When life hands you lemons, so the saying goes, you make lemonade. But what happens when the FCC and the Justice Department hand you an almost certain public defeat? If you’re AT&T, the answer is simple: you make denial-ade.

At least, that seemed to be the case Wednesday when, during a panel discussion at the 39th annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, AT&T CFO John Stephens proclaimed the company and Deutsche Telecom are still “motivated to complete a transaction and we continue to pursue the sale.”

He added, presumably with a straight face and no outward sign that he was about to break out in maniacal laughter, that “it’s for our customers. It’s a solid, strategic move that will help us provide better service, while addressing the spectrum concerns that everyone in the industry shares.”

Brave words, considering how the FCC roundly humiliated AT&T on the day it granted the company’s request to withdraw its T-Mobile merger application by making public a searing internal report that showed tremendous potential harm to consumers if the deal were to go forward.

Alas, though it would appear AT&T expects to win its still-pending courtroom fight with the Department of Justice, this is likely what is known in publicly-humiliated-Southern-Belle circles as ‘putting on a brave face’. Statements made later in the discussion suggest that AT&T may be planning for the worst. “As I said before,” Stephens said, “we are going to continue to work with our partner DT, Deutsche Telekom, and work toward a resolution of the transaction.

Those conversations, as they occur, if and when they occur, and as they occur with the Department of Justice, will be kept confidential out of respect for them and for our partners and in hopes to improve the opportunity for the process to be successful.”

Anyone familiar with the unctuousness of the typical MBA should recognize that phrases like “if and when” are never thrown out casually. They could mean nothing, of course, but it certainly sounds like a stealth admission that Deutsche Telecom knows the deal ist kaput and is shopping around for a new T-Mobile buyer, something AT&T is keen to avoid.

Which is to say, this is AT&T’s way of standing outside Deutsche Telecom’s window blasting a Peter Gabriel song. In the meantime, AT&T and the Department of Justice are set to resume hostilities tomorrow, with a previously-postponed status hearing regarding the planned February 13 trial. Whether the events that have occurred since the last hearing have any effect on proceedings remains to be seen, but we will be paying close attention.

We’ve already heard a fair bit about Toshiba’s forthcoming 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet, but the company has only now finally confirmed a name — Excite, previously seen in a trademark filing — and a launch date (or month, anyway) for the tablet outside of Europe. You can look for it to roll out for an as yet unspecified price sometime in January — in Canada, at least. It will come in both 16GB and 32GB versions, each of which pack a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP 4430 processor, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, a 5 megapixel cam ’round back, and a microSD card slot and a micro HDMI port. Toshiba also boasts that it’s the “world’s thinnest, lightest tablet,” with it measuring just 7.7 mm thick and weighing in at 558 grams (or 1.23 pounds).

SOURCE via Slashgear

Leave it to Leica to rebrand a recent Panasonic camera, tack on its iconic red dot and then likely charge a premium. Such is the case with its “new” V-Lux 3 digital superzoom, which is essentially its take on the venerable Lumix FZ150 we spent some hands-on time with back in August. To recap, this shooter features a 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, Leica’s DC Vario-Elmarit 4.5 – 108 mm f/2.8 – 5.2 ASPH lens (that’s 25 – 600mm for you full-frame buffs), 1080p AVC HD video recording at up to 60fps with stereo sound and an a77-like 12fps continuous burst mode (albeit using manual focus). On back, you’ll find an articulating 3-inch LCD loaded with a 460K pixel resolution and a 0.2-inch EVF, both of which feature nearly 100% frame coverage. While there’s no word price, you can surely expect the V-Lux 3 to cost a few Benjamins more than its Lumix counterpart when it hits shelves in January. Hey, at least you can say it’s a Leica, right?

Ever ask yourself, “What am I doing with my life?” No? Well, a little existential crisis is in order then. Because while you and the rest of Team teen America were busy dressing like Gaga, dancing to the Bieber and playing Angry Birds, high school senior Angela Zhang was killing cancer. Yes, this 17-year old medical prodigy from Cupertino was just awarded the Siemens Foundation grand prize — a $100,000 payday — for her work “Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.” It’s certainly a mouthful, but this nanotech is what one fellow researcher’s calling the “Swiss Army knife of cancer treatment,” as her gold and iron-oxide nanoparticle does double duty delivering the drug salinomycin to a tumor site, in addition to aiding MRI and photoacoustic imaging. If that’s not impressive enough, this real-life lady Doogie Howser’s also won Intel’s ISEF grand award in both 2010 and 2011 for other health science-related work. Sure, Angela might inadvertently fall into the overachiever category, but girlfriend definitely deserves to win that Prom Queen crown.

SOURCE via George Washington University

Espoo isn’t making it any easier to say goodbye to MeeGo’s last dance with polycarbonate. Nokia’s alluring and elusive N9 in-snow-white-dress appears to now be on sale… in Finland. Web retailer Verkkokauppa has the handset listed on its site for 630€ — that’s $840 for you import types. Memento hunters throughout Europe can buy what this Finnish site’s selling or just sit tight and wait for the color variant to hit their respective markets this December. But if patience isn’t at the top of your priority list, we’d suggest you hit up the source below with some plastic in hand.

SOURCE via My Nokia Blog

On Tuesday Broadcom introduced a new reference design and accompanying software that will enable up to ten years of battery life for keyboards and other Human Interface Devices (HIDs) based on the “classic” Bluetooth basic rate radio. That means over the course of ten years — or the device’s expected lifespan — users won’t need to replace a set of AA batteries or recharge the device itself. Ever.

“The new reference design is based on the Broadcom BCM20730 65-nm low-power HID chip and includes several innovations that also will make wireless keyboards and mice easier to use,” the company said. “With integrated support for USB HID Emulation (UHE) and Broadcom’s ZeroTouch configuration technology, these peripherals can be used right out of the box with no special pairing procedure, making them ideal for ‘all-in-one’ desktop PCs.”

Broadcom said the BCM20730 Bluetooth chip is compliant with the Bluetooth 4.0 Core Specification and includes support for Unicast Connectionless Data (UCD) and Enhanced Power Control (EPC) introduced in Bluetooth Core Specification 3.0 + HS. It’s also compatible with Bluetooth smart ready and other HID host devices (tablets, smartphones, consoles etc), and supports the upcoming upgraded HID Profile 1.1.

“Bluetooth continues to gain momentum as the technology of choice for wireless mice, keyboards, 3D glasses and consumer electronics remote controls with more than 4 billion standard Bluetooth chips already installed in popular electronics to which these HIDs can connect,” the company said. “HIDs based on the Broadcom BCM20730 can enjoy the same battery life as those based on Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) technology, even when connected to existing devices that have shipped with older versions of Bluetooth.”

The new BCM20730-based ultra-low power HID reference design is available now and is also sampling out to customers. That said, the availability of products using this new chip is unknown at this point, so stay tuned.