The Apple rumor mill is smoking at this point.

Last week, the rumor mill went into overdrive as reports of a Verizon-bound iPhone kicked up a couple of notches. Today, the latest is that the company could be ready to start field-testing a Verizon iPhone and a new iPad to boot.

A posting on Boy Genius Report cites Apple sources who point to code within iOS4 beta firmware that would allow for the bypass of iTunes activation on three new devices: iPhone3,2, iPhone 3,3, and iProd 2,1. BGR says these new devices are the much rumored CDMA iPhone and a new iPad (the first iPad was listed in code as iProd 1,1 in August 2009).

Way down deep within iOS 4 is a pretty intriguing block of code. Our source says that the code queries the device, and if the device is either a CDMA iPhone or iPad 2, the device will auto-activate, thus bypassing the need for iTunes. We’re told this block of code has appeared every year consecutively before a major iPhone / device release, removed right before launch. This allows the products to be field tested by carriers (or partners) without having to activate the handsets or devices.

BGR speculates that Apple may have included this code so that AT&T or other carriers watching activation logs won't see new partners taking new devices for a test drive.

_{Source: BGR}

Research In Motion shares dropped yesterday amid reports that the company has agreed to give India access to its servers.

Government officials in India have said that starting September 1, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion will give the country access to its BlackBerry Messenger service.

Bloomberg cites anonymous Indian officials who say RIM will at first provide access manually, with information on individual phone numbers supplied upon request from the Indian government. However, the officials said RIM is looking into a way to automate BlackBerry Messenger tracking and should have a solution by November.

The access is said to be a result of security concerns and Bloomberg reports that India had given RIM up until August 31 to address security concerns the government had over BlackBerry services. The news follows a similar agreement made with Saudi Arabia last week.

According to Bloomberg, RIM fell 4.8 percent, to $50.83 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Read the full story here.

Where are you updating from?

Facebook has reportedly been toying with the idea of location-based features for a while, and it looks like we could see the fruit of its labor tomorrow, as BoomTown reports Facebook will Wednesday roll out a geo-location offering to rival services like FourSquare.

For those unaware, FourSquare is a service that allows people to 'check in' to different venues and locations (malls, restaurants, parks, hotels, stores, etc.) via their mobile phone. The idea is that by sharing your location or what you're ordering and where, you're sharing your favourite places to eat, hang out, or shop with people on the service, opening them up to places they may never have known existed. Some businesses even offer special deals for Foursquare users who have checked-in at their location more than a certain number of times.

Facebook updated its privacy policy late last year and included a clause about location-based features coming in the future. However, plans for location services were put on the back-burner when confusion and negative feedback regarding the new privacy settings demanded the attention of staff at the social network.

Last week, CNet cited multiple sources who said the company would announce a 'check-in' feature in the coming weeks.

"It's going to take the form of an application programming interface (API) for third-party companies on the Facebook developer platform, integrating existing "check-in" start-ups more deeply into the massive social-networking service and in turn permitting location-aware data to become a part of existing platform applications."

There's a Facebook event scheduled for tomorrow, so we'll report back when we know more.

Would you use a geo-location service, similar to Foursquare, if it was integrated into Facebook? Let us know in the comments below!

Turn your iPod touch into an iPhone with the help of this handy-dandy case!

iPhones come with expensive plans, and depending on where you're from, you might not even get to choose which carrier to use it on. However, a new case from a Chinese manufacturer could offer users a way to turn their iPod touch into an iPhone, eliminating the aforementioned issues.

Costing just under $60, the Apple Peel 520 is an iPod touch case that comes with a dock connector, a built-in 800mAh battery and SIM card slot. The idea is that when used in conjunction with Apple's touchscreen PMP, the case will add cellular features to the device, effectively turning it into an iPhone.

The accessory is the work of a 22-year-old programmer from Shenzhen, China. Named only as 'Maxpy' in an interview with CNN, the programmer says he created the Apple Peel because he loves the iPhone but found it to be too pricey in his country.

Despite receiving 150 pre-orders for the device, the 22-year-old said plans to mass-produce the technology are on hold while he tries to figure out if he's violating anyone else's IP.

It's certainly an interesting idea, however, the Apple Peel 520 isn't completely perfect. CNN reports that it doesn’t support 3G or Bluetooth and deleting or forwarding of SMS messages is not available either. Your iPod touch must be jailbroken to make use of the case, and you have to install special software to enable text messaging and get the two devices to play nice. There's also a small amount of lag when calls are made.

The device's battery is supposedly capable of offering 4.5 hours of talk time and five days on standby.

Read the full story here.

Thanks Renegade_Warrior!

*Image via DailyTech

Assassin's Creed, Halo and Guitar Hero all coming to Windows Phone 7.

Though Windows Phone 7 is launching in just a couple of months, it still feels like we know very little about Microsoft's brand new mobile operating system. Yesterday. Redmond shed a little more light on WP7, offering a list of titles we can expect to become available via Xbox Live for Windows Phone 7.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the sheer amount of games Microsoft will have available on XBL for WP7 right off the bat. The company revealed the launch line-up yesterday, naming over 60 games that will be available from day one. There's the big-name titles like Guitar Hero, Halo: Waypoint, Castlevania, Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell Conviction, along with some of the insanely popular mobile games, like Bejeweled and Frogger.

Check the full list below, and remember, these are just the available-at-launch games. Expect more as Windows Phone 7 establishes itself on the mobile gaming scene.

• 3D Brick Breaker Revolution (Digital Chocolate)
• Age of Zombies (Halfbrick)
• Armor Valley (Protégé Games)
• Asphalt 5 (Gameloft)
• Assassins Creed (Gameloft)
• Bejeweled™ LIVE (PopCap)
• Bloons TD (Digital Goldfish)
• Brain Challenge (Gameloft)
• Bubble Town 2 (i-Play)
• Butterfly (Press Start Studio)
• CarneyVale Showtime (MGS)
• Castlevania (Konami)
• Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst (MGS)
• De Blob Revolution (THQ)
• Deal or No Deal 2010 (i-Play)
• Earthworm Jim (Gameloft)
• Fast & Furious 7 (i-Play)
• Fight Game Rivals (Rough Cookie)
• Finger Physics (Mobliss Inc.)
• Flight Control (Namco Bandai)
• Flowerz (Carbonated Games)
• Frogger (Konami)
• Fruit Ninja (Halfbrick)
• Game Chest-Board (MGS)
• Game Chest-Card (MGS)
• Game Chest-Logic (MGS)
• Game Chest-Solitaire (MGS)
• GeoDefense (Critical Thought)
• Ghostscape (Psionic)
• Glow Artisan (Powerhead Games)
• Glyder 2 (Glu Mobile)
• Guitar Hero 5 (Glu Mobile)
• Halo Waypoint (MGS)
• Hexic Rush (Carbonated Games)
• I Dig It (InMotion)
• iBlast Moki (Godzilab)
• ilomilo (MGS)
• Implode XL (IUGO)
• Iquarium (Infinite Dreams)
• Jet Car Stunts (True Axis)
• Let's Golf 2 (Gameloft)
• Little Wheel (One click dog)
• Loondon (Flip N Tale)
• Max and the Magic Marker (PressPlay)
• Mini Squadron (Supermono Limited)
• More Brain Exercise (Namco Bandai)
• O.M.G. (Arkedo)
• Puzzle Quest 2 (Namco Bandai)
• Real Soccer 2 (Gameloft)
• The Revenants (Chaotic Moon)
• Rise of Glory (Revo Solutions)
• Rocket Riot (Codeglue)
• Splinter Cell Conviction (Gameloft)
• Star Wars: Battle for Hoth (THQ)
• Star Wars: Cantina (THQ)
• The Harvest (MGS)
• The Oregon Trail (Gameloft)
• Tower Bloxx NY (Digital Chocolate)
• Twin Blades (Press Start Studio)
• UNO (Gameloft)
• Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet (i-Play)
• Zombie Attack! (IUGO)
• Zombies!!!! (Babaroga)

Google CEO Eric Schmidt this week shared what he thinks might be the best way to escape your internet permanent record.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Eric Schmidt made an interesting prediction: the Google CEO believes there will come a time when young people will be allowed to change their name when they become an adult, just to escape the stupid things their real name may be associated with online.

WSJ:

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he says. He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media sites.

If you remember 'Hello My Future Girlfriend' or 'Star Wars Kid,' you'll know what Google chief Eric Schmidt is talking about. Sometimes, we post things online without thinking about the consequences. Other times, our friends are the culprits, making something embarrassing available for the world to see, without first asking if we mind.

However, is changing your name really going to help? What happens when your friends post something embarrassing after your name has been changed? How many new names do you get?

Would you like to change your name to escape your online reputation? Let us know in the comments below!

_{Source: WSJ via Read Write Web}

That's the marketing tagline for this skateboard-tank concept.

The Vertrax is what you get when you severely tweak the classic skateboard profile and replace those wimpy wheels with a single tank track. Designer Byron Lovett claims the Vertrax can go where a normal skateboard can't, especially off the beaten path. Lovette's design concept is also meant for personal transportation addicts who no longer want to look "dorky" on the Segway.

In other words, the Vertrax is a subjective design, most likely open to the same love-it-or-hate reaction suffered/enjoyed by the leaning two-wheeler. The inclusion of a sole tail light may polarize opinions further.

Lovett also claims the Vertrax will run on an electric engine. As this tank track skateboard remains a figment of a designer's imagination, specifics such as range, engine power, and even potential availability or price, are lacking.

We can't quite make out where to put our feet on this thing.

The Xbox 360 S (for slim, or maybe short) has been hacked to accept burned discs. Tsk tsk.

Although piracy on consoles isn't as much of a problem as it is on the PC, it still happens. For the Xbox 360, all that it takes for one to be able to run a "backup" is a flashed DVD-ROM drive firmware. Some drives are easier/harder to flash than others, but it can be done.

It seems that even in the new Xbox 360 S, the drive is still susceptible to the same flashing vulnerability that'll allow for backups to be booted by the machine.

The team behind the original Xbox 360 flash, Team Xecuter has been working closely with other mod teams Team Jungle and C4E to come up with a flash solution. They've published this video as proof, but said that there's still much work to be done before it's ready for release.

Mind you, Microsoft has been ever on guard against these exploits and are more vigilant than ever in its bans.

Are you going to buy Star Wars on yet another format?

Over the weekend, George Lucas confirmed that the full Star Wars movie saga will be headed to Blu-ray Disc as a box set in fall 2011. This means that you'll have another full year with your most-recent DVD sets until it's time to buy the same movies all over again.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has Star Wars on more than one format (yes, I even own some of the Laserdiscs), but the ones on Blu-ray will packed the digitally cleaned up and remastered versions – the same ones that are on DVD, but with six times the resolution.

Lucas said that he was waiting for Blu-ray to emerge the HD winner and gain enough popularity before it was worth it to release the movies again.

“We’ve been wanting to do it as soon as we possibly could, but we just wanted to do it when enough people would be able to buy it and see it,” Lucas said at the Star Wars Celebration V convention.

“We came out with ‘Star Wars’ right at the beginning of VHS,” he said, “and we sold 300,000 copies.”

Years later, he added, when VHS took off, “They were selling 1 million, 2 million, 10 million. So we learned from that experience that if you’re too early in the marketplace, there’s just not enough demand for it.”

Of course, there will be just a few more goodies packed into the upcoming box set to coax those who aren't swayed by just the 1080p upgrade.

For example, there will be a few surprises, such as recently uncovered lost scenes – like this one from Return of the Jedi.

(Source: NYT.)