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Phil McKinney Controls Household Appliances With HP TouchPad at Maker Faire

By: David Baxter, 5/23/2011 1:41 pm | 27 comments

The Maker Faire just ended and a ton of hacktastic and geekiness was had by all.

One of our favorite geeks of all time was there over the weekend, Phil McKinney, and, as usual he had a lot of cool stuff to say.

The first thing he showed off was an app made by HP called Twynergy. This is a webOS app that lets you compare different profiles on Twitter. This allows you to see things like Phi is 2% like Howard Stern, but 86% like Obama (who woulda thunk it?).

The real heat was when Phil pulled out his handy dandy TouchPad and wowed the crowd with the ability to control a fan and a lamp completely wirelessly (Android at home eat your heart out!). He hinted that this was really just the beginning and to make it super duper cool webOS needs devs!

All in all, good stuff and a nice point to the future. C’mon June!

FYI: We are hunting down the video of his chat…if you find it, let us know!

Source: AllThingsD via Worldwide Gadget

About David Baxter

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of webOSroundup. When not toiling away at WOR he is usually with his family, at church, building a website of some kind or another, or playing a video game. @davidbbaxter

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Rileyj

I for one welcome our new Touchpad overlords. Sweet trick.
Tryp

Again? Ok I’m a fan of HPalm and all, but IBM tried this exact same thing about a decade and a half ago with the Aptiva PC’s. I had one. But it didn’t really take off then, why would it now?

http://twitter.com/jmiahman jmiahman

Were computers in everyone’s pockets a decade and a half ago?

http://AToTheT.org/ Ajay

He’s like obama? Great, now I know for sure I cant trust him. At least stern is usually pretty transparent.

Malette

Ditto! I’m with you ^ on that one. What struck me in this article though was “webOS needs more devs to make it super dooper cool. Really? I’m glad they tell us now.

Malette

It is a neat feature though, not taking away from that but to me seems like a car show showing us the flying car. That’s great and all but lets start with increasing safety features, reliabilty, gas mileage, and all those fundamentals first. When I’m feeling lazy I just ask my son to flip the light switch, lol. I just want a pre3 and touchpad right now

Jpllabs

My kids are grown and gone now so I need this!
I am weasel

Amen!

http://AToTheT.org/ Ajay

He’s like obama? Great, now I know for sure I cant trust him. At least stern is usually pretty transparent.
http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

It’s looks like HP got more up it’s sleeve then we thought, if HP comes up with more stuff like this, then
Apple got a fight on it’s hands.

I am weasel

Suuuure,HP’s got lots of goodies up their…sleeve. I guess we are very frustrated because devices such as Pre3 and Touchpad should’ve had already been released yesterday, however now things make more sense to me after finding out what Mr.Apotheker has had his hands full with lately.Not that it’s not a fun/cool idea that will leave the masses drooling(read:masses=iphone worshiper type of person) over it, but if I read the news on my Pre3, I would’ve laughed my a** off! Whereas now my frustration is expanding, making me sing come June:”gooone,like yesterday is goooone….”

I am weasel

To understand what I’m talking about, try “Apotheker non-computer” in your search engine of choice
http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

Yeah then yesterday came everybody got a Touchpad, and then everybody complains,to many bugs, the performance is to slow, not enough Apps for the Touchpad, what ended up to “They should have toke there
time and do it right”, like Bart Simpson said “You Damned if you do and Damned if you not”

I am weasel

Haha! All HP has to do is constantly keep us under heavy bombardment with new devices, basically so we don’t have too much time to bitch about one device till the next one is released.

JDM

We’re one step closer to a truly lethargic, immovable society. And some people thought the TV remote made us lazy!

JDM

But it is pretty cool to not have to get up to flip on a lightswitch. Hey wait… We have ClapOn! What a step in a useless direction. (kidding, people)
JDM

For real, though…. This is cool.

Dude

SUCK IT ANDROID @ HOME
http://www.webosroundup.com/ DanR

But seriously, why NOT have a universal remote for your home on these things?! It only makes sense! Hell, I’d love a whole suite of apps where I could control my alarms, my lights… hell, my SPRINKLERS! :) C’mon now, HP. We’re all seein’ the potential. Let’s see it realized.

Mannyman

I’m doing all that now with my Pre2, PowerHome software, x10 devices, usbirt, and Powermids.

http://sorli.com sorli

Sounds interesting and I suspect you’d like the technology easier. Looked at what you referenced and I would be impressive if it was just plugin to an outlet and turn on capable, but I don’t see PowerHome software being this easy. To be honest, easy cost money usually and I may be just better off doing what you are doing setup wise.

Wish they would have shown the video of Phil talking and showing the tablet in action…looks like it got left out at the end. Unless this was two separate McKinney presentations at Make Fair presentation? Sorli…

JDM

Yet, HP has a commanding lead on varied products they offer. No Apple printers.

http://www.facebook.com/derecuda Derecuda

That means the WebOS toaster is now a reality…
Wegf

it would be enough if i could control DLNA/UPNP devices with webOS or could do wireless printing from webOS…
Zevo

Unless it controls my new hp toaster running webos I’ll not be impressed.
Zevo

Unless it controls my new hp toaster running webos I’ll not be impressed.
Marv

By the time this is released google and apple will have perfected it.

Phil McKinney Controls Household Appliances With HP TouchPad at Maker Faire

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