Apple’s Mac App Store now contains more than 10,000 applications, according to two different third-party estimates.

French outlet MacGeneration today posted its estimate of the tally based on its own data. Macrumors later pointed to its Appshopper site that pulls App Store data and currently lists the store’s total at 10,334 apps.

Apple launched the store on January 6, 2011, as a means of distributing software for Mac the same way it did with success on the iOS platform. In December, Apple said it passed 100 million application downloads by users, while making the claim that it was the “fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

To put the benchmark — which an Apple spokesperson declined to confirm — in context, it took Apple’s App Store for iPhone (and later iOS) less than half a year to reach 10,000 apps. At the same time, that store had pulled in more than 300 million downloads, Apple said. Worth pointing out though, is that the App Store is the only way to officially get software on the iOS platform, whereas Mac users can install from other sources.

That said, Apple is setting up the Mac App Store to have more importance in future versions of the Mac OS. In February the company announced Mountain Lion, the next major version of the Mac OS due out in “late summer.” One of its key features is Gatekeeper, technology that’s been designed to keep users from installing malware with an option that can be turned on to keep new app installations limited to the Mac App Store.

Google’s hard drive in the sky, Google Drive, is a big threat to other cloud storage products likeDropbox and Box. But it’s also a stab straight at the heart of Microsoft’s mainstream business software, Microsoft Office.

While Google’s productivity application suites, Docs (now incorporated into Drive) and Apps (for businesses), have been making some headway into Microsoft Office‘s territory, the important battlefield is not the application. It’s the data. If Google can move the battlefield to a place where it has the bigger army and better weapons, the whole game changes. Google Drive might make that happen.

Let’s look at the world from behind Google-colored glasses. Every time a user performs a search in the Google search engine, or clicks a link in Chrome, or +1s an item in Plus, Google adds an atom of data to its knowledge of what people like and what they do. This information helps Google index the Web and rank its results when people are searching for something. This is also the Facebook model, by the way.

Moreover, every action that generates user data that doesn’t touch down in a Google product or service deprives Google of information that it could otherwise use to index and understand the Web of human knowledge and preference. Microsoft Word documents stored on PCs? In the most uncharitable view, every one is money being stolen from Google.

All closed, siloed apps, for that matter, remove opportunity from Google. Co-founder Sergey Brin has recently spoken out against apps and companies that wall off data from the open Internet. There is indeed a danger, but it’s not just about openness, it’s about Google’s own ability to index the data.

Back to Google Drive: By acting as the substrate for user data — in other words, the file system — Google gets exposed to many times more information. Google doesn’t need, and in fact has no reason, to make this data public, but having it available to index and cross-reference does make the company’s core service, targeted advertising, more valuable.

The more data Google has, the more valuable its product becomes. And that product, in case it’s not already clear, is you. Your attention, which is sold to advertisers.

Microsoft’s main product, meanwhile, is software, not data. (And its customers aren’t advertisers, but people who buy software.) So why can’t Microsoft’s model and Google’s live in harmony? Because Microsoft’s software suite consists of application software and an operating system, and the operating system stores user data, and the data is what Google wants. So Google is undermining that function with Google Drive, and not just by offering a synchronized file system (which, by the way, Microsoft also offers). Once users put their data in Google Drive, they will also find out how easy it is to open these files in non-Microsoft apps. This is one of the reasons Google is launching Google Drive with an API for developers and a suite of partner products that shave off Microsoft customers a bit at a time.

One of the most important features that third-party developers are using with Google Drive is the “Open with” feature. If you upload a Microsoft Project file to Drive, for example, you can open it with the Web app SmartSheet, directly on the Web. Similarly, Web apps like SlideRocket can open PowerPoint files. Google’s own productivity apps can also open Microsoft files.

The more people realize that they don’t need Office to access their archives of files from the pre-Google Drive era, the more likely they are to look to Google Drive (or perhaps competing products, if they have similar partners) as primary storage. And Google wins, while Microsoft loses.

How can Microsoft counter this market erosion at Google’s hands? The company has its own cloud storage product and a strong history with developers. And it has the business customers. But according to a Google Drive developer I spoke with, one who’s been dealing also with Microsoft for years, Microsoft is not there yet. It has the centralized storage in SkyDrive andOffice 365, but not the infrastructure — especially the identity and sign-on tools — that developers need to integrate into the Microsoft cloud.

Microsoft also needs to protect its software licensing revenue for Office. Google, the upstart in business software, can undercut Microsoft’s prices since all its software sales are incremental on top of its search and advertising businesses.

Other companies realize that whoever controls the data controls the market. Box, for instance,just launched OneCloud, which lets you open documents in a variety of apps. It’s mobile-only so far, though.

It is no longer a PC world, and because of that Microsoft doesn’t own the world of work. People do their jobs on their own computers, on the Web, and on mobile devices; and they expect their work to follow them onto whatever hardware they’re using. Every major technology company understands this. But only a few have the products, the infrastructure, and the freedom to get ahead of the shift.

Within hours of Google launching its new online storage service, the terms and service have come under heavy fire by the wider community for how it handles users’ copyright and intellectual property rights.

After Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive — the two most popular online storage services on the web — Google was late to the party by a number of years. While Google needed no advertising to drum up support, what may hold back uptake is that as per the company’s terms and conditions, the rights to the files you upload to Google Drive will be passed on to the search giant.

A quick analysis of Google’s terms of service shows how far the search company goes in ‘owning’ your files, and how it can do anything it wants with them.

But there is a small catch. Here’s what the terms say:

Dropbox – terms can be found here:

“Your Stuff & Your Privacy: By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.”

Microsoft’s SkyDrive – terms can be found here:

“5. Your Content: Except for material that we license to you, we don’t claim ownership of the content you provide on the service. Your content remains your content. We also don’t control, verify, or endorse the content that you and others make available on the service.”

Google Drive – terms can be found here:

“Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps).”

The last sentence makes all the difference. While these rights are limited to essentially making Google Drive better and to develop new services run by Google, the scope is not defined and could extend far further than one would expect.

Simply put: there’s no definitive boundary that keeps Google from using what it likes from what you upload to its service.

Having said that, it also states:

“Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.”

According to its terms, Google does not own user-uploaded files to Google Drive, but the company can do whatever it likes with them. ZDNet’s Ed Bott has more.

The chances are Google’s terms will never be an issue — and it is likely over-zealous lawyers making sure Google doesn’t somehow get screwed in the long run by a lawsuit — but it may be enough to push away a great number of entrepreneurs and creative workers who rely on holding on to the rights to their own work.

It always pays to read the fine print.

I asked Google to see if they can shed light on how its terms of service translates in comparison to other, rival services. Google did not respond at the time of publication.

It’s shifted to the U.S. Senate. Here’s CNET’s FAQ on what you need to know about this particularly controversial Internet bill.

It took a debate that stretched to nearly seven hours, and votes on over a dozen amendments, but the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act on April 26.

Passions flared on both sides before the final vote on CISPA, which cleared the House by a comfortable margin of 248 to 168.

CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity,” Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur, said during the debate. “Allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and author of CISPA, responded by telling his colleagues to ignore “all the things they’re saying about the bill that are not true.” He pleaded: “Stand for America! Support this bill!”

While CISPA initially wasn’t an especially partisan bill — it cleared the House Intelligence Committee by a vote of 17 to 1 last December — it gradually moved in that direction. The final tally was 206 Republicans voting for it, and 28 opposed. Of the Democrats, 42 voted for CISPA and 140 were opposed. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said afterward on Twitter that CISPA “didn’t strike the right balance” and Republicans “didn’t allow amendments to strengthen privacy protections.”

The ACLU, on the other hand, told CNET that the amendments — even if they had been allowed — would not have been effective. “They just put the veneer of privacy protections on the bill, and will garner more support for the bill even without making substantial changes,” said Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU.

Keep reading for some more details from CNET’s FAQ about what you need to know about CISPA.

Q: What happens next?
CISPA heads to the the Senate, where related cybersecurity legislation has been stalled for years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, has said he’d like to move forward with cybersecurity legislation in May. Its outlook is uncertain.

Senate Democrats may be less likely than House Republicans to advance CISPA after the White House’s veto threat on April 25. The administration said CISPA “effectively treats domestic cybersecurity as an intelligence activity and thus, significantly departs from longstanding efforts to treat the Internet and cyberspace as civilian spheres.”

Q: What does CISPA do? Let the National Security Agency spy on Americans?
CISPA wouldn’t formally grant the NSA or Homeland Security any additional surveillance authority. (A proposed amendment that would have done so was withdrawn on April 26.)

But it would usher in a new era of information sharing between companies and government agencies — with limited oversight and privacy safeguards. The House Rules committee on April 25 rejected a series of modestly pro-privacy amendments, which led a coalition of civil-liberties groups to complain that “amendments that are imperative won’t even be considered” in a letter the following day.

Q: Who opposes CISPA?
Advocacy groups, including the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and the libertarian-leaning TechFreedom, launched a “Stop Cyber Spying” campaign in mid-April — complete with a write-your-congresscritter-via-Twitterapp — and the bill has drawn the ire of Anonymous.

A letter (PDF) from two dozen organizations, including the Republican Liberty Caucus, urges a “no” vote on CISPA, and over 750,000 people have signed an anti-CISPA Web petition. Free-market and libertarian groups have opposed it. The Center for Democracy and Technology flip-flopped twice on CISPA as the result of a short-lived deal with the bill’s authors not to criticize it.

Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican and presidential candidate, warned on April 23 that CISPA represents the “latest assault on Internet freedom” and was “Big Brother writ large.” And 18 Democratic House members signed a letter (PDF) the same day warning that CISPA “does not include necessary safeguards” and that critics have raised “real and serious privacy concerns.”

House members clockwise from top left: Jared Polis, who warned CISPA would “waive every single privacy law ever enacted”; Adam Schiff; Sheila Jackson Lee; Jan Schakowsky; Mike Rogers; Hank Johnson(Credit: C-SPAN)

Q: Why is CISPA so controversial?
What sparked significant privacy worries is the section of CISPA that says “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” companies may share information “with any other entity, including the federal government.” It doesn’t, however, require them to do so.

By including the word “notwithstanding,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) intended to make CISPA trump all existing federal and state civil and criminal laws. (It’s so broad that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service once warned (PDF) that using the term in legislation may “have unforeseen consequences for both existing and future laws.”)

“Notwithstanding” would trump wiretap laws, Web companies’ privacy policies, gun laws, educational record laws, census data, medical records, and other statutes that protect information, warns the ACLU’s Richardson: “For cybersecurity purposes, all of those entities can turn over that information to the federal government.”

If CISPA were enacted, “part of the problem is we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” says Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sued AT&T over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. “I worry that you can get a version of cybersecurity warrantless wiretapping out of this.”

CISPA’s authorization for information sharing extends far beyond Web companies and social networks. It would also apply to Internet service providers, including ones that already have an intimate relationship with Washington officialdom. Large companies including AT&T and Verizonhanded billions of customer records to the NSA; only Qwest refused to participate. Verizonturned over customer data to the FBI without court orders. An AT&T whistleblower accused the company of illegally opening its network to the NSA, a practice that the U.S. Congress retroactively made legal in 2008.

Q: Are there other examples of this public-private cooperation for eavesdropping?
Unfortunately, yes.

Louis Tordella, the longest-serving deputy director of the NSA, acknowledged overseeing a similar project to intercept telegrams as recently as the 1970s. It relied on the major telegraph companies including Western Union secretly turning over copies of all messages sent to or from the United States. “All of the big international carriers were involved, but none of ‘em ever got a nickel for what they did,” Tordella said before his death in 1996, according to a history written by L. Britt Snider, a Senate aide who became the CIA’s inspector general.

The telegraph interception operation was called Project Shamrock. It involved a courier making daily trips from the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., to New York to retrieve digital copies of the telegrams on magnetic tape.

President Richard Nixon, plagued by anti-Vietnam protests and worried about foreign influence, ordered that Project Shamrock’s electronic ear be turned inward to eavesdrop on American citizens. In 1969, Nixon met with the heads of the NSA, CIA and FBI and authorized an intercept program. Nixon later withdrew the formal authorization, but informally, police and intelligence agencies kept adding names to the watch list. At its peak, 600 American citizens appeared on the list, including singer Joan Baez, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, actress Jane Fonda and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

This apparently has continued. In his 2006 book titled “State of War,” New York Times reporter James Risen wrote: “The NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships.”

In a recent Wired article, author James Bamford described how the NSA is currently building the nation’s biggest spy center, a $2 billion facility in the Utah desert. Bamford quoted William Binney, a former NSA official, as saying the NSA’s backdoor into the U.S. telecommunications network goes far beyond AT&T’s facility on Second Street in San Francisco. “I think there’s 10 to 20 of them,” Binney said. “That’s not just San Francisco; they have them in the middle of the country and also on the East Coast.”

Q: Would CISPA allow companies to violate their terms of service by turning over information to the Feds without a search warrant?
Yes. Though to be clear: if you trust your Internet provider, e-mail provider, and so on, to protect your privacy, CISPA should not be a worrisome bill. The U.S. government can’t force companies to open their databases and networks; federal agencies can only request it. But as the warrantless wiretapping debate shows, the private sector may acquiesce.

One reason CISPA would be useful for government eavesdroppers is that, under existing federal law, any person or company who helps someone “intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communication”–unless specifically authorized by law–could face criminal charges. CISPA would trump all other laws.

Q: What’s the argument for enacting it?
A position paper on CISPA from Reps. Rogers and Ruppersberger says their bill is necessary to deal with threats from China and Russia and that it “protects privacy by prohibiting the government from requiring private sector entities to provide information.” In addition, they stress that “no new authorities are granted to the Department of Defense or the intelligence community to direct private or public sector cybersecurity efforts.”

During the April 26 floor debate, Rogers said:

 In just the last few years, nation states like China have stolen enough intellectual property from just defense contractors, that would be equivalent to 50 times the print collection of the US Library of Congress. We have nation states who are literally stealing jobs and our future. We also have countries that are engaged in activities and have capabilities that have the ability to break networks, computer networks. Which means you can’t just reboot. It means your system is literally broken. Those kinds of disruptions can be catastrophic when you think about the financial sector, or the energy sector, or our command and control elements for all our national security apparatus.

You know, without our ideas, without our innovation that countries like China are stealing every single day; we will cease to be a great nation. They are slowly and silently and quickly stealing the value and prosperity of America. One credit card company said that they get attacked for your personal information 300,000 times a day, one company.

Q: What industry groups support CISPA?
One of the biggest differences between CISPA and its Stop Online Piracy Act predecessor is that the Web blocking bill was defeated by a broad alliance of Internet companies and millions of peeved users. Not CISPA: the House Intelligence committee proudly lists letters of support from Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, AT&T, Intel, and trade association CTIA, which counts representatives of T-Mobile, Sybase, Nokia, and Qualcomm as board members.

In February, Facebook VP Joel Kaplan wrote (PDF) an enthusiastic letter to Rogers and Ruppersberger to “commend” them on CISPA, which he said “removes burdensome rules that currently can inhibit protection of the cyber ecosystem.”

By mid-April, however, Facebook had been forced on the defensive, with Kaplan now assuring users that his employer has “no intention” of sharing users’ personal data with the Feds and that section is “unrelated to the things we liked” about CISPA in the first place. (A Demand Progresscampaign says: “Internet users were able to push GoDaddy to withdraw its support of SOPA. Now it’s time to make sure Facebook knows we’re furious.”)

Q: Was CISPA rushed through the House?
Not really. It was introduced in late November 2011 and approved by the House Intelligence Committee a few weeks later. So the public had approximately five months to review the bill before the April 26 House floor vote.

On the other hand, CIPSA did move relatively swiftly through the legislative process, and the House Republican leadership moved up the floor vote by one day at the last moment.

During a town hall that CNET hosted on April 19 in San Francisco, a House Intelligence aide argued that it was a deliberative process. CISPA opponents say the measure is being “rushed through,” said senior counsel Jamil Jaffer. “I can’t disagree with that more.”

Q: Is CISPA worse than SOPA?
For all its flaws, SOPA targeted primarily overseas Web sites, not domestic ones. It would have allowed the U.S. attorney general to seek a court order against the targeted offshore Web site that would, in turn, be served on Internet providers in an effort to make the target virtually disappear.

It was kind of an Internet death penalty targeting Web sites like ThePirateBay.org, not sites like YouTube.com, which are already subject to U.S. law.

CISPA, by contrast, would allow Americans’ personal information to be vacuumed up by government agencies for cybersecurity and law enforcement purposes, as long as Internet and telecommunications companies agreed. In that respect, at least, its impact is broader.

Article Credit: Declan McCullagh

These instructions will cover the Windows setup.

Step 1: Download DoubleTwist for Windows and DoubleTwist for Android.

Step 2: Connect your Android device to your computer via USB. Enable USB file storage by dragging the notification shade and pressing the appropriate option (what you see is dependent on your Android device).

Step 3: Open the Start menu and enter DoubleTwist into the search box. Run the program that appears in the list above.

Step 4: Your Android device should appear under the devices heading in the left pane. Click on your device to select it.

Step 5a: A bar will be displayed in the pane to the right showing how much free space is available on your Android device. Check boxes above this bar can be toggled to enable/disable automatic syncing of files.

Step 5b: Alternatively, you can transfer individual tracks/albums by selecting them from the Library and dragging them over your Android device in the left pane of the DoubleTwist.

This feature is covered within the free version of the DoubleTwist service. A premium version, called AirSync, is available for purchase within the Android app for $4.99. Should you opt for this upgrade, you will be able to set up automatic syncing via Wi-Fi, shaving a few steps off the process.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia and blogging service WordPress are among the highest profile pages to remove material.

Google is showing solidarity by placing a black box over its logo when US-based users visit its site.

The Motion Picture Association of America has branded the action as “irresponsible” and a “stunt”.

Visitors to Wikipedia’s English-language site are greeted by a dark page with white text that says: “Imagine a world without free knowledge… The US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

View Gallery

It provides a link to more details about the House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

If users try to access its other pages via search sites, the text briefly flashes up before being replaced by the protest page. However, people have been sharing workarounds to disable the redirect.

Global protest

WordPress’s homepage displays a video which claims that Sopa “breaks the internet” and asks users to add their name to a petition asking Congress to stop the bill.

“The authors of the legislation don’t seem to really understand how the internet works,” the site’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg told the BBC.

Across the globe, several Pirate Party sites have been taken offline. The political parties – which advocate reform of copyright laws – took the action in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, Canada and elsewhere.

Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, has replaced the game’s website with a protest message

The news recommendation site Reddit, the online magazine Boing Boing, the software download service Tucows and the German hackers’ group the Chaos Computer Congress also removed access to their content.

The tech news site Wired covered its headlines and pictures with black boxes which were only removed when covered with the cursor.

The US news website Politico estimated that 7,000 sites were involved by early Wednesday morning.

‘Gimmick’

The moves were described as an “abuse of power” by one of the highest profile supporters of the anti-piracy bills.

“Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging,” said former Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.

“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information… A so-called ‘blackout’ is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”

The US Chamber of Commerce said that the claims against the legislation had been overstated.

“[The sponsors] announced they would roll back the provisions of these bills designed to block foreign criminal websites, striking a major conciliatory note with those who raised legitimate concerns,” said Steve Tepp, chief intellectual property counsel at the chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center.

Richard Symonds, is one of the UK’s 18 Wikipedia “Arbitrators”: published January 2011

“That was on top of the changes that guarantee the bill applies only to foreign sites. What remains are two pieces of legislation that are narrowly tailored and commercially reasonable for taking an effective swipe at the business models of rogue sites.”

The proposed legislation would allow the Department of Justice and content owners to seek court orders against any site accused of “enabling or facilitating” piracy.

Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results. Pipa does not include this provision.

‘Threat to innovation’

Google posted a blog on the subject claiming that the bills would not stop piracy .

“Pirate sites would just change their addresses in order to continue their criminal activities,” it said.

“There are better ways to address piracy than to ask US companies to censor the internet. The foreign rogue sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding.”

Other net firms that have criticised the legislation decided not to take part in the blackout.

Twitter’s founder, Dick Costolo, tweeted that it would be “foolish” to take the service offline .

Facebook declined to comment on the page blackouts but referred users to a new page posted by its Washington DC division  which said: “The bills contain overly broad definitions and create a new private cause of action against companies on the basis of those expansive definitions, which could seriously hamper the innovation, growth, and investment in new companies that have been the hallmarks of the internet.”

Debate

The events coincided with news that the US House of Representatives plans to resume work on Sopa next month.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith, said: “I am committed to continuing to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House.”

The Senate is expected to start voting on 24 January on how to proceed on Pipa.

Even if Congress approves the bills, President Barack Obama may decide to veto them.

The White House issued a statement  at the weekend saying that “we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet”.

(Credit: Asus)

Asus may pull the curtain back to reveal a new 7-inch Android tablet next week at CES, but just which one remains a mystery.

Leaking a few details and a possible image of the prospective tablet, Italian tech news site. Notebook Italia (English translation) said that Asus plans to unveil a $299 7-inch tablet.

Dubbed the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Mini 7, the new tablet would follow the company’s recently launched 10-inch Transformer Prime. The 10-inch version can move beyond its tablet roots with the addition of a physical keyboard dock. Its 7-inch cousin should offer a similar keyboard dock, according to Notebook Italia, though one smaller and likely less comfortable.

But the Italian site also claims the scoop on news that Asus could finally release a refreshed version of its Eee Memo Pad.

First announced at last year’s CES, the Memo will offer a 7-inch 1,280×800-pixel capacitive screen and likely come with Android Honeycomb. Powered by a Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragron processor, the tablet will provide anywhere from 16 to 64 gigabytes of internal storage and come with both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

Though it obtained a photo of an Asus 7-inch tablet, Notebook Italia is unsure whether it reveals the Eee Pad Transformer Prime or the Memo Pad. Asus did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment. But we’ll know for sure which tablet gets the nod when CES kicks off in Las Vegas next week.

Apple’s iPad 2 lineup.

(Credit: Apple)

The rumored expansion of iPad models this year may reduce the price of entry for owning an Apple tablet, if a new report is to be believed.

Despite having its report on Apple planning to triple its iPad lineup this year firmly rebuffed by many onlookers, Taiwan-based tech site DigiTimes today reiterated that assessment, also claiming that the change could bring big price cuts at the low end.

In a research report issued earlier today, the site once again asserted that Apple plans to expand its lineup of iPads by adding models that serve the “high-end segment” and “the midrange,” while continuing to offer the iPad 2.

“With the existing iPad 2, the Apple tablet series may cover all price segments–from entry-level to high-end. Apple’s pricing strategy for its iPad series is crucial to the tablet market. It remains to be seen at what price level Apple will set its entry-level iPad. For Wi-Fi-only models, U.S. $299, U.S. $349 or U.S. $399 may all be possible,” the outlet said.

A $299 iPad has been available before, but there were caveats galore. It was Apple’s first-generation device, and it only sold at fire sale prices through third-party carrier stores following the introduction of Apple’s second-generation model.

Since then, competitors have emerged, including Amazon.com and its Kindle Fire, which made waves near the end of last year, selling for $199. While not sporting as big of a display, and missing a handful of hardware features found on the iPad, it sells for less than half the price of Apple’s current entry-level iPad, with reports pegging sales at 1 million units a week during December.

Apple has maintained the same pricing structure since the introduction of the iPad in 2010, offering Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models of the tablet at different pricing tiers for its 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models. The entry-level 16GB model with Wi-Fi starts at $499, with each additional tier of storage, plus optional 3G networking, tacking on costs scaling up to $829.

One important consideration is the cost of producing the iPad. A tear down of the iPad 2 by IHS-owned iSupply last year estimated the total cost of Apple’s two 32GB models to start at $326.60, with manufacturing costs pushing that total north of $333. iSuppli lists the LCD screen as the most expensive part of the tablet, at $127. Costs could have certainly come down between then and now, but Apple is expected to be utilizing panels with considerably higher pixel density in the next iPad, something that does not come cheap.

Apple has been known to make considerable price cuts on its products, though such moves have been few and far between. The shortlist includes the $200 price cut on the original iPhone, a move that came a little more than two months after its introduction and infuriated early buyers, leading to Apple offering iTunes gift cards as an apology. There was also the $500 price cut on the solid-state version of its first-generation MacBook Air.

The suggested iPad price cut comes alongside price reductions on two high-profile tablets in recent days, with Sony knocking $100 off the price of its S series tablet over the weekend, and Research In Motion dropping the price of its entire line of PlayBook tablets to $299, down from its $499 starting point.

The Grand Central store opening garnered the kind of buzz typically reserved for a new product launch. Hundreds of Apple fanboys waited in line, which stretched into the tunnels of the station, all for a glimpse at a retail outlet. As with any product launch, the first wave of customers entered the store to thunderous applause and cheering from Apple employees.

Customers walked up to the Grand Central Apple store for the first time.

(Credit: Sarah Tew )

“Your heart beats like crazy, seeing all the people cheering for you,” said Gabriel Evans, a student from Poundridge, N.Y., who used his half day at school to come down to Manhattan to see the store.

The ritual of waiting in line has evolved beyond the desire to have the latest and greatest product first, and more for the shared experience of spending time with fellow fans. Stalwart fans at the front of line have regularly talked about the bonds they’ve created while waiting for the latest that Apple has to offer.

At the front of line this morning was Jacob Davis, who came down from Albany, N.Y., with his father, Robert. He got in line on Thursday morning to ensure he would be the first customer to step foot in the store. Jacob, who already has a slew of Apple products–he was carrying an iPod, iPhone, MacBook, and PowerBook with him in line–said he had planned on buying some accessories, but wasn’t really there to shop.

Robert, who took two days off from work for the grand opening, said it was more about the experience of coming to Manhattan with his son. He quipped that maybe Apple would give his college student son a job.

Jacob Davis and his father, Robert, stand at the front of the line before the store’s grand opening.

(Credit: Sarah Tew )

The next person in line, Gary Allen, flew in from Berkeley, Calif., and got in line at noon on Thursday to check out the Apple store. Allen said he had been to a number of Apple stores around the world, and said he was more a fan of the architecture and how the store operates.

Allen will have a lot to appreciate. Unlike other Apple stores, the Grand Central location uses less glass and actually integrates itself into the station’s more classic look. It’s the fifth Manhattan store and, given the traffic that Grand Central sees, will almost certainly be considered the New York flagship store.

Inside the Apple store in Grand Central

(Credit: Sarah Tew )

The store sits atop the east and northeast balconies of Grand Central, providing consumers with a view of the main concourse below, where countless commuters come in and out of New York.

Apple said the store will have two Genius Bars and a personal pickup area, allowing consumers to order products through the Apple Store app and pick them up once they reach the station. The company said the store will offer new 15-minute Express Workshops for consumers on a tighter schedule. It also boasts the largest personal setup area, as well as a room for personal training.

The Grand Central store is just the latest in a chain of more than 360 Apple stores in 11 countries. The stores have become an important extension of Apple’s brand, as well as another revenue source for the company.

But many of the customers weren’t necessarily in line to make big purchases that day. Allen said he didn’t intend to buy anything. Likewise, Evans, who actually hopped in line right before the store opened, said he wanted to check out the Genius Bar to fix his iPhone 4S’ battery problem, and pick up an accessory, but wasn’t going to buy a big-ticket Apple item.

Hector Nieves, an IT consultant who works near Grand Central, said he came by to check out products to buy for Christmas, but also wasn’t looking to make a purchase. Still, he said he was moved when he entered the store amid the cheering crowd, when his thoughts went to the contributions that late co-founder Steve Jobs brought to the technology world.

“I could barely hold back my emotions coming up the stairs,” Nieves said.

My frequent early death point–a branching path to a treasure chest. Screenshot taken on an iPad 2.

(Credit: Screenshot by Scott Stein/CNET)

The sequel throws in more voice-overs, tons more boss battles, and branching pathways, along with new ideas like locked treasure chests. If you liked the first Infinity Blade, you’re going to love this. If you’ve been hoping for iOS gaming to transcend itself and become the second coming of console gaming, well, that’s not what this is.

Games like Infinity Blade II keep making me wonder whether the lack of a true control pad is holding back iOS game development, or whether the casual nature of the App Store gaming market–with the limited resources developers are willing to put into a game that costs under $10–is making for these more limited experiences. Add a full-fledged control pad, and what sort of astounding game could Chair make with these types of graphics? Would that even be of interest to anyone? I’m not sure, but I’d love to see it happen.

Infinity Blade II on the iPhone 4S: Practically identical, smaller screen.

(Credit: Screenshot by Scott Stein/CNET)

Infinity Blade II looks equally impressive on my iPhone 4S and my iPad 2. While I’d like to say it’s a better game for the iPhone–its simple controls lend themselves better to the tinier iPhone screen’s thumb-friendly layout–it’s much easier to make out hard-to-find treasure bags on the iPad 2′s larger screen. Dodging is perfect thumbwork, but the swordplay is a better fit for playing on an iPad on one’s lap, what with all the finger-swiping.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the graphics in more detail. Visually, Infinity Blade II is stunning; it even surpasses the jaw-dropping good looks of last year’s game. Not only does it look better than nearly any handheld game ever made, it looks awfully close to console quality to the average gamer. The original Infinity Blade opened up a doorway to making iOS games using the Unreal Engine. This sequel has emerged among many games that currently use similar graphics techniques, but it still manages to shine brighter.

Infinity Blade II is a beefy download, but I think this game’s going to live on my iPad for a long time. I’ll gladly accept Infinity Blade II and love it for existing, but I’m feeling a little sad that this is currently being touted as the best that the App Store has to offer. I refuse to believe that, and you should, too.

Infinity Blade II is available from the iTunes App Store for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S, as well as for the iPad, iPad 2, and iPod Touch, third-gen or later.

By: Scott Stein