The Palm Pre lets you flick between 'cards' - similar to shifting across different Web browser tabs.

The Pre also comes with universal search, where webOS is able to narrow your search and offer results from both your device and the web.

SHOWCASE: Sprint has finally announced the pricing and nationwide availability of the highly anticipated and exclusive Palm Pre phone. Available from June 6 in US-based Sprint stores (as well as Sprint.com), the Palm Pre phone will cost US$199.99 on a two-year contract and after a US$100 mail-in rebate.

The Palm Touchstone charging dock will also be available at launch, as it comes bundled with the Touchstone Charging Kit (which also includes a back cover for the Pre), at a cost US$69.99. Separately, the charging dock costs US$49.00 while the back cover costs US$19.99.

The Palm Pre itself is based on the new Palm webOS mobile platform, with a focus on centralizing all of your important information from your phone, work or on the web, into one logical view. According to Sprint, the Palm Pre will consolidate all your professional, social and personal data and make it easily relatable and accessible on the device.

Called ‘Palm Synergy’, this functionality gives the Pre the ability to automatically pull friends’ contact details, messaging addresses and personal calendars from different applications on the Web and the phone without distracting what you were originally doing.

Here’s a video of the Palm Pre from Sprint:

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After Atom, Intel's low power roadmap focuses on three chipsets targeting smaller devices, including Mobile Internet Devices and smartphones.

CORP TALK: UMPC Portal has just released some interesting slides from a forward-looking (ie. it’s only on paper) investor presentation by the Ultra Mobility group showing the positioning of its Menlow, Moorestown and Medfield chipsets within its low power roadmap over the upcoming two years.

With an addressable market of more than 400 million, expect to see Intel consider a push into low power chips into the handheld market over the next few years.

One of the slides (right) shows a 2011 forecast for Medfield, which is based on a 32-nm process, in relation to Moorestown (45nm) and Menlow (45nm). Medfield will continue to retain Intel’s power reduction strategy first started with the Atom but targeted at smartphones. 

Another slide (left) shows why designing a chipset for the smartphone market is vital, considering it’s a total addressable market of more than 400 million.

As the Intel Atom chipset focuses on MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and productivity devices (like mini-notebooks), Menlow satisfies low power demands from devices like MIDs, Portable Media Players, Game Consoles and navigation devices.

Moorestown, which is targeted for 2010, will aim for high-end smartphones while Medfield seems to be gunning for mainstream smartphones by 2011. (Editor opinions: 2)

David Chieng, Editor, HWM Singapore

David (HWM Singapore): Despite so much forward planning from Intel (and other companies like VIA, ATI and NVIDIA, etc.) on innovating towards improving power efficiency in CPU and GPU technologies, the bottom line is that battery technology has hit the literal wall.

Technologists are working their way around the problem by designing much smaller and power efficient devices, leaving more room to house bigger batteries.

More effort needs to be spent on improving battery technology itself, rather than designing hardware which consume less with each successive generation. After all, from gulping power to slurping electricity, the next obvious step is to sip. After that, just how much lower can you go?

Vijay Anand, Editor, HardwareZone.com

Vijay (HardwareZone.com): 2011 is a very long time away before Intel can produce a comfortable platform solution that can fit within mainstream smartphones. But that’s only when the new platform is available.

Factoring the time required for a an actual products refresh with lot of testing, validation and clearance from regulatory boards, it will easily be a year more before anyone might be showing off an Intel-inside mainstream smartphone. By then, the competition would have moved a fair bit forward. (more…)

CORP TALK: DigiTimes has followed on a Commercial Times report where AMD is planning to unveil its new notebook platform (Tigris) at Computex 2009 in Taiwan. The platform is based on a 45-nanometer (nm) dual-core Caspian CPU, RS880M chipsets, and either a 55-nm or 40-nm M9X graphics processor unit.

According to the report, AMD might also unveil its notebook platform, codenamed Danube, for 2010, featuring its 45-nm quad-core Champlain processor and SB8xxM series chipset. So expect AMD to push its Yukon and Congo platforms for 13-inch and below notebooks while promoting Tigris 14-inchers and above at Computex 2009 in Taipei, Taiwan (2-6 June 2009). (Editor opinions: 1)

Vijay Anand, Editor, HardwareZone.com

Vijay (HardwareZone.com): AMD has had a very decent notebook platform ever since Puma debuted at last year’s Computex (we first reported it as a preview here, then Computex here and finally the Singapore launch here).

However, there is a need for the company to design its notebook platforms within a certain thermal design specification to maintain decent performance and uptime, considering the workload demands and the multi-tasking culture of notebook users today. (more…)

Among SingTel’s eight markets, its Indian associate, Bharti, of which SingTel owns a 30.4% stake, posted the biggest customer jump at 52% year-on-year.

CORP TALK: Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) has released a report announcing the company’s increased and combined regional mobile customer base, which has totalled 249 million as of 31 March 2009.

From a base covering eight countries - Australia (Optus), Bangladesh (PBTL), India (Bharti), Indonesia (Telkomsel), Pakistan (Warid), the Philippines (Globe), Singapore (SingTel) and Thailand (AIS), the company’s regional customer base has grown 7.3%, or 17 million on a sequential quarterly basis. Click here to see a breakdown of the stakes SingTel currently has in the various companies across the six other markets besides Singapore and Australia.

Besides India, SingTel also reported that Telkomsel grew its mobile customer base by 41% or 20.8 million year-on-year. The past quarter alone, ending 31 March 2009, saw the Indonesian operator adding 6.8 million customers to its base, with a market share increase of 3% to 49%. (more…)

While Indonesia continues to top the list among the 5 countries HWM is in, software piracy in South-east Asia has generally gone down or remained the same.

Want to know which top 10 countries have the highest software piracy rates in the world? Click on the image.

T&A: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) held a press conference yesterday and unveiled its Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study to the media. According to the study, PC software piracy rate in 2008 dropped in slightly more than half (57 countries) among the 110 countries studied worldwide, but remained the same in nearly one third (36) and rose in just 16.

This also means that worldwide piracy rate went up from 38% in 2007 to 41% in 2008. BSA attributed this rise to fast-growing PC shipments in high-piracy rate countries.

For the Asia Pacific alone, the average PC software piracy rate increased from 2007’s 59% to 2008’s 61%. According to Jeffrey Hardee, BSA’s VP and Regional Director, APAC, losses from this reached over US$15 billion. Hardee explained that this increase is the result of the mathematical outcome of more rapid growth of PC markets in APAC economies with higher piracy rates. (more…)