Apple tablet

I was getting tired of using sentences like — Much Awaited — when talking about iPad. Now, it is the new device, a Wi-Fi iPad which is available for pre-order for customers from the US.

Of course, the April 3 date only applies to the Wi-Fi-only models. If you’re holding out for the 3G versions, you’ll have to wait until late April. And those customers outside the U.S.–Apple specifically mentions Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.–will have to wait until late April for either model.

Pricing for those countries is still unknown, though Apple said that it would be announced in April. The company also said that the iPad would ship in additional countries later this year, so if you’re not in one of the above locations, keep your fingers crossed.

On March 12, customers will be able to either pre-order either the Wi-Fi or 3G models from the Apple online store, or they can put their dibs down on a Wi-Fi model and pick it up from their local Apple Store. As previously announced, the Wi-Fi models will run $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB, while the respective models including 3G will cost $629, $729, and $829.

Facebook may pull in an excess of $1 billion in revenues, according to estimates and poking around on behalf of industry blog Inside Facebook. That’s an increase from the same publication’s estimate of $700 million last year.

Facebook board member Marc Andreessen said last year that he projected the company would break $500 million revenue in 2009, and that it had the potential to be a billion-dollar company already, but that it was acting conservatively.

(Naturally, Facebook says that as a privately held company it doesn’t disclose its financials.)

What can Facebook credit this big jump in revenue to? It’s all about the Social Ads program. Facebook ditched banner ads altogether earlier this year when its longstanding ad partnership with Microsoft ran out and has chosen to focus on its edgier “engagement ads” program instead–and often these are sold by encouraging brands to promote their presence on Facebook with ad space.

However accurate these new estimates from Inside Facebook are, Facebook is certainly making money–and it’s making money because the Facebook “fan page” and complementary ad space to promote it are the hottest ticket in brand marketing right now. They won’t always be, and Facebook will have to maintain that front-runner status in plenty of advertising innovations down the road as the industry evolves faster than ever.

Plus, it’s well-known that some of the biggest buyers of Facebook advertisements are social-gaming companies looking to pull in more players: how long can they, in turn, keep up their place in the sun? Critics have long since pointed out the number of third-party companies that are effectively dependent on Facebook for traction and revenue, but the reverse is likely true as well.

Facebook has a potentially lucrative new revenue stream emerging when its virtual currency system, Facebook Credits, launches in full–Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of all proceeds. But the developer world isn’t totally sold, and the product has grown far more niche from the days when it was rumored to be a “PayPal killer.” As Inside Facebook points out, advertising is still the core of the company’s business model. And here, it has to stay ahead of the pack more than ever.

This is more like a trend we see these days. Everyone is on the social networking track today. I wonder when social networking gained so much importance in our lives. Microsoft is also facing the social networking heat that they have also decided to enable features to support the same on their popular email client – Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft is partnering with Facebook and MySpace to allow users to see updates, photos and activities from those social-networking services within Outlook, as part of the OSC (Outlook Social Connector) integrated into the upcoming Office 2010. Those social-networking services will join Windows Live and LinkedIn as services capable of being viewed from within Outlook.

Also on Feb. 16, Microsoft announced the public beta of LinkedIn for Outlook.

LinkedIn for Outlook will enable users to view their contacts’ updates and photos alongside e-mails, and automatically update Outlook contacts with information from LinkedIn. Once the Facebook and MySpace applications are released, user information from those services will also appear in Outlook.

An Official Microsoft Blog post announcing LinkedIn for Outlook, as well as the Facebook and MySpace partnerships, couldn’t seem to resist taking a jab at Google Buzz, the search-engine giant’s new Twitter-like social networking application.

“What we think users will appreciate is that the Outlook Social Connector doesn’t add another professional or social network into the mix,” Dev Balasubramanian, product manager for Microsoft Outlook, wrote in the Feb. 16 posting. “The Outlook Social Connector does offer busy people, who are already a part of one or several networks, convenience.”

In a separate Feb. 17 posting on the Microsoft Outlook 2010 blog, Balasubramanian and Outlook program manager Michael Affronti pointed out a link for downloading the LinkedIn for Outlook beta, and suggested that “both Facebook for Outlook and MySpace for Outlook will be available later this year as our official release of Office 2010 approaches.”

The announcement suggests that Microsoft is in the race to aggregate its users’ social-networking content into a single “hub,” a trend being embraced by companies ranging from Google to Xobni. Previously, LinkedIn had also partnered with IBM, Research In Motion and Twitter to port its users’ profiles onto those companies’ respective networks and devices.

On the Microsoft Outlook 2010 blog, Microsoft also nodded to the privacy concerns currently being raised about social networking.

“The design of the OSC is such that your privacy and permissions settings on each of the networks you use are represented and respected within this experience,” the posting added. “For example, if your profile photo and job title are publicly listed on a given network, then OSC users will see your photo and job title when receiving an email from you … if you choose to restrict profile access on a given network, the OSC will respect that privacy.”

Its the war of the Mobile Giants. Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Mobilin – two Linux based operating systems will merge to take on Apple’s iPhone. The new, merged product will be compatible on most mobile devices and smart phones.

The groundbreaking partnership aims to take on Apple’s iPhone, along with other operating systems that span across multiple devices, including Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. But Intel and Nokia said the MeeGo platform will extend beyond smartphones and will be flexible enough to scale to larger devices like full-fledged computers or in-car systems.

Renee James, Intel’s vice president in charge of software, told The New York Times that although Android is “fantastic,” it is also too “specific” and restrictive to run on a wide variety of devices, particularly more complex ones.

“I think it’s important that there are alternatives that are truly open for innovation,” James reportedly said.

Intel previously announced its Moblin operating system for low-cost notebooks running the company’s low-power Atom processor. And Nokia’s Maemo 5.0, first introduced last summer, was expected to play an integral role in the company’s smartphones to come. The move would seem to signal the end of both platforms, though Nokia still intends to sell smartphones based on its Symbian platform.

Another interesting note by the Times: Since the platform will run on ARM-based processors (in addition to Atom), Intel will be lending support to an operating system that benefits one of its competitors. Apple has used ARM processors in its iPhone, and created a custom version of the Cortex-A9 chip, known as the Apple A4, for its recently announced iPad.

Nokia has not yet announced whether it will build any handsets or devices based on Intel’s Atom processor. Both companies will keep their separate application stores: Intel’s AppUp for netbooks, and Nokia’s Ovi software store will remain, despite the partnership.

The first devices running MeeGo, including a new phone from Nokia, are expected to arrive later in 2010.

Nokia and Apple currently have a number of lawsuits directed at each other, making accusations of patent violations on both parties’ behalves. As the iPhone has grown in popularity, Nokia has retained its status as the market leader, but has suffered significant losses at the hands of competitors.

Is this the beginning of the end of the modern day broadband connections. Google recently had unveiled their plans on testing an ultra high-speed internet service which apparently is more than 100 times faster than the fastest broadband connection available to the consumers in the US. Google mentioned that, this new ultra fast connection will be available to few but select users across the US on test basis.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hailed the project, saying that it would “provide an American testbed for the next generation of innovative, high-speed Internet apps, devices and services.”

As a first step, Google has begun soliciting information from local governments and private citizens in a bid to gauge interest.  The company said that it plans to operate an open-access network giving users a choice of multiple service providers.

The goal of the project, Google said, is to “experiment and learn.”

“Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there’s still more to be done. We don’t think we have all the answers — but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone.” the company wrote on its blog.

Finally, Facebook  decided to go ahead and unveil the new Facebook interface. Currently, this change is noticeable only on 64% Facebook account. This change will be 100% once they have made the changes available on all their servers.

“Over the past few months, we’ve been testing several different designs of the home page to improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features,” said Facebook engineer Jing Chen, in a post on the company’s official blog.

“Today we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook,” said Chen.

Among other things, the redesign puts some of Facebook’s more commonly used areas, such as pages, status updates, and links, in a more prominent location. “Now from the top left menus you can quickly get to what’s new and important,” said Chen.

Also, Facebook moved the Home and Profile links to the top right corner of the home page.

Additionally, Facebook made the Chat tool “more prominent by showing you a list of some of your online friends, and the Events dashboard lists your upcoming events along with events your friends are attending,” said Chen.

And, in a likely blow to office productivity everywhere, the site is also making it easier for users to keep track of those addictive game applications, like Farmville and Mafia Wars.

“You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page,” wrote Chen.

“Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application,” said the blogger.

Cheng said the changes are all about making it easier for individuals to access and use what’s become the world’s most popular social networking platform.

“We hope the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications, and activities that matter most to you,” Cheng wrote.

It has been more than a week since Apple launched there most speculated iPad. Soon after iPad was announced, there were rumors lurking about a second iPad with a Camera. How far is it true or is it even credible – Well, lets wait and watch.

Nevertheless, the most credible evidence to date that a camera is in the works came from Mission:Repair, an Olathe, Kan., service company that repairs Apple products. The company wrote in its blog that its first shipment of iPad parts included metal internal frames with an embedded spot for a camera.

The company found that a camera taken from an Apple MacBook fits perfectly in the iPad frame.

“The camera slips in the frame, the lens fits in the hole, the LED (light) that indicates that the camera is on, fits, and the ambient light sensor hole is also correct,” the company said Monday. “It appears that the plans to have camera in the iPad is a reality.”

Mission:Repair speculates that the camera will likely appear in the next version of the iPad. Apple does not comment on future product plans, so fans will have to wait until the company is ready to make an announcement.

In the meantime, despite being described as “magical” by pitchman Jobs, the iPad has its critics. Reviewers working off the specifications released by Apple have complained about the lack of a camera, the device’s inability to run multiple applications at the same time, and the lack of Adobe Flash support and a high-definition video port.

The next gauntlet Apple will have to run will occur when it releases the device to reviewers. With so much attention on the iPad, critics are sure to dissect each feature.

The Google’s own Nexus One was one of the most anticipated devices along with Apple iPad this year. We finally got time to review the so called “superphone” as mentioned by the Google Employees. After using it for several days, I was about as disappointed as I was after using Nokia E72. I am not trying to tell you that Nexus One is bad. It was the prelaunch hype which set huge expectations – Alias’s like the iPhoneKiller – which it failed to match. Is Nexus One a cool phone? It definitely is a cool phone. Is it an iPhone killer? I don’t think so.

This phone is Google only by name; it’s really an HTC phone at heart. The phone looks great and feels great as well. The body is made out of a metal frame that wraps around the plastic back-cover. It’s soft but offers adequate grip so that you don’t drop your 530$ toy. The Nexus One actually fits quiet properly in your hand even if it is a little big but what’s more interesting is its thickness that hits 11.5mm, which is incredibly good when you consider all the powerful hardware that is packed inside.

On top you’ve got your 3.5mm headphone jack, and the power button. On the bottom side you have a USB port and on the right you have a volume rocker. On the front panel the 3.7” AMOLED screen sits comfortably, you have 4 haptic feedback buttons under the screen – back, menu, home and search. You also have a trackball but I don’t know why they put that really, you’re not going to use it anywhere but it acts as a notification light for missed calls and new messages…etc.

The screen is AMOLED, as previously mentioned, and is quiet large. But just like all AMOLED screens, it has disgraceful sunlight discernibility. Although this thing is a superstar indoors, it represents a fat hooker outdoors.

The back side of the phone looks great. You have a huge Google logo just to make sure you know you’ve bought their phone. The curvy design of the metal bezel with the plastic back-cover looks great. You have two important features on the back, the camera and the loudspeaker. Both are pretty good and do their job. The snapper has a 5 megapixel resolution and an LED flash next to it for low light situations. The pictures produces are actually quite good, I have no complaints, since I expected much less from this HTC snapper.

The Nexus One has a modest specs sheet if you overlook the Snapdragon processor, which is one of the strongest cell phone processors out there. Other than the processor the phone doesn’t blow you away with anything else. It has 512mb of RAM which is on par with other competitive smartphones. You get a 4 GB microSD card, which is less than I expected. Still, it’s expandable up to 32 GB, so there you go.

The battery is a Li-Ion 1400 mAh and offers on par performance at best. You’ll find yourself recharging this thing almost every day if you use it frequently.

One last thing about its hardware I have to mention is its microphone, or microphones in this case. The device has two microphones, one for noise cancellation and the other for your own voice. This offers very clear sound for the other caller, so you don’t need to shout when you’re at a train station for example. It’s a nice addition that I quiet liked.

Greasemonkey was one of the most widely used third party add-on on Mozilla FireFox. Greasemonkey will soon be available for Google Chrome users — working on this single-serving enhancement add-on for Firefox.

In a blog post Monday, Aaron Boodman, the developer of the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox, announced that Chrome version 4 and later will support most of the JavaScript-coded Greasemonkey scripts without any additional tweaking necessary. This includes all available builds for Windows (stable | beta | dev), Mac (beta | dev), and Linux (beta | dev). Chrome converts the JavaScript directly into a Chrome extension as it’s being installed, and the new add-on lives as an extension in Chrome’s Extension management window.

While this potentially adds 40,000 Greasemonkey scripts to Chrome’s growing extension catalog, Boodman estimates that between 15 and 25 percent of them won’t work on Chrome because of coding differences between Google’s browser and Firefox.

He rightly warns readers that Greasemonkey scripts can give the script author unfettered access to personal data, so it’s important to check reader comments and ratings before casually installing one. In my test of Flickr Image Size, a script that forces all available images sizes to appear as links in Flickr, I encountered no problems.

As you read this, researchers from Princeton and Caltech are working on a power-generating rubber material that could harness walking and other movement to charge electronic devices. This might be the first Human powered Mobile charger in the making.

From what we learnt about the project, this new discovery is made from nanoribbons composed of lead zirconate titanate, a ceramic material which generates voltage when pressure is applied. The “piezo-rubber chips” are embedded in clear silicone rubber sheets that produce electricity when flexed.

The scientists–who detail their findings in the new issue of Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society–say the rubber sheets could one day appear in shoes that power cell phones and other mobile electronic devices as the user walks or runs.

What’s more, “the new electricity-harvesting devices could be implanted in the body to perpetually power medical devices, and the body wouldn’t reject them,” said Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton who led the project.

For example, the biocompatible material could be placed next to a person’s lungs and utilize breathing motions to power pacemakers, the scientists say. That could reduce the need for surgery to replace batteries in the device.

We’ve heard of other gadgets that can be powered by kinetic energy, including the Dance Charge, which is strapped around the arm and powered, as the name suggests, by dancing. Still, it can be hard to significantly power devices through movement alone. M2E Power, one company that had designed and tested a human-powered charger for cell phones and other gadgets, sold its assets to Motionetics last year and changed its focus to the vehicle market.

The Princeton/Caltech researchers say they’re hopeful about their method; they maintain that PZT is the most efficient of all piezoelectric materials, able to convert 80 percent of the mechanical energy applied to it into electrical energy. For their product, the PZT is made into nanoribbons so narrow that 100 fit side-by-side in the space of a millimeter.

“PZT is 100 times more efficient than quartz, another piezoelectric material,” McAlpine said. “You don’t generate that much power from walking or breathing, so you want to harness it as efficiently as possible.