APPLE iPAD 3 AND iPHONE 5 RUMORS

Apple reportedly plans to launch a slightly thicker (0.7mm) iPad in March with a dual-backlit display and a new high-resolution screen. It may be shown off in January if it’s ready in time, iLounge reports. In addition, iLounge cites its “most reliable source” in stating that Apple will likely launch the iPhone 5 next summer. In contrast to a number of rumors, the site says that the iPhone 5 does not have a tear-drop design. Instead, it will be 8mm longer than the current model and will sport a metal case as well as a 4-inch display.

RUMOR: NEXT iPAD COMING IN MARCH, iPAD 3 TO LAUNCH Q3 2012

Apple is preparing to launch a slightly upgraded iPad 2 in March of 2012, DigiTimes reported on Thursday. The new iPad is rumored to be thinner and is said to offer better battery life than the current model. It is unclear what Apple will call the device launching in March, but the company reportedly has plans to launch a “real” iPad 3 during the third quarter of 2012. Samsung, Sharp and LG are said to be working on a new Retina Display for the next-generation iPad, which may also pack a faster A6 processor, but rumors of manufacturing issues have suggested it may take Apple longer than originally planned to introduce a model with that equipment.

A report last month from Ticonderoga Securities suggested that Apple is planning a cheaper iPad model that will debut early next year ahead of an iPad 3, which won’t launch until the second quarter.

LEAKED SALES DATA SHOWS AMAZON HAS SOLD OVER 250,000 FIRES IN FIVE DAYS

According to some leaked internal sales data Amazon has sold over 250,000 Kindle Fires in just five days. When put in comparison with iPad sales per day, the Fire is still lagging behind, 80,000 for the iPad and ~50,000 for the Fire. That's not bad, but when you look at sales for non-iPad tablets the Fire is uh...on fire!

On the e-reader front however things are not as rosy. The Kindle Touch has only sold about 32,000 units in the same five day period as the Fire. There could be a few reasons for this. The Fire could be cannabalizing the Touch's sales and/or the Kobe and Nook Color have already locked up the advanced feature e-reader market.

LEVAR BURTON TO RELAUNCH READING RAINBOW...AS AN iPAD APP

Reading Rainbow which ran for over 20 years was an educational show that strived to encourage kids to read books. For those unfamiliar with Reading Rainbow, it was originally hosted by LeVar Burton, a former cast member of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The PBS show launched in 1983 and ran until November of 2006 to many children’s delight. However, PBS was forced to shut down the show in 2006 due to the network’s financial problems.

But all is not lost in Reading Rainbow land. Back in March of 2010, Burton tweeted that “Reading Rainbow 2.0 is in the works,” and is seems we now know what Burton had cooking up. Burton will be bringing it back, but this time, it’ll be on iPad screens instead of TV screens. The Reading Rainbow iPad app will be launched by Burton’s for-profit business, RRKidz.

The app will feature voice-over-enhanced children’s books, videos of Burton in actual places (like NASA stations!), and games. Burton said he’s “on a mission go to get kids hooked on books.” The app’s digital library will feature 300 books at launch and will include voice-overs and animations in addition to the games and videos.

Three-hundred books sounds like a lot, but Burton said that RRKidz has a technology at its disposal that lets it enhance a PDF children’s book with multimedia content in just a few hours. There aren’t very many details on this technology yet, but it apparently will allow people to digitally enhance enough content to add several books each month after launch.

The iPad app will be subscription based, and users will have to renew each month as more and more titles are added.

ADOBE BRINGS FLASH TO iPHONE AND iPAD FOR ONLY $4,500

During the IBC trade show in Amsterdam on Friday, Adobe officially took the wraps off of its new Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Adobe Flash Access 3.0 products, which will allow iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to access Adobe Flash content. Apple, which has long rejected Adobe’s Flash technology, doesn’t need to approve the tech for it to work, either. “With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad,” Adobe said in a statement.

Flash Media Server 4.5 allows publishers to stream Flash content to iOS devices, which means support within the iOS Safari browser is not required. Instead of relying on a device’s processor to render the stream, which often degrades battery life and slows a device down, Adobe’s Flash Media Server 4.5 does all the legwork. Adobe Flash Media Server is available immediately to publishers for $4,500.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS GIVE EACH PLAYER AN iPAD WITH PLAYBOOK AND VIDEOS

The NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers have done away with the playbook...well the paper kind anyway. They have given each of their 90 players iPad 2s filled with plays and videos. "It's crazy how much technology has changed the game," second-year safety Cody Grimm said. "Back in the day, I think probably the whole team had to sit down with a projector and a reel, and watch the film together. They'd have the whole offense in the same meeting room. Now we all have our own iPad. Stuff that we used to come in here to see, we can sit on our couch at home and have access to it 24-7. It's awesome."

The idea to download playbooks on an iPad was hatched by coach Raheem Morris, who used one to watch video of draft prospects with general manager Mark Dominik and player personnel director Dennis Hickey. The people responsible for turning Morris' vision into reality were team director of football technology Chris Wells and video director Dave Levy.

It's also a perfect study enticement for the youngest roster in the NFL, a group of 20-somethings who are gadget-giddy and technologically savvy to begin with.

WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM THE HP TOUCHPAD?

HP announced they are getting out of the consumer hardware business last week. The surprising move came just 2 years after HP paid $2.4 billion for Palm and its WebOS software and just 10 years after buying competitor Compaq for around $25 billion. The purchase of Compaq made HP, at the time, the largest computer company in the world. After just 10 short years they managed to squander that title and their consumer hardware market has slid into oblivion.

What is amazing is that HP has inadvertently shed light on post-PC era and the problem many companies are having as they take on the current hardware leader Apple and its ubiquitous iPad. A lot of critics and tech pundits have lamented that lack of apps leading to HP’s decision to pull the plug on its Touchpad, however what has happened in the last 3 days has proved that to be inaccurate. HP has a vibrant WebOS App Catalog suite for both the Pre series of smartphones but also the Touchpad. The WebOS had a loyal following and dedicated community as well. So what did HP show the rest of the companies chasing Apple? Price point!

Since Apple introduced the iPad, other companies have been trying to duplicate its success most notably with Google’s Android OS. Android has done a good job of creating a number of apps for its App Marketplace and all the tablets combined still trail the iPad. So why are Android tablets trailing Apple’s? There are a few reasons such as marketing, fanboydom, etc., however there is one that is most telling and has come to light with the HP announcement, price point!

All tablet manufacturers have priced their products at the same price point, or close to it, as Apple’s in the misunderstanding that is the “sweet” spot for tablets. It is….for Apple! HP was only in the tablet market for about month and upon entering did what every other company did, priced the Touchpad around the iPad price point. Within a few weeks they dropped the price $100 to help boost sales, which it did, but not enough for HP to continue. When the word got out that HP Touchpads could now be purchased for as little as $99 they flew off the shelves and it is almost impossible to find one. What drove this sell off? Price point!

While it would not be good business to sell quality tablets for less than it costs to manufacturer them, companies need to understand that simply blindly following another company does a number of things, or doesn’t do them as the case may be. One, it just makes the following company a perpetual number 2 since all they are doing is following. Second, it decreases innovation since all future products are really coming from one company with all others just replicating the same thing. Other tablet manufacturers need to understand that in order to effectively compete with Apple’s iPad they need to give consumers a reason to pick their product over the hype of the iPad AND aggressively price their offerings to entice consumers to purchase their products.

TABLETS NOT SELLING WELL FORCING PRICE CUTS, UNLESS YOU ARE APPLE

While Apple’s iPad continues on its warpath, other tablet makers are not finding it quite as easy to offload their Android and Windows slates — which is understandable, considering they’re doing it wrong. While Apple managed to ship 9.25 million iPads last quarter and some retailers are still having trouble keeping inventory in stock, other consumer tablet vendors are reportedly having a difficult time pushing their wares past retail channels and into the hands of end users. Even the success stories among tablet vendors are exhibiting less-than-stellar sell-through, with companies like ASUS, creator of the popular Eee Pad Transformer, said to have left nearly 30% of the 700,000 tablets it shipped between May and July on store shelves. As a result, tablet vendors like Samsung, Motorola and HP will be forced to lower their prices in an effort to bolster weak sales, DigiTimes reports. HP has already offered two limited-time sales on its TouchPad tablet since it launched just last month, and now the company has permanently shaved $100 from its tablet’s price tag. Motorola also recently lowered the price of its XOOM tablet, leaving the 32GB model priced evenly with Apple’s 16GB iPad. DigiTimes says its sources are anticipating two more waves of tablet price cuts this year, one in September and another approaching the holiday season.

APPLE WORKING ON PICO PROJECTORS FOR iPHONE

Apple may be working on pico-projector technology that could be used with its iPhone and Mac products according to a patent filing discovered by UnwiredView. The patent, titled “Projected display shared workspaces,” shows how one might be able to use an iPhone or Mac to project content onto a larger open space, such as a wall, by attaching a small pico-projector.

In addition, users could control the projection using multitouch gestures on their iPhone screen or Mac trackpad. The patent reminds us of AT&Ts LG eXpo, which had its own projector accessory but wasn’t much of a hit with consumers.

SKYPE RELEASES iPAD APP....SKYPE PULLS iPAD APP

Yesterday Skype unexpectedly released an official app for the iPad. Just as quickly it was pulled from the Apple App Store. Skype says the app was released prematurely. “To ensure your best Skype experience, we’ve temporarily removed Skype for iPad which went live prematurely today,” the company said in a posting on its Twitter account. “We know you’ve been eagerly awaiting Skype for iPad and apologize for the inconvenience.”

According to a Skype spokesperson the app will be re-released in "short order", but declined further comment.

RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT MAY BAN iPAD IN GOVERNMENT OFFICES

The Russian government is considering disallowing the use of Apple’s iPad tablet within government agencies due to security concerns, Russian-language business news site RBC Daily reports. Instead, it is investigating various alternative tablet options including RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook, Android-powered tablets or even a new device created by a Russian agency.

Government security experts are reportedly looking for more “cryptographically secure tablet PCs” than Apple’s iPad tablet, and if the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology’s recent certification is any indication, the BlackBerry PlayBook could fit the bill. RIM announced last week that its PlayBook tablet received FIPS 140-2 certification, thus allowing it to be used by U.S. government officials. No other tablet has received FIPS certification to date.

TWO PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS TO OFFER CHEAP TABLETS WITH SUBSCRIPTION

It’s 2011, and most old-school media outlets are still struggling to figure out what to do with their digital presences. Paywalls have been a risky bet for the most part (partly because they’ve been easy to get around), and monetizing content by serving advertisements isn’t always enough to keep the ship afloat when it’s so easy for readers to hop sources on the Web.

Two Philadelphia newspapers have come up with an interesting plan: to bundle inexpensive Android tablets with digital subscriptions. Both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are hoping the combined offering will boost readership of their downloadable news, which currently runs about $3 per week. While tablet pricing hasn’t been revealed just yet, it’s thought that parent company Philadelphia Media Network would offer the tablets as cheaply as half price. That’s not too shabby considering there are some fairly nice Android slabs available for around $200 retail — like Barnes and Noble’s Nook Color and the Viewsonic gTablet.

At the company’s press conference yesterday, PMN announced that a limited number of tablets would be available at launch, perhaps as few as 2,000. As you’d probably also expect, the devices will be Wi-Fi only to begin with — though 3G or 4G versions may be a possibility in the future. There is also an iPad app in the works, though subscriptions accessed via your shiny Apple tablet will unsurprisingly not be eligible for any kind of hardware subsidy.

As Brad Linder points out over at Liliputing, if readers are willing to sign up for long-term subscriptions, it’s a win-win situation. Subscribers get a good deal on a decent piece of Android hardware while the publisher guarantees its costs are covered and a little bit of profit will roll in for the next year or two.

APPLE'S BID TO KEEP AMAZON FROM USING 'APP STORE' DENIED

A U.S. judge denied Apple Inc's attempt to quickly stop online retailer Amazon.com Inc from using the "App Store" name, according to a court document.

Apple, the maker of best-selling iPhones and iPad tablets, filed a trademark lawsuit saying that Amazon has improperly used Apple's App Store name to solicit software developers throughout the United States.

Apple also asked a federal judge in Oakland, Calif. for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon from using the name, which Apple says is trademark protected. However, Amazon argued that the term is generic and therefore not protectable.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton did not agree that the term is purely generic, according to an order released on Wednesday. However Apple has not established "a likelihood of confusion" with Amazon's services to get an injunction, Hamilton wrote. [Reuters]

HUGE RARE EARTH MINERAL DEPOSITS FOUND IN PACIFIC OCEAN

Every time someone goes out and buys a new TV, laptop, iPad, Android smartphone, or any such device they are using up some of our rare earth minerals which these gadgets require to work. They are called rare not because there is only a small amount on earth, but because the deposists are small and therefore require a lot of mining to recover very little.

Another problem exists in the fact China holds about 97% of the rare earth mineral market, and it decides how much exits the country. This pushes up prices and makes it more difficult for companies outside of China to not only manufacture enough devices, but also to keep the costs of those gadgets competitive.

It will come with great relief then, to hear that Japanese researchers have found very rich deposits of rare earth minerals as well as the metal yttrium. In total around 26 sites located in the international waters of the Pacific Ocean have been found to have high concentrations buried between 3,500 and 6,000 meters beneath the sea bed.

The deposits are so rich they are thought to increase our reserves by 1000x. Current reserves are estimated at 110 million tonnes, but this new discovery adds another 100 billion tons.

Not only does this take the pressure off in terms of finding alternatives in the near future, the locations of the deposits near Hawaii and Tahiti means the reliance on Chinese exports will be removed. Prices should fall and competition will not be influenced by a lack of supply.

FACEBOOK TO LAUNCH SOMETHING 'AWESOME' NEXT WEEK

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the social network has plans to “launch something awesome” next week. There’s no official word on what will be announced, but we suspect it’s going to be the new iPhone photo-sharing service that we saw just last week. The service — which looked amazing in the leaked screen shots — will likely compete with other applications such as Instagram and Path. Rumor has it that inside Facebook headquarters, the new photo sharing app has been dubbed either “WithPeople,” or “Hovertown.” It’s entirely possible that Zuckerberg will also take the wraps off of his company’s native Facebook iPad app, since it would likely fit well into the photo-sharing ecosystem. Lastly, it’s possible Facebook will detail the next steps it’s taking with its Facebook Places check-in service, too, but given Zuckerberg’s use of the word “launch,” we’re not so sure. It remains unclear what day the announcement will be made.

NEW PLAYLATER SERVICE IS A DVR FOR ONLINE VIDEOS

The firm behind PlayOn, the popular online video streaming service, announced its new PlayLater service. PlayLater allows users to record streaming video from nearly any website — including popular cable programs such shows from TBS, CBS, Adult Swim, and more — for watching at a later time. Its offline cachine features means you can store the video for watching even when a connection isn’t available, too. It’s exactly like a DVR, which means you can choose what you want the software to record, and simply forget about it until later. PlayLater is supported on PCs, and recorded content can also be watched on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPad. Early beta users will receive a free one-month trial of PlayLater, after which it will cost $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year.

HACKER PLEADS GUILTY IN AT&T iPAD BREACH

Nearly six months after his arrest, one hacker pleaded guilty to charges that he exposed the email addresses of over 100,000 AT&T iPad 3G users. It's been a year since Daniel Spitler and his compatriot, Andrew Auernheimer, coaxed Ma-Bell servers into delivering the goods, with a brute force script they lovingly named the iPad 3G Account Slurper. The hacker's plea agreement suggests a 12 to 18-month sentence, which is a lot more lenient than the 10-year maximum we hear he could face. Spitler's collaborator is apparently still in plea negotiations with the prosecutor. Both men initially claimed they were just trying to draw attention to a security hole, but maybe next time they'll think twice before embarking on such altruistic endeavors.

APPLE'S iPAD ACCOUNTS FOR 97% OF US TABLET TRAFFIC ONLINE

It's no secret that the iPad commands a serious lead in the battle for tablet mindshare, but comScore's new Device Essentials traffic-tracking service shows just how much that translates into market dominance. According to the web monitoring company, the iPad and its successor account for 89 percent of tablet internet use globally, and 97 percent here in the US. Of course, the slate segment is still young and accounts for only a tiny percentage of total traffic. And, it's worth noting, the iPad has a significant advantage in being the first to hit shelves.

ANDROID TABLET MAKERS DISAPPOINTED WITH SALES, SHIFTING BACK TO CELL PHONES

Cell phone makers that have entered the emerging consumer tablet market over the past year are now backing off according to a report from DigiTimes on Friday. Thus far only Samsung has been able to make a real dent in Apple’s stronghold on this new market, capturing a 10% share with its Galaxy Tab Android-powered tablet.

Samsung’s triumph was due mainly to the Galaxy Tab’s widespread distribution, and other entrants into the market have not been able to capture the same success. While 250,000 XOOM tablets shipped in two months and 500,000 PlayBooks shipped last quarter are respectable figures, it’s hard to call those products a success when Apple has sold 25 million iPads in just 14 months. As a result, companies that planned to attack the tablet market aggressively may now be pulling back some of that investment to focus on another new market: supersized smartphones. Android phones with displays sized between four and five inches have become increasingly popular since the launch of Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G, and it looks like handset makers may be better served to focus on that space while the market figures out whether or not if even wants consumer tablets.

LEAK: APPLE BACK-TO-SCHOOL SALE STARTS TODAY, JUNE 16

Rumors for Apple’s back-to-school deal have been floating around since before WWDC 2011, and now new evidence seems to confirm that the promotion will kick off TODAY.

MacRumors was able to get a photo of Apple’s marketing material for the promotion indicating that the sale would start June 16 and run through September 20. Also, instead of the rumored $200 off an iPad with the purchase of a Mac, the offer is for a $100 Mac App Store gift card that can also be used for purchases from the iTunes Store. In previous years, a free iPod was offered instead.

This new offer makes a lot of sense considering all the updates coming with Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and the iCloud. The Mac App Store will be built-in to Lion, and the iCloud will make it super easy to sync apps and music purchased through iTunes.