This year’s crop of new touch-screen phones will have another major competitor to contend with in August: T-Mobile’s awkwardly-named yet sharp-looking myTouch 3G with Google.

The phone carrier known for its ads featuring spokeswoman Catherine Zeta-Jones is set to announce its second phone built using the Google (GOOG) Android operating system, the Associated Press reported today.

Unlike the Palm (PALM) Pre, but like the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3G S, the myTouch 3G won’t have a keyboard. It also looks similar to the iPhone. As iPhone rivals mount, I wrote two weeks ago for DailyFinance, consumers benefit from the growing number of smart-phone choices.

With the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile will be selling a phone that has many of the features an iPhone has, including a similarly sized screen, at exactly the same cost, which is $199 with a two-year contract, the AP story said. T-Mobile will ship the phone with software that allows it to connect to corporate e-mail servers.

The myTouch 3G has a 3.2-inch display, a 3.2 megapixel camera and like the BlackBerry Storm, it has a trackball below the screen. The myTouch 3G will be available for pre-order by current T-Mobile customers on July 8, ship in late July and be sold around the U.S. in early August.

The myTouch 3G was formerly known as the HTC Magic, reviewed here by Gizmodo. It will eventually replace T-Mobile’s G1 Android phone, which has had sales of more than one million.

This report is courtesy of daily finance.

By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple Inc. sold more than a million units of its latest iPhone model in the first three days, making it the most successful debut for a smart phone yet.

The iPhone 3G S went on sale Friday in the U.S. and seven other countries.

When Apple Inc. launched the previous model last year, it also sold one million units in the first three days, but that model launched simultaneously in 22 countries.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster had expected the Cupertino, Calif., company to sell half a million 3G S in the first three days.

For more, visit: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-More-than-1M-newmodel-apf-351307353.html?x=0

A Sonoma County winery is on a nationwide search for a social media maven to generate buzz about its products. Hundreds of applicants have submitted videos.

By Tina Susman
June 2009

Reporting from New York — Are you a “people person”?

How about an “excellent communicator”?
Do resume-wrecking cliches like those make your thumbs twitter with excitement? If so, you may be just what California’s Murphy-Goode Winery is looking for.

In a sign of the cyber-crazed times, the Sonoma County winery is on a nationwide hunt for someone to fill its “Really Goode Job.” The successful applicant will earn $10,000 a month to tweet and use other social media skills to generate buzz about its reds and whites.

The job, which begins in August, offers no health insurance and lasts for six months. But by the time auditions were held this week at a restaurant at New York’s Grand Central Terminal, at least 747 people had posted videos in hopes of impressing winemaker David Ready Jr.

Hundreds more are expected to submit applications — videos no longer than 60 seconds — by the June 19 deadline, either by posting them directly to a website or by going on camera at auditions across the country.

Ready said his idea was to “demystify wine” by using social networking via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other sites to spread interest among a crowd that might view the beverage as out of its league.

“This has never really been done in the wine industry,” said Ready, a burly Minnesota native who sipped wine samples as hopefuls closed in, hungering for face time with the man who might be their boss.

“It’s so the new frontier,” said Tara Moncheck, who planned to submit a joint video with her fiance, Rayhan Daudani.

“We obviously didn’t expect double salary or anything,” Daudani said when Ready emphasized that he wanted just one online guru to send out messages and thoughts on wine to people around the globe.

The job-seekers who showed up at Michael Jordan’s Steak House were a reflection of the recession’s indiscriminate effect: They included a former investment bank vice president who was laid off after 20 years, two young journalists (Moncheck and Daudani) and passers-by who couldn’t resist giving it a shot, like Stefanie Johnston.

“I love wine!” Johnston burbled as she stood before the camera on a balcony overhanging Grand Central’s main concourse. As proof of her devotion, the New Yorker pointed out that she even had a copy of Wine Enthusiast in her backpack. “Look, I’m serious,” she said, pulling the magazine out after her audition.

Another drop-in spoke of his varied passions and talents, but he forgot one important thing. “I should have told him to say something about wine,” the videographer muttered as the man walked away.

Ready said he got the idea of hiring a “lifestyle correspondent” via video application from the Australian state of Queensland. Early this year, tourism officials there caused an online sensation by inviting people to submit videos for “The Best Job in the World.” The gig: spending six months as caretaker of a palm-fringed island surrounded by azure sea, and using blogs, video updates, photo diaries and other online media to promote tourism. More than 34,000 people applied for the roughly $120,000 job, which went to Ben Southall, a self-described adventurer from Britain.

“We thought, ‘Wow, can we apply this to the wine industry?’ I guess we can,” Ready said as applicants joined him in sipping samples of Murphy-Goode wine. Many said they had learned of the job — which calls for an imaginative, inquisitive “people person” who is also a communications whiz — through e-mail lists or from friends.

Ready said the main weakness among the applicants so far was their inability to show a passion for wine or for life in the bucolic Alexander Valley, not their mastery of the Web as a marketing tool.

In one video, an applicant named Valerie stood with a fat snake coiled around her neck to show her fearlessness in the face of one element of the job: monitoring the creatures that live among the vines.

“I want to be able to go into the vineyard and get my hands dirty and stomp on some grapes,” she said as the serpent’s head bobbed beside her left ear.

“Already my name makes me the perfect candidate,” said another applicant, noting her last name was Vinograd: “As in ‘vino,’ as in the Latin root for wine.”

There has been plenty of humor. One applicant gargled with a bottle of red wine, and another attempted to capitalize on Ready’s devotion to his home state’s NFL team by pouring wine into a Minnesota Vikings helmet and drinking from it.

There also have been some clearly Web- and tech-savvy applicants.

“I’m a Twitterer, a YouTuber, a Facebooker, a MySpacer, a Digger,” said Clay, who also touted himself as a blogger, photographer, video producer and sommelier. “Did I mention I was a home-brewer too?” he quipped at the close of his breathless video.

But most who auditioned in person beneath the cavernous sky-blue ceiling and ornate chandeliers of Grand Central simply stood and delivered their spiels in between train arrival and departure announcements.

“I have over 1,000 friends whom I actually know,” said Meredith Garcia, a fashion and style blogger, referring to Facebookers who accumulate “friends” they’ve never met. Actually, according to the site, Garcia has 906 friends.

Stacey Chait, who spent 20 years as a corporate events planner, read her pitch to herself over and over, trying to memorize it before she went on camera. After several takes, she was satisfied — and hopeful that her background in planning events for the likes of former Vice President Dick Cheney, ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Clinton would give her an edge.

But, she admitted, “I don’t tweet” and can’t get excited about most people’s tweets or Facebook status updates.

“If I was tweeting for Murphy-Goode, I’d have something to tweet about,” Chait said. “But tweeting about my lunch today?”

By Sinead Carew and Jessica Wohl

NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Small crowds gathered Saturday for the official launch of Pre, the smartphone seen as Palm Inc’s best chance to claw back market share from Apple Inc’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd’s Blackberry.

The new high-end phone, considered a pivotal product for both Palm and Sprint Nextel, has been greeted by rave reviews.

Lines were far shorter than those that snaked around Apple

stores for its first hugely popular iPhone two years ago, but many consumers said they were eager for the new product.

“I wanted their iPhone killer. I’ve been anticipating this for a while,” said Peter Lewis, who bought phones for himself and his wife at a Sprint store in Chicago, where some 45 people were in line when the doors opened at 8 a.m.

“This is my birthday present to myself,” said Wilma Rivera, 36, a heating technician who brought her 17-month-old daughter to Sprint’s flagship store in Manhattan.

Rivera, a long-time Palm user, said, while she had been tempted by iPhone, sold only by AT&T Inc in the United States, she “never wanted to leave Sprint.”

Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile telephone service, is depending on Pre to help stem defections and win back subscribers from rivals such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.

Pre is hitting the shelves just before Apple is widely expected to announce a new iPhone on June 8.

PRICE AND KEYBOARD

The Pre costs $199.99, after a $100 rebate, for customers who sign a two-year service contract. It is priced in line with the $199 smaller-capacity iPhone. Pre’s monthly service fees start at $69.99, including unlimited text messaging, lower than the cost of iPhone service plans with similar features.

“It’s always nice to see a bunch of people waiting for a product you worked on,” Palm Executive Chairman Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple executive who helped create the iPod, said at a Sprint store in San Francisco’s financial district, where more than a dozen people lined up to purchase a Pre.

He said the opportunity for smartphones was big enough to sustain a market for three to five successful vendors.

“For us the opportunity is not to take customers away from RIM or Apple,” Rubinstein said, but rather to entice users of lower-level cell phones to upgrade to a more powerful smartphone.

AT&T may offer lower-cost data plans for iPhones, which would attract new subscribers and force smartphone rivals to cut prices, too

By Olga Kharif

Victor Lin wants an iPhone, but he’s put off by the price. The smartphone costs at least $199 up front, and if he wants unlimited Web and e-mail access in addition to calling, he’ll need to pay an additional $70 a month. “I like the idea of having a full-featured Web browser,” says Lin, a 43-year-old San Francisco software engineer. “However, I think the monthly fee is a little bit too high.”

AT&T (T) may have gotten the message. The exclusive U.S. iPhone service provider is considering cutting the price of its monthly service package or offering a range of lower-priced plans, say people with knowledge of the company’s thinking. One plan that could be introduced as early as late May would include limited data access at a $10 monthly reduction, the people say.

The possible price cut likely reflects the back-and-forth between AT&T and Apple (AAPL) as they work out whether and under what terms AT&T would remain the sole U.S. iPhone carrier. Apple may want flexibility in pricing as a condition, analysts say. “We understand it’s part of the extension [of its contract] that AT&T wants to maintain,” Richard Doherty, director at consultant Envisioneering Group, says of the prospect of lower data-plan prices. As Apple considers whether to widen its circle of U.S. providers, AT&T may have less ability to balk at Apple’s requests. Representatives of Apple and AT&T declined to comment.

AT&T and Apple also have added scope for price reductions as iPhone manufacturing costs decline. Apple plans to introduce a new version of iPhone software in June, and it may unveil a new, cheaper device in June or July. New devices may cost as much as one-third less to produce than earlier versions, Doherty says. The cost of touchscreens, the most expensive component, has declined by more than 30% in the past year, estimates Michael Cote, an analyst at consultant Cote Collaborative Wireless Strategy.

Lower-priced data plans would probably lure a lot of fence-sitters, including students and consumers with lower incomes. A reduction could boost AT&T’s iPhone subscriber additions by 20% to 25%, estimates wireless industry consultant Chetan Sharma. A survey late last year by comScore (SCOR) indicated that 43% of iPhone buyers earned more than $100,000 a year. But many of the wealthiest subscribers have already signed up. In the first quarter, AT&T activated 1.6 million iPhones, and 40% of those activations were for users new to AT&T. “[A price reduction] absolutely makes sense,” Sharma says. “AT&T is starting to hit a wall in terms of new subscribers.” In the first quarter of 2009, AT&T’s net subscriber additions were 5.6% lower than in the year-earlier period.

A $99 iPhone or a Prepaid iPhone?

Some analysts have speculated that in addition to cutting the price of service plans, AT&T will also reduce the up-front price of the new iPhone by as much as $100, to $99. Apple is even toying with the idea of coming out with a prepaid iPhone, opening up the device to mainstream consumers, Doherty says.

A cheaper plan, coupled with new and possibly cheaper iPhones, could give AT&T a larger share of the U.S. smartphone market. “They are going to give AT&T the bulk of smartphone users [in the country],” Doherty says. And unless prices drop on other smartphones in AT&T’s stable, those rival handset makers, such as Research In Motion (RIMM), could end up losing market share in AT&T’s stores. The plan could also make it more difficult for the new Palm (PALM) Pre, expected from Sprint Nextel (S) in June, to gain share. “That would definitely push the pricing on high-end smartphones down,” Sharma says.

A new plan could also usher in an era of tiered wireless data plans for consumers from other carriers, too. Already, AT&T offers corporate data plans for BlackBerry devices, among other gadgets; these include the unlimited option, as well as cheaper plans with caps on monthly data usage. Some data plans also allow for so-called tethering, which lets users cut costs by using the phone—instead of a wireless data card—to get wireless broadband access on a computer. But there’s less flexibility for consumers that way; data plans for smartphones typically include unlimited data and go for a flat $30 a month. Many analysts think it may make sense to offer a cheaper limited option for, say, $20 a month.

The rest of the industry will likely mirror AT&T’s moves into tiers of personal wireless data services to stem iPhone-related subscriber defections. “It seems to me if there’s one carrier who is more at risk [of losing subscribers], it’s Sprint,” says Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research (FORR). “Their marketing has been about their unlimited plan being a better value.” But Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile may need to take a page from AT&T’s playbook as well.

An 18 year old high school senior from Florida gets into an argument with his 16 year old girlfriend. They have been dating for 3 years. In an enraged moment, he decided to send a nude photo she had taken and sent to him, to dozens of her friends and family. He is now a registered sex offender for sending child pornography, a title he will hold until he is 43.

Sexting is sending sexually explicit images using interactive devices such as web cams, instant messaging and cell phones. This week in the news, we heard story after story about the dangers of sexting and its effect on American youth.  Eighth graders are being charged with felonies. Twelve year olds are being sent to juvenile detention centers. Sending a nude picture of anyone younger than 18 is sexual exploitation of a child. The minimum sentence for a juvenile convicted of that crime is two years in a state detention facility.

It’s a situation where the law is not applicable to the crime because this is a social issue. Ten years ago, a middle school student probably didn’t have their own cell phone and if they did, it definitely didn’t have a camera on it. Now, we have cell phones for kindergarteners that have preset numbers… press the triangle to call mommy or the square to call daddy.  The sexting epidemic has left hundreds of pre-teen students across the country suspended and/or expelled, and in a post 9/11 America, not having a cell phone is just not an option for parents.

So what do we do?  Here’s an idea: how about we go back to the basics and give pre-teens phones that do nothing but dial and ring? Parents stop buying blackberries for your 7^th grader! It’s flat out inappropriate. They don’t need email; they don’t need multimedia messaging; nor do they need mobile internet access. Just because we have the technology, doesn’t mean your middle school child should have access to it. The toll that science has had on our society is proving to come with just as many negatives as positives, and now it’s our judicial and education systems that have the burden of untangling the consequences of sexting.

After much anticipation Apple computer today announced its update to the best selling iPhone operation system. None as OS 3.0 the new operating systems features a large number of improvements of the current OS 2.2.

Apple made the announcement at a event held on there campus. Developers and members of the press were invited to attend. During the event representatives from the company introduced us to OS 3.0 and many of the new features. While the crux of the shows presentation was geared more so towards developers there was a good amount of upgrades that are strictly for the consumer. With out a doubt to of the biggest consumer focused upgrades are probably the two features which everyone has been demanding since the original iPhone launched, namely copy and paste and turn by turn directions. The new operating system will feature both along with a couple other goodies including MMS, and A2DP Bluetooth wireless support.

OS 3.0 Beta is available for download right now from apple for anyone enrolled in the iPhone Dev. program. Expect the full release version to hit iTunes update some time this summer. The update will be free for all iPhone users and a 9.95 charge for i Pod Touch users.

For more details on the release and a video of the keynote check out apple’s web site.

CUPERTINO, California—March 11, 2009—Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world’s smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you. The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. The third generation iPod shuffle is significantly smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all of the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle features a gorgeous new aluminum design with a built-in stainless steel clip that makes it ultra-wearable.

“Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone™ Product Marketing. “The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.”

iPod shuffle is based on Apple’s incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. And now, when you can’t remember the name of a song or an artist playing, with the press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life. With the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, you can now easily switch between multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new iPod shuffle comes in silver or black and features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip. iPod shuffle is the smallest music player in the world and is incredibly easy to clip to almost anything and take with you everywhere you go. iPod shuffle features up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Pricing & Availability
The third generation 4GB iPod shuffle is now shipping and comes in silver or black for a suggested price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac® with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS® X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes® 8.1 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later and iTunes 8.1.

*Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. Song capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; in 256-Kbps AAC format, song capacity is up to 500 songs; actual capacity varies by encoding method and bit rate.

Facebook’s homepage is currently under renovation. Starting today, users will be able to get real time updates on what their friends are doing with a new, more dynamic homepage portal. The upgrades are being viewed as a move for the social networking giant to remain competitive with other social networking sites such as Twitter.

The heart of Facebook is the news feed. It keeps members up-to-date with the happenings, social events and photos of their friends. The current news feed updates about every 10 to 15 minutes. The fresh face of Facebook offers a new and improved layout. In order to adhere to the “we want it now” attitude of its technology savvy members, the news feed will also update in real time allowing you to get more information on your friends even faster.

The change comes at a time when another social networking company, Twitter, is quickly gaining ground and becoming a substantial adversary to Facebook. Twitter offers up-to-the-minute updates for its members but in a more minimal design.

No matter which venue is preferred, it is clear the hunger for sharing news on a consistent basis is on the rise. More than 1/3 of adults have at least one profile on a social networking web site. Facebook currently has 175 million members and even with the criticism from past upgrades to the site, continues to grow with no plan of stopping in the foreseeable future.

By YUKARI IWATANI KANE, Wall Street Journal

Apple Inc. faces a growing threat to its iPhone business, as renegade stores spring up online to sell unauthorized software for the device.

The developer behind some popular iPhone software on Friday plans to open a service called Cydia Store that could potentially sell hundreds of iPhone applications that are not available through Apple’s official store. Users must download special software that alters their iPhones before they can run these programs.

Another small company plans a store called Rock Your Phone for iPhone users who have not yet modified their devices to make it easier to download and buy unauthorized applications. A third start-up is building an online store that specializes in selling adult games for the iPhone.

Getty Images

Unauthorized iPhone software includes PdaNet, below, which makes the device into a laptop modem.

The new stores take aim at one of the underpinnings of the iPhone’s success: Apple’s App Store. Launched last July, Apple’s online store sells thousands of applications developed by independent developers — from games to news and entertainment features — that customers can easily download to their iPhones, often for free or as little as 99 cents.

When Apple opened the App Store, it provided the building blocks so independent programmers could create software that worked on its phone. But the company said it would vet submissions to maintain quality control and to protect the user experience.

Apple, which collects a 30% commission from sellers on its store, doesn’t break out the site’s revenue. Brokerage firm Piper Jaffray estimates the site generated about $150 million in sales last year and projects total sales will grow to $800 million this year.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment. But it has said in the past that with the iPhone it was trying to strike a balance between a closed device like the iPod and an open device like the PC.

**To continue reading this entire story, please visit the Wall Street Journal here

Carbon Motors, maker of the E7, a purpose-built car for law enforcement, is continuing it’s march toward reality. Carbon Motors has targeted 2012 as the start of production, and cars can already be pre-ordered at the company”s website as a way to raise capital for the start of series production.

Carbon Motors argument for the vehicle is that almost every other emergency response departments, i.e. fire and rescue have purpose built vehicles, so why shouldn’t the police?

The E7′s technical details intrigue even non-law enforcement car buffs: a 3.0-liter turbodiesel engine, aluminum unit-body, built-in radar, radiation/biological threat detectors and performance numbers that leave Ford’s old Crown Victorias sucking wind.

The media might get a chance to try the E7 within about 18 months, and pricing will be announced at the end of this year. When it does reach local PDs, perps will have something new to fear and officers might finally have a modern vehicle that accommodates police work.

Check out Carbon Motors website for more details on the E7.

Amazon today announced the second-generation Kindle ebook reader,  featuring an  exclusive Stephen King novel UR.  The new version of the Kindle will still cost $359, but it’s much thinner than the angular original — in fact, it’s thinner than an iPhone at just .36 inches.  As with most product refreshes the Kindle to comes packed with a slue of new features.  One of the most talked about is the Read to Me feature, which can read any content on the device back to you in a decent-sounding computerized voice, additionally there’s seven times more storage, a sharper 16-level e-ink display that turns pages 20 percent faster, 25 percent longer battery life, and a new five-way joystick that improves navigation.  Amazon will have the units on sale starting Feb. 24th.

Motorola makes an effort to ‘go green’ with its new cell phone,  Renew.  The Renew’s main components like its casing are molded out of recycled water bottles and the phone is claimed to be ‘entirely recyclable’.  The downside is the phone has only the bare features reminiscent of a cell phone made back in ’02 with no bluetooth, no GPS, and no camera.  But the phone does boast good talk time, clear call quality, and most important it is the hybrid car of cell phones.

Check out the entire article and review by Ben Patterson here at Yahoo! Tech.

Palm released it’s latest device today at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, in hopes of steaming the tide of market share that it has been losing to Apple and Research In Motion in the coveted Smartphone category.

Palm birthed the entire smartphone niche in the late 90′s with the introduction of it’s Treo smartphone. The Treo basically added cell phone capabilities to the pre-existing Palm Pilot PDA’s. For much of the late 90′s and beginning half of this decade the Treo dominated the scene. However a lack of innovation on Palm’s part soon resulted in a sales noise dive. Add to that the release of the iPhone and the resound success of RIM’s Blackberry line and the Treo currently finds itself ranked fourth among it’s competitors with the iPhone ranked first followed by the Blackberry platform second and Windows Mobile devices third.

Palm is looking for a “slam-dunk” to help them once again become relevant in the market they helped create, and the Pre might just do that.

From the press conference held today that the CES expo thing are looking rather promising, although there are still a number of skeptics.

The Pre in my opinion has a bit of it all, sleek interface of the iPhone, business qualities of the Blackberry and easy to program “open-source-ish” qualities of the Google Android based G1. Being a long time Treo users just before switching to the iPhone I have always loved the interface of the Palm devices. However the inability to compete with other smartphone producers was always frustrating. One of the key features of the Pre is the completely built from the ground up operating system. Called webOS, this new Palm OS looks extremely sleek and might even be able to give the iPhone OSX a run for it’s money.

As stated earlier the Pre comes packing a lot of hardware goodies as well as software too. Currently the phone will be exclusively available thru Sprint, with a shipping date some time in the first quarter of 2009.

Check out the following link for full details on the Pre as well as the press release from Palm

It’s the end of an era.

Today marked the last Mac World Expo that will feature a Keynote address by the boy from  Cupertino.  The Mac World expo has been, for about the last 5-6 years anyways, something like Christmas for Apple fanboys world wide.  But this year all that comes to an end.  Late in 2008 Apple announced that this years Keynote would be there last.  This news was met with a lot of mixed feelings from fanboys and industry analysis alike.  More shocking at the time was the news that Steve Jobs, the head of Apple Computers, would not be delivering the Keynote address.  Instead the duties were passed onto Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller.

Many present at the expo felt that it represented the next major shift for Apple, a new beginning of sorts.  The expo was surrounded with a lot of excitement concerning possible releases.  However most of the rumors turned out to be just that, rumors.  Most of what was announced were software updates (iLife 09′), and the release of items most of us all ready know about/had been announced (17 inch Macbook Pro).  One of the few releases that caught a few people off guard was the announcement of iTunes+.  iTunes+ is a new version of the hit iTunes music store.  iTunes+ will feature new tiers of music price points starting at $.69 and going up to $1.29.  In addition to new price points Apple will also start offering all of it music DRM-free within the coming months.

Overall there is still a lot of speculation about what the future hold for Apple.  One of the biggest questions left unresolved is what if anything will be Apples new vehicle for product announcements.  Many rumors are already swirling concerning Apple holding it’s own Expos.  Another idea that was floated but seems a bit improbable is that Apple might consider latching onto one of the bigger technology Expos such as CES, however that idea seems very, un-Apple like.

Check out the last Keynote at Mac World from Apple.

Chargers 23, Colts 17

SAN DIEGO – Peyton Manning has his MVP award and nothing more, outdone again in January by the San Diego Chargers.

Speedy little Darren Sproles scooted 22 yards for the winning score 6:20 into overtime and the Chargers beat the Colts 23-17 in an AFC wild-card game Saturday night, ending Indianapolis’ nine-game winning streak a day after Manning won his third Associated Press NFL MVP award.

Sproles came up big on a night when the Chargers played the final 2 1/2 quarters without LaDainian Tomlinson, who stood on the sideline in obvious discomfort from a groin injury.

Fifty years after the Baltimore Colts won the first overtime game in league history by the same score over the New York Giants for the NFL title, Indianapolis wasn’t so fortunate. It was victimized by Sproles, who rushed 23 times for 105 yards, caught five passes for 45 yards, had 106 yards on four kickoff returns and 72 on three punt runbacks.

The Chargers (9-8) won the overtime toss. Indy’s Darrell Reid called heads, but referee Ron Winter’s flip came up tails. Sproles sent the Chargers into the second round of the playoffs, either at Tennessee or Pittsburgh, by finishing off the only series of overtime with his TD run around left end against an exhausted defense for the Colts (12-5).

San Diego’s winning drive was aided by two defensive holding calls, the second against Tim Jennings on third-and-8. On the next play, Colts linebacker Clint Session was whistled for grabbing Sproles’ facemask. Sproles scored on the next play, shedding a defender at the 5-yard line.

Sproles’ TD run sent Qualcomm Stadium into bedlam. It was San Diego’s fifth straight win; the Chargers needed the previous four victories to secure the AFC West title with an 8-8 record.

Cards 30, Falcons 24

Larry Fitzgerald makes an insane TD catch in the Cardianals win.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The Arizona Cardinals have consecutive home playoff victories — 61 years apart.

Kurt Warner opened with a 42-yard touchdown pass to Larry Fitzgerald and connected with Anquan Boldin on a 71-yard scoring play as the Cardinals beat Atlanta 30-24 Saturday before a raucous, towel-waving crowd.

It was the franchise’s first home playoff game since the then-Chicago Cardinals beat Philadelphia to win the NFL championship in 1947.

“A lot of people coming into this game said we were the worst playoff team ever to get in,” Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “… I think we rallied around that.”

Atlanta rookie Matt Ryan was intercepted twice, was tackled in the end zone for a safety and fumbled the ball away on a botched handoff. That fumble was returned 27 yards by Antrel Rolle 52 seconds into the second half to put Arizona ahead for good.

Everyone knew the Cardinals could pass, but a stout defense and effective running game were a bonus.

“You have to really give credit first to their defense,” Falcons guard Harvey Dahl said. “They did an outstanding job. They were flying all over the place.”

Atlanta’s 60 yards rushing represented a season low.

“We couldn’t run the ball,” Falcons wide receiver Roddy White said. “We had to throw it around a little bit more than we’re used to. Things like that kind of put us behind the 8-ball.”

Arizona’s Edgerrin James outgained Atlanta’s Michael Turner, the NFL’s No. 2 rusher.

“They controlled the line of scrimmage,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said of the Cardinals’ defense.

James, who has made it known he will not be back with the Cardinals next season, carried 16 times for 73 yards. Turner, who rushed for 1,699 yards in the regular season, had 42 yards in 18 attempts.

On the heels of Google revealing enhancements to its Android mobile platform, rumors are circulating that we may soon be seeing a new Android device.

The T-Mobile G2, as the device will reportedly be called, will debut on January 26, according to “rumors” reported by Cell Phone Signal. The new device is expected to have a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, VGA camera for video calls, a full touch screen, and Wi-Fi connectivity, according to the blog.

Boy Genius Report has reported a follow-up rumor that says those specs are pretty accurate, but that the release date will actually be in April. Boy Genius’ tipster said the G2 wouldn’t have a physical QWERTY keyboard, but there would still be a trackball at the bottom of the device.

The new device is also expected to be non-exclusive to T-Mobile and sold elsewhere around the world, according to Boy Genius.

This week, some of the changes made to the mobile operating system by a private group of developers came to light in Cupcake–the Android code the group shares with the outside world. Now, according to the Android road map, the Cupcake enhancements have started to be merged into the wider, open-source Android project.

Some of the changes coming to Android are bug fixes, affecting elements such as e-mail, conversation-list scrolling, and the alarm clock. Several new features are, however, also being added–for example, the ability to save MMS attachments. The Linux kernel upon which Android runs has been upgraded to version 2.6.27, and “basic x86 support” has been added.

It’s official: Verizon Wireless will start selling RIM’s (RIMM) new touchscreen BlackBerry Storm on Nov. 21. The iPhone-ish smartphone will sell for $199.99 after subsidy and a $50 mail-in rebate, assuming you are eligible and sign a two-year contract.

This is an important launch for both companies, as Apple (AAPL) beat RIM in unit shipments last quarter, and Verizon (VZ) hasn’t yet had a credible answer to the iPhone.

However, this is hardly an aggressive play. We think Apple still has the upper hand.

We had read rumors that Verizon Wireless was considering selling the Storm for free after subsidy, as its part-owner Vodafone (VOD) is doing abroad. That would definitely give the iPhone a run for its money.

But at $199, the Storm is the same price as Apple’s 8-gigabyte iPhone, while offering fewer features. (And the obnoxious hassle of a mail-in rebate.)

The iPhone, for example, has a much better app platform, multi-touch controls like “pinching” a map to zoom, better music/video platform, and wi-fi. (Update: The Storm ships with an 8-gigabyte card included, so both ship with about the same amount of storage; the Storm’s can be expanded with additional memory cards.)

Meanwhile, the Storm’s potential advantages that we can think of so far: Better 3G Internet service — the iPhone’s has ranged from average to terrible in our experience; better mobile email; higher resolution camera; turn-by-turn GPS; and maybe a better on-screen keyboard, if RIM’s “click-screen” is any good.

So it seems that most people who’d buy it are people who are tied to/prefer Verizon Wireless/BlackBerry email — or people who hate Apple. (We’ll reserve judgment until after we’ve had time to play with it.)

It’s also possible one or both companies will cut prices again before Christmas sales ramp up, which could help sell more phones. Especially if this quarter is really as terrible as everyone says it’s been.

One thing we don’t know yet: How much Verizon will charge for monthly service. Our bet is $70 per month, the cheapest plan AT&T (T) offers for the iPhone.

According to a report from NPD, sales of cellphones have shifted in a manner which should shock and stun even a casual observer. Apparently for the first time in years, Motorola’s ubiquitous RAZR has been overtaken in consumer sales… by the iPhone 3G. This is a watershed moment for handset sales in the US, marking not only a shift away from the dominant market leader, but a turn towards more complex, full-featured devices. The news comes hot on the heels of NPD’s previous findings, which still placed the RAZR in the top spot — though with ever-decreasing numbers. In that same report, the iPhone found itself in second place, but it appears that flagging interest in the inescapable dumbphone coupled with the recent iPhone PR blitz have put Apple’s moneymaker into the top position. The news is also buoyed by recent reports that Apple has overtaken RIM as the number two smartphone vendor, and a J.D. Power study which found affection for the device waxing in the extreme. Overall, however, handset sales fell 15 percent year-over-year, and LG managed to snag the top brand position, with two models in the top five. Still, if there already wasn’t a clear indication of the market moving towards both smartphones and touchscreen devices, this should give everyone a clearer picture of both the public’s wants, and the power of Cupertino’s ad-men. Full PR after the break.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The NPD Group: iPhone 3G Leads U.S. Consumer Mobile Phone Purchases in the Third Quarter of 2008

Overall consumer mobile phone purchases declined 15 percent year-over-year

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 10, 2008 – According to The NPD Group, the leader in market research for the wireless industry, Apple’s iPhone 3G surpassed the Motorola RAZR as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S. in the third quarter (Q3) of 2008. RAZR had been ranked by NPD as the top-selling consumer handset for the past 12 quarters.

Even with stronger consumer sales of iPhone, and the mobile phone market’s normal seasonal uplift after Q2, domestic handset purchases by adult consumers declined 15 percent year over year in Q3 to 32 million units. Consumer handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion, even as the average selling price (ASP) rose 6 percent to $88.

Top-selling handsets and mobile phone brands

“The displacement of the RAZR by the iPhone 3G represents a watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD. “Four of the five best-selling handsets in the third quarter were optimized for messaging and other advanced Internet features.”

The top handset models in rank order, based on unit sales in Q3, were as follows:

1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)
3. RIM Blackberry Curve (all models)
4. LG Rumor
5. LG enV2

Popular features

When it comes to the specific features that motivated U.S. consumers to purchase their handsets, 43 percent of handset buyers cited the need for a camera and 36 percent noted the ability to send and receive text messages. Mobile phones with a QWERTY keyboard experienced the greatest year-over-year rise in sales; 30 percent of handsets were sold with this feature in Q3 2008, versus just 11 percent the year prior. Also this quarter 83 percent of phones purchased were Bluetooth enabled (versus 72 percent last year), and 68 percent of phones purchased in Q3 were music enabled (versus 49 percent last year).

“A growing data divide continues in cellular handsets,” Rubin said. “Those who see the value in wireless Internet access are justifying the investment, whereas voice-centric users have little incentive to upgrade, which is obviously detrimental to operators who seek to sell data plans and media-access services to their subscribers.”

Methodology: NPD compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month. Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically representative sample of U.S. adults. Results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers age 18 and older.

About The NPD Group, Inc.

The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries. Today, more than 1,600 manufacturers, retailers, and service companies rely on NPD to help them drive critical business decisions at the global, national, and local market levels. NPD helps our clients to identify new business opportunities and guide product development, marketing, sales, merchandising, and other functions. Information is available for the following industry sectors: automotive, beauty, commercial technology, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, foodservice, home, office supplies, software, sports, toys, and wireless. For more information, visit http://www.npd.com/.

Facebook this week started forcing users to use there newest design layout. As with most of the major site overhaul/changes there has already been a huge amount of grumbling concerning the change. A number of groups have sprung up to voice peoples dislike of the change. One group already has over 1.5 million members, all voicing similar sentiments. So what do you think about the change? Let us know how you feel about the Facebook change. We will be happy to hear your opinions.