The rumor comes from AppleInsider, which cites “people familiar with Apple’s roadmap”. The publication reports:

This will include new, ultra-thin unibody enclosures that jettison yesteryear technologies like optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of models with lightweight chassis that employ flash-memory based solid-state drives, instant-on capabilities, extended battery life, and rely on digital distribution for software and media.

“They’re all going to look like MacBook Airs,” one person familiar with the new MacBook Pro designs told AppleInsider. Meanwhile, existing MacBook Pro designs are expected to be phased out over the course of the year.

The late Steve Jobs was known for his focus on design, sometimes at the cost of functionality (see Antennagate). It sounds like design is still a vital part of Apple’s mentality under CEO Tim Cook so far.

The iPhone and iPad might be the sexier Apple products these days, but Macs continue to sell quite well too. Apple’s Q1 earnings report indicate that Mac sales were up 26%, having sold 5.2 million Macs in the quarter. In addition to that, over 100 million apps were downloaded from the Mac App Store in less than a year.

Interestingly, however, iOS has eclipsed Mac OS X in web market share, according to a recent study from Chitika.

In what may be the most blatant protest yet, Razer has posted an image with their staff standing in front of a projector screen with the words “F**K SOPA.”

As previously reported, only a handful of gaming Web sites are going down today to protest the legislation and even fewer who are represented by the pro-SOPA ESA. Razer is not a member of the ESA but they are an important part of the gaming community to many people.

Here’s what what they have to say on SOPA:

The “Stop Online Piracy Act”, aka SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, aka PIPA, are proposed bills in the United States Congress that, if enacted, would effectively end the internet as we know it. In a ham-fisted attempt to combat piracy, Congress has opted for the “Nuke from Orbit” approach, hurting both the community from whom they benefit and developers they seek to protect. We cannot allow this to happen.

Allow us to stress, Razer does not condone piracy in any way. We feel it damages the industry and we will stand against anything that hurts either the gaming community or the developers. However, we firmly believe that SOPA and PIPA are the absolute wrong way to combat this problem and we are not alone in thinking this. Other gaming companies like Red 5, Riot Games and Mojang stand with us in opposition. However, these bills do not only affect software and game developers and we hope our actions will lead other gaming hardware vendors to join our protest against SOPA and PIPA.

For Gamers. By Gamers. It is not just a motto, it is our way of life. We work hard to do right by our community. We’ll be damned if we’re going to let an attack like this go unanswered.

Stay tuned for more SOPA coverage as more Web sites join the blackout.

While that may very well be the main reason for Google’s most expensive acquisition to date (provided it gets regulatory approval), there are certainly other factors at play and other bonuses that Google gets with the acquisition.

Henry Blodget at Business Insider thinks the whole thing could be a disaster. “Well, for starters, the deal creates major channel conflict: Google is now competing with its partners,” he writes. “And hardware manufacturing is an entirely different kind of business than Google’s core business. And hardware manufacturing is a crappy, low-margin commodity business. And Motorola is massive–Google has just increased the size of its company by 60%. And the deal appears to be purely a defensive move, not an offensive one. And so on.”

HTC, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson have all lent their public support of the deal. They all pretty much say the same thing: “We welcome it.” I’m guessing the reaction isn’t quite as simple out of the public eye.

Meanwhile, Larry Dignan at ZDNet gives six compelling reasons why it “makes sense” These (in a nutshell) are: “Integration may be all that matters” in wireless, the patents “treasure trove,” TV (Motorola’s set-top box business), Google can likely keep hardware partners “in the fold” at least for now, the deal forces Microsoft’s hand, and Android “boxes in Nokia and RIM”.

The point about the set-top boxes is quite interesting. It’s no secret that Google TV hasn’t quite worked out the way the company hoped, at least as of yet. Could owning Motorola Mobility provide a needed boost to give Google TV more legs to stand on?

There’s also things like:

The Motonav GPS, Modems and routers, and even Baby Monitors. Here’s a look at Motorola’s product page:

Then there’s the various software, like Motoblur, Media Link, Motospeak, etc.

Last year, Motorola Mobility acquired Aloqa, a mobile service that notifies users of places, events, music, movies and other activities based on location and personalization. One has to wonder if Google will do something with this:

Motorola Mobility also acquired Zecter last winter. This was a media sync/streaming company. This could come in handy as the company competes with Apple’s iCloud.

At the time of this writing, Google stock is down 2.58%.

"Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3."

Gruber is known for blogging correct Apple speculation and news. Time will tell if he is correct here.

In another blog post this evening Gruber added more tantalizing details to his predictions:

"So, here’s my guess at Apple’s iPad plans for 2011: An iPad 2, fairly soon. Say, a March announcement, shipping in the first week of April. Faster, more RAM, maybe more storage, thinner and lighter, a front-facing camera. Running iOS 4.3. iOS 5, announced at a developer event in March, shipping in June. iPad 3, shipping in September, announced at the annual iPod event. Running iOS 5.1, same as the next=generation iPod Touch." Read more on Guber’s blog.

Will you wait to buy an iPad 3? Answer here…

WebProNewsApple hasn’t even released iPad 2 and there is speculation about iPad 3. Will you buy iPad 2 or wait for iPad 3?13 hours ago 6 likes 3 comments

Intel will combine TI’s Puma product lines with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) standard and Intel’s SoCs for a set top box, and other model products for the cable industry. "The objective is to provide cable OEMs with an open and powerful platform for delivering innovative and differentiated products to service providers that improve the video, voice and data content experience at home," Intel says.

"Adding the talents of the Texas Instruments’ cable team to Intel’s efforts to bring its advanced technology to consumer electronics makes for a compelling combination," said Bob Ferreira, general manager, Cable Segment, Intel’s Digital Home Group. "Intel is focused on delivering SoCs that provide the foundation for consumer electronics devices such as set top boxes, digital TVs, Blu-ray disc players, companion boxes and related devices. This acquisition specifically strengthens Intel’s product offerings for the continuum of cable gateway products and reinforces Intel’s continued commitment to the cable industry."

Intel says it has offered all TI employees with the cable modem team the chance to keep their jobs in at Intel sites in their respective countries (mostly Israel). They would become part of the company’s Digital Home Group.

Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t revealed. The deal is subject to regulatory review, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

The phrases "open platform" and "seamless" were used by various executives from all of the companies involved throughout the whole day, and Logitech was no exception. Logitech does bring a unique perspective to the launch, however, as the company is known for its peripherals around the PC, as well as in the living room.

"We believe in open platforms," Arora tells WebPronews. "For a long time, we built a whole industry around the PC…when we first saw Google TV, we looked at it as a platform to innovate, and to build a new presence in the living room that consumers have never had before."

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"We’ve actually been in the living room for the last five years (and maybe even before that). Today we are North America’s largest provider of universal remote controls. And what that allows you to do is to have seamless control of your home electronics and your consumer electronic devices. Having said that, the platforms in the living room today are still very closed, and again, when we saw Google TV, what we really liked about it was to take all the experiences that we had built around the PC and offer them in the living room."

Logitech will initially offer a companion box for Google TV – an external device that connects to your TV through an HDMI port and utilizes the company’s Harmony technology, as well as a controller specifically designed to take advantage of all of Google TV’s features.

"Because we’ve embedded the Harmony technology inside the Companion Box, what that allows us to do is to use all of the devices in the Android ecosystem, so instead of using your remote control, or another remote controller, you can actually use your Android phone, whether it’s a Droid or a Nexus One, and have activities or have ways to control the entire entertainment experience by just one touch. So if you want to watch TV, you just press ‘Watch TV’, your TV turns on, your set-top box turns on, your channels switch, and you’re watching TV enhanced by Google TV."

Google TV devices such as Logitech’s companion box/remote will be available sometime this fall. Arora says they’ll be sharing more info in the coming months. Pricing is yet to be announced.

A computer with scalable performance level components and selectable software and service options has a user interface that allows individual performance levels to be selected. The scalable performance level components may include a processor, memory, graphics controller, etc. Software and services may include word processing, email, browsing, database access, etc. To support a pay-per-use business model, each selectable item may have a cost associated with it, allowing a user to pay for the services actually selected and that presumably correspond to the task or tasks being performed. An administrator may use a similar user interface to set performance levels for each computer in a network, allowing performance and cost to be set according to a user’s requirements.

Basically, what this indicates is that users would obtain a PC for little or no cost, and then pay to use different programs as services, and be charged accordingly, similar to the cell phone model. In other words, this would be cloud computing to the max, only for a fee.

Donald Melanson at Engadget, who provides the above diagram of the concept, notes that it "sounds somewhat similar to the ‘managed PC’ that Microsoft developed with Korea’s KT telecom a few years back."

On the one hand, the pay-as-you-go model could make computers more affordable to more people, and machines would theoretically have longer life spans. But while there are both pros and cons to this kind of scenario, I must admit that the idea of being able to use programs strictly based upon prices set by Microsoft on an ongoing basis is a little scary.

I can see them driving even more customers right into the arms of Apple. I agree with John Herrman at Gizmodo who says, "The idea of subsidized, service-fee based computing has potential, but not like this. It’d be hard to imagine Microsoft winning many fans by forcing users to pay to unlock the obvious potential of hardware that is sitting right in front of them."

This is just a patent filing though. To my knowledge, Microsoft has not made any announcements or anything indicating that PC users will have to switch to a system like this anytime soon. They’re still trying to overcome the ill response to Vista, so I don’t imagine they want to throw a curveball like this just yet. Still, we’re seeing an increase in cloud computing initiatives all around, so something like this might be closer than we know.

But YouTube cameras? 

Those are (sort of) what will result from a new deal between Casio and the video-sharing site.

“The agreement has come in the form of two new Casio digital cameras, the EX-S880 and EX-Z77, which incorporate a branded YouTube Best Shot mode,” reports Reg Hardware’s James Sherwood.  “This allows web-savvy happy-snappers to shoot and save movies on either camera at the optimum size and quality for transfer to YouTube.”

Unfortunately, “the optimum size and quality,” by YouTube’s standards, isn’t great.

“After all, the contents on the video-sharing site is not exactly known for its sterling resolution quality,” notes an On the Radar report from CNET Asia, and “this specificity will not please Casio users who are already using other video-sharing sites like Revver or Yahoo Video.”

On the bright side, the new cameras should please users in other respects – Casio’s Exilim products have already won a great many fans.

Reports indicate that the YouTube Best Shot feature will be expanded to other cameras in Casio’s lineup, as well, so people who are shopping outside the 7.2-8.1 megapixel range (offered by the Z77 and the S880, respectively) should have the option of acquiring it.

(A note: the pricing of the two new cameras remains up in the air; some sources have stated that “pricing remains unavailable,” while others have posted numbers as high as $500.  I’m wagering that Mobile Whack has it right, however, with its association of $230 with the Z77 and $300 with the S880.)

Of course, it remains to be seen if the YouTube-Casio deal will actually benefit either company, but this development still represents another interesting step in Google’s ongoing diversification. 

And as James Sherwood pointed out, “[H]ey, Google needs to recoup some of its $1.65bn.”

The Casio EX-S880 and EX-Z77 should become available later this year.

“[W]e want to reach out even farther,” wrote Rodrigo Vaca, Google Enterprise’s Channel Marketing Manager, on the Official Google Blog.  Yet, after an announcement last week that Dell would become responsible for manufacturing the Google Search Appliance, it kind of seems like Google is having everyone else do the stretching.

Ah, well.  Famous figures ranging from Andrew Carnegie to George Patton have liked the idea of delegation, so I suppose I shouldn’t whine too much.  In fact, this is probably a good move.  Ingram Micro “is the world’s largest global IT distributor and because it has enjoyed success in targeting both medium-size and small businesses as well as local government and education customers,” according to The Channel Insider’s Jessica Davis.

Moreover, the company’s own website proclaims that it was ranked number one in its industry by Fortune magazine.

It’s worth noting that the Google-Ingram Micro relationship isn’t just any old arrangement; in an interview with the relevant marketing manager, Davis discovered, “While not an exclusive deal, Vaca characterized the Ingram Micro agreement as the largest deal of its kind for the Google.”

As for what’s next, Vaca told Davis, “We are not expecting to sign a similar deal in the near future.”

Also, while talking to InformationWeek’s Thomas Claburn, the marketing manager added, “We’re also engaging them in other ways, such as reseller recruitment, reseller marketing, and reseller enablement, to make sure that the channel is ready to sell our products.”

Vaca appears to be a very busy man, doing one blog entry and two interviews among who knows what else, but more importantly, it looks like Ingram Micro has gotten its proverbial foot in Google’s door.  And though I’m not especially familiar with the IT distribution industry, that analogy may work the other way around, as well.

Oh, and in the event that you were worried – this deal should not have any effect on the Google Search Appliance’s bright yellow paint scheme.

“Slightly stumpy but technically not too frumpy, the LG KU580 phone is just about to hit Europe,” writes Pocket Picks’s Caspar Field.  “The trump card up LG’s sleeve is that its handset will ship with Google service applications pre-installed, including Google Maps and Gmail.”

Yet, setting aside the hardware itself for a moment, there’s the matter of the Google phone’s launch schedule to consider.  “Apparently the KU580 will land in Italy, France, Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic first,” continues Field.  “What?  Why are the Romanians getting this before the UK?  Madness.”

There’s also the whole iPhone thing.  After all, if Google and Apple are trying to become such good friends, should one really be undercutting the other like this?  (Granted, LG may have an equal or greater hand in the Google phone’s release than Google itself.)

In any event, the Google phone appears ready and able to compete with most devices out there.  It “sports a red-on-black color scheme not unlike LG’s popular Chocolate phone, but it’s larger, sporting a 2in widescreen LCD, the better to view Google’s web properties, accessed through a fast 3G connection,” reports Reg Hardware’s Tony Smith.

“The KU-580 has an FM radio and an MP3 player – controlled with dedicated playback keys – along with Bluetooth stereo and 3D sound enhancement,” as well, according to Smith, and “[t]here’s a two-megapixel camera on the back and a smaller snapper on the front for video calls.”

This Google phone may not be amazing – and it may be suffering from a strange launch schedule – but it looks like Google’s sortie into cell phones will do quite well.