Updated: (A second, much-better-filmed vid has now been added after the break.) It's here! Easy video recording is now in alpha testing on the Palm Pre, via the new Precorder app. Made possible by weeks (and weeks and weeks) of painstaking work by "zsoc" of WebOS Internals (with big assistance from Rod Whitby, Roy of Pre101, and the ever-amazing Jason Robitaille), Precorder operates by way of a custom gstreamer executable, a Java service (gstservice), and a simple Mojo front-end. It records 30 FPS 480x320 H.264-encoded videos, and they are playable both on the device and on desktop PCs. And it should be in Preware very soon. In the meantime, you can download the somewhat unstable alpha version from the WebOS Internals wiki page here.

But enough of all that. You want to see the results, right? They're after the break, where I've posted my first test vid, along with a screenshot of the front-end. Forgive the lopsided view - I was flipping the Pre around to try and work out which aspect it was recording in. (For the record, it's "volume keys down".) And no, there's no preview window... yet.

Wow. Either Palm are a lot further along with that much lusted-after Pre GPU support than we all thought, or PreCentral forum member casperstar is laughing his butt off as he perpetuates one of the greatest Palm hoaxes of all time. The aforementioned poster has published a video (since taken down and then re-uploaded by another helpful person) of what he claims is a version of Need For Speed for the Pre, which utilises the GPU. In addition, he's also posted shots of what looks like a secret internal Palm App Catalog, with 495 apps in stock.

If it's true, then this is intriguing for several reasons: first and foremost, if Palm does indeed have a native SDK out there (and this sure doesn't seem to have been coded in Javascript), then why aren't the rank-and-file of webOS developers being allowed access? Video after the break, along with the leaked screenshots.

Right on cue, webOS 1.3.1 has been turned loose on European Palm Pres, finally bringing sweet, sweet parity to the world of webOS. The full changelogs for the UK, Irish, German, and Spanish models are up for perusal, but the really good news for international importers of the unlocked German Pre is that an option is now available to manually configure your wireless Internet & MMS APN details, putting an end to those nagging SIM incompatibilty issues. Hit up the Preferences menu in the phone app, and under Network you'll find an option for Manual Settings. Screenshots after the break.

It also wouldn't be an update without issues: something appears to have broken the App Catalog, with your correspondent having been denied access since updating a few hours ago. Here's hoping Palm fixes it yesterday.

Amazon.com has just lowered its price on webOS phones this week. Bargain hunters can now find the Palm Pre and the less than a week old Palm Pixi smartphones on deep discount from the etailer. Both deals require customers sign up for a new Sprint service plan through the site.

The Pre is currently going for $79.99 with a two year service agreement, while the Pixi is being promoted with a $24.99 price point representing a near 75% discount. Both offers also include free activation, which is usually at least another $25 clams. The current MSRP asking prices from Sprint remain unchanged at $149 and $99.

Almost gone but not forgotten, there are still a few new bits of both good and bad Palm OS-related software news out there.

Starting with the good news, long-time mobile software specialists Astraware have released a new version of their My Little Tank game for Palm OS users. Bearing version number 1.14, this is the first update to the title since a major update November of last year. The new update adds support for numerous new languages with no new gameplay or content updates. A full listing of the added languages can be found on Astraware's product revision page. You can reference my review of this fun little game from way back in 2006. I still play it occasionally and would put it on the short list of classic Palm OS games that have stood the test of time quite well, as last year's update really added some additional value to the title.

Everybody's favourite homebrew installers have both received some significant upgrades in recent days, with version 2.9 of the desktop powerhouse WebOS Quick Install adding webOS 1.3.1 support and new patch recovery options, and version 0.9.9 of the nifty on-device Preware receiving a significant speed boost when navigating menus and ready to add theme categorising in 0.9.10 (as you can see in my teensy thumbnail image on the right). The changelog for WOSQI is published after the break.

Meanwhile, Eric Gaudet's lauded Virtual Keyboard has been successfully ported to webOS 1.3.1, so Pre owners can all once again enjoy the best of both worlds. And moderator milominderbinder of the PreCentral forums has thrown together an excellent "Getting Started" guide for Preware, which now has a permanent link at the aptly-titled install.preware.org and aims to help newbies find their feet in the wonderful world of OTA homebrewing.

It's been awhile since PIC did a Quickies update, but the multitude of small news items today that I couldn't quite pad out to full articles seems to warrant it. Comin' at 'cha hard and fast: the webOS Flash Beta is due soon, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect reckons all the good mobile apps will be ported everywhere, PhoneGap announced that their web dev tools will soon be webOS compatible and FourSquare are building a webOS app.

Hit the jump for the deets!

Whoever came up with the age-old expression "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" evidently forgot to pass on the aphorism to webOS users, who are complaining in droves about the new Palm-developed native Facebook app for webOS.

For those unaware, the app offers a very, very basic Facebook experience, allowing you to interact with your main News Feed... and that's about it. The masses do not appear to be pleased, with the app currently garnering a rather embarrassing 2.5 star rating in the App Catalog. Some light editorialising after the break...

If you were one of those who picked up a shiny new Palm Pixi on the weekend, then you may have been a mite disappointed to find that the multitude of homebrew webOS patches out there simply didn't work on your new toy. The culprit is the Pixi's new processor, which is an older ARMv6 variant, whereas all patches had previously been compiled for the ARMv7 CPU in the Pre.

WebOS Internals was, however - as usual - quickly on the case, and have pushed out version 0.9.19 of their Package Manger Service, which alongside the latest version 0.9.8 of Preware will now let you patch the Pixi to your heart's content. The task also required recompilation of all the binary packages that install & uninstall patches, no small effort. You can update via Preware, get the stand-alone installer here, or use WebOS Quick Install to step up. And not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're using Preware, you really should have donated by now, you freeloading mooch. This stuff doesn't make itself happen. Lay on, Macduff...

File under extremely-bloody-annoying. A recent software upgrade pushed out to Nokia-Siemens GSM base stations on T-Mobile in the US and O2 in the UK (and who knows how many other global carriers) has had a rather extreme side-effect on Palm's last two GSM Palm OS devices: voice calls are knocked for six and your end of the conversation will begin dropping out, with your caller noticing that your voice cuts in and out intermittently for a few seconds at a time, and sometimes going completely mute. Reports from frustrated users have cropped up all over the 'net, with some claiming the problem is not limited to Palm's phones.

Worse, however, is the corporate buck-passing that appears to be taking place. The carriers concerned are blaming Palm, whereas Palm has essentially EOL'd these phones and has no intention of releasing further ROM updates that may fix the issue. A post on the T-Mobile forums with information from a base station engineer explains the situation in much greater technical detail here. The long and short seems to be that a fix is not coming anytime soon from either party - leaving consumers, as usual, holding the sharp end of the stick.

The calls for Palm to adopt Android have never particularly made sense to your correspondent. What benefit would there be for a little fish like our favourite gadget company in adopting a platform that will soon be inundated with a veritable swarm of me-too devices? Still, there's a certain appeal to the idea of having a PalmDroid of your very own, and one YouTuber appears to have taken it upon themselves to make the dream a reality. After the break, behold: a video of Android running on the venerable Treo 650!

PIC has reached out to the YouTube poster hoping to find more details of exactly how this was accomplished, but has yet to receive a response. A phalanx of Google searches has also proved futile. Do please drop us a line if you can assist, because we'd love to give it a shot ourselves.