Apple rumors seem to circulate constantly and each time an event has Apple launching new products, like MacWorld, the rumor mill works overtime. A new rumor started over at TechCrunch says that Apple may have large format iPod touch in the works.

According to sources cited by TechCrunch, some of whom claim to have held this device, the large format touch would have a screen of 7 or even 9-inches. That is netbook screen size territory and Apple is said to be talking to Asian OEMs about producing the device.

Here’s where this rumor gets interesting to me. Long have the rumors about an Apple tablet and netbook been floating around. What if this device is the Apple tablet/netbook? Base the thing off the NVIDIA Ion platform and you have a netbook in a touchscreen tablet form factor. That would be sweet for sure.

TechCrunch

written by NewsFeeder \\ tags: Apple, iPod, Netbook, touch

Professor Hall works for gender equality in the technological arena

A professor who invented a forerunner of the world wide web has been made a dame in the New Year Honours.

Wendy Hall created the “open hypermedia system” Microcosm with colleagues after joining the University of Southampton computer science group in 1984.

And in 1994 she became the university’s first female professor of engineering.

Professor Hall, 56, was made a CBE in 2000 for services to science and technology and is considered one of the best computer scientists in the world.

She was president of the British Computer Society from 2003 to 2004, and in 2005 became the first woman to be appointed senior vice president of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

More recently, Professor Hall co-founded the world’s first interdisciplinary body to study the structure and sociology of the web, the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), with internet inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Southampton professor Nigel Shadbolt and Daniel Weitzner, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Throughout her career Professor Hall has championed the role of her female colleagues in computing and the sciences and worked to ensure developments in technology benefit women as well as men.

“I am thrilled to have been honoured in this way,” she said.

“It is of course exciting for me personally and for my family, but it is also a tribute to all the people I have worked with in my career as a scientist and engineer both at Southampton and in the wider community.”

written by NewsFeeder \\ tags: Science & Environment

Here’s the quickest way to grab a cold drink in case you are in a hurry, introducing the Cooper Cooler Rapid Beverage Chiller. With this machine all you need is just sixty seconds to be able to chill a can of beer or soda down to 43 degrees F, 90 times faster than a refrigerator and 40 times faster than a freezer. Pretty cool! All yours for just $60. [Ohgizmo]

written by NewsFeeder \\ tags: chiller, cooler, Gadgets

Worried about the rise of the robots? Sure we all are. But we never saw it coming from our trusty flashlights. Yes, they will transform and enslave us by being useful in the dark. Which is a brilliant plan. We will never see it coming when the light goes out and they finally attack.

This awesome flashlight can transform into three different forms: humanoid robot, scrambling spider and standing spider. That’s three cool things in one flashlight. Which is two more than your current flashlight does. All this coolness for only $20.

Proof that even flashlights, if designed right, can be fun and functional.

[Poptherapy]

written by NewsFeeder \\ tags: Flashlight, Flashlights, LED, robot, Torch, Transformer