Apple may be preparing to purchase Anobit, an fabless Israeli firm that specializes in flash storage solutions for mobile and enterprise markets. The Cupertino-based company could be willing to spend between $400 million and $500 million on Anobit, Calcalist reported Tuesday. Anobit’s website says its memory signal processing (MSP) technology “significantly improves endurance, performance and cost of flash storage products and systems.” Apple is reportedly already an Anobit customer for its MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad product families. Anobit was founded in 2006, holds 95 total patents and currently employs about 200 people.

[Via TechCrunch]

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Pogoplug on Monday announced its new Pogoplug Cloud storage service that provides 5GB of free storage for new customers. Pogoplug will allow you to store music, movies and photos in the cloud and then stream the files down to your Android or iOS device. Like iCloud, Pogoplug Cloud also has an auto-upload feature that automatically sends new files to your Pogoplug account. We gave the service a quick test early Monday morning and liked that it took just a few seconds to get started. Once we registered and downloaded the iOS application, we chose to upload our camera roll to the service but found that it was a bit slow even over our Wi-Fi network. We liked the option to automatically upload new content over 3G or Wi-Fi, however, and Pogoplug’s web-based dashboard is clean and well designed. Users who need more than 5GB for media can also opt to sign up for 50GB of storage for $9.95 per month or 100GB of storage for $19.95 per month. Alternatively, unlimited cloud storage is available for free provided you purchase one of Pogoplug’s physical products, such as the $99 Pogoplug box or the $79 Pogoplug Mobile device. Pogoplug’s full press release follows after the break.

Pogoplug Introduces Free Cloud Storage for Mobile Phones
Share and Stream Directly From Your Phone

San Francisco, California – November 14, 2011 – Pogoplug, creators of the award-winning line of streaming and sharing devices, today unveiled a new service: Pogoplug Cloud. The service provides users with a secure online space to store personal content and instantly share and stream it from their mobile device.  Users sign up directly from any mobile phone, tablet or web browser and immediately receive their free 5GB Pogoplug Cloud.

Pogoplug is the only service to offer infinite expansion. Users can purchase additional online storage from Pogoplug, or host a private, unlimited cloud for no monthly fees by buying a Pogoplug box and connecting it to a home or office network.

Pogoplug Cloud enables users to:

1. Store: Automatically upload photos and videos from your mobile phone to your Pogoplug Cloud—no sync required.
2. Share: Instantly share anything in your cloud through email, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Create shared folders and collaborate with friends and colleagues.
3. Stream: Stream HD videos, photos and music from your Pogoplug Cloud to your phone.

“Mobile users are asking for more storage for their devices,” said Daniel Putterman, CEO and co-founder of Cloud Engines. “We designed Pogoplug Cloud to give everyone the freedom to interact with all of their personal content straight from their mobile phone.”

Pricing and Availability

Pogoplug offers 5GB of free cloud storage. 50GB and 100GB of additional cloud storage are available for $9.95/month and $19.95/month, respectively. Pogoplug Cloud is available today at www.pogoplug.com. Pogoplug’s iOS and Android apps are FREE and available for download in the iTunes Store and Android Marketplace. The full range of Pogoplug hardware and software products are available at www.pogoplug.com.

During the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Google’s Android boss Andy Rubin said his company’s upcoming music store “will have a little twist.” Rubin confirmed Google “won’t just be selling 99 cent tracks,” which suggests it might take a subscription-based approach, or even offer ad-based free listening as Spotify does. Google Music beta already allows users to store up to 20,000 in the cloud. Reportedly, Google is only close to sealing a deal with EMI snd has not yet signed each of the other major record labels. Rubin explained that Google’s image as a search engine may have contributed to a stall in the deals. “Google is in the very very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio,” Rubin said during AsiaD. “The media industry didn’t see us as that. They saw us a search company.” Reports surfaced on Tuesday that suggested Google will launch its music store this quarter, but a separate story from The New York Times has said it could launch in the coming weeks.

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If you’re currently an active MobileMe subscriber, Apple may soon offer you an incentive to move all of your data over to its new iCloud service. From the day the service goes public until June 30th of next year users who move their data to iCloud will receive 25GB of free iCloud storage for as long as their iCloud account is active, 9to5 Mac reported on Monday. Every iCloud user will receive 5GB free from the get-go and and an additional 10GB will cost $20 per year. An extra 20GB will cost $40 per year and 50GB of added storage will set you back $100 annually. ICloud is still available only to developers but we have no doubt it will be fully live by the time Apple finalizes iOS 5 and launches its next iPhone, which is expected to occur in September or October.

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Japanese blog Macotakara.jp is reporting from parts makers in Asia that Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air refresh, expected in the next two weeks, will use super-speedy 400Mbps NAND flash storage chips. In addition to being incredibly fast — even faster that the current MacBook Air solution, which uses an mSATA connector to connect the SSD to the motherboard — these new NAND flash storage chips would be soldered directly to the motherboard, bypassing any connector. If true, this new change would result in 100-times performance increase over the current solution, and coupled with a rumored bump to i5 / i7 processors, the new MacBook Airs should absolutely fly.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

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Apple’s senior manager in charge of its new iCloud solution has left the company to join online healthcare startup HealthTeacher. John Herbold held senior positions on the iCloud team and the MobileMe team before that, and he worked on a number of other projects while at Apple. Herbold joins HealthTeacher as Vice President of Product, focusing on digital engagement. “John has a proven background of engaging audiences across the devices we use to learn,play, socialize and be entertained,” said Scott McQuigg, CEO of HealthTeacher, in a statement. “Applying his experience developing world-class interactive products, John will lead our efforts tobroaden digital engagement with kids, their families and their teachers, all focused on measurably improving youth health.” HealthTeacher, according to the company’s website, is a service for school teachers that helps them provide health promotion, disease prevention, social/emotional wellness and safety resources to students. HealthTeacher’s full press release follows below.

Apple Product Leader Joins HealthTeacher as Vice President of Product

NASHVILLE, TN (June 21, 2011) – HealthTeacher announced today that John Herbold has joined the company as Vice President of Product. Prior to joining HealthTeacher, John was a Senior Product Manager on the iOS team at Apple Inc.

Most recently at Apple, John played a key role in the creation, development and launch of iCloud and led the development and marketing of Photo Stream. Prior to launching iCloud,John was a Senior Product Manager on Apple’s MobileMe team. While at Apple, John defined, shipped and marketed numerous products including iPhone and iPad apps, web apps and cloud services.

“John has a proven background of engaging audiences across the devices we use to learn, play, socialize and be entertained,” said Scott McQuigg, CEO of HealthTeacher. “Applying his experience developing world-class interactive products, John will lead our efforts to broaden digital engagement with kids, their families and their teachers, all focused on measurably improving youth health.”

“To dramatically bend the curve on youth health, we must create engaging and innovative experiences that make good health cool and aspirational—all while encouraging kids to move beyond the screen and be more active,” said John Herbold. “HealthTeacher is already playing a significant role in improving youth health through its work with teachers and schools. I look forward to leading the effort to enhance digital engagement that will equip our youth for a more successful future.”

Previously, John was a technology investment banking analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.He earned his M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and his B.S. infinance from Miami University.

The DROID Incredible 2 recently landed on Verizon Wireless, and it has some tough shoes to fill. When the original launched, it was BGR’s favorite Android phone to date despite stiff competition from the Motorola DROID, which launched at the same time. The DROID Incredible 2 packs some decent hardware, like a 1GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 720p video, and more, but its specs — and data speeds — don’t match those of phones at the higher end of Verizon’s portfolio. Is the DROID Incredible 2 a worthy successor to the original or does it fall short? Read on to find out!

Hardware / Display

I remember reviewing the original Incredible and feeling a sense of loss the day I had to send it back. It had a unique race-car inspired design and HTC even had interchangeable red and white covers for the back panel that you could buy separately. The whole idea was that HTC was totally tweaking the industrial design of the phone to really get consumers turned on to the sexy designs possible with a mobile device. There’s less shock value with the Incredible 2. The red battery compartment is gone, the contours aren’t unique anymore, and the whole device feels too similar to the original to be exciting.

The phone feels excellent in the hand, though, and the soft-touch black finish provides good grip. The volume keys are in easy reach on the top left hand side, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top across from a power button, and the back is home to an 8-megapixel camera and a dual-LED flash. I love that the menu, home, search, and return buttons automatically rotate so that they’re displayed correctly in both landscape and portrait view. HTC should definitely carry that feature into other phones.

The most noticeable difference on the Incredible 2 is its larger 4-inch 800 x 480 resolution display. I like that it’s bigger than the original 3.7-inch screen on the first Incredible, which was a hair too small, but I’m disappointed that HTC ditched the AMOLED display panel. Text looks decent on the screen, but the colors don’t pop in the way they did on the original Incredible. The trade off is that the current display is much easier to view under direct sunlight, however.

I’ll discuss the rest of the hardware in various parts of this review, but here’s a quick rundown of the raw specs: the DROID Incredible is powered by a 1GHz processor — that’s the same clock speed as the original — and it has an 8-megapixel with a dual-LED flash, a 1,450 mAh battery, a 1.3-megapixel forward-facing camera for video chat, and a 16GB microSD card pre-installed.

Software

The Incredible 2 is powered by Android 2.2.1 (Froyo) with HTC’s custom Sense user interface running on top, and its 1GHz powered through it all just fine. Unfortunately, the phone is not loaded with HTC’s new revamped version of Sense, which will make its debut on the T-Mobile HTC Sensation 4G any week now. I’ve always been a big fan of Sense. It’s one of my favorite Android user interfaces, but it’s hard to recommend software that’s already being replaced. The DROID Incredible 2 also runs Android 2.2 (Froyo), too, instead of the newer Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS.

Thankfully, there’s relatively little bloatware installed, save for V Cast Apps, V CAST Media, V CAST Music, V CAST Tones, and V CAST Videos. Verizon has pre-installed some other software, including 3G Mobile Hotspot, Blockbuster, Amazon Kindle, Lets Golf 2, NFS Shift, Skype Mobile, NFL Mobile, Slacker, and more, but those applications are often very popular Android apps, too, and I’m a big fan of many of them. The 3G Hotpsot application will allow you to share your 3G connection with other Wi-Fi enabled devices, and I used the Incredible 2 hotspot during an entire workday without any connection drops.

Calling / Data

Calls on the DROID Incredible 2 were solid, as is typically the case on Verizon’s phones in New York City. During a test call, the other party said I sounded “clear” while walking on the streets of New York City, and she said she couldn’t make out the background traffic. The speakerphone was a bit watery but the volume was sufficient. As far as data, the Incredible 2′s data speeds were just OK. I averaged 1.2Mbps on the downlink and 1Mbps up, which is good enough for a 3G phone but a far cry from Verizon’s brand new 4G LTE network which offers download speeds that are nearly 20 times that.

Camera

The Incredible 2 packs an 8-megapixel camera, just like the original, and can shoot 720p HD video. I was satisfied with the images I snapped — they look great on the phone itself and just as solid blown up on a computer screen. Unlike some newer phones, the Incredible 2 isn’t capable of auto-focusing while shooting video, though, which was a bit of a disappointment. Similarly, it lacks an HDMI-out port, so you won’t be able to show videos or photos on your bigscreen TV, another feature that’s supported by many other high-end devices.

Battery Life

During my few days of testing I didn’t have any problem getting through a full day of moderate use before the 1,450mAh battery ran out on the Incredible 2. Verizon rates it for 6.5 hours of usage, though, so you’ll want to bring a charger along if you’re planning to watch movies during a long plane ride or car trip.

Wrap-up

The DROID Incredible 2 is a good phone — there’s nothing inherently wrong with it — but I don’t think it brings the Incredible brand forward at all. In fact, there really isn’t anything “incredible” about it. The phone is very similar to the original, save for a larger screen and some small tweaks like a forward-facing camera, but at $199.99 it costs just as much as dual-core smartphones like the DROID X2, and it’s $50 shy of Verizon’s 4G LTE smartphones that offer much, much, faster data speeds. Is it a solid follow-up to the original? No. In fact, I like the original better.

mSpot just took the wraps off of its new Radio Spotter Beta app for Android, which will allow users to listen to their own cloud-based music, as well as tunes from streaming radio stations. It works like this: you can match any song you’re playing from your own collection to a radio station to continue playing similar music, or you can select a specific radio station based on genre directly from the application itself. There’s even a new mSpot Music Android application with the built-in Radio Spotter support, so you can take your stations on the go, too. mSpot provides 5GB of space free to new users, but you can sign up for 40GB for $3.99 per month if you have a larger music collection. The company says an iPhone version of the application with Radio Spotter support will launch later this year. Hit the jump for the full release from mSpot.

The First Combined Streaming Radio and Cloud Music Service, Launches

mSpot Music™ Offers Radio Spotter™

-      Match the Songs You’re Playing to Hundreds of

Internet Radio Stations

New Service Offers Instant Access to Free Internet Radio Stations Based on Favorite Genres and Artists – Initially Available for Android

Palo Alto, Calif. (May 26, 2011)—Popular cloud entertainment provider mSpot, Inc., today announced Radio Spotter™ Beta – the first digital music service to combine a cloud music and storage locker service with streaming radio. The new service offers two main features: Match the songs you’re playing from your personal online music collections, to similar music playing on hundreds of radio stations across the Internet; or, instantly select Internet radio stations you’ll like, based on music genres or your own artist searches. Radio Spotter puts the metadata in your music collection to work by matching whatever you’re listening to, and quickly adapts to offer new recommendations based on your changing preferences.

“Radio is still the easiest and most popular music discovery tool – people love its spontaneity and variety. Yet, it can take years to discover the best radio stations. We’re giving people a mash up between Cloud music and streaming radio:  It’s a great way for people to find new music and enjoy their own – all in one service,” stated Daren Tsui, CEO and co-founder of mSpot.

How does Radio Spotter work?

• Put your music collection on the Internet: Go to www.mSpot.com and upload your music collection from your PC/Mac^® into your own personal music locker in the Cloud. Now, you can access it anytime, anywhere from your Android or any PC/Mac.
• Download the mSpot Music Android App on your phone. Your music will appear on your phone.
• As you listen to your music on mSpot Music, the service will match the songs and artists you’re playing with similar music on hundreds of Internet radio stations. These stations will be available in the “Stations Suggestions” tab. The service keeps track of what you’re listening to and gives you new recommendations as the music you’re listening to changes.
• Favorite stations can be saved for easy reference on the app homepage.
• New songs can be flagged for future reference and automatically synced to their online accounts at www.mspot.com for later purchase, through Amazon or iTunes music stores.
• The “Browse Stations” tab offers an instant selection of Internet radio stations, which are always available through the service without matching songs to your own music collection. You can also search by favorite artists to find radio stations playing music by that artist, or similar artists.
  • Genres range from Alterative and Rock to Dance and Electronic, Pop, Urban, Country, Reggae, Latin, Jazz, Spiritual, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, Youth, Bollywood, French and Canadian.

How mSpot Music with Radio Spotter Differs from Existing Music Services:

• Unlike Pandora and Slacker; Play all of your own music alongside new music that is discovered on real radio stations: Your own music collection is the basis of all the new music you find and listen to.
• Unlike iTunes; Store your music collection in the cloud so that you can always access it, wherever you are. Your music is connected to the Internet, so you can match your preferences to hundreds of Internet radio stations to discover and play new music for free.
• Unlike subscription services like Rhapsody, MOG and Rdio; Listening is free. Match the music you already love with music playing on radio stations all over the Internet.
• Unlike Cloud storage services like Amazon or Google; Listening is not limited to your own music, or music for purchase; your music now connects you to hundreds of radio stations.

Radio Spotter Beta is available in the Android Market for Android users, in the United States only; iPhone, PC/Mac and other internet connected device support will be offered later in 2011, along with new premium features. mSpot Music is available at www.mspot.com for PC and Mac, in the Apple^® App Store and Android Marketplace.

mSpot Music offers the following features:

• Instant access to music collections from mobile, PC/Mac^® and Web-ready TV.
• Smart syncing across devices: No USB cords required; instantly syncs music from the cloud to user’s mobile; avoids playback interruptions.
• Automatically exports playlist, metadata, cover art, and more from iTunes.
• Continuous playback, even during spotty cellular coverage.
• Airplane mode: play cached songs on the phone without network connectivity.
• “Live Lyrics”: read the words to select favorite songs as they play on mobile.
• “Streaming only” option for users who want to save all the storage on their mobiles for other media.

mSpot Music offers free cloud storage for the first 5 gigabytes (approximately 4,000 songs): Additional storage is available for purchase; 40 gigabytes for $3.99 per month.

Google announced and launched its Music Beta service on Tuesday, and record execs aren’t too pleased with its decision to move ahead before reaching a deal. “People are pissed,” one record label exec told Hollywood Reporter, which explained in one article why it took so long for Google and the music industry to reach an agreement. Reportedly, Google offered some labels larger advances than others, which resulted in some firms holding out for more money. Similarly, the music industry is concerned that Music Beta users will upload music stolen from P2P sites — that the industry already wants removed from Google’s search results — to Google’s music storage locker. Lastly, the recording industry was concerned that Google’s music service could weaken the revenue stream from other sources, such as Apple’s iTunes. Ultimately, driven by competition from Amazon’s Cloud Drive, Google decided to pull the trigger and launch anyway.

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After years of waiting from BlackBerry users, the ultimate BlackBerry has finally been made official. We broke the story on the next generation BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, and we even spent some one-on-one time with it, but there is nothing like an official announcement, right? As far as specs, it’s everything we reported it would be — 1.2GHz processor, 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, full QWERTY keyboard, 5 megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, 8GB of onboard storage, and more. As far as availability, RIM said that the new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 will be available from “carriers around the world” starting this summer. We’re hearing June / July still. Entire press release is after the break.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RIM Introduces New BlackBerry Bold Smartphones

New BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones are the Thinnest and Most Powerful BlackBerry Smartphones yet, Featuring the Renowned BlackBerry Keyboard Together with a Brilliant Touch Screen and the New BlackBerry 7 OS

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today unveiled two new BlackBerry® BoldTM smartphones. The high-performance BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a stunning and iconic design that integrates an incredibly easy-to-use BlackBerry keyboard with a brilliant, high resolution, capacitive touch screen. These exceptional smartphones are built on a new, performance-driven platform powered by the BlackBerry® 7 operating system and designed to deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity for users around the world.

“The new BlackBerry Bold smartphones and BlackBerry 7 OS are inspired by millions of customers around the world who want the ultimate combination of performance, functionality and style,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “These fully-loaded and beautifully crafted smartphones offer a highly refined user experience with blazingly fast performance, a brilliant touch screen and an outstanding typing experience.”

Thin, Sleek, Iconic Design

Distinguished by an iconic design and the industry’s best keyboard, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature the premium materials and finishes that characterize the BlackBerry Bold line. Both models have a lustrous exterior with a brushed stainless steel frame and a high-gloss glass-weave backplate. They are also the thinnest BlackBerry smartphones yet, at only 10.5mm. The quality materials and optimized design of the new BlackBerry Bold smartphones are instantly evident when held in the hand.

Performance-Driven

These BlackBerry Bold smartphones are built on a new performance-driven platform featuring a 1.2 GHz processor, Liquid GraphicsTM touch screen, and support for high speed 4G/HSPA+ wide area wireless networks.

The Liquid Graphics touch screen, a key new feature powered by BlackBerry 7, delivers fast, smooth performance for highly responsive touch-based navigation, web browsing, pictures, video and graphics intensive games*. Offering up to 60 frames-per-second performance with instant UI action/response, Liquid Graphics gives customers a visually rich and immersive experience that’s responsive to the touch. In addition, the smartphones feature brilliant displays with an eye- popping 287 dpi to deliver crisp, stunning visuals.

May 2, 2011The new platform also provides support for 4G networks; the 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity, and the 9930 supports CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA+ global roaming on GSM/UMTS networks.

NFC

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones include built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications), a new technology that will enable many rich and exciting experiences. Through NFC, users will be able to, for example, pair the BlackBerry Bold to an accessory or read information such as a web link from smart tags by simply tapping their BlackBerry Bold to an NFC tag (eg. Smart Poster).

Augmented Reality

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones feature a built-in compass (magnetometer) to support location-based services and augmented reality. APIs will allow third party developers to take advantage of the new functionality within their applications. The new smartphones will also include Wikitude, the leader in mobile augmented reality, which overlays contextual information on what the user sees through the smartphone’s camera viewfinder.

HD Video

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones support up to 720p HD video recording and playback. Users can easily share their videos directly from the smartphone or sync videos, as well as music and photos, to their computer using Media Sync in the BlackBerry® Desktop Software.

BlackBerry 7

The BlackBerry 7 OS is designed to power the new performance-driven BlackBerry Bold platform. It provides an easier and faster user experience with improved browsing, voice- activated searches, the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, as well as additional personal and productivity apps out of the box.

The BlackBerry Browser has been significantly enhanced in BlackBerry 7. In addition to the general performance gains of Liquid Graphics, which helps deliver faster rendering and seamless panning and zooming, the BlackBerry 7 browser includes a new JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler to improve the load time speed of web pages. The new browser also includes support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video.

Building upon the Universal Search feature introduced in BlackBerry 6, BlackBerry 7 expands the capability to include voice-activated search. This new capability makes it even easier and more convenient to search for content on the smartphone or web.

BlackBerry 7 also integrates BlackBerry® BalanceTM, which separates personal content from corporate content on the smartphone, giving users the freedom and flexibility to use the handset for personal email, Facebook®, Twitter®, multimedia, games and other apps while satisfying the very real need for corporate data to be highly secure and manageable. BlackBerry Balance works in conjunction with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0.3, which provides a number of unique IT policy controls such as wiping only corporate data from the handset or blocking work related content and apps from being copied or forwarded to personal contacts.

With BlackBerry 7 on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, users will also get the full version of Docs To Go® with all “premium” features enabled out-of-the-box so that users can easily work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone. Docs To Go also includes a native PDF viewer.

Availability

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones are expected to be available from carriers around the world beginning this summer.

For additional information please visit www.blackberry.com/touchbold

APPENDIX

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Specifications

• 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, approximately 130 g • 2.8″ capacitive touch screen display – VGA (640×480), 287 dpi resolution • Ultra-easy QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad • 1.2 GHz Processor, 768 MB RAM • 8 GB on-board memory, plus microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards • NFC technology • 5.0 MP camera, supports 720p HD video recording • Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), Digital Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity Sensor • Built-in GPS / aGPS • Dual-Band Wi-Fi® – 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5 GHz • Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support • Wireless Network support:

o 9900:Tri-BandHSPA+,Quad-BandGSM/EDGE o 9930:Dual-BandCDMA/EV-DORev.A,Dual-BandHSPA+,Quad-Band

GSM/EDGE • 1230 mAh removable, rechargeable battery

• BlackBerry 7 OS * Features OpenGL 2.0 support for developers.

About Research In Motion

###

Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RIM). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.

Following up on a rumor from yesterday, Digital Daily‘s John Paczkowski has confirmed that Apple has purchased the domain name icloud.com — henceforth to be known as iCloud, we’re sure. “Sources in a position to know” confirmed to the publication that Swedish company Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple, although they could not confirm that the Cupertino-based company paid $4.5 million for it as was reported yesterday. Apple is widely expected to launch a cloud-based service in the very near future.

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According to the latest Internet rumor, Apple’s presumed cloud-based service may be getting a familiar moniker. Blog GigaOM is reporting that the Cupertino company has purchased the domain name iCloud.com from Swedish company Xcerion. We wouldn’t be surprised if the rumor turned out to be true, Apple has had a love affair with the vowel “i” since the early 1990′s, although, as TechCrunch points out, the iPad was thought to be called the iSlate at one point. The report states that Apple paid $4.5 million for the domain name, and states that Xcerion recently re-branded its service’s name from iCloud to CloudMe. Apple did not respond to the site’s request for comment.

Read [GigaOM] Read [TechCrunch]

Today’s one of those days when we wish we lived in South Korea. Samsung’s hot new Galaxy S II — which packs a dual-core Orion CPU, an 8 megapixel camera, a 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, and more — hits the South Korean market on all three of the country’s wireless carriers. Samsung shipped more than 14 million of the first generation Galaxy S devices, and it hopes to sell at least 10 million Galaxy S II handsets as the device makes its debut in 120 countries and on 140 different carriers in the coming months. “We expect sales to be as good as the Galaxy S,” Shin Jong-Kyun, president of Samsung Mobile, told AFP. Unfortunately there’s no word if or when the Galaxy S II will hit the United States, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up given that the first generation was offered by each of the big-four carriers.

[Via Engadget]

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Might as well let other major mobile operating system manufacturers in on the location-tracking scandal fun, no? While Apple, and to a much lesser extent Google, have come under fire for their phone location storage practices, other major OS manufacturers have been silent. We’re not sure being the “squeaky wheel” would pay dividends in this instance. That hasn’t stopped the media from asking, however, and CNET posed the question to Microsoft: what do you track?

“Microsoft says its operating system transmits the MAC address of the Wi-Fi access point (but not the name), signal strength, a randomly generated unique device ID retained for an unspecified limited period of time, and, if GPS is turned on, the precise location and direction and speed of travel,” writes CNET. “That happens when the ‘application or user makes a request for location information,’ the company says.”

CNET has a laundry list of questions for Microsoft that remain unanswered. The current location brouhaha now has the attention of the courts and some distinguished members of the United States Congress — so we’re betting most major mobile operating system manufacturers will be answering questions in an official capacity in the near future.

[Via WPCentral]

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According to a report filed by Reuters, Apple will edge out Google in the race to provide users with a cloud music service. “Apple’s plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection,” writes Reuters, citing two people familiar with Apple’s plans. The article goes on to cite a source familiar with Google’s cloud music plans, simply saying that the venture has stalled. “Apple has not told its music partners of when it intends to introduce its music locker,” the report continues. It has been widely rumored that Apple’s new North Carolina data center will be the bit-locker and heart of this new music venture. Apple declined Reuters request for comment.

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