Japan was supposed to have their iPad 2 launch weeks ago, but was pushed back due to the disaster that struck Japan on March 11. Now Japan finally gets its iPad 2 launches, together with their close neighbour Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Japan will be getting their launch on Thursday, April 28, while Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE will have their iPad 2 launches on April 29, Friday. Yes, boys and girls, its tomorrow 9AM, so you better get your books and food and camp ready for tonight’s camping.

China on the other hand will have their iPad 2 launch a week later, which is Friday May 6.

SOURCE via Apple

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?

Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

That’s the question that Apple answered, and that’s how they answered. As usual, being ignorant at its best, that’s how Apple rolls. The issue that has spark quite some controversy has finally get into Apple’s ears and Cupertino has finally given an official statement regarding this issue.

Apple says that it does not, and has no plans to, track users’ iPhones. What it’s actually doing is “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location,” which are then used to provide speedier calculation of your position when you want to use the device’s maps or other location-based services. The data collection that was recently brought to the public attention represents, according to Apple, the location of WiFi hotspots and cell towers around you, not your actual iPhone.

The good thing is that Apple has considered the fact ‘iPhones have been shown to store as much as a year’s worth of data’ a bug, and plans to limit that period to a week in a future software update. The additional issue of data being collected after users turned off Location Services is also a bug, also to be fixed by Apple in that upcoming update.

Of course, Apple has ignored another question of “why only now”, as experts have known about this ‘bug’ since September last year. Still, it’s a good thing that Apple will be patching this very soon, and even promised that the update will be coming over the next few weeks, while the next major iteration of iOS should encrypt the cache file.

And one last thing. In Apple’s statement, one particular information have been disclosed, that is “Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.”

Looks like it’s not only Apple that’s going to launch a white smartphone this weekend, as something white and big is also coming from the direction of South Korea. It’s white, and it’s big. That’s the new LG Optimus Big. LG’s latest Android smartphone is called the Big as the 4.3-inch screen cannot be mistaken.

The specs of this B.I.G. should not be taken lightly too, as LG has thrown in a 1GHz dual-core processor, a slightly skinned Android 2.2 as its OS, HDMI output, a 5 megapixel camera, and 16GB of built-in storage.

You might think that this is just a white Optimus 2X, but the Big’s getting features that the latter doesn’t have. That’s the NOVA display, which can crank all the way up to 700 nits of brightness, and WiFi Direct, which allows for wireless inter-device communication without the need for an intermediary WiFi access point.

Coming April 28th, which means that you don’t have to wait until summer or fall for a dual-core smartphone.

SOURCE via BGR

BlackBerry World conference is fast approaching, and CrackBerry is the first to spark the rumour. This time, it’s about RIM’s mobile OS. It ain’t getting the QNX treatment just yet, but insiders are saying that RIM will be launching its OS 6.1 very soon, but will instead rebrand that particular update completely as BlackBerry 7, making us wonder if this update is that majestic.

However, the site also speculates that current phones running BB6 may not get any BB7 action right off the bat — which could make sense, given that new features like NFC are only present in upcoming devices. All these are of course very early stage rumours so things may change along the timeline.

SOURCE via Crackberry

We’ve heard a few weird names for the chipset which will replace the still-mighty Intel X58 chipset, and it’s now confirmed to be called the X79 chipset. This chipset will be using the LGA2011, and will be needed for the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processors.

The platform replaces the current LGA1366 with X58 chipset, providing an upgrade path for high-end enthusiasts and workstation users. Memory support will move up to quad-channel DDR3-1333, so where the current Bloomfield can provide up to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth at the specified tri-channel DDR3-1066, LGA2011 kicks that figure up to 42.7GB/s—a 66% increase. The additional memory bandwidth should be particularly useful with certain workloads on the hex-core chips.

The X79 chipset will include native support for SATA 6Gbps, up to 10 ports and 4 additional SATA 3Gbps ports, while USB 3.0 support is still missing. Let’s just pray hard that Intel suddenly come to their sense and add Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 for X79 chipset. The X79 will natively support dual x16 PCI-Express graphics, or quad x8 graphics, but this time the PCI-E lanes come directly from the CPU instead of going through the chipset, thus making latency to GPU access even lower.

There’s another extra, as the CPU (chipset) has the option to use four additional PCI-E lanes from the PCH dedicated to storage bandwidth, presumably to help with performance on fast SATA 6Gbps devices (e.g. SSDs). So expect a marginal boost of SSD performance on X79 chipset.

There’s no mention of whether Intel will stick to QPI, or use the slightly cost effective DMI 2.0. Then again, DMI 2.0 only provides up to 20Gbps between the CPU and chipset, which doesn’t seem to be enough as 10 SATA 6Gbps ports with fast SSDs would easily saturate that.

Sandy Bridge E seems to be a very exciting platform, but let’s not forget that you’ll face a strong dilemma when the first 22nm CPU Ivy Bridge platform goes live shortly after SNB-E platform.

SOURCE via Anandtech

We’ve seen blockbuster movies going from sequel to sequel, and it seemed that Samsung is getting ready to do just the same. Their flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S, sold 10 million units worldwide, and how do they relive their next successor to a greater height? They’re gonna launch a bigger-budget sequel to an even wider audience.

Samsung is holding a media day event in South Korea to celebrate the domestic launch of its smokin’ fast Galaxy S II handset. The dual-core 1.2GHz Gingerbread handset with 4.27-inch 800 x 480 pixel Super AMOLED Plus display, TouchWiz 4.0 UI, MHL port, and 8 megapixel camera capable of 1080p video is already on limited sale in the UK on its way to a 120 country / 140 carrier invasion — that’s plus 10 countries over the initial Galaxy S target.

This is the time to decide guys, going for the now-unimpressive white knight iPhone 4, or this new super model from Samsung.

SOURCE via Samsung

Google Docs have been having a mobile-friendly version for quite some time now, but Google has finally gone the extra step and released a dedicated Android app for all you Google armies. This app will give you a better access to edit you documents on your smartphone, but the coolest yet is the ability to capture text with your phone’s camera and have it instantly made editable thanks to some optical character recognition. Now that’s what I call innovative idea. This reminds me of my old Canon software that scans and converts my printed documents into editable word documents. Of course, Google did mention that it won’t work on some complicated fonts and also handwritings, but they’ll improve it over time. Kudos to Google.

SOURCE via Google

As Valve’s Portal 2 was just launched, many gamers were looking forward to this long weekend of Labor’s Day and try out Portal 2’s online co-op mode using Sony’s PSN, but were disappointed to wake up to yet another day of “server is currently down for maintenance” message.

The PlayStation blog is filled with reader comments like, “E[a]ster weekend is goin to suck completely,” and “I was really looking forward to playing some Portal 2 co-op, but I guess I’ll just finish up the single player campaign,” and “This is what happens when you like Steam and the Playstation Network together. Pretty obvious who’s behind this – GLaDOS.”

Sony’s PSN breach issue is causing a big ruckus all over the world. US, Canada, and England is already asking an open inquiry into the ongoing PlayStation Network outage and data leak, which could potentially lead to the theft of up to 77 million PSN users’ personal information.

Speculation is running rampant that hacker group Anonymous is actually continuing its attacks, but according to VGN365 Anonymous is not responsible for the PSN downtime everyone is currently experiencing.

Reuters reports that Sony has contacted the San Diego office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cybercrimes unit to look into the data breach. The news service could not get public comment, but did cite unnamed sources as saying say the law enforcement body was investigating the matter.

The attack on PSN is not going to be easy to deluge away for Sony, as not only governments around the world are seeking inquiries, but even more hurdles are on the way. Earlier today, the first lawsuit over the matter was filed, with an Alabama man seeking class-action status on behalf of all PlayStation users whose accounts may have been compromised.

Due to the beef with Sony, Anonymous member Kato stated that the hacking group is currently preparing another attack against Sony, and it’ll be scheduled to happen when the PlayStation Network is back online. If Sony gets PSN running only to have it break down again right away from an Anonymous attack, consumer backlash could be huge.

SOURCE via Reuters