rumors

The Apple tablet rumors are going to keep coming until the company finally releases this thing. Tech bloggers, and now even the mainstream media, can't help themselves from wondering what Apple will or won't do with the forthcoming device, which is widely anticipated to be introduced at Apple's media event scheduled for Wednesday.

Here's the latest roundup of speculation about the tablet.

• The tablet will have a 3G connection, and there are two carriers being considered for it, says Fox News. Apple is in talks with AT&T and Verizon, but the details are still … Read more

Most of the talk recently has been about Apple's looming event on January 27, where it's been widely reported that the company will unveil a tablet PC of some undetermined size. Whether this device is a game-changer along the lines of the original iPod or iPhone remains to be seen, but lost in the shuffle is the possibility that Amazon's breakthrough e-reader, the Kindle, may be on the verge of an upgrade.

To be clear, I don't have any inside information or anonymous sources telling me that Amazon's bought thousands of parts from some Taiwanese manufacturer. But let's speculate for a moment on the possibilities for a new Kindle and what it might look like.

For starters, the Kindle 2 (now called the Kindle, U.S. and international wireless, latest edition), was launched on February 9 of last year. That's relevant because in recent years Amazon has been doing its best to imitate Apple, and Apple tends to be fairly regimented in rolling out updates to its major products. For instance, new iPods tend to be announced in the fall, and new iPhones have been released in June.

You could argue that while Kindle has had upgrades to its wireless service (Amazon added an international option by moving from Sprint to AT&T) over the year--and the Kindle DX was released in May of 2009--the Kindle, now approaching a year old, is due for a bigger refresh in February, especially if Apple's slate proves to be the e-reader on steroids that many are positing it will. (As has been widely discussed, the potential big strike against the Apple tablet could be price. If it ends up being in $750-$1000 range, that's rather expensive for someone looking for a device you plan on primarily using as an e-reader).

In the last couple of days, Amazon has also made a few announcements pointing to the possibility that a new device is coming. In describing the terms of its new higher 70 percent royalty for authors using its Digital Text Platform for publishing content in the Kindle Store, Amazon said that it was planning on adding new features to both the store and the Kindle.

The next day it followed up with an announcement that it was releasing a new software development kit (SDK) so developers could create new apps for the Kindle. In its release, the company referred to the new apps being tested on the simulators for the current 6-inch Kindle and Kindle DX, but it's debatable how suitable the current Kindles are for running apps, particularly when you factor in the lag times of E-ink.

The release also has a quote from an EA Games executive talking about developing games for the Kindle platform.… Read more

Who doesn't love a good rumor, especially when it might be true? We've been hearing talk about Apple releasing a new version of the iPhone this year, but we might see something real as early as April.

According to Fast Company via the Korea Times (sounds like the beginning of a good game of "Telephone," no pun intended), Apple and Korea Telecom "have reached a broad consensus to introduce the advance models as early as possible."

What can we (possibly) be looking forward to? Supposedly, some hardware goodies like better graphics chips, dual-core processors, … Read more

Interviews with Facebook employees are generally well-groomed and press-savvy. That's why there's something awfully intriguing about an interview posted Monday to culture blog The Rumpus, which claims to offer extremely candid insights from an anonymous Facebook employee. Above all, the piece makes it very evident that Facebook's employees have access to an extraordinary amount of information about our private lives.

Among the "revelations?" That "at least 70 percent of Facebook engineers are from Harvard and Stanford," that there are upwards of a trillion photos stored on Facebook's servers, that Facebook has fired … Read more

LAS VEGAS--After we got a good look at the LG Lotus Elite, we turned our attention to the LG Rumor Touch, the other phone LG announced at CES.

The Rumor Touch has very little in common with the other Rumor handsets--the previous Rumor phones were rather basic and didn't even have 3G. As the name suggests, the Rumor Touch now has a 3-inch WQVGA touch-screen display in addition to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a design reminiscent of the LG Xenon.

In our few minutes playing with the phone, we have to admit that the touch screen interface didn't … Read more

LAS VEGAS--LG continues its touch-screen trend with the introduction of the LG Rumor Touch, adding a 3.0-inch WQVGA touch-screen display to a phone where there was none. Indeed, its predecessor, the LG Rumor 2, looks like just a basic phone by comparison.

Not only does the Rumor Touch have this big display, it also boasts a 2.0-megapixel camera, a microSD card with up to 32GB storage, GPS with Sprint Navigation, and, at long last, 3G support with EV-DO Rev. 0. This is a far cry from the Rumor 2, which didn't even have 3G. All that and … Read more

Don't look for Spotify and Google to roll out an iTunes killer on Tuesday.

If a Spotify software application is offered with Google's Nexus One phone, it won't include music from at least three of the four major labels, according to several music industry sources.

TechCrunch on Monday reported that Google and Spotify, the Swedish company that created the most-buzzed-about music service in Europe, had discussed offering a Spotify app on the much-anticipated Nexus One phone that Google is expected to debut on Tuesday.

In the same story, however, TechCrunch reported that the "deal had likely … Read more

Whatever news Apple has up its sleeve--tablet or no--it appears something will be announced on January 26, if an unnamed source of Fox News' turns out to be correct.

The Financial Times reported last week that Apple had rented out the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January, immediately leading to speculation that the event might give the world the first glimpse of a tablet device rumored to be in the offing in Cupertino. And now, Fox News writer Clayton Morris says he has a source at Apple who's confirmed that … Read more

Apple's long-rumored tablet may be nearing reality, as new reports of 10-inch display orders came to light on Monday.

The newest Apple tablet information comes from DigiTimes, a site well-known for reporting on Apple rumors. Citing sources from Apple's component suppliers, DigiTimes says that Innolux, a subsidiary of Foxconn, will be the initial supplier of the glass panels to be used in the tablet.

While DigiTimes has a hit or miss record on reporting rumors, it says that Foxconn will manufacture the tablet. That makes perfect sense, since it is the same company that makes many of Apple'… Read more