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Microsoft's Ballmer hints at Windows Phone 7 tablet

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Ballmer defends Windows as Apple gains

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White iPhone 4 Delayed Again ? or Forever?

Apple has delayed the white model of the iPhone 4 until spring of 2011, a release date that’s difficult to believe.

The black iPhone 4 hit stores in June, 2010, but the release of the white model was mysteriously postponed — first for a month, then to the end of the year, and now until spring of next year.

“We’re sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again,” an Apple spokeswoman told Reuters, declining to explain the delay. In earlier press releases, Apple said it was facing manufacturing challenges with the white iPhone model.

The white iPhone’s long delay is strange for a company that prides meeting most of its ship dates — Apple often releases products the day Steve Jobs announces them. Also, Apple has released an iPhone upgrade each summer, so a spring release for the iPhone 4 would be odd, since a fifth-generation iPhone would likely be due out three months later. Who would buy one then?

Apple may indeed be planning to cut its losses. Boy Genius Report, who has a solid track record with reporting scoops on cellphone news, claims receiving a tip that Apple is canceling the white iPhone altogether, and that another “delay” will be announced around March leading into the release of the iPhone 5 in June or July.

Though Apple has been mum about details explaining the delay, the departure of Mark Papermaster, Apple’s executive in charge of iPhone hardware, was a telling incident. Apple hired Papermaster in 2008 — a move that his previous employer, IBM, attempted to block to prevent him from divulging secrets about its microchips. (Papermaster was a key player in developing the PowerPC chips used in previous-generation Macs.) Only two years later, in August 2010, Papermaster was gone.

Though Apple has not officially commented on whether Papermaster’s exit was a firing or a resignation, multiple anonymous sources claim he was ousted because of issues with the iPhone 4, including the antenna flaw that led to a media flurry earlier this year and the white iPhone 4’s delay.

What might the problem be with manufacturing? One lucky owner of a white iPhone 4 told blog Pocket Lint that Asian suppliers had shipped white iPhones with a white Home button that didn’t match the color of the faceplate — one of those details that would drive Jobs crazy.

Long story short, if you’re been holding off on buying an iPhone 4 because you want a white model, don’t bother. Even if it does ship in the spring, it’d probably be a bad idea to buy one because the fifth-gen iPhone would come out soon after, and you’d inevitably have buyers’ remorse. We’re pretty sure it’s delayed forever, though. For-e-ver. (See the video below for clarification.)

See Also:

White iPhone Delay Explained by Lucky Owner

Apple: White iPhone Delayed Until ‘Later This Year’

IPhone 4G, Also Available in White?

Apple: No White iPhones for at Least Three Weeks

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/519_0xP4Xm8/

Acer Plans to Launch Tablets In November

It’s the year of the tablets as electronics makers rush to get one of the hottest gadgets of the year into the hands of users. Acer is the latest to announce it will launch a new line of tablets.

The devices will be introduced in New York on November 23 and will be priced ranging from $300 to $700, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report.

Acer tablets will join a crowded and extremely competitive market. Since the launch of the Apple iPad in April, most major electronics makers have announced their own devices to take on the iPad. So far, Apple has sold more than 4.3 million iPads.

In June, Dell launched a 5-inch tablet called Streak, while Samsung recently debuted a 7-inch device called the Galaxy Tab. Meanwhile, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s tablet Playbook is expected to hit stores next year.

Separately, T-Mobile has said it will offer the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $400 (after a rebate) and with a two-year service agreement.�It is similar to Sprint’s pricing for the device. Verizon has said it will sell the Galaxy Tab for $600 without a contract.

Acer might try to ink a similar deal but it will have to do more in terms of product features to stand out. Acer hasn’t said if the new tablets will be based on Windows or Android OS.

But one thing’s likely–Acer is going to find it hard to see the same kind of success in the tablet market that it has with netbooks.

See Also:

Tablet Catalogs Rethink Casual Page-Flipping

Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet

Why India’s $35 Tablet May Be Just a Dream

Build Your Own Tablet for $400

How the Tablet Will Change the World

Photo: Acer Aspire in slate form (arabani/Flickr)

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/FSq-XxoD5Lw/

Microsoft offers free cloud platform to academics

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Wednesday 27 October 2010 at 17:32:00

Nottingham University gets three years of free Azure usage

Microsoft is providing scientific researchers across Europe with free access
and support around its Azure cloud platform.

The initiative forms part of the company?s global cloud research engagement
initiative launched earlier this year.

Dan Reed, corporate vice president, eXtreme Computing Group and Technology
Strategy and Policy at Microsoft, detailed three cloud programmes aimed at the
European research community while speaking at the Open Grid Forum.

Microsoft has initiated three partnerships in Europe: with Europe?s VENUS-C
(Virtual Multidisciplinary EnviroNments USing Cloud Infrastructures) consortium,
with France?s INRIA (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and
Control), and with the UK?s University of Nottingham?s Horizon Institute, a
digital economy research institute.

Both INRIA and Horizon will be provided with three years of free access to
Windows Azure, which delivers on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and
manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft datacentres.

Derek McAuley, professor of computer science at the University of Nottingham
and director of Horizon, said: ?There are a large number of projects that can
make use of these facilities, including mobile applications with a server side
component ? we?re starting to use Azure for some of those servers.?

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2272299/microsoft-offers-free-cloud

Google TV review: Only half baked

While the idea behind Google TV holds great promise, the first products to come from that vision are too impotent and hard to use. The search giant decided to aim a missile of change at the very broken television experience. It's noble, but it could well be just another Google idea doomed to fizzle.

Full story at http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/27/5362030-google-tv-review-only-half-baked

Cosmic Log: Sleuths study ancient UFOs

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: One of the best-known scientific sleuths of UFO sightings is focusing his search not on today's flying saucers, but on the wonders of antiquity.