ASUS took the Android world by storm when it launched the Eee Pad Transformer last year. The Taiwanese company again shook things up with a sequel, the Transformer Prime. Both devices featured a 10.1-inch display with the ability to dock into a keyboard, transforming the tablet into a netbook. However, newly-leaked promotional images obtained by Notebook Italia suggest that ASUS is readying a 7-inch Eee Pad tablet that is set to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in just a few weeks. It is unclear whether this new device is the delayed Eee Pad MeMO, that debuted at last year’s CES, or perhaps a smaller Transformer tablet. Luckily for us, we won’t have to wait long until this mystery device becomes official.

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We just received this image of an internal RadioShack email that clearly shows RadioShack stores are receiving unmarked shipments on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. These deliveries, the note states, “must not be opened for any reason” until stores are told to do so by corporate. RadioShack is instructing employees to place the shipments in a secure location, to mark that the shipments can’t be opened, and it notes that RadioShack will be sending auditors to locations to make sure instructions are followed and the packages have not been tampered with. Any employee found to have disobeyed the company’s instructions will be subject to termination. What’s not clear is why RadioShack would be receiving any Apple-related merchandise early, though it could possibly be iPhone-related accessories and/or sales materials.

Former Palm CEO and current Senior Vice President and General Manager of HP’s Palm Global Business Unit Jon Rubinstein reportedly sent a memo to his team on Friday in order to address the less-than-stellar reviews the company’s new TouchPad tablet received from press and bloggers. Likening HP’s position with webOS to Apple’s position with Mac OS X year ago, Rubinstein reminds his team that despite the deficiencies mentioned in reviews, the company’s vision for webOS was recognized and reviewers as a whole see webOS’ potential. ”If you’ve seen the recent TouchPad reviews you know that the industry understands HP’s vision and sees the same potential in webOS as we do,” Rubinstein wrote in the memo. “David Pogue from the New York Times says ‘there are signs of greatness here.’ (I’ve included links to David’s review and others below.) You’ve also seen that reviewers rightly note things we need to improve about the webOS experience. The good news is that most of the issues they cite are already known to us and will be addressed in short order by over-the-air software and app catalog updates. We still have work to do to make webOS the platform we know it can be, but remember…..it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” BGR reviewed the HP TouchPad last month, and our determination was well-aligned with the consensus. Despite bogging and lackluster hardware, we saw great potential in webOS moving forward as HP attempts to gain mind share and market share in the already crowded smartphone and tablet spaces. Rubinstein’s full memo follows below.

Team,

Today we bring the HP TouchPad and webOS 3.0 to the world.  The HP team has achieved something extraordinary – especially when you consider that it’s been just one year since our work on the TouchPad began in earnest.  Today also marks the start of a new era for HP as our vision for connected mobility begins to take form – an ecosystem of services, applications and devices connected seamlessly by webOS.

If you’ve seen the recent TouchPad reviews you know that the industry understands HP’s vision and sees the same potential in webOS as we do.  David Pogue from the New York Times says “there are signs of greatness here.” (I’ve included links to David’s review and others below.) You’ve also seen that reviewers rightly note things we need to improve about the webOS experience. The good news is that most of the issues they cite are already known to us and will be addressed in short order by over-the-air software and app catalog updates.  We still have work to do to make webOS the platform we know it can be, but remember…..it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

In that spirit, Richard Kerris, head of worldwide developer relations for webOS, reminded me yesterday of the first reviews for a product introduced a little over ten years ago:

“…overall the software is sluggish”
“…there are no quality apps to use, so it won’t last”
“…it’s just not making sense….”

It’s hard to believe these statements described MacOS X – a platform that would go on to change the landscape of Silicon Valley in ways that no one could have imagined.

The similarities to our situation are obvious, but there’s also a big difference. Like David Pogue, our audiences get that webOS has the potential for greatness. And like me, they know that your hard work and passion, and the power of HP’s commitment to webOS, will turn that potential into the real thing.

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AppleCare representatives can do a lot of things for Mac owners suffering software issues… except when it comes to malware. In an internal support article leaked to ZDNet, Apple instructs its call center representatives on how to handle calls from users reporting that they have a machine infected with the “Mac Defender” malware trojan. And, as you can see, Apple is definitely taking the hands-off approach. “AppleCare does not provide support for the removal of the malware,” reads the memo. “You should not confirm or deny whether the customer’s Mac is infected or not.” Apple certainly isn’t the first company to instruct its support representatives to shy away from virus/malware assistance, but it is notable as it is the first major Mac OS X virus that — thanks to some moderate social engineering — is propagating. Apple has yet to issue a public statement about the software’s existence or infection levels. The full memo is after the break.

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According to information acquired by blog Android Central, Best Buy — or at least one Best Buy — has begun taking pre-orders for HTC’s highly anticipated EVO 3D handset. The offer is not being advertised or promoted in any way (present article excluded), but a company memo instructs Best Buy team members to offer the pre-order to those that ask about the dual-core handset. “This is meant to capture only those customers coming into our stores inquiring about the EVO 3D who are otherwise not purchasing another phone today,” reads the memo. ” In other words, if a customer asks, you can tell him or her about the pre-sale. Otherwise, mums the word.” Yes, mum indeed. Hit the jump to see an image of the memo in question.

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Despite the fact that Canadian wireless provider Bell Mobility will be rolling out LTE in the near future, it — like many of its peers — has decided to play the name game when it comes to “4G.” In an internal memo to employees, Bell explains that its high-speed HSPA+ network will henceforth be known as 4G. “Given the significant improvements in performance and quality the wireless carriers have made to their networks, the ITU has reassessed the definition of 4G standards,” reads the note. “This re-classification allows Bell to promote the HSPA+ network as 4G.” The changes take effect today, though there’s no word on how Bell’s marketing department will differentiate its 4G LTE network from its 4G HSPA network. Hit the jump to check out the full memo.

Thanks, B!

According to fresh intel acquired by blog Droid-Life, Verizon Wireless has delayed the release of the HTC Thunderbolt from February 14th to a future date listed as to-be-determined. The memo, which was presumably sent out to retail employees, does not indicate why the handset’s go-live date has changed. The communication goes on to note that the LTE mobile hotspot feature will also be delayed. Originally set to launch on the 17th of February, the feature’s date is now also listed as TBD. Not great news for Verizon fans. Feel free to vent your frustrations in the comments.

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BGR has obtained a memo being sent around to third-party Sprint retailers that sheds a bit more light on the company’s recently announced $10 Premium Data fee. The fee will be applied on all lines that upgrade to or activate a new smartphone after January 30th. The $10 tariff will apply to all individual lines and all family plan lines — so three smartphones on a family plan using equals an extra $30 per month. The memo states that the move will allow Sprint to “offer simple and affordable unlimited data plans” while “maintaining a wireless network able to meet the growing appetite for mobile data.” The only customers exempt from the new fee will be those customers tied to select corporate accounts. Hit the jump for the full memo and make sure to sound off in the comments!

Thanks, Tony!

Premium Data Add-on Charge for All Smartphones

Effective 1/30/11, all current and future 3G and 3G/4G smartphone activations will require the $10/month Premium Data Add-on charge. This allows Sprint to continue to offer simple and affordable unlimited data plans for our smartphone customers, while maintaining a wireless network able to meet the growing appetite for mobile data.

Complete details are included in the Premium Data Add-on Charge Launch Guide found on ISC > Quick Links > Premium Data Add-on Charge.

Details:

The Premium Data Add-on charge applies to:

• All smartphones operating on the CDMA, iDEN and 4G networks.
  • A smartphone is defined as a device that supports a robust operating system including: Android, BlackBerry, Instinct, Palm and Windows Mobile.
• All customers activating a new line or upgrading/swapping existing lines (consumer, IL, and most CL customers).

The Premium Data Add-on charge does NOT apply to:

• S&R exchanges (warranty or insurance events)
• 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee devices exchanges for handsets activated 1/1/11 to 1/29/11
• Existing smartphone customers will remain on their current rate plan, until they upgrade, perform an ESN swap or activate a new smartphone
• Existing Seasonal Standby customers prior to 1/30/11

Special priced CL customers tied to a Corp ID

The release of the BlackBerry Bold 9780 is right around the corner, officially. Canada’s Bell Mobility has announced that they will be offering the Bold 9780 beginning on November 2, 2010. The handset, which will be available in both black and white, packs a 2.44-inch HVGA display with 480 x 360 resolution, BlackBerry 6, Wi-Fi, 5 megapixel camera with flash, 512 MB of RAM, tri-band UMTS radio 850/1900/2100MHz, and a quad-band GSM radio 850/900/1800/1900MHz. Subsidized pricing was not disclosed in the memo obtained by BGR; the device will retail for $499.99.

Now… when will this bad-boy show up Stateside?

Thanks, Brendan!

Bell Canada has announced that it will be launching the Samsung Galaxy S — bearing the name Vibrant — in the coming months. A splash page has been put up at http://galaxys.bell.ca and one of our “Ninjas from the North” was kind enough to shoot us an official Bell memo. The memo is a tad light on details (as in it doesn’t have any), but since the handset carries the same name as T-Mobile’s Galaxy S flavor (flavour for those of you in Canada) we can assume that the specs are the same; 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 4″ WVGA Super AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera, and Android 2.1 (soon to be upgraded to 2.2). No word yet on a specific release date, but we’re hearing July from our sources. Hit the jump to check out the memo.

Thanks, Brendan!

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Check this out. New reports are coming in that a very interesting memo is currently circulating internally at AT&T. Said memo reportedly lists a variety of features that will supposedly be included on the upcoming iPhone 3G. Among them is an exciting new service that – get this – allows you to send SMS-like messages that include multimedia attachments. Imagine! The service, cleverly named Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) supposedly allows users to attach one or more image, audio file or even video and deliver the message along with text. The recipient of the message will then see and / or hear the multimedia on his or her mobile. Nutty. None of this is confirmed as of yet, but how sweet would it be if a mobile phone had functionality like this?! Oh Apple, you’ve done it again! Next thing you know we’ll find out that Apple has figured out a way to copy text from one place and paste it to another. Ok, that’s just crazy talk.

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