So I heard there was, like, some kinda phone or something being released today. Bunch of people are in line, I heard. I won’t pretend not to be excited about the iPhone 4, even though my current phone contract and general lack of income will disallow my having one for the next several eons. Though if initial reports are any indication, maybe I don’t want one for awhile. While most first shipments are not without their flaws, the iPhone 4 seems to be sporting some pretty ugly ones, and not even counting the apparently easily-cracked screen (what the tits do you think will happen if you go around intentionally…

Got a world class newspaper you want to keep publishing as tastes go digital? The LA Times has, and so it has introduced its rather marvelous and all brand new Los Angeles Times News Reader iPhone app. A $1.99 app which delivers a nice and easy route into all the influential newspaper’s editorial content. There’s no half measures here, no attempt to give readers a tiny morsel of the content to hook them into expensive monthly subscription fees. Not from the LA Times — instead you get news, commentary and photography. Oh, and it has an offline mode so you can read it on the subway. Better yet, the…

Google seems set to stick it to iTunes in an attempt to carve out its own slice of the music market, hoping that by linking music sales up with its dominant search engine it will be able to achieve a content ecosystem designed to support sales of devices powered by its browser-based Android-one-day-Chrome OS. The company is thought to be closing in on launching a music download service, offering tracks for sale and download. This will be followed by the introduction of a subscription-based music service next year (2011), at least, that is what the Wall Street Journal claims. Negotiations aren’t…

Oh dip. This is a sultry unit. Toshiba is celebrating its 25th anniversary by dropping a true iPad killer into the fray. Billed as a ‘concept product’, a limited quantity of the Libretto W100 are being released into the wild as a test to see if consumers will dig it. Hell, I, for one, dig it. Just look at this thing. With a 62gig SSD, 2gigs of RAM, dual 7-inch screens at 1024×600, Bluetooth, WiMAX, and, perhaps most importantly, Windows-goddamn-7, the Libretto W100 sounds a lot like the future of mobile computing we were all hoping the iPad was going to be. This is a real computer, running real, grown-up…

Guys. Guys. You NEED too see this. If there is one thing you need to see today, it is this. I just choked Ensure all over my keyboard. Yeah, I drink Ensure, so what? No, wait, my sullied keyboard is not what you need to see. No, come back, here, I’ll show you. This is iBallz. Possibly the stupidest-looking iPad accessory you’ll ever see, iBallz may also be the most useful. Basically, it protects you iPad from falls. But based on the geometry of this thing, I’m willing to bet it would also protect it from intentional throws. There’s really not much more to say about this thing’s function. That is all. But the…

Or at least a cynical, funny look at the iPad. Apple takes themselves way too seriously, leaving themselves wide open to parody and merrymaking. The iPad is the latest target to be stripped naked and thrashed to within an inch of its life. The video says it all, so watch, enjoy, and go give your iPad a hug right afterwards. Source: YouTube…

In what is quickly becoming an extremely Apple-centric day, Apple has announced its own app to browse its online store. With a new Mac Mini out today and the iPhone 4 now available for pre-order, Apple is having a big day, although perhaps too big, if the “now you see it, now you don’t” availability of the online Apple Store is anything to go by. Apple’s Apple Store app will allow iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users to browse and make purchases from the Apple Store without negotiating the store online. I’ve always wondered why Apple had never made their own site more accessible to iPhone and iPad users….

Apple’s long suffering under-powered Mac Mini is a strange thing, to say the least. Possibly Apple’s most copied design by other PC manufacturers, true Mac users always saw the Mini as an attempt to offer an easy entry point for dubious Windows exiles. But today the Mini earns its stripes, no longer the Mac lineups only white brethren. The new Mini is thinner, gets its own aluminum unibody and loses the heavy power brick that trailed behind it like a ball and chain. The new Mini also gains an HDMI port, a nod to the many users who have adapted Apple’s smallest offering as a media server. It also gains an…

You’re a tech geek. You’re dirty from logging 20 hours a day in your bedroom/office/cubicle/basement in front of things with screens. Dude, you need a bath. Now, I hear your complaints: ‘regular soap is so… un-tech!’ Yeah, I hear that. But last time I attempted to simply blast my naked self with compressed LCD cleaner, it didn’t work so well. An alternative would have to be found. However, thanks to the dude (or dudette? I suffer from geek gender bias – I admit it and I’m sorry) at Two Eggplants, we can finally scrape away the layers of filth keeping the ladies at bay and enjoy a rich social life, all…

Have you ever been to a house and stated in your head “WTF were they thinking?” when judging their design choices? Now with the help of some docking speakers for your iPod/iPhone you can provoke your friends into thinking the same thoughts. The iCrystal by Speakal is a new innovative design as far as docking stations go; backlit Omni directional speakers with an illuminated teardrop giving off a gentle blue light around its rim. They have been compared to alien pods, and its hard not to see why. These orb-like speakers definitely give off the feeling of something that is not from our world. Of…