HP is still making Tablets

In the most dramatic stay of execution since Robin Hood shot an arrow through Little John's noose, HP has decided that webOS will live on as open source. And there was much merriment and backslappery throughout the land! Also: good work, HP. This couldn't have worked out better.

The news came today after months of uncertainty about the platform's future, with rumors ranging from death to a sale to a life of powering printer apps. Now, though? An unlimited future, according to HP's press release:

HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.

HP will continue to actively develop for the platform as well, and perhaps most importantly will pursue "Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation." Hopefully, then, succeeding where Android so far hasn't.

So what does this mean for you? Well, if you bought a $100 TouchPad, you may just have nabbed the tech deal of the decade (and there's another round this weekend!). But more importantly, there are suddenly four viable(ish) mobile choices where it seemed certain there would be three. And a promising, capable, different OS is now in the hands of any and everyone who wants to make it even better.

Updated: In a brief interview with the Verge, HP CEO Meg Whitman indicated that HP's not just committing to the platform; the company's going to invest in the hardware it supports, as well. That means HP tablets, most likely, though Whitman said smartphones were unlikely.

Of course, now that webOS is open source, anyone can make a tablet or phone or refrigerator on the platform. But if HP having skin in the hardware game means that they'll be aggressive about keeping the software competitive. More good news, on a day we were expecting the opposite.

Eating App Tells You How Healthy Your Meal Was

Most people have a pretty good idea of what it means to eat healthy foods, but few manage to do it. A new app called the Eatery aims to change that by having users rate one another's meals and providing slick data visualizations of a person's habits over time.

The app's users have rated more than two million meals so far. When overlaid on maps, this data reveals patterns in healthy eating in cities like New York and San Francisco.

Eatery users snap a photo of a meal, and that photo is automatically tagged for location. After users take a photo of a meal, they are prompted to quickly rate the healthfulness of other users' meals by looking at their photos, in a quick process intended to be fun. This process ensures that each user's meals are rated by other Eatery users.

The app uses those meal ratings to provide users with statistics, including changes from week to week in what they ate, the places where they ate the most healthy and least healthy meals, and their best and worst meals of the week.

Android Increases the market share

Android is forecast to increase its world wide share of media tablet from 20% in 2011 to 39% in 2015.

On a study conducted by Marketing Company, the numbers confirm that Android continues to increase its share at a staggering rate, while Samsung maintains its position as the US largest cell phone manufacturer.

With the iPhone missing on its usual July refresh cycle, Android didn't even need the Galaxy S II help in the US to gain the huge 5.4 percent points in the past three months alone. The share of the Google OS now sits at 41.8%, which is nearly 15 percent points more than that of the second most popular platform.
That second most popular platform would, of course, be iOS, which claimed a market share of 27.0%. That's a 1 percent point increase over the past three months, despite the fact that no new handset entered the Apple OS ranks - impressive indeed.
The other smartphone platforms on the US market are still unable to match the growth rates of the two behemoths. The once leading BlackBerry OS has lost 4 whole percent points in the past three months alone and now holds just 21.7% of 82.2 million smartphones in the US - putting it at a distant third place.
WP7 is also still unable to make a difference with Microsoft's share slipping a percent point to a market share of 5.7%. Symbian is not doing particularly well either (even by its own low standards in the US) and now powers less than one in twenty-five American smartphones.