According to DigiTimes, Amazon’s rumored Android tablets could launch as soon as this August or September. The online retail giant has a global sales target of 4 million units, with 700,000-800,000 units shipping monthly, and it hopes to get its products in customer hands during the peak sales period of the year — just before Thanksgiving and the holidays. We’ve reported exclusively that Amazon will launch the dual-core “Coyote” and quad-core “Hollywood” tablets sometime this year, and early reports suggested the tablets are already in the manufacturing stage. Reportedly, Amazon has contracted Texas Instruments, Wintek, ILI Technology, and Quanta Computer for parts and assembly. It’s been widely expected that Amazon will launch a streaming movie service on its tablets, too.

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On Monday, Huawei officially announced the MediaPad, a 7-inch tablet powered by Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). The MediaPad sports a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 5-megapixel camera, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats, support for HSPA+ and 802.11n Wi-Fi networks, HDMI-out, and a microSD card slot for adding up to 32GB of storage. Huawei also says the MediaPad’s 4,100mAh battery should provide more than six hours of battery life. The MediaPad is expected to launch this fall, although Huawei did not provide a price.

[Via Electronista]

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On Tuesday morning, the Greenwich, Conn. Apple Store was allegedly robbed by five men, and we decided to drop by the scene today to see for ourselves. The store is now open for business, though one of two main entrances to the location is still blocked off ahead of repairs, which should take place soon.

According to reports and surveillance video, the suspects broke in through the large glass doors by smashing the glass. They proceeded to grab items on display in the store and apparently made off with tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise. No arrests have been made at this time.

Finally, Congress passes a piece of legislation that citizens on both the right and left side of the political spectrum can get behind. Late yesterday, Congress approved the CALM (Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation) Act, which “requires TV advertisers to ensure their ads don’t play at a volume louder than regular TV programming.” The new bill requires ad makers to use “industry technology” to prevent the volume annoyance from occurring.

“Consumers will no longer have to experience being blasted at,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California. “It’s a simple fix to a huge nuisance.”

The bill currently awaits President Obama’s signature. Once enacted, commercial makers will have one year to comply with the new law.

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After being ousted by Amazon’s Web Services, the controversial site WikiLeaks has run into another snafu, this time with its DNS provider, EveryDns.net. Via a statement, EveryDns stated that due to “interference issues” that are affecting the service of others, the company has ceased resolving wikileaks.org; the service was provided to WikiLeaks for free. In response to the DNS shutdown, WikiLeaks tweeted the following message:

WIKILEAKS: Free speech has a number: http://88.80.13.160

In a subsequent tweet, the company then announced that it had moved to Switzerland; the site’s new domain name is now wikileaks.ch.

A very vocal opponent of the WikiLeaks cable publishings has been the Independent Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman. The Senator has introduced legislation, dubbed the SHIELD (Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination) Act, that would make it illegal to publish information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government” or information relating to “a classified source or informant.” We have to wonder where Sen. Lieberman’s legislation was when CIA operative Valerie Plame was outed. No word on when the new legislation will hit the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, Amazon has released a statement stating that the reason for its removal of WikiLeaks’ data from its AWS servers was not a result of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks or government pressure, but rather the fact that the site did not operate within Amazon’s terms of service.

Read [Tweet 1] Read [Tweet 2] Read [SHIELD Act]

Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström — the founders of the wildly popular torrent site The Pirate Bay — have had their previous convictions upheld by a Swedish court of appeals. While the three defendants did see their prison sentences reduced, the court did increase the fine levied on the the trio from 30 million kronor to 46 million kronor (USD $6.5 million). In April of 2009, a 1 year jail sentence was handed down to all three defendants, the new sentencing has the Swedish residents spending between 10 and 4 months behind bars: Neij, 10 months in prison; Sunde, 8 months in prison; Lundström, 4 months in prison.

“In two years, this type of piracy will be over,” said Ludvig Werner, chairman for the Swedish arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. ”After a ruling like this and all the pioneers start to get older and have children and families, piracy won’t occur to this extent.”

Christian Engström, a Pirate Party member of the European Parliament, refutes that claim, “The judgement has no meaning for file sharing. It has continued to increase from year to year and the technical capabilities continue to develop.”

No word on what impact, if any, this ruling will have on The Pirate Bay website.

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Foxconn finds itself in more hot water Wednesday as new reports emerge concerning working conditions at a factory operated by sister company Foxteq. Workers at the packing plant, located in Rydalmere, Australia, have come forward with allegations of exploitation and poor working conditions. Some went as far as to describe conditions at the plant as “depression-era,” with employees required to work long hours and no guarantee that they would be asked to return the next day. Foxteq performs packing services for HP, IBM and other large companies, and is currently being investigated by several of its clients as a result of the accusations. Sister company Foxconn, which manufactures electronics for giants like Apple and HP, fell under the microscope earlier this year when a string of employee suicides took place on the company’s campus. The suicides were blamed on poor working conditions and low wages.

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Canesta, a company specializing in motion-sensing and 3D gesture controls, have just announced that they are being acquired by Microsoft; a deal that is expected to be finalized by the end of 2010. Canesta was founded in 1999 and they specialize in “NUI’s” or natural user interfaces. Their technology allows users to do away with the traditional mouse and keyboard combo for most of their computing needs. They are also experts in 3D tracking; a very useful purchase for the  future development of the Kinect platform. The Silicon Valley company holds 44 patents with regard to 3D sensing technologies, which will protect Microsoft in any patent litigation they may find themselves in. The acquisition could usher in a new revolutionary GUI/NUI for Windows 8. Minority Report computing might be around sooner than you think. Hit the break to watch Canesta’s technology in action.

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Picture this: you are at the base camp of Mount Everest, only to realize it’s your girlfriends birthday and you forgot to send flowers; what do you do? Grab your cell phone and call the florist of course, as Ncell, Nepal’s mobile operator, now has you covered. The carrier has announced its first 3G base station on the the world’s tallest mountain, allowing users to make calls and connect to the internets from GSM enabled phones. Previously, mountaineers and adventurers had to resort to expensive satellite phones to make calls. Ncell is a joint venture between private investors and Sweden’s Telia Sonera, and currently cover one-third of Nepal. Ncell tested their latest base station by placing the world’s highest video call at 17,388 feet. Telia Sonera’s CEO had the following to say: “This achievement is as mighty as the altitude, as 3G high speed internet will bring faster, more affordable telecommunication services to the people living in the Khumbu Valley, trekkers, and climbers alike.”

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Those curious as to whether or not we might actually see the often-rumored 7-inch iPad become a reality can rest assured that we have our answer: no. During a rare appearance on Apple’s Q4 earnings call Monday evening, Apple CEO Steve Jobs went on a no holds barred tirade that ran the gamut from ragging on RIM to gibing Google, and even to nudging Nokia. Amidst the stabs and jabs, Jobs quelled rumors that Apple would soon release a smaller version of its magical iPad. The pertinent point:

We’re not not making a 7-inch tablet because we don’t want to hit a lower price point; we just believe it’s too small to hit the user experience people want. When we make decisions, it’s not about cost, it’s about value when you factor in the software. We’re all about the best products at aggressive prices.

There you have it folks… there’s not much room for interpretation. According to Jobs, bigger is better and 7-inches just isn’t enough real estate to get the job done. On the other hand, Apple has reversed its stances countless times in recent history — most notably, perhaps, when it launched the App Store after Jobs had previously claimed native apps were unnecessary on the iPhone — so no one really knows what the future holds for Apple’s magical tablet.

Hot off the wire: MMC, the parent company of BGR has announced a strategic transaction with the United Internet Group — Europe’s largest Internet company. With a name like Mail.com and more than 14 million registered users, you can see why the Germans see tremendous potential to expand the offering internationally. As part of the transaction, MMC will transition the Mail.com email services over to United Internet AG while MMC will be the primary provider of original digital content to the Mail.com portal. Additionally, look for MMC to rebrand itself in the coming weeks. It’s really exciting news, especially for a site like BGR… you’ll just have to stay tuned. Hit the link below for the full press release!

MMC ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC TRANSACTION WITH EUROPE’S LARGEST INTERNET COMPANY

LOS ANGELES, CA. September 20th, 2010 – MMC, the leading publisher and digital media company that owns content properties such as OnCars.com, Deadline.com, HollywoodLife.com, Movieline.com, BGR.com, YHAwards.com, HollyBaby.com, Fan.com, India.com and others, today announced a strategic transaction related to its Mail.com asset with Europe’s largest Internet company, United Internet Group. The Germany based United Internet, a multi-billion dollar publicly listed communications leader, plans to leverage their pioneering e-mail subsidiary GMX to continue the success that Mail.com experienced under the MMC umbrella, while dramatically building the email service internationally.

Under the terms of the agreement, the United Internet Group has acquired the Mail.com e-mail business from MMC, but MMC will remain the primary global content provider for the Mail.com portal. MMC will also be partnering with United Internet to launch properties and distribute online content across various international markets, initially targeting Germany and India. Jay Penske, Founder and CEO of MMC remarked, “This extraordinary transaction further enhances MMC’s position as a global leader in publishing original digital content. Additionally, we are thrilled to embark on this partnership with United Internet and know that they will continue to expand the Mail.com brand internationally. We have tremendous respect for United Internet and the business they have built, and look forward to launching digital properties with them for years to come.”

Over the course of the transition, the current Mail.com e-mail service will be migrated, with every user receiving the award-winning e-mail platform and interface from United Internet’s primary e- mail brand, GMX. ―With Mail.com, we are looking forward to being able to combine the best international domain for e-mail with our globally successful e-mail product, says GMX General Manager Jan Oetjen. “The specific strength of Mail.com is its unique character: You can easily memorize the name @mail.com; it is attractive and, at the same time, a neutral alternative to provider- oriented address endings such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Google Mail globally. And furthermore Mail.com offers consumers a choice of over 300 additional e-mail addresses. On the highly competitive international e-mail market, we perceive Mail.com as a unique opportunity for differentiation which cannot be copied.”

In connection to the acquisition of Mail.com, United Internet and MMC have also agreed on strategic collaboration for MMC’s significant joint venture in the website India.com, which is also part of the MMC portfolio. This website will also take advantage of custom GMX-powered e-mail products. This strategic alliance also means a forthcoming rebrand for the holding company MMC. “In the coming weeks we look forward to sharing a new corporate identity which characterizes the strength and excellence of the collective brands in our portfolio and the content they create. Although the branding of MMC will be changing, all aspects of our corporate vision, strategy, business operations, events, and content properties remain unchanged—now with an even greater focus on expanding the portfolio of published content properties,” said Jay Penske.

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This morning while speaking in Boston, AT&T Mobility’s CEO Ralph de la Vega quipped that the net-neutrality agreement recently published by Verizon and Google was “good for the industry.” AT&T’s chief went on to say that the pact, “indicates that two companies from different industries can come together on a difficult issue.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzed the joint proposal, saying: “It carves out exemptions from neutrality requirements for so-called ‘unlawful’ content, for wireless services, and for very vaguely-defined ‘additional online services.’ The definition of ‘reasonable network management’ is also problematically vague. As many, many, many have already pointed out, these exemptions threaten to completely undermine the stated goal of neutrality.” Whether you love or hate the Google/Verizon net-neutrality proposal, it has brought attention to this hot-button issue. An issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. What are your thoughts on the proposal?

Read [de la Vega] Read [EFF]

Apple has — surprisingsly — posted the complete video from today’s iPhone 4 antenna press conference. If you want to hear what you probably already have heard, straight from the horse’s mouth, hit up the read link and enjoy.

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Yes, it’s that time… time to announce the winner of the Apple iPhone 4! We’ve finally picked who will receive the “magical” device, and it’s commenter Julian. Thanks so much to everyone that entered, and hey, there’s always next time, ok?

A California appeals court has ruled that Verizon Wireless is to pay some 175,000 customers current and former customers $21 million as a settlement in a class action lawsuit over early termination fees. The class action suit was filed in California on the behalf of customers who were upset that Verizon asked they pay a flat ETF of $175 regardless of how many months were left on their contract. Each customer is expected to receive $87.50 as a result of the ruling. Too bad history is bound to repeat itself now that Verizon’s ETF for “advanced devices” (i.e. smartphones) is set at $350.

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