Palm webOS returns

Palm webOS fans like me are excited with the news of the resurrection of our favorite mobile operating system.

Earlier this month, The Verge broke the story that LG Electronics will introduce webOS-powered smart televisions at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the United States this January.

Quoting LG researcher Hong Sung-pyo, who spoke at a semiconductor event in Korea, the report said LG’s first webOS TV “will apparently run a 2.2GHz dual-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM, which will allow for multi-tasking features.”

Hong also reportedly said LG will revive Palm’s development efforts for Enyo, its application framework that allows developers to create apps that run on different operating systems.

And then today, a Wall Street Journal report added that webOS on the soon-to-be-unveiled television set will retain the cards system. Palm webOS uses “cards” metaphor to enable multiple apps to run at the same time. It looks like this on a phone:

Aside from that bit of information, the WSJ report, which was based on info from an anonymous source, added this paragraph that surely made many webOS fans very happy:

“The person didn’t comment on the company’s plans to market the webOS-powered TVs but said the operating system may be developed and later adopted for LG’s other consumer electronics, including smartphones.”

In 2010, HP bought Palm. After introducing three phones and a tablet powered by webOS, HP announced the shutdown of operations for webOS devices in August 2011. Four months later, HP made webOS open source. In February of this year, HP sold the webOS technology to LG.

Will we actually see a new webOS phone from LG in the near future? For many, that will be a dream come true.