Fully Charged: The webOS that never was, and Will.i.am’s big smartwatch revealed!

Mochi: how webOS would have looked

Palm’s webOS mobile operating system was a sad, sad failure – despite being innovative and quite lovely, it never took off, was routed by iOS and Android, and now has to suffer the ignominy of being no more than a platform for LG’s smart TVs (no offence, LG). But the team behind it has this week released the code and concepts for Mochi, the latest version of the OS, to the community for further work.

Basically, anybody who feels like poking around in or tweaking Mochi can do so. And it’s an interesting piece of design, boasting a “flat” look long before Apple and Android adopted it. Worth a look if you’re a smartphone obsessive, even if only to lament what might have been.

[Source: Github via The Verge]

Will.i.am may have invented a smartwatch

Not content with inflicting a hideous camera case add-on for the iPhone upon the world, Black Eyed Peas frontman and celebrity tech evangelist Will.i.am has leapt aboard the wearables wagon. Over the weekend, Will chose to reveal an (as-yet-unnamed) smartwatch on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, saying it can make calls without a smartphone, runs Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and will play music through a pair of Bluetooth headphones. It looks big, mind you. Or perhaps Will.i.am just has small wrists.

The star said that the device would be revealed in more detail soon, but it’s the calling aspect that might set it aside from the pack – most wearables are merely companion devices that require a paired smartphone to get online. Could it really be Will.i.am that delivers the first true watchphone of the 21st century? Stay tuned.

[Source: Engadget]

A first look at The Expendables 3

 The first two Expendables movies were shameless, stupid 1980s-style fun – and now Stallone, Statham and co are coming back with the third (and apparently final) instalment in the series. Check out the first official trailer, which reveals nothing of the plot (hey, remember the amazing plots of the first two? Us neither) but gives us a glimpse of a clutch of new/aging stars including Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes and Mel Gibson.

Wreck-It Ralph seems set for a sequel

Speaking of sequels, it seems that Disney’s animated video game-themed movie Wreck-It Ralph may well be getting one. Disney’s animated films rarely get sequels, but composer Henry Jackman (who worked on the first movie) told Collider that he believed Wreck-It Ralph 2 was “officially on the cards” and that he was aware that a story was being worked on. The first movie was a huge box office success – as well as being really quite lovely – so this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but it’s good to know that there’s a soft spot for geek culture even within the most mainstream of movie studios.

[Source: Collider]

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Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.