Common Paradox Tech Blog

As if there was a dearth of excuses to further divide an already compartmentalized planet of ours, the iPad has driven another wedge between Apple loyalists and the rest of the world. The iPad is arguably yet another milestone in the art of hyping products, if not a groundbreaking product. But the hype just might be on the wane. According to a self-styled Apple analyst from Venezuela, pre-orders for the iPad declined drastically over the weekend.

Daniel Tello (aka, Deagol)  has an uncanny knack of making accurate financial predictions when it comes to Apple. Earlier, Deagol and some other members of the Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board had estimated that the number of of pre-orders on Friday – the day Apple began accepting them – was around 120,000, with an initial rate of around 25,000 orders per hour. Now, Deagol’s latest estimates show that the rate has slowed down to 1,000 per hour. He expects Apple to receive approximately half a million pre-orders for the iPad in the lead up to its launch on April 3.

"My best guess, although very tentative given the early stage and few data we have so far, would be that they hit the 1 million unit milestone by the second week after it ships," Deagol told Fortune. "But this is a very speculative guesstimate based on just a weekend of pre-orders." All said, Deagol’s formula may or may not be right this time.

Image Credit: Deagol

The transparent AMOLED laptop that Samsung had on display at CES is soon going to hit the market with the promise of bragging rights galore. According to PlusPlasticElectronics, a commercial variant of the concept showcased at CES will be available within the next year.

“We have a lab in Korea that is currently working on developing a laptop with partially-transparent screen,” Samsung Electronics America’s Reid Sullivan told PlusPlasticElectronics. “Soon, I imagine that all Samsung’s audio-visual products will feature this technology. We want to be the first in this market.”

It appears as though transparent AMOLED displays have infatuated Samsung. It also plans to launch a see-through MP3 player christened IceTouch, which according to the report will be available in the early half of 2010. The IceTouch is likely to cost around  $330. The real challenge for the consumer will be to think of a practical use for such gadgets once they cease to be a novelty.

If you live anywhere on the East Coast and are at all interested in cool stuff that happens in the sky, you’d be remiss not to stay up late tonight to watch for the last ever nighttime shuttle launch.

Or you could wake up early, that works too. Either way, at 4:39 A.M. early tomorrow morning NASA will launch the Endeavor space shuttle, and it will be the last time it does so at night.

On its way up to the International Space Station, the shuttle will fly parallel to America’s eastern seaboard and the shuttle’s rockets will thus be visible to a surprisingly huge area, weather permitting. Here’s a map of where the rocket will be in the first ten minutes after launch and what areas of the country will be able to see it:

I told you it was a surprisingly huge area! To find out more about what you’re looking for and where exactly you should be looking for it, check out Space.com’s comprehensive rundown of the late night launch. [Space.com]

The first part of a typical Apple product launch is out of the way now. During the second leg, skeptics will grudgingly make one final attempt at understanding the device just as fanboys get better at pretending that they know pretty much everything they need to know. Both sides can now also factor in the newfangled prospect of making VoIP calls over the iPad’s 3G connection when making their case.

Apple today updated the iPhone developer SDK to accommodate VoIP apps. The move was accompanied by the launch of iCall, the first and only VoIP app for the iPhone and iPod touch. The announcement leaves us with one question, though. Will the iPad support VoIP apps out of the box? There is little reason why it shouldn’t.

Apple’s ban on VoIP functionality riled many feathers while it lasted. The company’s refusal to allow Google Voice to run natively on the iPhone wrecked its relationship with Google, which eventually launched a browser-based HTML 5 app to circumvent the ban. Ironically, VoIP functionality comes to the iPhone barely 24 hours after the launch of the web-based Google Voice app.

As many-a-reader let us know, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus are now live and available for purchase at http://www.verizonwireless.com/. Pricing with a 2 year contract: $149.99 w/ $100 mail-in rebate for the Pre Plus, $99 with a $100 mail-in rebate for the Pixi Plus. Don’t forget that both should come with a free Pixi if you are thinking you’d like another Verizon line.

One thing we haven’t mentioned (or knew for sure, technically) are the prices without a contract. That’d be $599 for the Pre Plus and $399 for the Pixi Plus.

PC HQ in sunny Florida is lining up late today, we imagine there won’t be long lines for what is a relatively quiet launch. Perhaps we’re wrong, though – if you have a line, drop us a line at pretips@precentral.net – we’ll update this here post with your images.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

With not many days to go for Nexus One’s rumored January 5 release, it is quite natural for the tech rumor mill to be in overdrive. T-Mobile has internally confirmed its involvement in Google’s foray into the handset market, says a TmoNews report. However, the carrier was careful not to mention the phone’s name. An internal T-Mobile USA support page is said to read: “Google… is scheduled to launch a new Android device in early January.”

The document reportedly goes on to state that T-Mobile will only be managing “billing, coverage, features and rate plans,” with Google and HTC directly handling support. In another relevant development, albeit a more significant and credible one, Google today scheduled a special Android press event for Jan 5 at its global headquarters.

Is Apple finally on the verge of  making its long-rumored tablet official? The much awaited announcement could come as early as January, according to Taiwanese site Digitimes, which has a monopoly on tech rumors emanating from the region. Apple has reportedly finalized Foxconn Group’s panel-making subsidiary Innolux as the supplier of the 10-inch panels that will be featured in its tablet. 

The site’s sources went on to name iPhone-display supplier Wintek as the company Apple may call upon to lessen Innolux’s burden. Foxconn Group subsidiaries seem to be in the thick of things as far as Apple’s tablet is concerned. G-Tech Optoelectronics, another Foxconn subsidiary, will reportedly provide a glass strengthening process for the tablet’s display.

The report goes as far as claiming that Apple delayed the launch of the tablet until the first quarter of 2010 as it wanted more time to optimize the strength of the tablet’s display.

Imaget Credit: Mac Life

In this week’s tragically undersupported app roundup: Unicorns, summoned! Bing, Bunged! Human beings, shot to death! Fancy cars, fancily raced! Food quanities, measured relatively! Everything, copied and pasted! Keyboards, questionably revolutionized! And more…

The Apps

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Honorable Mentions

Raytheon: This is a company that’s actively developing iPhone apps for military field use; that they’re making a Flight Control-esque iPhone game for us civvies is compelling, for sure. Alas, this app does not exist yet.

The Santa Game: Because it’s Christmas, y’all! Almost! And also because navigating a disembodied Santa head out of these mazes is pretty fun.

Avatar: It’s a massive third-person adventure game that is absolutely worth a look if James Cameron’s new HYPERFILM piques your interest. But really, your $10 should be going toward an IMAX ticket this weekend—save this one for after the initial joy and or/headache has dissipated.

Lou Zoom: Lou Reed—yes, that Lou Reed—made an iPhone app for people with vision problems who have trouble seeing their contact list, or for people who really enjoy massive typography.

This Week’s iPhone News On Giz

• Surprisingly, iPhone Takes Over the Weird Japanese Smartphone Market

• Inappropriate App Store Icons, Right Here

• Simpson Arcade iPhone Preview: Steeped in Authenticity

• FSJ’s Anti-AT&T Manifesto Makes Me Raise My Fist in Solidarity

• AT&T Has Spent Less on Network Construction Every Quarter Since the iPhone’s Launch

• Swedes Camping Outside Apple HQ Asking Steve Jobs to Approve Their App

• The iPhone as a Friend and Foe Tracking War Machine

• Control Your Mac With an iPhone, the Patent

• AT&T Dismisses Operation Chokehold as an “Irresponsible and Pointless Scheme”

• The StickyStrap Is the Weirdest iPhone Holder/Case/Stand I’ve Ever Seen

• Microsoft: Maybe We Should’ve Paid More Attention to That iPhone Thingamabob

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

Trackle, a personalized web and RSS feed tracker we wrote about earlier this year, is making itself a whole lot more social today with the launch of a real-time search engine on the site that lets you follow other people’s Trackles. Trackle.com’s free web service provides personalized RSS feeds for data such as the latest crime in a user’s neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, how much a user’s house value is down this week, updated job listings, sports scores and more.

The new search platform within Trackle lets you search for other user’s trackings by keyword. Here’s how it works: people within the Trackle community contribute by setting up alerts for very specific and changing information (they will show up in search when users set up their profiles as public). These alerts are then shared by the community, specific, time-sensitive information, such as information is then posted on Trackle as it happens, in real time. Duplicate requests are removed, so there are no repeated alerts.

Bambuser, a mobile streaming startup in the same space as Qik and Ustream, has announced that their live streaming iPhone application has been approved by Apple. The news comes only a few days after Ustream’s live video streaming app was approved, ending a 18 month long drought of broadcasting apps on the App Store. The Bambuser application lets anyone use their iPhone to broadcast live video directly to the web. You can get it on the App Store here. [iTunes link]

The release of these apps is a big deal — for a year and a half since the App Store’s launch, Apple consistently rejected any application that allowed users to broadcast video from their iPhones. The exact reason for this ban is uncertain, but has been attributed to (very valid) concerns over AT&T’s ability to handle their heavy bandwidth consumption.