Wsup in Tech

The New iPad (or 3rd generation iPad)

Retina display 2048x1536)

A5X dual-core processor with quad-core GPU

5MP backlit sensor iSight camera with 1080p recording

4G LTE on Verizon and AT&T (in the US)

iOS 5.1

Dictation input

10-hour battery life, 9 hours with 4G

Same pricing as iPad 2, available March 16th. 

iPad 2 lineup reduced to 16GB Wi-Fi only and 3G+Wi-fi for $399 and $529

Now offering AppleCare+ for iPad for $99 to cover accidental damages

4G LTE data plan pricing same as 3G

Apple TV

Apple TV now with A5 processor, supports 1080p videos

New UI for easier navigation

Genius feature built in

Now able to stream purchased movies as well as TV shows and music

Same $99 price, available on March 16th

iOS

App store cellular downloads now upped to 50MB

iOS 5.1 available now with improved battery life, Japanese Siri (iPhone 4S only), bug fixes, and AT&T iPhone 4S' now shows 4G on HSPA+

New iOS Configurator tools for Mac for better iOS devices management

Updated GarageBand app adding Jam Session feature and iMovie adding support for movie trailer planning-shooting-processing

New iPhoto app to enable multitouch photo editing and Photo Journal to share photo albums; completing the iLife family on iOS devices

Apple using its own Mapping services on iOS iPhoto app

iTunes

iTunes Terms and Services changed to include demo licensing

Google announced a new service Google Play, which makes it a one stop shot for all things music, books, videos, and Android apps. There is also a play.google.com site where users can access their purchased contents there. This essentially makes it a one-stop shop for online contents and makes it available all across the web without having to sync.

New iPad announcement tomorrow, 10 AM PST, Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco.

Here's the rumors round up:

Retina display

Supports Verizon and AT&T 4G LTE

Thicker than iPad 2

8MP rear camera, improved front camera

Called iPad HD instead of iPad 3

AppleCare+ Protection Plan will cover new iPad accidental damages

To be available on 3/16

Costs the same as current iPad lineup, and all iPad 2's will reduce $100

You can follow live coverage of the iPad announcement on the following sites:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/06/engadget-broadcasting-live-apple-ipad-3-tomorrow/

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/6/2848402/apple-ipad-3-ipad-hd-live

Google has pushed an update of its Google Wallet app in hope to resolve its debacle of Google Wallet security issues discovered a few weeks ago. The app now warns rooted users that their devices will not be supported though the app still works fine. Also, the same issue that allowed cracking PIN number on rooted devices still exists. 

Google has enabled Android Market limit to allow downloading two 2GB files for extra app resources. This enables developers to push entire app+data through Android Market instead of through in-app downloads. This will benefit the most for apps that use a lot of extra data resources such as gaming and navigation maps.

CNET and VentureBeat claim that the next generation iPad Apple is announcing on Wednesday will be called iPad HD instead of iPad 3. The HD represents the high-definition retina display on the new iPad. The new iPad is also speculated to support LTE 4G as well.

AT&T planning to shut down 2G services to make room for 3G, 4G expansion

Apple's App Store reached 25 billion app downloads

Windows Phone 7.5 Tango heading to China, confirmed by HTC

Apple does use Corning's Gorilla Glass on iPhone, Gorilla Glass 2 coming to iPhone 5?

Canon announced the successor of 5D Mark II with the Mark III. The 5D Mark III features a 22.3MP full frame sensor, Digic 5 processor, with 25,600 standard ISO and 1080p 24/25/30 fps and 720p 24/25/30/50/60 fps. It will be available in late March for $3500.

Microsoft released the consumer preview version of Windows 8 yesterday. The company today announced that more than a million copies have been downloaded within a day.

AT&T revised its throttling policy on unlimited data plan today. The new policy now states that speed throttling will begin after an unlimited data plan user uses more than 3GB of HSPA+ data or 5GB of LTE data.

MLB At Bat 2012 is now available on all app stores. The app itself is free, which gives you access to game scores but the subscription to MLB.tv is required to watch the streaming games on mobile apps. Or you can pay $3 a month or $15 a year for audio streaming. To get full video streaming and shebangs, it'll run you $120 a year for the MLB.tv Premium subscription. But still, it's a good deal for die-hard baseball fans.

The $35 Linux computer is now on sale. Well, kind of. The first batch is gone, and distributors are taking contact infos to notify you when stocks come in. In case you don't know, the Raspberry Pi is a computer that runs on a 700MHz ARM processor with 256MB of RAM, with onboard HDMI, Ethernet (Model B only), RCA video out, two USB ports (Model B only), and a SD card slot for storage, and a micro USB port for power. All of this in a credit card size board.

Microsoft has released the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for download on its website. 

System Requirements

Windows 8 Consumer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows 7:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster

RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

To use touch, you need a tablet or monitor that supports multitouch

To access Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768

To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768

ISO image file download page: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

The Pirate Bay has stopped hosting torrent files on its servers. The site now serves torrents via magnet links two years later after its first announcement due to lack of magnet link supports on bittorrent clients. This transition helps The Pirate Bay to be less likely to be shut down due to 'copyright infringements' because there would be no torrent files being served by TPB.

Nothing much has changed to people who download torrents. Instead of downloading a .torrent file, now you just click on a link and it opens up your torrent client to start the download.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said to group of investors that they are working on family shared data plan and it should start rolling out in mid-year. Shammo also stated that this change involves in complicated backend system changes and is not available for everyone on day one, it will be a gradual rollout. 

Apple today sent out the invitation to journalists for the next generation iPad announcement at 10 AM PST on March 7th in Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco. On the invitation seems to be an iPad with retina display and no home button. The invitation also says "We have something you really have to see. And touch." 

AT&T is hoping to relay the rising data charges from customers directly to app developers. More and more apps require internet access to be usable. AT&T wants to relay the cost of data usage from the end users to app developers. App developers will be charged for users' data usage of the app and be labeled 'No Network Usage'.

So AT&T is not done charging ridiculous amount of money from users with lousy services. They are going after app developers as well. This is just dumb. Only AT&T would come up with this kind of sh***y ideas.