Latest news

Thanks to 9to5mac, the world now has a blurry picture of an alleged next-generation iPad, one that includes a front-facing camera and the ability to use FaceTime, Apple's video conferencing software.

The picture shows the tablet in debugging mode for video calls. The site says field-tested iPhone 4 models had the same debugging mode revealed before its eventual launch.

While the photo is of debatable authenticity, most consumers and industry insiders have anticipated that the next-generation tablet will include at least one camera.

During the recent September media event, CEO Steve Jobs said HDR photography was headed to the iPad with the upcoming iOS firmware update, to version 4.2. The feature would seem useless without a camera.

Apple's new competitors, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Toshiba Folio 100, include cameras, giving them a leg up on the iPad, in at least that feature.

Motorola's latest ad, promoting the Droid 2, has taunted the Apple iPhone, playing on the company's "there's an app for that" ad lineup.

The Droid 2 ad is simple, asking the question: "Flash websites? There's a phone for that."

Motorola's full-page ad was seen in newspapers over the weekend.

Continues the ad: "Flash sites require Flash capabilities. Seemed pretty simple to us." The Apple iPhone cannot playback Flash content, as CEO Steve Jobs wants to push HTML5 for Web browsing.

While Flash playback on Android 2.2 devices is far from perfect, it is better to at least have the ability.

Motorola and Apple have traded jabs recently, mainly over signal problems for the iPhone 4 and the Droid X.

Pic via Electronista:

According to multiple reports, Huawei's recently unveiled Ideos Android smartphone is headed to T-Mobile USA, and it will be cheap.

The Ideos runs Android 2.2, Google's latest firmware update for the mobile OS.

If the reports prove accurate, T-Mobile will sell the entry-level device for just $49 with contract or $199 without, creating a very cheap way for users to get into updated Android smartphones.

The price point works for both sides because T-Mobile is looking to increase their smartphone market share and Huawei is looking to break into the American market.

Huawei's Ideos has a small 2.8-inch capacitive QVGA touch screen and 3G with support for 7.2Mbps HSDPA.

Medal of Honor, the latest game in the long-standing franchise has been blocked from 49 GameStop locations and all U.S. military bases worldwide.

The game was banned because in the game's multiplayer mode you can play as either the Americans (and allies) or as the Taliban insurgents, a fact that angered former vets and parents of vets.

"I don't see how shooting soldiers based on real Americans is entertainment while people are dying every day for this country," said Karen Meredith. Meredith's son, a former Army lieutenant, was killed during the Iraqi conflict in 2004.

"How can they say it's OK for someone to play the Taliban? You'll have people sitting at home, drinking beer, shooting at American soldiers, maybe missing, then starting over. Well, Ken didn't have a chance to start over," finished Meredith.

The decision in the U.S. is the second time an allied country has made a fuss over the title, with British Defense Secretary Liam Fox asking retailers to not stock the game.

After falling to third place last year behind perennial leader HP and Acer, iSuppli has reported this week that Dell has retaken second place in the PC manufacturing market.

Overall, PC shipments increased this quarter to 82 million, with Dell taking a 12.8 percent share, just beating out Acer at 12.4 percent.

HP remained the leader at 18 percent.

Despite a decent jump in overall sales, all three of the top manufacturers saw a sales decline. Lenovo, on the other hand, saw an 18.6 percent jump in sales, good enough to take 10.1 percent of the market.

Acer and HP saw the largest declines, with sales falling 6.2 and 6.3 percent, respectively, from the quarter preceding this one.

HP has spent the last sixteen quarters in first place.

Graph via iSuppli:

The French high authority HADOPI, which was put in place to oversee the country's recently passed "three strikes" anti-piracy laws has a new problem on its hands; phishers and scammers using the authority's name to trick people into giving up personal information.

The group is allowed to issue sanctions and fines to Internet users accused of piracy, with a "third strike" meaning disconnection from the Web, and a blacklisting.

E-mails, purportedly being sent from HADOPI, have been hitting thousands of inboxes this week, all claiming that the recipient has been accused of copyright violations.

The accused are then pushed to a website to pay off their fine, which leads to phishers stealing their personal info along with the money.

"As expected, this is classic Internet," says HADOPI's Secretary General Éric Walter (via Ars).

HADOPI says it will begin sending out the first real violation letters in the coming months.

(Article pic found here)

Last May, network administrator Oliver Beel was fired from his job after he charged his Segway vehicle using the firm's power source for 90 minutes.

It was revealed that Beel had used 1.8 euro cents worth of electricity and he was fired two days later.

This week, a court has ruled that the firm had no grounds to fire Beel, dismissing the firm's appeal against his reinstatement, says Reuters.

The court says the firing was not appropriate given Beel's offense.

"Minimal electricity cost involved, the plaintiff's 19-year employment by the company and the fact other employees charged mobile phones and digital photo frames at the firm's expense without punishment," were all cited as reasons for the dismissal.

Buffalo Japan has announced this week the launch of the BG3D-PI6U2-BK, a portable 3D Blu-ray drive.

Owners can plug the device into their Windows PC via the USB port and view 3D Blu-ray movies. Of course, you will need a 3D-enabled display.

The drive is very thin at 5.39 x 5.78 x 0.78-inches and weighs 340g.

Buffalo's BG3D-PI6U2-BK writes data to BD-R/RDL6 discs at 6x and BD-RE/RE DL discs at 2x.

The drive will sell for 30,000 yen (a bit over $350 USD). It will hit Japan next month, with an expected North American launch later in the year.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall for 41,000 Toshiba notebooks this week, following reports that some are overheating or even melting.

Before the official mandate, Toshiba posted its own recall of the Satellite T130 notebook.

The CPSC said they had 129 reported instances of "overheating and deforming the plastic casing area around the AC adapter plug."

Four of the reports lead to minor injuries or minor property damage, says the CPSC.

Toshiba explained that the problem came from a "faulty DC-In harness," which could lead to melting.

A BIOS update will fix the problem, says Toshiba. The affected models are: Satellite T135D-S1326, T135D-SP2012L, T135-SP2909R, T135D-SP2012M, T135-SP2013L, T135-SP2013M, T135D-S1322, T135-S1330, T135D-S1328WH, T135D-S1328RD, T135D-S1328, T135D-S1327, T135D-S1325WH, T135D-S1325RD, T135D-S1325, T135D-S1324, T135D-S1320, T135-SP2911R, T135-S1312, T135-S1310WH, T135-S1310RD, T135-S1310, T135-S1309, T135-S1307, T135-S1305WH, T135-S1305RD, T135-S1305, T135-S1300WH, T135-S1300RD, T135-S1300, T135-SP2911C, T135-SP2911A, T135-SP2910R, T135-SP2910C, T135-SP2910A, T135-SP2909C, T135-SP2909A and the Satellite Pro T130-W1302, T130-EZ1301.

LG showed off the 31-inch 3D OLED HDTV, as promised last week today during the IFA 2010 event, pricing the model as well.

The 1080p screen is detachable from its stand, and the TV can be rotated in place. The stand is bulky as it contains all the ports standard on an HDTV.

Coming in at 2.9mm thick, the OLED display is the thinnest TV yet.

LG says the TV has an "infinite" contrast ratio and has 3D-support if you have special glasses.

The OLED set will begin shipping in March with a handsome price of £6,000.

Pics via Pocket-Lint:

Google has celebrated Chrome's second birthday this week by launching Chrome 6 for Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

The search giant introduced the browser on September 2nd, 2008.

Chrome 6 has been placed in Google's "stable" channel.

"The last couple of years we've been focused on speed," added Brian Rakowski (via CW), Chrome's director of product management. "A lot of things have changed in the last two years [in browsers], but the one thing we've learned is that speed matters. It's something Google's always believed in and it resonates with people."

Chrome 6, very importantly, is three times faster at parsing JavaScript than Chrome 1. "That's a pretty big deal," says Rakowski, of the achievement, "but we have a lot more speed improvements to come."

Being tested for the latest versions of Chrome is hardware acceleration, which will move some tasks from the CPU to the GPU in an effort to boost performance.

Sony has re-hauled their e-reader line, increasing the price while adding new features.

The new Reader Pocket Edition will cost $179, up from $149 for the last edition.

Sony's revamped Touch Edition will jump to $229, and the high-end Daily Edition will cost $299.

Each of the devices now features a slimmer and lighter body, more sensitive touchscreens, and higher contrast e-ink screens with better clarity.

Sony's biggest rivals, the Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook sell for under $150, so Sony may be facing an uphill battle trying to steal market share from cheaper and more established devices.

Furthermore, B&N and Amazon have repeatedly cut the prices of their devices while updating new features. Just last week, Borders said it was slashing the price of the Aluratek Libre e-readers to $99.99, the first e-reader to drop under the $100 threshold.

Samsung, the world's second-largest phone maker has said today that it will prioritize the Android and Bada mobile operating systems, making them key software platforms for their smartphones.

Says YH Lee, head of marketing at Samsung Mobile: "We are Prioritizing our Android platform. Android is very open and flexible, and there is a consumer demand for it."

Android has quickly become the third biggest mobile OS in the world, behind Symbian and RIM, surpassing Apple and Microsoft, which had head starts.

Samsung launched the Bada OS last year and have introduced two phones running the software, the Wave and the Wave 723.

Lee says the company will launch a full lineup of Bada phones in the upcoming quarters.

Despite prioritizing the other smartphone OS', Samsung does say they are releasing a Windows 7 device later in the year.

According to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 72 percent of American adults now text from their phones, with 87 percent of teens texting, as well.

Adult texting use is up from 65 percent in September 2009 and 58 percent in the same period of 2007.

While more adults are texting now than ever, they still don't do it very often. Typically, adults only send and receive 10 texts per day. Teens average over 50.

Pew surveyed 2,252 adults earlier this year.

"We’ve reached a point where enough other people are texting that (adults) are drawn into using it because they can finally use it to communicate with a substantial number of their friends and family," writes Amanda Lenhart, Pew senior research specialist, via MSNBC.

"It may be that folks have been pushed by pricing into unlimited texting plans, which has the effect of encouraging people with those plans to text more, because they no longer think of the cost, and then text more people more often."

At this week's IFA 2010 tech fair, Sony has unveiled a 3D Vaio notebook, one that includes a button that, when pressed, will convert 2D images to 3D.

While the premise is intriguing, there is, of course, a catch. Users will need to wear active shutter glasses to view the 3D.

The glasses, besides being an annoyance, are easy to lose and expensive to replace, making the proposition less interesting.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer says the notebook will be available next Spring, but no word on cost.

The display is full 1080p HD, and can handle 240 fps. Additionally, Sony's "black frame insertion" tech is used, which "which inserts a black frame between normal video frames to improve pixel response and improve black levels," says PCW.