Ready for some quality time with Motorola’s new Xoom tablet? The folks from the big glowing red M sat down with us this afternoon and provided a bit of a sneak peak into the world of the Xoom tablet. While the Android 3.0-based device wasn’t running a fully functional version of the new OS, we did have a chance to get a sneak peak at some of the upcoming device’s capabilities. Much of what this thing can do is tied directly to what Android 3.0 can do, which is to say… it can do a whole lot. Video conferencing, integrating Skype, tabbed browsing, and that’s just the beginning. Moto re-iterated Verizon’s claim that all devices initially sold with the 3G chip will be hardware-upgradeable to the new 4G LTE chips as soon as they become available. All it will take is a quick trip to your local Verizon Store to have the device serviced. Ahh, if only all devices were that future-proof. Hang tight for our video to upload — it’s coming!

TechCrunch is reporting that popular voice service, Skype, is gearing up for a big cloud-based play. This would presumably include web-based voice-calling, and possibly even video and chat services as well. In addition to the web move, it seems that Skype is starting to focus and set the company’s sights on the enterprise world. With Google Voice now available for Google Apps customers (and some sort of Enterprise-styled Google Voice service possibly coming soon), we’re wondering Skype’s next move here. TechCrunch throws out the concept of having Skype possibly integrated into Microsoft’s cloud offerings, or even possibly extending the Skype relationship with Facebook into something much larger.

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Cisco’s annual networking conference, Cisco Live!, is in full swing and the networking giant is unveiling the initial details on several upcoming video-oriented products. For consumer video camera buffs, Cisco is working on a Wi-Fi-enabled version of its popular Flip Video camera. Details are sparse but senior vice president of emerging technologies, Marthin De Beer, did hint that the portable camera may launch in time for the holidays. Cisco is also developing an enterprise-level video transcoding service, called the Media Experience Engine, that would allow companies to internally distribute video to a variety of platforms on the fly. Last but not least, Cisco is planning to release an iOS 4 video client for the Apple iPhone and is exploring opportunities to integrate its technologies into Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing tool.

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The iPad might be the cool tablet to own, but for busy business people who really need to get things done, there are things like the Cisco Cius. Announced today, the Cius is what Cisco likes to calls a “mobile collaboration business tablet.” Based on Android, the Cius weighs in at 1.15lbs. and features a 7″ touchscreen display, front-facing camera for multi-party video conferencing that records and streams 720p video at 30 FPS , Bluetooth 3.0 as well as support for Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and 3G/4G wireless networks. Pricing and a release date are unknown.

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Like we need any more proof, right? Even so, the more confirmation the better we say, and one of our Apple guys has sent us in some shots of the field test firmware for the new iPhone HD (or whatever it is), and we’ve got them right here for you. They are pretty self explanatory, and there is one more after the break!

From the time it was released until today, one of the many gripes about the iPhone is its lack of video-recording capabilities (and MMS and copy/paste, we know). For the time being, only those who jailbreak their iPhones can enjoy video recording with apps like Cycorder. While nothing has been confirmed yet, it would appear as though those iPhone patents that set the Internet on fire just a week ago reveal details that could hint at video for the iPhone. Alexander Wolfe of InformationWeek did a bit of digging into Apple’s patent documentation and has come up with some pretty interesting data that everyone else (including those who have done some serious analysis of Apple’s patents) seem to have missed. The patent states:

“The device supports a variety of applications, such as one or more of the following: a telephone application, a video conferencing application, an e-mail application, an instant messaging application, a blogging application, a photo management application, a digital camera application, a digital video camera application, a Web browsing application, a digital music player application, and/or a digital video player application.”

Does this mean that Apple is planning on bringing video to the next generation iPhone? Maybe. Or maybe it could be covering all their bases, just in case. One can hope, right? What the patent also reveals is that video-conferencing could be in store for the future as well:

“In some embodiments, the functions may include telephoning, video conferencing, e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, digital photographing, digital videoing, Web browsing, digital music playing, and/or digital video playing. Instructions for performing these functions may be included in a computer-readable storage medium or other computer program product configured for execution by one or more processors.”

Right now, all anyone can do is speculate. The patent does show signs of potential for video-recording, video-conferencing and a host of other cool features; whether or not these features will actually come to fruition remains to be seen. We’ll just have to hope Apple doesn’t plan to sit on these patents and twiddle its thumbs.

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Grab your trenchcoat, fedora, and drum-fed machine gun because LG has cooked up the perfect watch to help you bust crime and keep in touch with those you need to be in touch with. One advantage you’ll have over Dick Tracy however, is that the LG-GD910 is a 3G enabled wristwatch phone and it has an MP3 player. The new watch/phone is also said to have text-to-speech capabilities (useful for such a gadget), voice dialing, Bluetooth and a front-facing camera for video conferencing. As with most nifty novelties, this will likely make its debut in Europe before it comes to the US (if it ever does). What do you all think – useful, or pointless?

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