iPad 3 Latest Reports Say Screen Sharpness is Nearly as Good as Billed

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Apple's enhanced display on its yet-to-be-unveiled iPad 3 appears to be the worst kept secret, judging by all the eyes that are reportedly able to see it.

MacRumors owner Arnold Kim says anyone can buy the next iteration of the popular tablet at the Chinese website TrueSupplier. The skinny: The screen measures 9.7 inches in diagonal, the same size display as used in the iPad and iPad 2, but the resolution is four times as sharp.

Apple is reportedly expected to take the ribbon off the iPad 3 on March 7. Experts say it could include support for 4G LTE, more internal memory, and perhaps Apple's first quad core processor. For now, a lot of the speculation is focused on the display.

"When comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display's pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2," reports MacRumors, which says it got its hands on one and used its measurements to extrapolate what the iPad 3 screen resolution should be: 2048 by 1536. That's four times the resolution of Apple's current and first-generation tablets.

PCWorld’s Matt Peckham has made the interesting point, however, that the "retina" description that's been applied to the next iPad is simply a marketing term Apple uses to refer to displays with greater than 300 ppi (pixels per inch), which is the maximum number the average human retina can discern. The iPhone 4 and 4S, running at 960 by 640 pixels across 3.5 inches diagonal, meet this requirement, but the iPad 2, running at 1024 by 768 pixels across 9.7 inches diagonal, doesn't.

When you compute a 2048 by 1536 pixel density across a 9.7-inch screen, it comes out to about 264 ppi, short of the generally accepted 300 ppi threshold. But, as the pundits point out, that's still a big improvement from the iPad 2's pixel density.

As for where MacRumors got the display, Kim said it wasn't stolen, but rather is readily available, much to Apple's chagrin. He says the TrueSupplier site sells an "OEM Apple iPad 3 LCD Screen Display Replacement" for $122.99.

On its website, Truesupplier says it serves more than 65 percent of the U.S. market and is a global provider of mobile data products, software and consulting services, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with branches in Hong Kong. Apple iPads are made in China, and Apple is currently embroiled in a spat with a Chinese company that claims it holds the rights to the iPad name in China.

March Madness not free this year for streaming on mobile devices

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Last year, CBS and Turner Sports allowed those with the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad to catch the action of March Madness for free. This year, Android owners can join in on the fun. But CBS and Turner are charging for the service this year, asking viewers to pay $3.99 to catch the action. This is not the first time that fans of NCAA Men's Basketball had to pay for streaming video to a mobile device. Back in 2009, before it split the cost of an NCAA T.V. deal with Turner, CBS charged Apple iPhone users $4.99 to have the tournament action streamed to their phone.
You can't fault CBS and Turner for trying to recoup part of the 14-year, $10.8 billion broadcast license that the duo entered into with the NCAA in 2010. Streaming of sporting events to mobile devices is still in its infancy and it is hard to see how the networks can cover the cost of obtaining rights to these events without charging mobile device owners for the privilege of viewing the action. Last year when the streaming was free, usage across platforms for early-round games was as high as 3 million unique users daily.

Samsung Galaxy Note “coming soon” to RadioShack, hints tipster

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We are sure that the Samsung Galaxy Note, with its gargantuan 5.3-inch display and blazing fast 4G LTE connectivity, is a device that many of our readers would not mind owning. Some might have even waved $299 goodbye and pre-ordered theirs already straight from the carrier's online store. However, penny pinchers will most likely wait patiently and see how much third party retailers will be willing to sell them a Samsung Galaxy Note for.

One of the places that the Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T will be offered may be RadioShack, if the information that an anonymous tipster just provided for us is to be trusted. Unfortunately, all we know is that the phablet is “coming soon” with its pricing and availability being a mystery for now. Still, since the Galaxy Note is launching on AT&T on February 19, it might not be long until we know further details on the matter.

Galaxy Tab 2's Big Leap is Android 4.0

Samsung's first tablet running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Galaxy Tab 2 announced today, succeeds the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab with little change besides the latest software.

Don’t expect anything groundbreaking in the specs department: the Galaxy Tab 2 runs on a 1GHz dual-core processor, with 1GB of RAM and a 7-inch display with a 1024 by 600 pixels resolution. It has a 3-megapixel camera at the back and a front-facing VGA camera on the front for video calls. The Tab 2 is 0.41 inches (10.5 mm) thick and weighs 0.75 pounds (344 grams), compared to the iPad 2’s 0.34 inches (8.8 mm) thickness and 1.32 pounds (601 grams) weight.

Samsung said the Galaxy Tab 2 will come in 8, 16, and 32GB models (a microSD card slot allows for extra storage of up to 32GB), as well as Wi-Fi only and 3G varieties. The company didn’t give out pricing and availability for the U.S., but confirms the tablet will first release in the UK and Scandinavian countries in March, priced at around $450 for the Wi-Fi-only model, and around $550 for the Wi-Fi + 3G model -- hovering near the iPad.
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New Services

On top of Android 4.0, Samsung is adding its Hub line of services, including music, bookstore and newsstand, games and movies for purchase or rent. As usual, Samsung tinkered with the original Android 4.0 interface and added the Touchwiz skin, which includes S Suggest, an app recommendation service, and AllShare Play, which can live stream content from a PC to the tablet.

Since Samsung did not confirm the U.S. pricing for the Galaxy Tab 2, it’s unclear whether the company is targeting the best-selling Android tablet, the Kindle Fire; or the tablet market leader, the iPad. If international pricing is any indication, the Tab 2 has a price tag equivalent to iPad 2, although it offers a smaller screen for the same money. Compared to the Kindle Fire, the Tab is almost twice as expensive and very close in specs, aside from the cameras.

Google gets EU approval to buy Motorola

The European Commission also said today it would monitor Google's and its rivals' use of patents to make sure that the deal complies with EU antitrust rules.

"We have approved the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google because, upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues," Joaquín Almunia, Commission vice president in charge of competition policy, said in a statement. "Of course, the Commission will continue to keep a close eye on the behaviour of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents."
In its blog post, Google said: "We're happy that today the European Commission approved our proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which we announced in August. This is an important milestone in the approval process and it moves us closer to closing the deal. We are now just waiting for decisions from a few other jurisdictions before we can close this transaction."

Google went on to say that the Motorola acquisition is meant to "supercharge Android." But the main reason Google is buying Motorola is for the company's 17,000 patents and its 7,500 pending patent applications. In the EU's examination of the deal, it was looking to see how Google's ownership of these patents would affect competition.

Motorola's patents could help Google fight off lawsuits from companies, such as Apple, which claim that Google's partners are infringing its patents via the Android operating system. Google has said it will help defend its partners.

There's also a chance that Google, which until this point has not made any smartphone or tablet hardware itself, could get into that business via Motorola. But European regulator Almunia said in a statement that he cleared the deal because Google's business model with Android has been to keep the software open to competitors. And he expects that to continue. But he also said he'd be monitoring Google to make sure that's the case.

And he expressed concern that so much power for setting technology standards rests in the hands of companies that hold the patents on smartphones. Google said last week that if it's allowed to buy Motorola and its patents, that it will make those patents available for license at fair and reasonable rates. The company also promised to keep a cap on the fees it charges for licensing its technology. And it also said it would outline conditions under which it would sue companies for patent infringement.

U.S. and European regulators generally coordinate their reviews of big mergers. So it's likely that the U.S. Department of Justice may soon announce its approval for the merger.

Google wanted approval for the deal in November, but the review process went longer because the European regulators asked for more documentation in the case.

Google is also under investigation by European regulators looking at whether the search giant is abusing its dominant position in online search and advertising.

Apple's shares break the $500 barrier, on the way to a trillion dollar company?

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Despite fair labor disputes at its supplier factories and suggestions that the iPhone 4S won't sell as well as before due to being housed in an iPhone 4 chassis, Apple keeps on breaking sales records and it gets reflected in the share price.

It broke the $500 psychological barrier today, lifted with the broader market thanks to the Greek rescue relief, and now one Apple share costs more than a basic iPad 2.

A lot of analysts believe that the stock is still way undervalued for the performance that Apple is delivering, as it only sells at 14 price-to-earning ratio at this price. Compare that to Amazon, for example, which sells at 137 P/E, and made only quarter of a billion in Q4, dwarfed by Apple's nearly $7 billion in pure profit.

Still, investors were weary about the passing away of an inspirational leader as Steve Jobs, but apparently his legacy and product pipeline will ensure Apple's well-being for quite some time, and now the bets are whether Apple will become a trillion dollar company in a few years, as today it stands close to $500 billion already.

Going After Google, Apple Fires Shot To Android's Heart

According to Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs said, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,”
It is old news that Apple (AAPL) has been fighting legal battles across the globe against Google (GOOG) Android vendors.  (For background, please see Apple Wins Another Round Against Samsung Galaxy In Germany.)
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Now for the first time, Apple has fired at the heart of Google Android with its new lawsuit against Samsung filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif.
It is the first shot at Google’s heart for the following reasons:

Clear Aim at Ice Cream Sandwich


Ice Cream Sandwich is the latest and greatest Android version from Google.
The lawsuit is going after Galaxy Nexus. Nexus is Google’s code for the lead device. Google works with one hardware vendor to offer a lead device for every major version. The vendor gets the first mover advantage in the market place. Google gets a device to the market that fully complies with Android official version without modifications by the vendor.


The official version is also known as ‘stock Android.’ In the past, Google appears to have refrained from implementing infringing features in stock Android.
Going after the lead device running stock Android shows that the clear aim of Apple is Google Android’s heart.

 
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