal purposes. On the other hand, there is some possibility HP is repurposing the HP Slate hardware for the PalmPad running, according to Fox, WebOS 2.5.1.

But would HP actually use the same hardware running a full-blown desktop operating system meant to target business users, and instead slap the lightweight, mobile operating system WebOS on it and try to sell it to the same people who are in view of an iPad or Galaxy Tab?