LG to Unveil webOS-Powered TV

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South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc. will soon take the veils off a television model that will run on the “webOS” operating system, highlighting its ambition of creating a prominent operating system for so-called smart TVs.

LG bought webOS, a mobile-device operating system, from Hewlett-Packard Co. earlier this year. The operating system was originally developed by Palm Inc. to power smartphones that would compete with the likes of Apple Inc.’s iPhones. H-P acquired Palm in 2010 and used webOS to power a tablet and its smartphone models. But the system failed to gain traction with the developers who write apps for devices and the devices didn’t sell well.

Despite H-P’s struggles with the operating system, LG had said in February, when announcing the deal, that it was drawn to webOS because of its technology and because the company wanted its own operating system.

LG now plans to showcase an Internet-connected television model powered by webOS in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

He didn’t elaborate on the features of the operating system, but said it would retain the “cards” system, or a stack of pop-ups that allows users to navigate multiple applications, originally used in the webOS mobile devices launched by H-P.

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.

LG, the world’s second-largest TV market after Samsung Electronics Co., has been busy churning out new premium TV models this year to spark interest in a segment that accounts for nearly 40% of its revenue. The company is also set to showcase a whopping 105-inch curved-screen television at CES, with a similar model expected from Samsung.

While the market for operating systems for mobile devices is dominated by Google Inc.’s Android, there is no such leader for smart TVs.

Samsung has long been working on a new operating system, together with Intel Corp., dubbed the Tizen that is expected to power smartphones and TVs. Tizen’s expected debut next year will likely intensify the competition between the two Korean conglomerates.

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