The unnamed analyst told Barron's that he had seen a prototype of the device, and believes it will be available in November following an official September launch. The source said that the wider computer industry had slowed production on their own touch-screen tablet devices to see what kind of gadget Apple produced. Such is Apple's reputation as a trendsetter, that other companies are keen to see how Apple implements the technology before proceeding with their own devices. "It's close enough now to a final design that in Asia, there's no other product in the waiting room or in the bullpen," said the analyst. "There are dozens of [original device makers] making products for Lenovo and other PC makers that are all waiting to see what the Apple product is."

The touch-screen tablet, dubbed the MacBook touch by Apple fans, is expected to have a 10in touch-screen and be similar in look and feel to a large iPod touch. Experts expect it to cost around $800 (£500), and to be positioned as a home media hub, capable of streaming content and services in much the same way as Apple TV does, and doubling as a games console. Although Apple has refused to comment on the rumour and speculation surrounding the launch of a possible touch-screen tablet, it has hinted that it is exploring new product lines. Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, said on a recent earnings call that Apple was working on something "very innovative". Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple, is said to have been the driving force behind the tablet, despite a recent leave of absence from the company due to ill-health. Analysts believe the machine could even compete directly with Amazon's Kindle ebook reader by allowing users to download books, music and movies directly to the device over the Wi-Fi network. Apple is also said to be working on a new music initiative, code-named Cocktail, that will see all four major record labels – EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal – offer interactive booklets, sleeve notes, exclusive cover art and other digital assets with songs and albums purchased through Apple's iTunes Music Store. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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A Boston jury has ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay a total of $US675,000 for willfully infringing 30 songs by downloading and distributing them over the KaZaA peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing network. The figure of $US22,500 per song is closer to the $US222,000 award in the first Jammie Thomas-Rasset trial than the $1.92 million figure from her second trial, but of course they're all ridiculously high penalities. The defendant's case was hamstrung from the start by the judge having ruled out the Fair Use defence to the RIAA firms' claims of copyright infringement and later having directed the jury that it could only return a guilty verdict because the defendant admitted liablity on the witness stand. After three hours of deliberations the jury came up with the stonking fine, which was actually smaller than many had predicted might have been assessed.

Tenenbaum's attorney and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson told Ars Technica, "it's a bankrupting award." He also said things might have gone differently at trial had the defence been allowed to argue Fair Use. Tenenbaum said that he doesn't have the ability to pay the judgment and that he'll be filing for bankruptcy if the award stands. Of course the RIAA is happy. This is the second high profile case that has actually gone to court and it has proven that the way the law stands P2P users can end up paying thousands of times the cost of a $US1 track if they stick it on a P2P site. Judge Gertner has previously said she will hold a post-trial proceeding to determine whether the size of the award violates the US Constitution.

( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

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A third of people in the European Union say they have never used the internet, according to an EU study published today. The report found that 25 per cent of Europeans had never used a computer before, while 40 per cent had no internet access at home. Almost 33 per cent of those with no internet access said they didn't feel they had a need for it, while one in four said they couldn't afford it. The findings were revealed in a report, commissioned and published by the European Union, in to the state of the digital economy in member countries. It concluded that digital products and services could play a significant role in lifting Europe out of the current financial crisis. The study reveals that almost 80 per cent of EU citizens access the internet using a high-speed broadband connection, with young people aged between 16 and 24 the biggest web users, while those aged 65 and over, and the unemployed, were the least active online.

One in three British youngsters aged between 16 and 24 said they would not be willing to pay for online services such as digital music downloads, although 10 per cent said they had paid for such online services in the past. The report, entitled Digital Competitiveness, found that almost three-quarters of all European youngsters in this age group were using what it called "advanced" online services to create and share content over the web, on sites such as YouTube. Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for information society and media, said governments should focus on freeing up the internet for these "super-users". "To release the economic potential of these digital natives, we must make access to digital content an easy and fair game," she said. "These young people are intensive internet users and also highly demanding consumers. "We should seize the opportunity of a new generation of Europeans who will soon be calling the shots in the European marketplace." ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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The latest invention of researchers from Vermont is hedonometer, a device that can estimate the level of happiness. Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth were the ones who developed the software that gather sentences from different blogs and Tweets and then identifies the days that were the happiest and saddest throughout the last several years. According to Peter Dodds, a scientist at the University of Vermont, the goal was to take advantage of the increasing popularity of blogs and Twitter and come up with a tool that would be able to estimate the emotional signal from a group of people. The staring point was the website WeFeelFine.org that examines 2.3 million blogs, searching for sentences that start with the words "I feel" or "I am feeling". The words that followed were then rated on a scale from 1 to 9. Researchers managed to rank 1,034 words, with "triumphant" having the highest score of 8.87 and "hostage" the lowest - 2.20. By gathering 10 million sentences over that last few years, researchers estimated the daily level of happiness, reports Discovery News.

It wasn't a surprise when then found that the happiest days are the weekends and holidays. In general the happiest days of the last several years were the election day and the inauguration of US President Barack Obama. You can find more information about the happiest day and the like her at www.InfoNIAC.com - please check the links at the bottom of the article. Using their latest invention, researchers found that during these two days people most often wrote sentences that contained the words "proud" and "pride". The software showed that the saddest days were the anniversaries of 9-11 and the death of pop star Michael Jackson. Scientists applied their latest invention to Tweets to be able to estimate the level of happiness besides the United States (90 percent of all analyzed blogs were from the States). But there are some drawbacks in the software. If someone posts a message that says "I am not happy", it will identify it as a happy statement. Besides, the majority of users who write on blogs and Tweet are younger than the overall population. (www.infoniac.com )

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The Marines had already banned the use of social media on military networks but issued a more detailed order this week defining which sites were out of bounds and noting possible exceptions to the rule, a Marine Corps spokesman, Lieutenant Craig Thomas said. "These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries," the Marine Corps said in an order posted on its website. "The very nature of SNS (social networking sites) creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts opsec (operational security), comsec (communications security)... at an elevated risk of compromise," the order said.

Those marines whose assignments may require access to social media could apply for a waiver, it said. Marines working in criminal investigations, press relations and recruiting have a need to use social media to carry out their duties and would likely be granted access, Mr Thomas said. But he said "social networking sites have always been banned in the Marine Corps." The Defence Department meanwhile confirmed it was carrying out a formal review of its policies on the use of social networking sites. In a July 31 memo, the deputy secretary of defence, William Lynn, said he had asked the Pentagon's chief information officer to draw up policy options examining the threats and benefits of so-called Web 2.0 capabilities. The memo acknowledges how social networking sites have proved valuable for recruitment, press relations and sharing information with allies and among military families.

"However, as with any Internet-based capabilities, there are implementation challenges and operational risks that must be understood and mitigated," the memo said. The policy review comes as other branches of the armed services have embraced social media with enthusiasm, seeing the sites as a means of reaching a wider audience and spreading information within the military. The US Army has set up a new office for online social media but the military has struggled to balance security concerns with demands to modernise its communications. Security rules have been blamed for stifling blogging by soldiers from the battlefront, even as some senior commanders write blogs or maintain a Facebook page. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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A Chinese website got its paws on two upcoming Intel LGA-1156 parts - the Core i5 750 and Core i7 870. PConline says that the Core i5 750 part features clock speeds in the range of 2.66GHz and 3.2GHz using Turbo Boost and no Hyper-Threading. The higher-end Core i7 870 will run at 2.93GHz with a top speed of 3.46GHz for individual cores and supports Hyper-Threading technology for up to eight threads. Looking at the test results, it seems that despite being limited to dual-channel memory and the old DMI interconnect instead of QPI, the Core i7 870 outperforms the existing Core i7 920. The Turbo Boost feature increases the frequency of the Core i7 870 to 3.2GHz. The Core i5 750 appears to be power-efficient but still manages to sit between the Core i7 920 and Core 2 Quad Q9550 in terms of performance. If the results are true, both chips will outclass Phenom II X4 955 and have AMD crying in its beer. A word of caution on the tests. Intel has not even announced the existence of these chips yet and they might be prototypes which will never see the light of day. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

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The service allows personal notes written prior to their death to be sent to loved ones in the future. Important documents such as wills and insurance details can also be accessed through the service. Organisers insist The Last Messages Club is in no way ghoulish but eases the stress and trauma associated with the death of a loved one. A member can write up to 100 emails that can be released once they die at times of their choosing, such as when a relative or loved one marries or has a child. The Last Messages Club works by giving each member a secure and private vault. They are then able to create messages to be sent specifically to their chosen recipient. These messages can range from a final love letter, guidance for someone left behind, a list of instructions, details on life insurance and other financial information. Photos, videos and documents can also be attached. Simon Gilligan, 63, from Littleport near Ely, Cambridgeshire, has signed up to the scheme and has written messages to be sent to his wife, children and friends after his death. The technical adviser said: "It's strange really as it makes you confront your own mortality in a sense. "I thought at first that maybe it was a bit ghoulish but on consideration I think it's a great idea as it would be nice for loved ones to receive messages from me when I'm no longer here. "The messages are personal but most of them are humorous. It also makes you think about smaller details like making sure you remind someone to cancel your bus pass."

Geoff Reiss, founder of The Last Messages Club, said: "No one likes to think about their impending 'demise', but it is much better to be fully-prepared, so that there is less stress on your loved ones after you pass away." People can sign up to a silver option costing £45 or a gold package costing £190. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Latest figures from the internet data firm StatCounter suggest that Bing had a 9.41 per cent share of the US search market in July, up from 8.23 per cent in June. Google, meanwhile, saw its share dip slightly, from 78.48 per cent in June to 77.54 per cent in July. Microsoft has recently signed a search deal with Yahoo! that will see Bing power all of Yahoo!'s search services. Microsoft and Yahoo! enjoy a combined 20.36 per cent share of the search market, said StatCounter, putting them in a much stronger position to challenge Google's dominance working as a team rather than as competitors. "Bing continues to make slow but steady progress but the combined Yahoo! figures suggest that the deal announced last week will have to demonstrate major future synergies if it is to make any dent in Google's dominance," said a spokesperson for StatCounter. Google's global share of the search market fell slightly last month, slipping from 89.8 per cent in June to 89.23 per cent in July. Microsoft has embarked on a $100 million advertising campaign to spread the word about its revamped search engine, which launched in May. Yahoo!'s chief executive, Carol Bartz, admitted this week that Yahoo! didn't invest heavily enough in search. The 10-year deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft should help to address that problem, she said. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Recently a Japanese company presented a robotic suit, developed to help people who suffer from strike-induce paralysis or those who had spinal cord injuries. Cyberdyne Corporation called its latest invention HAL, which stands for Hybrid Assistive Limb. According to the company the suit was designed to "upgrade the existing physical capabilities of the human body". The device weights 23 kilograms and includes robotic limbs along with a backpack that features the battery and computer system. Cyberdyne's latest invention is attached to the body and managed by thought. The technology works as follows: whenever an individual tries to make a move, the brain sends nerve signals to the muscles. The robotic suit then identifies these weak signals from the surface of the human skin with the help of a sensor that is attached on the wearer's skin. Then the signal is transmitted to HAL's power unit, signaling the unit to start moving in harmony with the limb of the wearer.

At the moment the latest invention from Cyberdyne can be hired for Y220,000 a month. The company claims that the device has various applications. For example it can help a person to perform every day tasks like walking, climbing up and down stairs and even lifting heavy objects. On a full charge the suit will function for about 5 hours. In addition, the wearer will not feel the heaviness of the suit due to the fact that HAL supports its own weight, Cyberdyne says. It is worth mentioning that a similar exoskeleton was developed by Honda and you can read about it her at www.InfoNIAC.com - check the links at the bottom of the article. Cyberdyne's founder and CEO, Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai, initially developed the suit for mountain climbing. The company says that its latest invention can function in extremely cold conditions and at a height of 4,000 meters above sea level. ( www.infoniac.com )

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