With the announcement that HP has bought Palm for $1.2 bn and confirmation from HP exec Todd Bradley that the company is looking into the potential to use Palm's webOS in other devices beyond the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones, we look into where else will the mobile operating system could turn up.

Here are five gadgets we can't wait for the company to put the webOS platform on:

The HP Slate

Why bother with trying to run Windows 7 on a tablet device when you can keep it simple with an OS designed for a more mobile centric offering.

We've seen enough teaser information from HP to know that the HP Slate, the company's internet tablet to go up against the iPad, is going to be running a HP overlay (most likely its smart touch software) on top of a Microsoft Windows operating system, possibly Windows 7.

But what if HP, thanks to buying Palm, could simply offer the webOS platform on the HP Slate instead? A stack of apps from the get go, an OS that has been designed for a mobile device to begin with and something that is going to look a lot cooler than a selection of icons in a grid, like the smart touch interface from HP currently is. Surely it's win, win, win.

A HP Photosmart printer

HP has already started to dabble in offering apps within its Photosmart printers following the launch of its first app ready printer in 2009.

Fast forward to 2010 and you can easily see the company, not only powering its printer range with an entry-level offering of webOS, but using that printer knowledge to build printer support (something Apple's iPhone OS 3 and 4 lacks) into webOS as standard. Rather than just a handful of apps that work with the printer, customers could possibly have thousands.

HP Dreamscape digital photo frame

The Dreamscape is currently a glorified digital photo frame, but installing webOS would make it so much more, giving it the power of cloud-based solutions of a phone, with a more tablet like approach in the home.

Whether it's merged with the HP Slate and therefore discontinued is a question for another time, but it certainly gives developers yet more reasons to develop for the webOS platform.

Photo apps, can and are a big lure to a platform, this would only serve to help push that urge to develop even harder. 

HP mini netbook

We've seen Linux powered netbooks come and go, but what about one that is powered by webOS?

HP could easily add the webOS offering to its range of netbooks and even notebooks as a battery saving alternative to running Windows. Just need to check your email or play some games? No problem, fire-up your dual bootable device and away you go. We can't see it being the only operating system on the machine, but it would certainly give you a great instant start up option. 

HP digital camera

We joked on April Fools day that Canon, Olympus and Nikon were going to create an app store for their digital cameras, with webOS HP has the possibility to make that a reality.

Using an entry-level version of the webOS platform, HP could use it in compact cameras to offer consumers a range of connected features and apps to help you take better pictures and share your photos with social networking sites like facebook or flickr.

Imagine how much of an edge it would give the company over traditional models that struggle when it comes to doing more than just snapping that perfect moment.