That’s the word from Bloomberg anyway, which is basing its iPad 3 release prediction based on information obtained from “three people familiar with the product.” According to Bloomberg and its sources, Apple’s manufacturing partners in Asia have ramped up production in recent weeks and will have their assembly lines working at full tilt by February.

Since we can reasonably surmise the iPad 3 is nearing release, much more interesting is what kind of hardware it will bring to the tablet show, especially as the competition is much more fierce than it was a year ago. Bloomberg says the iPad 3 will rock a quad-core processor of some sort, an upgrade that should help with multitasking and game performance. There’s also been talk of a high definition screen, and it might even sport a 4G LTE radio.

In terms of market share, Apple’s iPad line leads the way, but we’re starting to see more compelling Android devices, such as the high end Transformer Prime by Asus, along with affordable tablets like the Kindle Fire ($199) from Amazon and Nook Tablet ($249) from Barnes & Noble.

Another interesting side story is the evolution of the iPad tablet without Steve Jobs offering his input. The iPad 3 will be the first major product launch from Apple following the untimely death of Jobs, and the second product launch with Tim Cook in charge (the iPhone 4S was the first).

You won’t find a Tegra chip inside or any other ARM-based variant, and it’s not rocking an Atom processor. Nope, the Fiona brings a fully fledged Core i7 processor to the tablet party, giving it more in common with a PC than a tablet, Razer says. It also makes it easy for game developers to write apps for the device, considering x86 has been around since the Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed the Earth.

Fiona features a dual-game controller design with ultra precise accelerometers and a highly sensitive multi-touch screen, according to Razer. It looks funktastic, yet oddly promising (see photo gallery below).

“While multi-touch screens have become the de facto user interface for tablets, they are not the right interface for serious PC gaming,” said Min-Liang Tan, CEO, Razer. “The user interface we have designed for Project Fiona allows all existing PC games to be played right out of the box and also provides game developers new opportunities as they develop next-gen games on a highly-intuitive platform. Both developers and gamers are going to love the new user interface that combines the best of a gamepad, multi-touch screen and accelerometers for an all-new gaming experience on-the-go.”

Force feedback is also part of the package. All this fun will come at a cost — somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000 (less, not more, Razer says). Razer expects to ship Fiona in the fourth quarter of this year.

Image Credit: Razer

After an uncertain few months, it looks like JooJoo/CrunchPad maker Fusion Garage is going under. According to a leaked document sent to Business Insider, creditors are preparing to force the company into liquidation. The total owed to investors by FusionGarage is said to be in the neighborhood of $40 million. 

Fusion Garage was originally set to be the OEM that brought then-TechCrunch-editor Mike Arrington’s vision of a $200 web-only tablet to life. The two had a falling out, and the renamed JooJoo ended up being a flop when Fusion Garage released it in early 2010. Then just a few months ago, Fusion Garage reemerged with a new platform based on Android along with plans for tablets and phones. The Grid 10 tablet was another monumental failure. 

At the tail end of 2011, there were rumors that Fusion Garage has closed down without communicating to customers, or its partners. The company CEO later said they were simply trying to get the business in order, but now it looks like that effort has failed. No word on what will happen to Fusion Garage’s few customers, and the money they’ve spent.

Aachen, Germany – Sensosolutions www.sensoglove.com, a leading provider of innovative IT systems for sports analysis, motion and performance measurement, announced today a new version of SensoGlove, the world’s first digital golf glove.  The new advanced SensoGlove now offers a longer battery life and increased sensitivity for a more accurate pressure read to ensure a consistently smooth and powerful golf swing for greater distance and lower scores.  Just in time for the holidays, the new version of SensoGlove was created based on feedback from international PGA professionals.

Audio & Visual Feedback at 80 Times per Second

SensoGlove features a small, sweat-proof 1.2-inch LED digital monitor that analyzes the pressure of the swing through highly responsive sensors placed throughout the glove.  Just swing the golf club to receive real-time audio and visual feedback at 80 times per second by the small sensors that warn you if you exceed your target level of grip pressure.  The patented SensoGlove even shows you which fingers are gripping too tightly, so you can adjust your grip accordingly.

Made of the highest quality cabretta leather, SensoGlove is the perfect gift for golf lovers or those that want to learn golf or improve their game.  Everyone that has tried to learn golf knows how hard it is to achieve the perfect light grip necessary to swing the club correctly every time.  SensoGlove works as your own personal golf trainer, showing you the correct way to grip the club, thereby avoiding bad habits and injury.  With SensoGlove, all golfers (from beginner to advanced), can quickly learn how to hold the club, improving every part of their game, from backswing, downswing, impact, follow-through, to driving, putting, and chipping.  

Right & Left Hand Gloves Available for Men and Women

The new version of SensoGlove is available immediately online at www.sensoglove.com and through distributors, sales partners, and golf schools around the world for men and women in right or left hand configurations, sizes small to x-large, priced at $89 (replacement gloves are available for $22.48).   Made of cabretta leather, the built-in digital monitor can be removed to use SensoGlove as a regular golf glove.  For more information, please visit www.sensoglove.com.

ABOUT SENSOSOLUTIONS

Sensosolutions GmbH is a leading German-based company specializing in the development of highly innovative IT systems for sports analysis, motion, and performance measurement.  Sensosolutions is the creator of SensoGlove, the first and only golf glove with built-in sensors that constantly read the pressure of your grip.  SensoGlove teaches you the correct grip pressure for a smooth, consistent swing that delivers greater distance, enhanced precision and lower scores.  For more information, see www.sensoglove.com.

One of these days, 3D glasses will be obsolete and a dorky reminder of how things used to be. Kind of like rotary phones. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting closer by the day. LG Electronics is doing its part by expanding its glasses-free 3D monitor lineup with the introduction of its 25-inch DX2500, a 3D display that utilizes parallax barrier technology similar what’s used on the Nintendo 3DS handheld console.

LG says its trying to take glasses-free 3D monitors mainstream with this new panel.

“With the DX2500, we are making the LG brand synonymous with glasses-free 3D monitors,” said Si-hwan Park, Vice President of the Monitor Division at LG’s Home Entertainment Company. “In 2012, we’ll continue to expand our range of glasses-free 3D monitors featuring different designs and advanced functions.”

According to LG, the DX2500 doesn’t restrict viewers to a tight viewing angles. The combination of parallax barrier 3D and head-tracking technologies means viewers supposedly have greater freedom of movement when watching content on the DX2500. There’s a camera embedded in the monitor that detects changes in the user’s eye and head position in real-time, which tells us this is a panel for single viewer scenarios. The panel is also capable of converting 2D content into 3D.

The DX2500 is now available in Korea for 1.3 million won (around $1,150) and will launch worldwide in 2012. No word on how much it will cost stateside, but we imagine it will be less than the current conversion.

Image Credit: LG

At the rate things were going, it was only a matter of time before Google’s Chrome browser skipped ahead of Mozilla Firefox, and according to at least one Web analytics company, it’s finally happened. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s paid attention to the browser market. Chrome has been gaining ground ever since it was released, while Firefox long appeared to plateau, and even fall back a step a time or two.

According to data from StatCounter Global Stats, Chrome now owns more than a quarter (25.69 percent) of the worldwide browser market. That’s enough to edge out Firefox (25.23 percent), if only by a hair. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, meanwhile, still leads them all with a 40.63 percent share of the global market.

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also.”

Things play out a little differently in the U.S. IE still holds the lead with a 50.66 share, but coming in second is Firefox with a 20.09 percent share (down from 26.75 percent), followed by Chrome with 17.3 percent (up from 10.89 percent). Safari is standing pat with a 10.76 percent share, up slightly from 10.71 percent.

D-Link markets this single-band (2.4GHz) router as particularly well suited for gaming and media streaming, and it is endowed with very good quality-of-service features, but QoS can’t magically render the 2.4GHz frequency band any less crowded. And given our relatively pristine test environment, the best word to describe the DIR-657’s range and TCP throughput is pathetic.

And while we realize that our room-within-a-room home theater presents a significant challenge to most 5GHz routers, the 2.4GHz DIR-657 could barely send music streams there wirelessly; streaming video to our TV was a nonstarter. The router couldn’t connect to the client located in our second outdoor test location at all—it’s been a long time since we experienced that problem with a router operating on the 2.4GHz frequency band.

D-Link’s DIR-657 is pretty enough, but its performance leaves us cold.

D-Link’s DIR-657 is certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, too (as is Belkin’s N750 DB), so the D-Link (and the Belkin) ships with channel bonding disabled. We turned it on for our tests—and then triple-checked it to make sure it was actually on, because the numbers we got were so low: just 48Mb/s with the client sitting a mere 10 feet from the router. Performance curiously jumped by more than 20Mb/s when we moved the client to the kitchen, doubling the distance and putting a wall in between the router and client, but it went off a cliff—to just 11Mb/s—when we moved the client out to the patio.

D-Link deserves credit for going to the trouble and expense of obtaining DLNA certification. This interoperability standard has proliferated throughout the consumer electronics industry during the past couple of years, providing confidence that your computers, TVs, media streamers, and other networked devices will play nice together. The DIR-657 is also outfitted with a USB slot for sharing mass storage devices on your network, and it has an SD Card slot to make it easy to transfer your digital photos, movies, and music to other devices on your network. The aforementioned quality-of-service features come courtesy of Ubicom, which has long delivered the best automatic QoS tools in the industry. If you want to tweak these settings on your own, D-Link provides 10 sets of controls for doing so.

Perhaps a firmware update will change our opinion of the DIR-657, but we can’t recommend this product in its current state.

$100 (street), www.dlink.com

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 memory modules are designed with enthusiasts in mind. The kit we have today is an 8GB (2x4GB dual channel) 1600MHz memory kit which features 9-9-9-24 timings at only 1.5 Volts. Cerulean Blue aluminum heat spreaders help dissipate heat, and provide the aggressive look that you want in your gaming rig. This kit was designed for Intel Sandy Bridge processors and it will be interesting to see how it does!

Apple announced today that their longtime leader, Steve Jobs, age 56, has passed away.  He is survived by by his wife Laurene and his four children. His remarkable life story, along with his innovation of groundbreaking tech like the Apple iPod & iPhone, is sure to survive as a testament to his vision and leadership throughout the annals of time. God Rest, Godspeed on your next journey Mr. Jobs.

More of his story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/business/steve-jobs-of-apple-dies-at-56.html

“Where the first Razer BlackWidow can be likened to a barbarian ploughing through enemies with ease, the Stealth Edition of this mechanical keyboard is the ninja who sneaks up on opponents unexpectedly to take them down in a quick blur,” said Robert Krakoff, President, Razer USA. “Quieter feedback on the keys, lighter actuation force, extreme anti-ghosting on the Ultimate version, and a new matte black finish make the Stealth Edition of the Razer BlackWidow keyboards the best choice for the unassuming but extremely deadly gamer.”

Like the original BlackWidow, Razer will offer the Stealth Edition in both Ultimate and Standard versions. Both boast silent mechanical key switches with 45g actuation force, 1000Hz/1ms Ultrapolling, programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording, a gaming mode (disables Windows key), 10 customizable software profiles with on-the-fly switching, 5 additional macro keys, multimedia controls, gaming optimized key matrix for minimized ghosting, and a braided cable. The Ultimate Edition adds backlit keys, audio-out/mic-in jack, USB passthrough, and more extensive anti-ghosting.

The BlackWidow Stealth Edition Ultimate ($140) and Standard ($80) are available now.

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Image Credit: Razer