It had to happen at some point. After all, Apple can never go for long without some controversy. The latest issue is the big security hole in the iPad 3G that was exploited a few days ago.

The flaw in the iPad, nicknamed ‘iLeak’, was exploited by a web security group that exploited weaknesses in the AT&T network. The group was able to access over 100,000 iPads which were on AT&T’s 3G network. The information that was extracted was the user’s email address and the ICC-ID which authenticates the user and grants access to the network. Doesn’t sound like a big deal? Think spam, think lots of spam. Now think about the early birds who jumped at the thought of getting an iPad 3G and not an iPad Wi-Fi. People like Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Janet Robinson – CEO of New York Times and Rahm Emanuel, and yes, the guy who just happens to be the White House Chief of Staff.

The incident is embarrassing to both AT&T as well as Apple. Both have a lot to lose from it and in that aspect, AT&T has quickly plugged up their side of the hole. So far there has been no comment from Apple and no news on whether they are releasing an update to the OS.

The iPad 3G was released on the overwhelming success of the iPad Wi-Fi. This issue could definitely impact the sales of any future iPad3Gs. It also doesn’t do much for the reputation of AT&T which is already berated for its poor connectivity issues.

Skype 2.0 for the iPhone is finally available for download. However, the jubilation experienced by all of those who were waiting for it may be short lived. The free ride has a time limit and that limit may be as close as six months away.

Sunday was the big day for Skype 2.0 app, enabling millions of iPhone users to make calls over their 3G networks for free. The release was a long time coming as the app had been given the go ahead by AT&T last year. Until now, Skype only worked over Wi-Fi which meant that users could not operate the app on the move.

With regards to the iPhone and AT&T, free calls between Skype apps is expected to come to an end in December this year. According to an announcement from Skype, the company will begin charging a small fee after that for the use of the app over a 3G network. The actual amount is thus far unknown. Calls made over Wi-Fi, however, will remain free.

What makes this really bad news for iPhone / Skype fans is that AT&T is going to phase out its unlimited 3G data plans. The new data plans are set at $15 & $25 for 200MB & 2GB of data respectively per month. This effectively puts a spoke in the wheels for any plans of using Skype extensively on the iPhone.

However, the situation can only be realized in the coming months due to certain factors. Apart from the data plan revision, there is the small matter of iPhone 4.0 OS which is expected to come out in a few weeks. The new OS is expected to allow multitasking, which in turn will allow users to be notified of incoming calls when the app is not in the foreground. The other factor is, of course, Skype’s hitherto unknown pricing structure.

Two million iPads in sixty days - that is how many iPads Apple has sold so far. This roughly works out to over Thirty three thousand iPads a day, proving the naysayers wrong. One of those naysayers included Apple’s favorite rival Bill Gates.

Unfortunately for Gates, not only is the iPad selling well but Microsoft’s own Surface technology is far from being ready for release. Even worse news was that the only viable contender to the iPad’s throne, the HP Slate, dropped Windows as its OS and moved onto Palm webOS.

The Windows shaped hole created by the exit of HP created an opportunity for others, namely Asus and MSI. Both manufacturers came out with their contenders at Computex; Asus with its Eee Pad and MSI with the WindPad. The lack of imagination in naming the devices seems to have followed the design process into the devices itself.

The 10 inch Eee Pad will run Windows Embedded Compact 7 and the 12 inch will run Windows 7 Home Premium. MSI will also run Home Premium on their 10 inch WindPad 100 model, but might switch to Android in the next model, the 110. Both have revealed very little other than a few details about processors, RAM and internal storage specs.

Only MSI has said anything about a 2010 release and that too was vague. Asus on the other hand as committed to a 2011 first quarter release. All in all, the signs are not very encouraging and if the HP Slate bombs out (if it is ever released at all) later this year, then the iPad will rule for a long time to come.

iCaramba! That’s what Bart Simpson would say, because even Bart Simpson has a heart. It would be heartless to be rude to an old woman, but it would be downright evil to be rude AND to break the heart of an old disabled woman. But that is exactly what Apple did this week.

According to San Francisco’s KGO-TV, a Palo-Alto Apple store refused to sell an iPad to a disabled woman. The reason? She wanted to pay them the full amount IN CASH!!!

Diane Campbell had been saving up for months so that she could buy an iPad to browse the internet. Once she had enough cash saved up, she dumped it in a backpack and set off to the Apple Store. At the store she picked up a nice looking iPad and went up to the counter to purchase it. That’s when she discovered Apple’s NO CASH policy. Simply put, No plastic-No sale. Like many of the old school Americans, she did not possess a credit card and so she was turned away.

The story has raised a public outcry and directed a lot of anger in Apple’s direction. While the policy may work well online and for the iTunes Store, as a corporate policy it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. Thankfully, after the issue was highlighted, Apple changed the policy a few days later. They have also provided Diane with the iPad she once craved. However, it is sad to note that it took an ugly incident like this for Apple to see the light.

A year ago the Google killer was born… or so it was said at the time. Wolfram Alpha launched with a lot of expectation and much fanfare, but a year later the Wolf is yet to make a kill.

It is sad to note that visitors to the site have actually dropped. Fewer visitors went to the radical search engine this April than they did last May. This perhaps suggests that it was just the curiosity factor that drove traffic there in the first place.

It is actually a shame that it has turned out this way; not that anyone wants Google to be “killed” or any such nonsense. But the fact is Stephen Wolfram, the founder of Wolfram Alpha, wanted to give people a search engine with a true difference. The engine is geared towards computational queries and by curating its results, it provides very authoritative information.

However, this has more or less led to its downfall of sorts. The general public does not feel very comfortable with this type of strategy. To address this, the company is going more “mainstream”. The homepage is being given a revamp and music, sports, health and other pop culture friendly subjects are being added to its repository of information. Stephen Wolfram said that they were building something that could understand what people were saying. The project has now more than doubled the information they started out with, which should go long way in addressing some of the issues they had.

Usually when the big boys hit the courtroom, the small fry have no chance. But in what could be compared to a David versus Goliath situation, LG Display has actually lost a case it brought against AUO and Chi Mei Optoelectronics.

The South Korean arm of LG filed the patent infringement action against the Taiwanese firm in 2006, who in turn filed a counter claim. After four long years, not only did the case go against LG Display, but the proceedings also determined that LG itself had infringed on four patents. The patents are those that deal with

1. Technology that enhance the response times
2. Technology that improves reliability
3. Technology that fixes image defect problems
4. Technology that enables compact form factors (e.g.: Handheld devices, etc).

The ramifications of this ruling will be felt in time to come. But in the immediate future there looms an import ban which AUO and Chi Mei Optoelectronics are trying to get enforced. If the ban comes into effect, it will mean that LG can longer import and sell any device that is deemed to be infringing these patents. This in effect rules out many models of cell phones, LCD TVs, public information displays, notebooks and monitors manufactured by LG. As a result, LG could be staring at millions if not billions in losses ahead.

So far there has been no mention of any settlement. In fact, the press release that was issued later by the plaintiff had no mention of a request of any sort for monetary remuneration.

The spate of suicides at Foxconn continued, as a woman identified as Chu/Zhu took her own life this week. The 24 year old jumped off her apartment block to her death in the city of Shenzhen. The city is home to a 300,000 strong Foxconn factory. Foxconn is the world’s largest assembler of electronics.

According to the Associated Press, the number of suicides at Foxconn this year now stands at eight. The most infamous of these suicides is that of Sun Danyong. He also leapt off of a building after the iPhone 4G prototype incident. Sun was allegedly roughed up by security personnel at Foxconn after the prototype mysteriously went missing. The suicide followed shortly thereafter.

Zhu’s suicide, so far, does not have any apparent technology leak associated with it. Hon Hai Precision Industry, the holding company of Foxconn, stated that police had reported to them that Zhu’s suicide was due to “personal matters”. Nothing further on the matter has been revealed and the incident remains shrouded in mystery. Whether the true reason for the suicide will ever come to light is a question that will be answered in the future.
Foxconn has been suspected of employee abuse in the past. It is suspected that the team Apple sent to investigate matters at an unnamed iPod manufacturer in 2006 was actually sent to Foxconn. The team did not find any substantial evidence other than the forced hours of work the employees were subjected to. The resulting report therefore exonerated the manufacturer.

Intel announced their latest revamp to the Classmate PC. In essence it is a tablet PC which looks like a Netbook, but it is quite formidable if you look closer. It features an Atom N450 processor, a 160 GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, GPS and allows OEM’s to include 3G or WiMax connectivity. It is also EnergyStar 5.0 compliant and is touted as having an eight and a half hour battery life. But the real kicker is the 1366×768 touch screen.

The screen responds to touch and to a stylus. It can also be rotated so that it lies flat on the keyboard, essentially turning it into a tablet PC. Orientation of the screen is automatically handled by an accelerometer. Intel has also made a smart decision by putting the webcam and microphone on a pivot mount, which allows users to capture themselves or the background.

The PC is quite rugged in design and is made of thick plastic so that young users need not be extra careful when using it. The rubberized surface provides users with an excellent grip. The cooling vents have been placed thoughtfully and the stylus has a neat recess that it can go to as well as having a place to be tethered to. The screen also features some buttons around it, which enables certain quick tasks when it is used in the tablet PC mode.

All in all, Intel seems to have done a good job in thinking things through and providing features that appeal to the target market. Look for it to hit the market soon!

Losing a phone is traumatic enough for most people, but if you happen to work for Apple and the phone you lost was a prototype iPhone 4G, then you probably will have a heart attack. Gray Powell recently went to German beer garden to celebrate his 27th birthday and promptly lost his iPhone 4G. The person who found it apparently tried to locate the owner and upon failing to do so sold it to the gadget blog known as Gizmodo.

According to Briam Lam, the editorial director, the iPhone 4G was soon remotely shut down by Apple. This led to the interesting question of what type of control Apple has in store for us with the 4G or even now with the devices we have. After the news broke, Apple sent a letter to Gizmodo asking them to return the device. The website complied after making a few observations.

The prototype has a camera with a bigger lens at the back and includes a flash as well. A front facing camera was also present which hinted at video conferencing capabilities. An extra microphone was also spotted at the top of the device and this will probably be used for noise cancelling purposes.
Although the device looked more “boxy” than the 3GS, it is widely acknowledged that this may not be the final design. There are also several conspiracy theories going on about the find, including one that suggests that this was a plant by Apple to generate interest in the upcoming product.

The Apple iPad is doing well in sales; selling over 300,000 on the first day seems to be a good indication of its popularity. Another good indication is how much the hackers are interested in it. The device was jailbroken in less than a day giving Apple a bittersweet experience. The positive side is that the tech community and hackers want the device and the negative side is that Apple is starting to become a bit like Microsoft, having to release fixes on a fairly regular basis.

The software used to hack the iPad seems to be a variant of “Spirit”, an application that is used to crack iPhones. Apple has not reacted to the reports of the jailbreak and it is not known if users of jailbroken iPads will be treated like some users who have jailbroken Apple products. In the past Apple has rendered devices useless and even banned some users from the Apple App Store.

While all this drama ensues, HP decided to seize the moment and release a tiny sneak peek at the new Slate Tablet. The device in the video appears to be about the same size as the Apple product but in features it differs significantly. It has two cameras, one in front and one behind, and it also has USB and SD card support. None of these features are found on the iPad. The Slate runs Windows 7 as the OS and features touch controls and supports Adobe Flash and Air. The latter software is also not supported on the iPad.