iPod touch coming in a ‘few weeks’ with dual cameras and Retina Display, suggests John Gruber

By Ross Miller posted Aug 10th 2010 8:13PM

The sun will rise, pigeons will annoy, and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber will get inside scoops on Apple product releases. So it goes. This time he’s touching on, erm, the iPod touch, making an offhand (though firmly declarative) comment on a post about the Dell Streak: “if you wait a few weeks to buy the Touch, you’ll get one with a Retina Display and dual cameras.” The man’s not one to fool around with such matters, so we tend to believe him here. It also helps that nothing he’s saying would be really surprising — a new iPod in September? With features trickled down from the most recent iPhone? Then again, that camera has proved elusive before.

via iPod touch coming in a ‘few weeks’ with dual cameras and Retina Display, suggests John Gruber — Engadget.

Its confusing enough… Here is a great chart for the latest smartphones.  The carrier costs are US, but its still a decent comparison if you are looking for a new smartphone.

If you’re in the market for a current generation smartphone all the new features and specs can be confusing at best. This extensive—but easy to read!—chart will help you navigate the world of smartphone features and specifications.

Lifehacker reader Apollo Clark is in the market for a new smartphone. Tired of trying to juggle specs in his head and keep all the features straight he made this awesome chart to map out features and specs. His chart goes into significantly more detail than the BillShrink chart we shared with you earlier this month.

Thinking of getting a new smartphone? Awesome! Sadly, there are so many choices, it's hard to figure out what really matters. We have the iPhone 4, EVO 4G, Droid X, all new and ready to go, but which one is best for you?

After looking across the internet for a few weeks, I've created an easy to read and thorough infographic to help you figure it all out. This chart includes specifications and model numbers for the exact hardware running in all of these devices, and benchmarks for each so that you know just how powerful these phones really are. Is your smartphone as powerful as the Nintendo 3DS, or a PS2? Can it stream 1080p to your HDTV wirelessly? Find out now!

Note: Based on the feedback he received here, Apollo updated the chart to version 2.0. We've updated this post accordingly.

Click on the image above to enlarge the chart to full viewing size and check out the detailed comparisons Apollo put together including processors, memory, storage, display size and resolution, battery capacity, cellular radio, video output capability, and more.Thanks for sharing your chart with us Apollo!

via Smartphone Comparison Chart Compares Extensive Smartphone Specs.

I’m not actually contemplating this, but it is an interesting trend.   Facebook isn’t going to loose significant amounts of users, but the backlash from recent privacy issues sure is getting some attention.

New Facebook fad: QuittingAmber MacArthur

The latest trend in the tech world doesn't involve sharing what you buy on Blippy or lining up in the rain for the iPad. It involves Facebook. No, not hanging out on Facebook, but kicking it to the curb. Tech guru Leo Laporte, a good friend of mine, recently ditched the world's number one social networking site with a live audience cheering him on.Laporte and a small group of prominent Internet celebs are choosing to leave Facebook after a number of security issues, such as a recent hole in chat functionality that let your friends view your conversations. The company has gained a reputation — fairly or not — for showing a lack of concern for users' personal info. If you think it's easy to delete your account, Facebook actually makes it tough to go all the way in other words, you can easily deactivate your profile, but that only temporarily hides your info.

via New Facebook fad: Quitting – The Globe and Mail.

Think about it! Easy or even automatic page turns, an endless library saved as PDF, visual and audio metronomes: The iPad, with an app like ForScore, is kind of the ultimate sheet music machine, no?When people talk about what the iPad's going to be good for, most people jump to the obvious choices: It's going to revolutionize newspapers! And magazines! It might. It'll be great for watching videos! It probably won't. But really, it's the little markets, mostly untouched by the often too-small iPhone. I'm talking about comics. Drum machines. Sheet music.The iPad Is Perfect for Sheet MusicIt's these little nooks that make the prospect of what amounts to a medium-sized piece of touchable glass most exciting, not the obvious—and hyperbolic—predictions about stuff that already has a digital presence. Bring on the niche, iPad devs. [ForScore]

via The iPad Is Perfect for Sheet Music – Forscore – Gizmodo.

Canadian internet slow, expensive: HarvardLast Updated: Monday, February 22, 2010 | 5:41 PM ET Comments338Recommend254By Peter Nowak, CBC NewsCanada ranks 19th out of 30 countries in broadband internet after measures such as speed and price are taken into account.Canada ranks 19th out of 30 countries in broadband internet after measures such as speed and price are taken into account. Jim Hannon/Associated PressA new report from Harvard University says that contrary to what the CRTC states, Canada has some of the slowest and most expensive internet access in the developed world.”Our company-level pricing study for the highest-speed offers in the countries we observe here locates all of the Canadian companies but one in the cluster with the slowest speeds and highest prices,” said the report from the university's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.”Canada continues to see itself as a high performer in broadband, as it was early in the decade, but current benchmarks suggest that this is no longer a realistic picture of its comparative performance on several relevant measures.”A report from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission last year found that Canada was a broadband leader among G7 nations.But the Harvard report graded broadband internet access in terms of household and population penetration, speed and price across the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Canada ranked 19th over all, ahead of countries such as Australia and Ireland but behind the United States and leaders Sweden, Denmark and Japan.

via CBC News – Technology & Science – Canadian internet slow, expensive: Harvard.

Canada Mirrors U.S. Broadband Policy, Gets Same Crap ResultsLetting your wealthiest ISPs run government? Shockingly not a great idea…01:09PM Monday Feb 22 2010 by Karl Bodetags: competition · coverage · business · Op/Ed · legislation · world · consumers · Bell Sympatico · TekSavvy Solutions Inc.We've often talked about how Canada was actually seeing some significant growth in their broadband sector early on, with users seeing faster speeds at fairly reasonable prices. The country also consistently ranked very high in the global broadband penetration rankings — despite the evil bogeyman known as “geography” — which many here in the states use to justify the United States' broadband failings. Things were going well for Canadian broadband. But then Canada decided to start mirroring United States broadband policy.That would be fine if the United States actually had a broadband policy. The problem has been that for a decade the United States broadband policy consisted of letting the biggest carriers have whatever they wanted taxpayer subsidies with no strings or accountability, fewer price controls, fewer consumer protections, laws banning towns from wiring themselves with broadband, any merger they saw fit, and then just hoping that telecom Utopia magically blossomed from the ashes.Click for full sizeWhile proponents of such policies pretended they were simply trying to unleash a “free market,” the reality was that investors, lobbyists and executives were busily creating uncompetitive monopoly and duopoly markets, where the biggest carriers literally wrote the laws that governed the competitive landscape. While carriers pretended to love the free market and loathe regulation, they were working tirelessly to impose burdensome regulation upon smaller competitors.Unsurprisingly, this resulted in less competition. Less competition unsurprisingly resulted in U.S. consumers seeing some of the slowest speeds and highest prices among most developed nations. It also resulted in the slow but steady death of independent ISPs, who could barely afford to build their own networks, much less navigate the political minefield created by lawmakers leashed by companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

via Canada Mirrors U.S. Broadband Policy, Gets Same Crap Results – Letting your wealthiest ISPs run government? Shockingly not a great idea… – dslreports.com.

XM Canada iPhone app now available from iTunesPosted by digitalhome on December 1, 2009 · 6 Comments xm_canada_iphone_appXM Canada today announced that its Apple iPhone or iPod touch application for satellite radio subscribers in Canada is now available at the iTunes Canada App store.The app employs the same interface as the Sirius Canada iPhone app released two weeks ago and the same interface as the Sirius XM app released in the U.S. in June.Through the XM application, subscribers can access over 100 stations from XM Canada including NHL Home Ice and MLB Home plate.The application is free from the Canadian iTunes app store, however, in order to use it, XM satellite radio subscribers will need to spend an additional $3 per month to listen. If you are not an XM Canada subscriber, you can subscribe to the app only version for $8 per month.

via XM Canada iPhone app now available from iTunes : Digital Home.

State to ‘spy’ on every phone call, email and web searchEvery phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies. By Richard Edwards, Crime CorrespondentPublished: 7:00AM GMT 10 Nov 2009All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors. Related Articles Snooping powers: for and against Child support investigators get new spying powers Mother condemns council for school places spying missionThey will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

via State to ‘spy’ on every phone call, email and web search – Telegraph.

Google: Rupert Murdoch can block us if he wants toGoogle has clarified that it will not index publishers against their wishes, in response to Rupert Murdoch’s threat to block the search engine from his newspapers’ websites. By Emma Barnett, Technology and Digital Media CorrespondentPublished: 5:51PM GMT 09 Nov 2009Comments 46 | Comment on this articleGoogle logo: Google responds to Rupert MurdochA Google spokesman says it is a simple technical procedure to remove material from its search index. Photo: GOOGLEA spokesman for the search giant said: “Google News and web search are a tremendous source of promotion for news organisations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute.“Publishers put their content on the web because they want it to be found, so very few choose not to include their material in Google News and web search. But if they tell us not to include it, we don’t.” Related Articles Murdoch could ban Google access to papers’ content Rupert Murdoch is a marxistMr Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, told one of his own news channels, Sky News Australia, at the weekend, he is considering removing his newspapers’ content from Google’s search index when his company begins charging for content online. This will be in a bid to encarouge the practice of paying for content online, which has previously been free to consumers.The Google statement said the procedure to remove any material from its search index required “simple technical standards, used by millions of webmasters and honored by all reputable search engines, to instruct a search engine not to index a web page or even a particular photo on a page”.“If publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically all they need to do it tell us,” the statement concluded.Mr Murdoch, whose newspapers include The Times and The Sun, told Sky News Australia: “I think we will [remove our websites from Google’s search index] but that’s when we start charging.”He added: “The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories – they just take them. That’s Google, that’s Microsoft, that’s Ask.com, a whole lot of people … they shouldn’t have had it free all the time, and I think we’ve been asleep.”Last week Mr Murdoch warned that his plans to charge for access to content across all of his newspaper sites, by the end of next June, could now be delayed.During a conference call to discuss News Corporation’s first quarter financial results, the media magnate said he couldn’t promise to meet his own deadline – but did say it remained a work in progress and “we are all working very hard” on delivering the pay solution.There is already a partial paywall in place on one of his newspaper sites, The Wall Street Journal. Web users without a subscription can only access the first paragraph of articles if they arrive via the newspaper’s site. However, if they access an article via a link posted on Google, unsubscribed readers can see the full copy.

via Google: Rupert Murdoch can block us if he wants to – Telegraph.

Canadians, rejoice: Skype for iPhone is here

Skype’s iPhone app is finally coming to Canada.As of Wednesday, Canadian iPhone and iPod Touch users will be able to join the 6-million-and-counting users who have already downloaded one of the most popular applications in the world.Skype’s iPhone app iTunes download is essentially a slightly more stripped down version of its desktop software that allows users to make free or relatively low-cost phone calls over the Web. The app allows users to make “Skype-to-Skype” calls – essentially, one Skype user calling another – for free. The app also enables calls to land lines and mobile phones at a rate lower than that of most major carriers.There’s a catch, though. You need to be in a WiFi zone to make a Skype call.While the app lets you send and receive instant messages over a 3G network, the calling features require WiFi. Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped plenty of industrious hackers from trying to get Skype to run on 3G, even before Skype officially became available in Canada.

via Canadians, rejoice: Skype for iPhone is here – The Globe and Mail.