Sure, the iPad's got a much larger screen, and a faster processor, and even 3G, but it's just a bigger iPod Touch.

The killer application for the iPhone, was in fact, its ability to fit right into your pocket. Can you see yourself grabbing an iPad while you dash out your front door? Not me. It's big. And I already have my notebook, which also happens to be a MacBook Pro. Sure, call me an Apple fanboy, I don't care. My main desktop is in fact, a custom built PC. But even someone like me who has an Apple product, I can't vouch for the iPad.

The most critical point about the iPad, is the fact that it can't multi-task. Like the iPod Touch and the iPhone, it can only run one application at any given time. Despite having a powerful CPU on the inside, the iPad is crippled because of its operating system, the same operating system behind the iPhone. Fundamentally, if you already have a notebook and an iPhone, the iPad will have a difficult time finding a place in your daily routine.

A tipster just sent in these Nexus One screenshots that supposedly confirms two things: that Google will sell it unlocked and unsubsidized for $530, and that Google will sell it by themselves. Plus, some other very interesting details.

Some of the most important bits of info we extracted (assuming the tipster is accurate, and it seems like he is). Oh, and take a look at our hands on with the device in case you haven't familiarized yourself with it yet.

Yeah, it's $530 unsubsidized. Google's not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They're not going to save us from the "making money off of hardware" culture we've got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one.

Just because Sony said that the PS3 would have a ten year life span, that doesn't mean the company isn't apparently moving forward with the PlayStation 4.

According to insider info (along with some speculation!), Japanese website PC Watch is reporting that Sony is looking to alternatives to the PS3's Cell architecture, which some developers have found to be challenging. One early alternative include Cell and Intel's Larrabee. Wanting a bit more horsepower, Sony has apparently abandoned this plan. Sony was also apparently considering a modified version of the Synergistic Processor Unit, but is now supposedly working on designs that include a mulit-core CPU.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all believed to be exploring new system architecture. And with the exception of a possible Wii HD, PC Watch Impress states that it takes 24 months to produce new consoles, making 2011 difficult for new hardware and 2012 or even as late as 2013 more possible.

Getting Boxee, the awesome web-to-TV software, set up in your living room used to be a headache. Not anymore thanks to the Boxee Box (around $200; Q1 2010). This angled wonder lets you consume all the free movies, TV shows and music from the internet, all from your couch – and hooks it up to your system with just a single HDMI cable. Like the standard Boxee software, it also sucks in your own videos, music and photos, playing just about any media format that still resides on your broken down laptop.

Remember that $200 internet tablet Michael Arrington wanted to introduce? Now it’s a $499 tablet and the company behind it wants nothing to do with Michael Arrington anymore.

Arrington had a falling out with Fusion Garage recently, the company that developed the device’s operating system and which founder Chandra Rathakrishnan claims was behind all of the work in designing the hardware and sourcing its manufacture by OEMs. While Arrington says he’s going to sue over the death of the so-called CrunchPad, Rathakrishnan and company are moving ahead with the tablet under a new name: joojoo.

The joojoo will weigh 2.4 pounds, feature a 12.1 inch, capacitative touchscreen display, and a custom interface designed for interacting with web services. The OS boots in about 9 seconds, and features shortcuts on the home screen for a number of web services including Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and CNN. You can scroll across the screen to unveil additional items. The joojoo will feature caching capabilities that will let you do things like compose emails while offline.

China is arguably the world's biggest potential electronics market. If you can make a product that's a big hit with Chinese consumers it's almost as big a deal as a hit product in the U.S. -- and China's buying power is expected to only grow even more in the near future. Thus optimism was high when the iPhone finally launched in China.

However, in the time since, the iPhone has proved an epic flop in China even as Chinese telecoms try to defend their weak sales. China Unicom, the phone's carrier only managed to sell 5,000 handsets in the phone's first few days, far less than at equivalent launches in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany. While the telecom says it is satisfied with the phone's sales performance, the numbers are disappointing for a phone that has burned up international sales charts.

One major problem is price. The phone is available in China for 6,999 yuan, or $1,024 without a contract, but can be purchased much cheaper in Hong Kong's so-called "grey market". The grey market cost in Hong Kong is approximately $800. Sales were also hindered by the exclusion of Wi-Fi from the phone, following China's ban on the standard, which it was trying to replace with its own standard. Since May China has begun reallowing Wi-Fi, but new Wi-Fi-ready models still aren't available yet in China.

Over the past two decades, Ricardo Dominguez has been utilizing electronics and the internet to piss off just about every high-level administrative authority in the US. In the late 90s, his performance-art-cum-activist organization the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) set up a participatory website-jamming network called the FloodNet system, which allowed anyone with an internet connection to gum up the official sites of the US Border Patrol, White House, G8, Mexican embassy, and others, rendering them inaccessible. The Department of Justice retaliated with an electronic attack on the EDT that aimed to destabilize the group and interrupt their online meddling. As any conspiracy wonk can tell you, it’s illegal for the government to use military force against civilians without declaring martial law; that’s the job of cops and FBI agents.

Dominguez, a Zapatista sympathizer and close friend of Subcomandante Marcos, claims the various forms of online mischief conducted by the EDT were experiments in electronic civil disobedience rather than true acts of sabotage. Their work led to massive virtual and physical sit-ins protesting the Mexican government between ’98 and ’99, attracting more than 100,000 participants. But his current project–the Transborder Immigrant Tool–is poised to enrage a much broader spectrum of the North American populace. By augmenting a low-cost Motorola phone with GPS and a battery of applications, Dominguez’s goal is to help illegal immigrants complete safe border crossings without being sent back by the Border Patrol or getting shot in the face by American “patriots.”

At a fast food establishment, I have never met its equal. The truth is that rapid, high-volume production and bacon are not a match made in heaven. Fast food bacon is usually limp and soggy as a result. In order for bacon to be truly delicious it must be given some time, love and attention in the kitchen.

Careful what you say – that iPhone over there could be a live microphone.

Which is to say there’s a new, free iPhone app called Soundbiter designed to monitor the world’s audio and upload it to Twitter and Facebook with the push of a button.

When running, the Soundbiter app is constantly recording, keeping an audio buffer of a minute or so. Then when you hear a good joke, a fine guitar riff or a politician’s slip-of-the-tongue, you hit the apps’s only button, which saves the last 60 seconds of sound. From there, it’s a cinch to edit, upload, title and publish the sonic snippet to Twitter or Facebook.

The good news is that this feature-rich handset, running version 2.0 of Google’s Android OS, compares very favorably to the Goliath of the smartphone world as a utility mobile-computing device – and, oh yeah, a phone. The bad news is that there may be too many good things going on to make using this device the quick, intuitive, out-of-the-box experience it should be. That’s a problem, given that the iPhone has set the usability bar so high.

Especially snappy is the Droid's Web browser, which loads images quickly thanks to the powerful 550MHz processor and speedy hardware-accelerated graphics. Though you are at the mercy of your 3G high-speed data network coverage, once you're in it, Web surfing is breezy and smooth. Video from sites such as YouTube looks equally impressive; the playback of a high-definition YouTube cartoon ("Sita Sings the Blues") was excellent, with no stalling or audio dropouts. Audio also sounded great piped through a pair of high-quality headphones. The straightforward music player supports playlist building, album art, and shuffle and loop playback modes. You can purchase DRM-free music at the Amazon MP3 store via the preloaded app on the device.

HOW can image sensors - the most complicated and expensive part of a digital camera - be made cheaper and less complex? Easy: take the lid off a memory chip and use that instead.

As simple as it sounds, that pretty much sums up a device being developed by a team led by Edoardo Charbon, of the Technical University of Delft, in the Netherlands. In a paper presented at an imaging conference in Kyoto, Japan, this week, the team say that their so-called "gigavision" sensor will pave the way for cellphones and other inexpensive gadgets that take richer, more pleasing pictures than today's devices. Crucially, Charbon says the device performs better in both very bright light and dim light - conditions which regular digital cameras struggle to cope with.

While Charbon's idea is new and has a patent pending, the principle behind it is not. It has long been known that memory chips are extremely sensitive to light: remove their black plastic packages to let in light, and the onrush of photons energises electrons, creating a current in each memory cell that overwhelms the tiny stored charge that might have represented digital information. "Light simply destroys the information," says Martin Vetterli, a member of the EPFL team.

With the release of "2012," the iPhone app tied to the forthcoming Sony Pictures film of the same name, a group of developers may have kicked off the future of games on the hit smartphone.

While the game itself is fairly simple and lasts just minutes, it incorporates features that may never have been tried before, and as such, could be among the small number of titles that are showcasing what will soon be considered par for the course.

In the minds of many industry observers, thanks to its integration of a functional operating system, an accelerometer, GPS and a camera, and the fact that thousands of developers, big and small, have released games for the iPhone, the Apple device has already surpassed Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS as the most important, or at least most adaptable, portable gaming platform.

As of last week the Playstation Store is the only place PSPgo owners can go to pick up their games. Just how do the prices of the Sony-operated online store compare to the prices of the same games sold as used at retailers?

We checked with four online retailers and online shopping services to see how their prices compared to the ones found in the online Playstation Store. The results? A little surprising.

From Stock Z2 to Fully Flashed with Audio, Fluxbox, Mouse, Aliosa27’s Latest Userland

Here is a video Mark and I made of the complete flashing and installation process, and a tour of the new userland features.

For those following along at home, the required setup artifacts are below. You will need

* Your zipit z2
* A linux computer with an internet connection (to download the packages below) and gparted installed
* A microSD card

A controversial cooker that 'grows' meat and fish by heating animal cells in your kitchen claimed first prize in the Electrolux design competition tonight.

The invention, called Cocoon, could develop food with the make-up and nutrients of real meat.

Mr Hederstierna, 27, said: 'This will create 100 per cent pure meat without the need for animals to be killed and with no risk of contamination. It will change everything.'

The way consumers will get the three free games is this:

(1) Purchase a new PSPgo and connect it to the PlayStation Network
(2) Load up a UMD in the older PSP unit and then connect it to the PSN as well, registering the UMD
(3) Download a new PSPgo theme and wait for the UMD voucher offering 3 free games.

Read that again: you must still have the old PSP model to retrieve the free games. That certainly blows any kind of trade-in for the PSPgo out of the water.

According to the press release, the required UMD doesn't seem to be locked in to any particular title, however Sony has limited the list of free titles to sixteen games. These include Killzone Liberation, Medievil, Wipeout Pure, Buzz Brain Bender, Buzz Master Quiz, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Everybody’s Golf, Resistance: Retribution, Syphon Filter Dark Mirror, Lemmings, LocoRoco, Patapon, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, Echochrome, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice, and Daxter.

$50 Rebate on Xbox 360 Elite Console Purchase!

You can get a $50 rebate on the purchase of a new Xbox 360® Elite Console from September 22 to October 5, 2009. Not only does Xbox 360 play the best games and provide quality entertainment, but now you can sign up for a mail-in rebate for even greater savings. If you’ve purchased a new console and want to claim your $50 rebate, follow all of the steps below:

1. Visit the Xbox 360 Elite Console rebate site.
2. Enter 49710555 as your password.
3. Be sure that you meet all the requirements as defined in the Mail-in Rebate form.
4. Your mailed-in submission must be postmarked no later than November 20, 2009.

And enjoy your new Xbox 360 Elite Console!

Will leaving your notebook constantly plugged-in kill your battery faster? Gina Trapani is exploring the issue after a friend's battery wouldn't charge after only two years. Though HP and Dell support pages weren't quite definitive, Apple clearly cautions against it:

On a page dedicated to maximizing your MacBook's battery life and lifespan, Apple says:

"Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month. Need a reminder? Add an event to your desktop's iCal."

Ok... I am so sick and tired of this. Apple is wrong. Unless they have completely fucked up their own laptops, they are wrong. Modern electronics do not continuously overcharge li ion batteries once they're full.

How does a li ion battery lose capacity? 1) constant loss as soon as it's made, 2) discharge/charge cycles, 3) the heat from the device itself - regardless of whether it's plugged in. Source.

Worse yet, Apple recommends completely discharging the battery every month. This is completely wrong. Source.

I don't know if the Apple techs are 1) stupid or 2) lying, but if you follow their advice, you will actually hurt your battery and you'll be forced to replace it sooner. Gee willickers, that would mean you'd have to pay Apple more money. Gosh, that couldn't possibly be their motive, could it?

The big question: Can the Zune HD compete with the iPod Touch? I get the sense that Microsoft isn't trying to, exactly.

While the Touch and its apps are a multi use pocket computer, the Zune HD is an evolution of the PMP–not a devolution of some smartphone model. Every new feature it has is used to expand the way you absorb media, from the HD video output to the HD radio to the redesigned UI.

The Zune HD is not a simple curved rectangle with a screen, like the iPod Touch, but a resolutely industrial, luxurious, angular and slim design. From the angled back to the visible screws to the long and thin home button, the Zune HD is a look all its own.

Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different – dare we say harder? – than pounding out the push-ups.

We're standing on the cusp of a new chapter in video game history: the era of microgames, where titles $10 and under take on a starring role, and attach rates (that is, games sold per console) skyrocket.

The charge is being led by Apple with its iPhone and iPod Touch, two devices without gaming as their stated purpose, both of which have found unmatched success in the downloadable gaming industry. The other video game consoles have their own "app stores," where games can be downloaded directly to the system, but none have reached the heights that the iTunes App Store has...yet.

At the annual iPod refresh last week, Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller said, "When you think about the companies that came before us... when you played those other systems, they seemed so cool, but now when you look at them, they don't stack up against the iPod Touch."

No sooner does MWeston have the goods delivered to his door, he begins deliverin’ ‘em to ours. This is the second TV out test broadcasted from north of the border, but the first to showcase the sweet snap-in action of a mass production cable. Hit the HQ button for maximum maxness, then celebrate with some (unrelated) 70’s metal.

The Zune as we know it is going the way of the dodo, and its replacement is of course the Zune HD. "As you know, the new Zune HD device–featuring a touch OLED screen, HD Radio, HD video out capabilities, Internet browser and more–is available for preorder now and will be available at retail on September 15," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "Additional flash Zune devices (Zune 4GB, 8GB and 16GB) and hard drive devices (80GB and 120GB) will continue to be available at retail until sold out, though we will not continue to manufacture those devices."

The spokesperson also touted Microsoft's upcoming Zune software and service and the arrival of Zune video on Xbox Live this autumn. The software giant intends to provide a "great entertainment experience through software and services across multiple screens and devices."

When Ars asked if the Zune 4.0 software would be available for the old Zunes, the Microsoft spokesperson said "yes" and also noted that more details about updates to the software will be revealed soon.