iPad 3 specs and release date: rumor round-up

Well, folks, it's once again the beginning of the year, which means we're once again close to witnessing the launch of another iPad. However, as always, Cupertino has done its best to keep any details away from prying eyes, so we're pretty much left to deal with a number of rumors and some other speculation. But, our excitement for the third offering in Apple's tablet line is too big, not allowing us to stay still and wait patiently until the company finally lifts the veil off the new iPad. That's...

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Apple's stock market value adds up to 3.7% of the entire S&P 500

We remember in the mid 1980's when Apple's stock was down to $12 during the John Sculley years. More recently, we can recall pre-Apple iPhone days when the stock was under $40. Now, years later, the Apple iPhone is almost 5 years old with 5 generations of the device having been launched. The company is on the verge of  launching its third generation tablet and the Apple iPad has become as much as an international hit as the iPhone has. Apple's stock has risen nearly in a straight line as more...

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iPad 3 Latest Reports Say Screen Sharpness is Nearly as Good as Billed

Apple's enhanced display on its yet-to-be-unveiled iPad 3 appears to be the worst kept secret, judging by all the eyes that are reportedly able to see it. MacRumors owner Arnold Kim says anyone can buy the next iteration of the popular tablet at the Chinese website TrueSupplier. The skinny: The screen measures 9.7 inches in diagonal, the same size display as used in the iPad and iPad 2, but the resolution is four times as sharp. Apple is reportedly expected to take the ribbon off the iPad...

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China faces conflict between law and business in dispute over iPad trademark

BEIJING — Chinese officials face a choice in Apple’s dispute with a local company over the iPad trademark — side with a struggling entity that a court says owns the name or with a global brand that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in China. Experts say that means Beijing’s political priorities rather than the courts will settle the dispute if it escalates.Shenzhen Proview Technology has asked regulators to seize iPads in China in a possible prelude to pressing Apple Inc. for a payout. There...

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RIM registers 6600 developers in 11 days with free BlackBerry PlayBook promotion

RIM has recently extended a promotion that gave away a free BlackBerry PlayBook to anyone who submitted a "viable" app to BlackBerry App World. The promotion was to expire on Monday but RIM's Head of Developer Relations Alec Saunders has extended the deadline for the free PlayBook to March as developers have been signing up with the Canadian based manufacturer. Saunders sent out a tweet on Tuesday proudly announcing that RIM had signed up 6600 developers in the previous 11 days. Developers have...

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Google problem ‘spreading’ from Santorum to Romney

A new website with a very off-color description of Mitt Romney could create a serious image problem for the Republican presidential candidate. Reputation management experts call it “image-jacking” -- and Google says it's out of the company's hands.Rick Santorum was the first to suffer from a “Google-bomb”: the SpreadingSantorum.com website created by sex columnist Dan Savage that offers a repulsive description of the candidate. Romney may be the latest to suffer from such repugnant manipulation...

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Google TV Gets A New YouTube App

Last month, Google began showing the new versions of Google TV at CES, giving the press a taste of what was in store. One particular panel discussing Google TV’s new capabilities led Rupert Murdoch to take to Twitter, bemoaning the pirating ways of the search behemoth. Forbes has the backstory here. Google TV posted on its Facebook page yesterday, saying that it has some big announcements in store for Monday. Today, it announced that it is upgrading the YouTube experience on Google TV with a new,...

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All Eyes Should Be On Verizon This Quarter

After losing on its home turf to the iPhone last quarter, the Droid brand is stepping up with its strongest showing yet, backed by new models and great deals. But will it be enough?The Droid brand was Verizon’s reaction to the AT&T exclusive iPhone. It was, I believe, smartly executed and became a synonym for Android phones. But then Verizon did get the iPhone and thanks to their first new iPhone launch, the iPhone 4S in October, it counted for 55% of Verizon’s smartphone sales last quarter....

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Apple scores with digital textbooks and app

The sizzling rate at which e-books are growing suggests that digital textbooks almost certainly will be the norm when your kids' kids are in school. What we don't know is how quickly a transition to a mostly all-digital textbook education system might happen, how it could affect the way students learn, and which companies will be leading the charge.  Two weeks ago, Apple declared its intention to be at the head of the class, with the unveiling of the iBooks 2 for iPad app and the iBooks textbooks...

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Google's GDrive Reportedly To Launch As Dropbox-rival 'Drive'

Google's long-rumored GDrive that would let you upload and store files to its servers and be able to access them from anywhere you have an Internet connection may finally be close to launching in the coming weeks as a more cheaply priced Dropbox rival.The new product, reportedly called "Drive," will be free to consumers up to a certain size limit, and would also be folded into Google Apps for enterprise customers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper cited "people familiar with the...

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Microsoft releases OneNote for Android with Office and cloud syncing

Microsoft is starting slow with bringing its bread-and-butter Office suite to mobile, this time with OneNote. After appearing for iOS device, the note-taking and reminder app was released with a version for Android yesterday. OneNote for Android can sync across the Microsoft Office suite, but the best part is that it also syncs with the SkyDrive cloud services and the web-based version of Office for an airy experience. The app is stripped down of some features compared to the real thing,...

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LG Optimus LTE Soon to Launch on TELUS

Last year we saw the LG Optimus LTE get launched on Bell Mobility, and now it looks as if the flagship device is headed to TELUS as well. The Canadian carrier’s website has outed the device as model number LTE P935, which varies slightly from Bell’s P930 model number. To you U.S. folks, you might be more familiar with the device as the LG Nitro HD which launched on AT&T late last year. Also, LG recently announced that the device has already sold over 1 million units worldwide.We don’t have any...

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955 Dreams Raises $3.25 Million Seed Round, Launches “Band Of The Day” On iPad

Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. ? Learn More 955 Dreams, the startup behind Apple’s iPhone App of the Year Runner Up “Band of the Day,” is today releasing the new tablet-optimized version of the app for the iPad. In addition, the company announced it has closed on a $3.25 million...

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SAMSUNG GALAXY S ADVANCE OFFICIAL: Android MID-RANGER WITH TWO CPU CORES

Samsung just made the Galaxy S Advance that leaked this morning official, and the specs are quite likeable. Graced with a 4" Super AMOLED display with the obligatory 480x800 pixels resolution, the Galaxy S Advance was rumored to be Samsung's first effort with the 1GHz dual-core NovaThor chipset from ST-Ericsson. Samsung Galaxy S Advance official: Android mid-ranger with two CPU cores This raised our suspicion that it is destined for China, as handsets like the HTC Z710t usually have this chipset...

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MICROSOFT MIGHT BRING SOME OF THE XBOX LIVE MOBILE GOODNESS TO ANDROID AND iOS

Xbox Live integration is one of the huge selling points of Microsoft's Windows Phone, and with the valid right to be so - it integrates with your Xbox 360 experience, and encompasses or will include TV, video streaming, music and social networking. With all these under the big roof of its gaming division, which brought us success stories like the Kinect, it is no wonder that Microsoft is looking to bring the Xbox experience to more popular mobile platforms as well, and spread the word. It's a...

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GOOGLE+ SAYS 'YES' TO NICKNAMES, BUT NO TO ANONYMITY

Google relaxed the strict naming policy for Google+ users and will allow nicknames and pseudonyms on the social network. The new naming policy, announced by Google’s Bradley Horowitz on Google+, will start rolling out this week and allows users to choose alternatives names, be it nicknames or names in non-Romanized languages. But there’s a caveat.Even if you add a pseudonym to your Google + account, such as "Jedi Master", people will still see your "real name" adjacent to your nickname (see image...

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WINDOWS 8 TABLETS: STILL HIDING

Considering that 2012 will be the year of Microsoft's dramatic upgrade to Windows 8, one might have thought the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show last week would be filled with prospective hardware platforms for the new Windows operating system. it might have seemed logical to expect that to hear lots about tablets with Windows 8. But news on that front was surprisingly...quiet.While CEO Steve Ballmer talked Windows 8 at his keynote and showed a Qualcomm prototype tablet running Windows 8,...

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ABSINTHE UNTETHERED A5 JAILBREAK TOOL FOR APPLE iPHONE 4S AND iPAD 2 MADE EASY ON BOTH WINDOWS AND MAC

Now that the Dev Team got around Apple's built-in A5 chip defenses, it released a software for untethered jailbreak of your iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The crew has made it a very simplified process, which rewards you with access to Cydia and all the goodies of jailbroken apps, that make the iPhone and iPad that much more functional.The tool is called Absinthe (GreenPois0n, we get it), and offers one-click jailbreaking for both Mac, as well as Windows now. If you have been itching to do this, and get...

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iBOOKS 2 APP CONTAINS HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS,POSSIBLY FOR iPAD 3'S DISPLAY

You didn't think that iOS developers would simply let the new iBooks 2 app get away without getting dissected, did you? Well, you might be interested in knowing what they found while digging through its insides. The software contains high-resolution graphics that are believed to be meant for use on the iPad 3's screen. As denoted with a “@2x” in their file name, the graphics have twice the resolution than the ones that are currently in use. That the iPad 3, or whatever it is called, will have an...

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iTUNES MATCH LAUNCHES IN 19 ADDITIONAL COUNTRIES

Apple has updated the company’s iTunes Match service to include 19 additional countries. The list includes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, bringing iTunes Match availability to 37 markets in total. Apple debuted the iTunes Match service late last year. For an annual charge, customers can scan and match tracks from their iTunes libraries...

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Motorola DEFY+ JCB LIMITED EDITION LANDS IN THE U.K.

What is black, tough, and carriers a JCB logo on its back? No, it is not a piece of heavy machinery that we are dealing with here. We are talking about the limited edition Motorola DEFY+, which just got announced. What makes the Motorola DEFY+ limited edition different from the standard model is that it is coated with an extra layer of armor making it even more suitable for people working in the construction and engineering sector. The patented visco-elastic protective sleeve from JCB is there...

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THE BEST LAPTOP FROM SONY

Sony’s VAIO SB series, as configured in our review unit (model VPCSB1BGX), offers the best overall performance of any ultraportable laptop we’ve yet tested. It’s light, thin, and a pleasure to use despite a few minor annoyances. Pity, then, that this configuration costs $2500. The base model starts at only $900 (as of August 12, 2011), but that configuration wouldn’t dominate our benchmarks as our review model does.The VAIO SB is a 13.3-inch ultra portable that weighs a modest 3.7 pounds, perhaps...

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