Hewlett-Packard unveiled the TouchPad tablet Wednesday in San Francisco, along with two new smartphones -- the Veer and Pre3.

The company touted the new devices as delivering the HP WebOS mobile operating system in "three new flavors: small, medium, and large."

The three products also mark a shift in branding for Palm devices under HP's ownership. The Palm name is being cut back to a product line under the larger HP umbrella -- a move foreshadowed by the renaming of Palm's WebOS to HP WebOS in October.

HP bought the struggling Palm last April for $1.2 billion.

The first tablet from Palm, now a division of HP, is formally being called the HP TouchPad -- not the HP Palm TouchPad or Palm TouchPad or the Palm TouchPad from HP.

The device even sports a silver HP logo on its shiny-black plastic back with the Palm name nowhere to be found.

The TouchPad's spec sheet is a similar to that of Apple's iPad. The touch screen on the TouchPad is 9.7 inches diagonally and it weighs 1.6 pounds -- the same as the 3G iPad.

The TouchPad also is, for now, only going to be offered in a 3G flavor, either with 16GB or 32GB of memory. No Wi-Fi-only model was announced.

The HP tablet, however, will be capable of being used for video chatting -- a feature notoriously left off of the iPad but expected on the iPad 2 and found on many other tablets, including the slow-selling Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The TouchPad will feature a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera and 1.2-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

Unlike the Galaxy Tab, the TouchPad will have no camera on the back for shooting photos or video with.

HP is bringing over its Beats Audio technology, developed with Monster Audio and rap-producer Dr. Dre for HP laptops, to the TouchPad promising "great sound through the built-in stereo speakers."

The TouchPad is set to release this summer and it could end up being HP's first consumer tablet to make it to the market.

HP released its $800 HP 500 Slate last fall, running Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, but has only sold the device to businesses through its website and has not released the tablet to electronics stores or mobile carriers. The Slate also was limited to Wi-Fi-only Internet connectivity.

The TouchPad is set to release "this summer," HP said, offering no details on price as of yet.

The HP Pre3 is the Palm division's "medium"-sized smartphone, which is growing in size from its Palm Pre and Palm Pre2 forefathers.

The Pre3 will feature a 3.58-inch touchscreen with a 480 x 800 resolution, up from the previous two Pre's 3.1-inch displays.

The new Pre smartphone will run on a 1.4-GHz Qualcomm processor and also have a forward-facing camera for video calls, a first for a Palm phone.

The third Pre will also come equipped with a 5-megapixel autofocus camera capable of shooting high-definition video, paired with an LED flash.

It and the "small" HP Veer, both runing the HP WebOS, both are set to release this summer and haven't been given a price yet.

Both phones, like the TouchPad, also are absent the Palm name and again are stamped with HP logos on back.

The HP Veer is about size of a credit card at 3.25 inches tall with a 2.6-inch touchscreen and slide-out keyboard. The Veer will come with 8 GB of storage -- the same as the Pre2.

RELATED:

HP unveils Palm Pre 2 -- not much different than the first Pre -- and Web OS 2.0

HP challenges iPad with $800 Slate 500 tablet computer

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Top Photo: Paul Jacobs (left), CEO of Qualcomm, Jon Rubinstein (middle), senior vice president and general manager for HP Palm, and Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP Palm's personal systems group, stand onstage during an HP WebOS press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. Jacobs is holding the HP Veer smart phone, Rubinstein is holding the HP Pre3 smart phone and Bradley is holding the HP TouchPad. Credit: Beck Diefenbach/Reuters

Images: HP Pre2, top, HP Veer, middle, and HP TouchPad, bottom. Credit: Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Co. unveiled the Palm Pre 2 and an upgraded version of Palm's WebOS smart phone operating system Tuesday.

The Palm Pre 2 and the updated operating system, officially dubbed HP WebOS 2.0, are the first new product releases since HP bought Palm in April for $1.2 billion. 

The new handset will come equipped with WebOS 2.0. It will hit stores in France on Friday through mobile carrier SFR, but North America will have to wait a bit longer.

The Palm Pre 2 will make its way to the U.S. and Canada in "coming months," HP said in a statement. Users of the first Palm Pre, the Palm Pre Plus, the Pixi and the Pixi Plus will also have to wait a few months before they receive a free upgrade to WebOS 2.0.

The new Palm handset will be exclusive to Verizon customers in the U.S. A Canadian carrier has yet to be announced.

The Pre 2 doesn't depart much from the formula of the original Pre, which hit U.S. retailers about 16 months ago. It will run on 3G networks, and there are no major new features such as a front-facing camera. The screen still measures 3.1 inches diagonally.

The new handset features a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot both photos and video. It will also come with 16 GB of memory -- the same amount as the Pre Plus and 8 GB more than the original Pre. The Pre 2's processor speed will jump to 1 GHz from the Pre and Pre Plus' 600 MHz. 

A black band and rounded edges around the phone's touch screen look similar to those of its predecessors, and a vertical slide-out keyboard underneath the screen returns too.

WebOS 2.0 isn't much of a departure from the first iteration of WebOS either. The new software will improve management of multitasking between applications, grouping together related tasks, HP said.

WebOS collected contacts from Microsoft Exchange, Facebook, LinkedIn and other services in one place, and WebOS 2.0 will do the same with calendars and instant-messaging services as well. 

And WebOS 2.0 will be able to support Flash 10.1 to render websites and video running on the Adobe software application.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Photos: Palm Pre 2. Credit: Hewlett-Packard Co.

Hewlett-Packard will buy Palm for $1.2 billion, ending a seemingly desperate two-week search for potential buyers for the struggling cellphone maker.

Just over a year ago, Palm announced the Pre, a fresh smart phone that captivated attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show in 2009. Running a new and attractive system called WebOS, some called it "an iPhone killer."

But thanks to an exclusive deal with Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier, and a slew of creepy, confusing ads, the Pre and its companion Pixi failed to pick up steam. Palm continued to lose ground to competition from Apple, Research in Motion and newcomer Google's Android.

A pair of upgraded Palm phones on Verizon Wireless didn't do much to boost Palm's presence.

The deal could make sense for HP, which has a pitiful showing of smart phones. (What's an iPaq, anyway? Did you mean iPad?) Giving Palm a much-needed injection of cash may allow the company to continue developing WebOS.

And speaking of iPad, HP has the Slate tablet computer on the horizon. The Windows-powered device looks lackluster.

A prettier, touch-optimized interface could go a long way toward making the Slate more attractive. And Todd Bradley, HP's personal systems group vice president, seems to agree, indicating in a statement that WebOS could be a good fit for the product.

-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian

Photo: A Palm Pre Plus. Credit: Associated Press

Last year at CES, Palm introduced the Pre exclusively on Sprint. This year, Palm unveiled two new devices for Verizon Wireless. The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will be available to Verizon subscribers Jan. 25.

The new Pre has 16 gigabytes, simplified navigation and an inductive back cover for easier use of Palm's Touchstone charging station. The new Pixi has Wi-Fi built in and more back cover color choices.

The Verizon phones will be able to serve as mobile hot spots for up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. Both will come loaded with VZ Navigator, which provides audible turn-by-turn directions.

No word yet on pricing.

And although AT&T announced Wednesday that it is developing two webOS phones to launch in the first half of the year, Palm was tight-lipped -- and rather furrow-browed -- about the "unannounced relationship."

Palm also unveiled 3-D gaming, the advent of Flash and video recording, editing and sharing for Pre and Pixi. Among the titles available in the U.S. today are EA's

The Palm Pre phone knows where you are, and it's secretly giving out that information. On a daily basis, according to a software developer.

Joey Hess, who lives on the East Coast and works on a Linux-based operating system, noticed something odd about his Palm Pre phone. He was checking over computer logs he created to track the phone's system and he discovered that the Pre was uploading its GPS location to Palm Inc. once a day.

Almost all cellphones have GPS chips, partly so that they can be used for functions like car navigation, and more importantly so they can locate the user in case of emergency.

But Hess was not having an emergency every day. And he was not being notified that his location was being transmitted to the company. Also, Palm was uploading a record of many of the applications, such as messaging, he was using.

Palm didn't deny it was getting the information. In a brief, vague press statement, the company said its privacy policy "includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer's information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience."

The company's privacy policy runs to 1,675 words, and it's not clear if GPS monitoring was considered part of "a great user experience."

Possibly that experience includes some sort of advertising or promotional venture.

In any case, Palm also said in the statement, "We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust."

Hess was not so trusting. He found a way to program the phone to stop uploading the info.

-- David Colker

Ever since the spiffy Palm Pre phone came out last month exclusively as a product for the Sprint network, there have been rumors about when it would be offered by other cell service providers.

Finally, Verizon confirmed Monday that it would be offering the Palm Pre. The announcement came during a company conference call with industry analysts when Chief Operating Officer Dennis Strigl simply said, "We plan to offer the Palm Pre early next year."

That was it. Information about just when Verizon will have the Palm Pre and how much it will cost will have to await future announcements.

To be fair, Verizon executives had a lot on their minds during the call that came after the company announced its second-quarter earnings. Despite cost-cutting, Verizon said profit dropped 21%  compared with the same quarter last year. It plans to cut more than 8,000 employees and contractors by the end of the year.

-- David Colker