See the picture above? The date shows ‘4^th’ which falls on Tuesday, and that’s next Tuesday which is the 4^th of October, the time is 10AM sharp, and the map shows 280, which is actually the location for Apple’s headquarter, the One Infinite Loop, which is at Infinite Loop Street. And oh, there’s one miss call, I wonder who called. And well, the all important thing in this picture is the tagline, which says “Let’s talk iPhone”. Yes, it’s the launch event of Apple’s next iPhone.

Talks about the next iPhone begin since early this year, and boy the rumors sure went wild flying. Originally thought to be launching in June during WWDC (because that’s Apple’s traditional iPhone refresh period), the company has remained quiet about its iPhone plans all year, leading to months of rumors regarding the iPhone 5 (and possibly even iPhone 4S). However, it seems Apple is finally ready to introduce us to Cupertino’s next breed of smartphone.

Apple today confirmed the previously-rumored October 4 press event. As we’d heard before, the event will be taking place at Apple headquarters, as opposed to the usual San Francisco location that is the Buena Vista Center for the Arts. Apple didn’t say much in the invite, but we do know that it’s an iPhone event just by looking at the ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ tagline.

With Apple supposedly planning an event for next week, it looks like staffs are getting refused vacation for certain dates.

We’ve all heard the rumors about Apple’s plans to launch the iPhone 5 in October, and these were recently bolstered by reports that AT&T was rejecting all applications for vacation time during the last two weeks of September “due to an event blackout.” Now, there are rumors that Apple is blocking off October vacations for staff.

Apple Insider reports that the Cupertino-based company is rejecting all applications from retail staff seeking vacation time in the second week of October. A source that spoke to the site said that for some locations, the iPhone maker has blacked out vacation time for employees from October 9th through 12th and October 14th through 15th. AI anticipates that the first block, October 9 through 12, is for the release of iOS 5 for existing iOS users. The second block, October 14 – 15, is likely for the new iPhone(s).

Apple is thought to be holding an event at its Cupertino campus on October 4, which is next Tuesday, so we don’t have long to wait before we get some answers.

SOURCE via Apple Insider

Back in July, Samsung announced that it had shipped a massive five million Galaxy S2 units despite the fact that the phone had yet to even launch in the United States. A couple of months on and shipments are evidently still strong, as Samsung has revealed that it has since doubled July’s numbers. Speaking via an official press release, the company said the number of channel sales has now reached 10 million.

“Since its launch in late April 2011, the GALAXY S II has seen continued sales success, demonstrating Samsung’s industry-leading capabilities in – and commitment to – the smartphone market,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business.

While it’s important to note that ‘channel sales’ don’t necessarily translate to customer sales, the fact that Samsung has shifted 10 million Galaxy S2s is impressive and indicates a high level of demand for the handset. The Galaxy S2 hit the United States earlier this month, following an August unveiling. There’s some slight design variations depending on the network (as you can see in the image above), and Sprint has dubbed it the Epic 4G Touch, but other than that, it’s the same phone on all three networks.

SOURCE via Android Central

According to the American Diabetes Association, a staggering 25.8 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes. While some cases are more severe than others, it goes without saying that living with diabetes can become very troublesome. Constantly pricking fingers for glucose testing and insulin injections can become quite a bother.

Hoping to ease the lifestyle of diabetics, scientists at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo are currently researching a new way to monitor blood glucose levels that may help diabetics get back to their normal lives. The researchers have begun testing on glowing glucose monitors that are implanted under a thin layer of skin.

The implants are as small as 1mm in diameter and can be injected into the skin with very little pain and removed like a splinter with a simple pair of tweezers. When implanted into the skin, the monitors will become sensitive to changes in glucose levels and immediately glow when blood sugar spikes to dangerous levels. Currently, the implants have been shown to work reliably in mice for 140 days so a human version may not be too far down the line.

It was only a matter of time before someone bent the full brunt of their mechanical might toward creating a full-scale, operational version of the light cycle from Tron: Legacy. That someone just happened to be the crew from Parker Brothers Choppers. Using lithium-ion batteries and a 96-volt electric motor, the guys built a real-life version of the bikes made famous by the first Tron. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, they’re also giving one of the bikes away to one very lucky fan.

If you want to claim a light cycle as your very own, all you have to do is craft a brief, three-minute video describing why you deserve to take the cycle home as your very own, don’t do anything illegal or dangerous while filming it and get chosen out of the hordes of other sci-fi fans itching to get their paws on the machine. It’s that simple. Hit the jump to check out a video of the light cycle whirring around a mall parking lot, and head over to the Parker Brothers site for more information on the giveaway.

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AMD is expanding its GPU product line in the embedded space. The company just announced the E6460 embedded discrete GPU, which complements the higher-performing E6760. Compared to the E6760′s 480 shaders, the E6460 has only 160, and has to work with only 512 MB GDDR5 memory instead of 1 GB and supports only four instead of six displays.

AMD pitches the graphics processors as products for casino gaming, digital signage, kiosks, point-of-sale (POS) and industrial measurement and controls applications. While it is not exactly a screamer, the E6460 is sold as a solution for products that will have to be in service over a longer period of time. AMD said that it is offering 5 years of guaranteed supply and support.

Toshiba has announced a new line of Canvio external hard drives featuring a USB 3.0 interface and support for cloud storage. Now available today nationally in retail stores and via online outlets, the new Canvio 3.0 line offers 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB models pre-loaded with NTI BackupNow EZ software.

According to Toshiba, the software allows users to back up their data to the external drive and to a cloud drive hosted by NTI, depending on the size. For backing up the entire system, users merely send their data to the external drive itself. But for backing up specific folders and file types, users can use the virtual locker. The backup software also scans the user’s system and files and recommends which files to backup to cloud-based or on-device storage.

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