60-inch Apple iTV to launch this year

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's no secret that Apple wants to get into the living room by making its own TV set, and there have been plenty of rumors and reports about how and when it's going to happen. Now, an analyst says he's learned that the set will go on sale late this year, for $1,500 to $2,500. In a research note Wednesday, Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets says the "iTV" will be 60 inches on the diagonal, but could also come in 50- and 55-inch versions. Apple will also release a small "iRing" that fits on the viewer's finger, allowing the user to control the screen by pointing, White says. In addition, the set will come with tablet-like "mini iTVs" with 9.7-inch screens, the same as the full-size iPad, White said. The "iTV" will be able to send video to the smaller screens wirelessly around the house. The concept is similar to the way in which cable and satellite TV companies are starting to let their set-top boxes send video to iPads and other tablets. White says his report is based on gleanings from visits with unnamed Chinese and Taiwanese companies that supply Apple with components.

Apple doesn't comment on future products before its launch events, but late company co-founder Steve Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson that he wanted to remake the TV and had figured out a way to do it. Last year, there were numerous analyst reports that said Apple would launch a TV set in 2012.

Apple does sell an "Apple TV," but it's a small box that connects to a TV to display movies and shows from iTunes. Apple shares rose $4.91, or 1.1 percent, to $434.70 in midday trading, as the tech-dominated Nasdaq index fell 0.3 percent. Apple's stock is still close to the 52-week low of $419, which it hit a month ago. MadOne

Samsung ordered to pay Apple $1.05B in patent case

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — After a year of scorched-earth litigation, a jury decided Friday that Samsung ripped off the innovative technology used by Apple to create its revolutionary iPhone and iPad. The jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion in the latest skirmish of a global legal battle between the two tech giants. An appeal is expected. Apple Inc. filed its patent infringement lawsuit in April 2011 and engaged legions of the country's highest-paid patent lawyers to demand $2.5 billion from its top smartphone competitor. Samsung Electronics Co. fired back with its own lawsuit seeking $399 million.

The verdict, however, belonged to Apple, as the jury rejected all Samsung's claims against Apple. Jurors also decided against some of Apple's claims involving the two dozen Samsung devices at issue, declining to award the full $2.5 billion Apple demanded. However, the jury found that several Samsung products illegally used such Apple creations as the "bounce-back" feature when a user scrolls to an end image, and the ability to zoom text with a tap of a finger.

As part of its lawsuit, Apple also demanded that Samsung pull its most popular cellphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market. A judge was expected to make that ruling at a later time.

The outcome of the case is likely to have ripple effects in the smartphone market. After seeing Samsung's legal defeat, other device makers relying on Android may become more reluctant to use the software and risk getting dragged into court.

iPad 3 with Superfast 4G?

 

The next iPad could be the first Apple product to run on faster 4G cellular networks. In the past, people have bought 3G-capable iPads for backup in case Wi-Fi wasn't available. But if the 4G rumors are true, pricier iPads could become the norm. News of a possible 4G iPad available through Verizon and AT&T was released by the Wall Street Journal this week. 

Faster is always better in the world of tech gadgets. While speed depends on many factors, 4G can be faster than most public Wi-Fi networks and some home connections. Because video streaming and game-playing often benefit from faster connections, 4G's perceived speed advantage could move a cellular-connected iPad from nice-to-have to really-want-to-have.

 

But 4G data will cost extra. Unlike smartphones that usually require two-year data contracts, Verizon and AT&T offer monthly plans for iPads. You can buy data in a pinch, but if you don't cancel at the end of the 30-day period, you'll be billed every month until you do. Already, potential iPad 3 buyers have been salivating over rumored features, such as higher resolution displays and Siri, the voice-controlled virtual personal assistant that debuted on the iPhone 4S.

iPad 3 To Launch At March Apple Event?

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc plans to introduce its latest iPad tablet at an event in the first week in March, the website AllThingsD reported, citing unnamed sources. The event will be held in San Francisco, likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which is Apple's preferred site for product launches, the website said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Apple has typically introduced the latest versions of its iPad in the first few months of the year. The current iPad 2 was introduced on March 2, 2011. The original iPad was introduced at the end of January 2010.

Apple's iPad dominates the nascent market for tablets even though deep-pocketed rivals are taking aim at the lucrative segment. Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire, which sells at half the cost of an iPad, has chipped away at the lower end of the tablet market. Apple iPad tablet sales doubled in the December quarter to 15.43 million units from a year earlier.

Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dies

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56. Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 and, with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak, marketed what was considered the world's first personal computer, the Apple II. Industry watchers called him a master innovator -- perhaps on a par with Thomas Edison -- changing the worlds of computing, recorded music and communications. In 2004, he beat back an unusual form of pancreatic cancer, and in 2009 he was forced to get a liver transplant. After several years of failing health, Jobs announced on Aug. 24, 2011 that he was stepping down as Apple's chief executive.

Ipod

The highlights of Jobs's career trajectory are well-known: a prodigy who dropped out of Reed College in Oregon and, at 21, started Apple with Wozniak in his parents' garage. He was a multimillionaire by 25, appeared on the cover of Time magazine at 26, and was ousted at Apple at age 30, in 1984. In the years that followed, he went into other businesses, founding NeXT computers and, in 1986, buying the computer graphics arm of Lucasfilm, Ltd., which became Pixar Animation Studios. He was described as an exacting and sometimes fearsome leader, ordering up and rejecting multiple versions of new products until the final version was just right. He said the design and aesthetics of a device were as important as the hardware and software inside. 

In 1996, Apple, which had struggled without Jobs, brought him back by buying NeXT. He became CEO in 1997 and put the company on a remarkable upward path. By 2001 the commercial music industry was on its knees because digital recordings, copied and shared online for free, made it unnecessary for millions of people to buy compact discs. Jobs took advantage with the iPod -- essentially a pocket-sized computer hard drive with elegantly simple controls and a set of white earbuds so that one could listen to the hours of music one saved on it. He set up the iTunes online music store, and persuaded major recording labels to sell songs for 99 cents each. No longer did people have to go out and buy a CD if they liked one song from it. They bought a digital file and stored it in their iPod.

Iphone

In 2007, he transformed the cell phone. Apple's iPhone, with its iconic touch screen, was a handheld computer, music player, messaging device, digital wallet and -- almost incidentally -- cell phone. Major competitors, such as BlackBerry, Nokia and Motorola, struggled after it appeared. By 2010, Apple's new iPad began to cannibalize its original business, the personal computer. The iPad was a sleek tablet computer with a touch screen and almost no physical buttons. It could be used for almost anything software designers could conceive, from watching movies to taking pictures to leafing through a virtual book. 

Ipad

He was listed in March as 109th on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires, with a net worth of about $8.3 billion. After selling Pixar animation studios to The Walt Disney Company in 2006, he became a Disney board member and the company's largest shareholder. Disney is the parent company of ABC News. MadOne

Acer 7-Inch Tablet Launched, Starts at $330

If you've been waiting for an Android Honeycomb tablet that's significantly cheaper than the iPad, your moment may have come. The Acer Iconia Tab A100 Android tablet launches today for $330. The Iconia Tab A100's 7-inch display is much smaller than other Android Honeycomb tablets, but it's the first Honeycomb tablet to ship with version 3.2 of Honeycomb. Android 3.2 brings improvements to the system's speed and interface, but it also makes it possible for Honeycomb to run on screens smaller than 10 inches.


Outside, the Iconia Tab has mini-HDMI, micro-USB, micro-SD card and headphone ports, but strangely it also includes a separate charging port because it won't charge via the dock connector or a USB cable like most tablets. Inside is an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor with an integrated graphics processor and 1GB of RAM. The Acer Iconia Tab A100 is available today. The 8GB version starts at $330 while the 16GB version costs $350. Technews Daily

Apple has more cash than the federal government

Steve Jobs

Who's ready for iAmerica? As the BBC has reported, the software company Apple has more cash on hand than the United States federal government, according to the company's financial records.


Apple's quarterly financial report shows that the company responsible for the iPad, iPod and the iPhone now has $76.4 billion in reserve cash, while the Treasury Department is sitting on just $73.7 billion. The feds could probably learn a thing or two from Apple's success. Congress remains embroiled in a debate over spending and whether the federal government, which currently owes trillions in debt, should be allowed to borrow even more. International credit rating agencies have threatened to downgrade the national debt for the first time in the nation's history if Washington doesn't come up with a solution to lift the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling while implementing a concrete plan to get the nation's financial house in order.


Meanwhile, Apple's financial report shows that the company's profits, even through the last recession, are booming.

Hitachi to join Toshiba-Sony LCD panel merger

(Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd wants to join the ongoing talks between Toshiba Corp and Sony Corp to combine their units that make small and mid-size LCD panels, the Nikkei business daily reported. Toshiba, Sony and Hitachi aim to reach an agreement in July and the newly created LCD unit could be launched as early as this year, the paper said. 

On June 7, Reuters reported citing sources that Toshiba Corp and Sony Corp are in talks to combine their units that make small and mid-size LCD panels for smartphones and tablet computers and may sell a stake in the new entity to the Japanese government for about $1.2 billion. The public-private partnership Innovation Network Corp of Japan, or INCJ, is likely to invest about 200 billion yen ($2.47 billion)for about a 70 percent stake consisting of preferred and common shares, Nikkei said, adding that the three companies would then split the remaining interest.

HTC: More Android Tablets, On The Horizon

PARIS (Reuters) - Smartphone maker HTC plans to roll out a range of different tablet computers to gain a foothold in the fast-growing market, a company executive said on Tuesday.

The global market for tablets, started only last year with Apple's iPad, will likely grow to 108 million devices next year, compared with just 17.6 million in 2010, according to research firm Gartner. "I really believe that the tablet market is really going to be a big market in the future and this is just the start," HTC Europe head Florian Seiche told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.

"In five years' time, schools will have tablets probably instead of physical notebooks. I think that's going to be such a massive wave of additional penetration in society... I think we can't even guess the potential." Seiche said HTC's first tablet, the Flyer, had made a good start in terms of sales.

Apple Unveils iPad 2: Faster, Thinner, Same Price

Apple unveiled its anticipated follow up to the popular iPad. Steve Jobs came back from medical leave to show off the new iPad that's thinner, lighter, faster and still the same price as the original. While other manufacturers struggle to release tablets at the same price point as the iPad, Apple seems to have struck gold with its tablet. The original iPad sold 15 million units, and Apple has managed to pack in many new features for the same price.

There are two more small additions on front and back, which are cameras that can be used to shoot pictures and video as well as video chat over FaceTime. The iPad 2 can FaceTime chat with iPhone and Mac users as well as other iPad 2 users. Inside, the iPad has gone through a few changes as well. The new dual-core A5 processor has significantly boosted the tablet's speed and graphics performance. Even more exciting, the pricing scheme has stayed exactly the same: $499 for 16GB Wi-Fi-only all the way up to $829 for 64GB 3G-capable. 

The iPad 2 is set for a March 11 launch date in the U.S., with releases in 26 more countries on March 25. Even though the white iPhone still hasn't appeared, there will be a white iPad 2 available at launch. Both the white and black versions will also be available on AT&T and Verizon. Technews Daily

Report: Apple to unveil iPad 2 on March 2

Kara Swisher over at All Things Digital says she has "multiple" sources who claim that Apple will hold a media event in San Francisco on March 2. Apple has yet to officially confirm an event next week, but according to Swisher, the company "seems poised" to take the wraps off the long-anticipated iPad 2, with the event "likely" to take place at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

The story comes just hours after a flurry of rumors that the next-generation iPad had been delayed, with major news outlets eventually backtracking on the claim Monday. While Apple hasn't said a peep about the new iPad yet, rumors peg it to be both thinner and lighter than the 1.5-pound, 0.52-inch original, with at least one camera for video chat, a souped-up processor, and more RAM. There had also been talk that the iPad 2 would arrive with an improved screen similar to the "retina" display on the current iPhone 4, but a recent report in the Wall Street Journal shot down those rumors, noting that the new display may "disappoint customers" hoping for a "significant improvement" in resolution. Yahoo

HTC Announces Flyer: 7-inch Android Tablet

The HTC Flyer is a 7-inch tablet in the vein of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but the HTC tablet is much more powerful. For starters, it has a 1.5GHz processor. The processor isn't dual-core like many of the competing tablet processors, but that amount of speed should still be more than sufficient for Android. Furthermore, 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage should help things along nicely.


Other specs include a microSD card slot for storage expansion, 5 megapixel camera in back, 1.3 megapixel camera in front and a 4000mAh battery rated for four hours of continuous video playback, which is actually the least impressive thing about the HTC Flyer. HTC also included a few surprises with the Flyer. First of all, it comes with the OnLive cloud gaming service installed, which makes it possible to play console games without a console over an Internet connection.


HTC said the Flyer will be released in the second quarter of 2011, but did not give a price. TechNews Daily

Motorola Xoom Is $800 with Locked Wi-Fi.

A leaked Best Buy ad revealed that rumors of a high price tag are true. The Motorola Xoom will be $800. By contrast, the 3G iPad that comes with twice as much storage is only $30 more. And to top it off, Apple still has many of cheaper models available starting at just $500, whereas there is only one choice if you want the Xoom. The fine print on the Best Buy ad reveals that Wi-Fi access with the device is locked down until the user purchases a minimum of one month of data subscription. That means those who wanted to get the Xoom free of contract and just use Wi-Fi will be forced to sign up for 3G.
 



To be fair, the Motorola Xoom is quite a powerful piece of hardware for a tablet. It has a dual-core processor, built-in NVIDIA graphics processing, 1 GB of RAM, HD video recording and the ability to upgrade to 4G. But we can also expect the equivalent of most of these features to show up in the iPad 2, which should get an official announcement in a matter of weeks. Motorola has mentioned plans to create a Wi-Fi-only version of the Xoom, which would presumably be cheaper. But there is no information on when it would be available. 

The Best Buy ad also revealed several other details. It confirmed the Feb. 24 launch date as well as the rates for data usage: $20 per month for 1 GB and up to $80 per month for 10 GB. Technews Daily

Motorola Xoom tablet

Motorola Xoom tablet

LAS VEGAS (AFP) – Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet computer powered by new "Honeycomb" software from Google was crowned the best gadget at the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Saturday.
Along with being declared the top creation at the dazzling gadget extravaganza, Xoom was also honored as the best of the scores of tablets introduced here as fresh competitors in a market dominated by Apple iPads.
Motorola also scored a victory with its Atrix smartphone designed to work with high-speed 4G wireless networks and which can be used in a dock to power a laptop.

Atrix Smartphone

Atrix won the top spot in a smartphone category at the official Best of CES awards.

Touch Screens That Touch Back: Feeling in the Future

In this digital age, our fingers have learned to love touch screens. They provide an easy, intuitive way to navigate our devices to make them do our bidding. But so far, our fingers haven’t felt any love in return. All glass screens feel the same — they take, but as far as the sensory experience goes, they don’t give back. TeslaTouch is a new touch screen technology being developed by a Disney Research team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. 

TeslaTouch lets your fingers actually feel what the screen shows. When you move a file on the screen with your finger, you can feel how big it is. Because TeslaTouch can provide a wide variety of tactile(or sensations such as textures, friction and vibration, Disney calls it the “future of feel.”haptic) The idea for TeslaTouch was hatched by senior research scientist Ivan Poupyrev, the Disney team’s research lead. His colleagues Olivier Bau and Chris Harrison worked on research and development while a third team member, Ali Israr, ran psychophysics experiments to estimate how people perceive tactile sensations using this technology.
The technology is named after Nikola Tesla, a Serbian polymath whose work revolutionized the field of electromagnetism. Technews daily

Your Computer is Going Away

BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet to Launch in March 2011

BLACK BERRY PLAY BOOK TABLET

Research in Motion has been pretty coy about when the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will actually be available to consumers, but some recent comments in an earnings call give a hint of when we can expect RIM's tablet.

An RIM spokesperson was talking about when the company expected to see revenue from its tablet (indicating when it will go on sale), and said it would be next year.


"There are no PlayBook revenues included in our Q4 guidance, and we expect the first revenue impact from PlayBook will be in RIM's first quarter," she said. Before you jump to the conclusion that this means January, take a second look at that statement. She said Q1 of the company's fiscal year, not calendar year. To confuse matters further, she later stated that the device would ship in the first quarter of the calendar year.

While it's confusing at first, those two pieces of information actually give us a pretty good idea of when the PlayBook will launch. RIM's fiscal year doesn't start until March, which is also the last month of the first calendar quarter. That means that RIM plans to start selling the dual-core PlayBook in March 2011. This isn't an official announcement, and RIM can obviously change the date before then, but it gives us a good idea of the dates RIM is aiming for. TECHNEWS DAILY

Creative Releases 7-inch Android Tablet for $270

Here's another entry into the Android tablet market, although you might not have known this one was coming. Creative just launched the ZiiO Android tablet, which retails for $250. Unlike the majority of Android tablets, the ZiiO uses a ZiiLabs processor, but the rest of the specs are fairly familiar. The display is 7 inches (similar to the Samsung Galaxy Tab) and has a 800 x 400 pixel resolution. Inside is 16GB of storage, WiFi, Bluetooth and front-facing webcam.


The Creative ZiiO runs Android 2.1, which is disappointing because Google is just about to release Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Hopefully Creative plans to help buyers upgrade later.

The most attractive part of the ZiiO is probably the price. At $270, this tablet is pretty cheap compared to other Android tablets. It might not be quite as powerful or feature-filled (no 3G for instance), but it's an alternative for those who don't have $600 to spend on the Galaxy Tab.

35 Intel-based Tablets Coming in 2011

Credit: Intel

There are a lot of tablet announcements but still very few actual tablets on store shelves. That's supposed to change next year, and Intel says it will be contributing processors to 35 of those new tablets alone.

Intel has actually fallen behind in the tablet market. Plenty of manufacturers have planned Intel Atom processors to go into their tablets, but so far every tablet is based on competitor chips, and many tablets are planned to have Qualcomm and NVIDIA processors. Intel CEO Paul Otellini revealed at the Barclay's Capital Global Technology Conference that 35 tablets will be running Intel Atom processors in 2011. Otellini said that the tablets would be running three different operating systems: Windows 7 (the most commonly used for Atom processor tablets), Android and Meego. He also named many of the manufacturers that would make these tablets, including Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, ASUS, Acer and AT&T.

Keep in mind that these are only a portion of the tablets planned for 2011. Many of these same manufacturers have also announced tablets that will run on ARM processors from Qualcomm and NVIDIA. That means 2011 will see the flood of tablets. We can expect to see many of these Intel tablets and competitors at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January. TECH NEWS DAILY

Dell Inspiron Duo Price, Release Date Revealed

The Dell Inspiron Duo, a tablet/netbook hybrid with a dual-hinged display will begin shipping the first week of December. Preorders will begin in the coming days for the 10.1 inch Windows 7 tablet PC, starting at $549.

The Duo sports an innovative form factor that resembles a typical netbook. However, the capacitive touch-enabled 10.1-inch display (1366 x 768) swivels on two hinges and closes over the keyboard to transform into a tablet.

Netbook SpecsThe Duo features standard netbook specs, including an Atom N550 processor, 2GB of RAM and 250GB of storage. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium, features a Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator, and Wi-Fi and WiMAX support. The Inspiron Duo has two USB ports, an audio jack and chiclet keyboard.

When in tablet mode, the Duo displays a touch-friendly user interface skin over Windows 7 for quick access to media and the web browser.
Dell is also offering a Duo bundle featuring a JBL speaker dock for an extra $100.
The Duo will be available in red, blue and black.