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.

If you’re someone who loves your iPad, but just hates how big it is, the following may excite you. Technology Buiness Research analyst Ezra Gottheil tells the Chicago Tribune that there will in fact be an iPad 3 mini this year.

“I believe that’s always been in the plan,” Gottheil said. “Actually, that’s a good form factor for some users, and although they will also charge a premium above other similar-sized tablets, they want to protect that price flank.”

The iPad mini would be a 7-inch tablet, a full 2.7 inches smaller than the iPad 2.

As we’ve previously pointed out, rumors of a smaller, 7-inch iPad are pretty much perennial. People have always speculated that Apple would release a tablet that would bridge the gap between the iPhone and the original iPad. Every time there’s a rumor, it gets shot down pretty quickly. The last major iPad 3 mini rumor surfaced at the end of 2011.

And of course, there’s that thing that Steve Jobs said about the iPad size being the minimum size for a tablet. He didn’t want a tablet to feel like a giant smartphone.

Gottheil says that the iPad 3 mini would hit sometime later this year, well after the regular iPad 3 launch. The latest rumors have put the iPad 3 launch event occurring during the first week of March. Supposed leaked images of that device are already making the rounds.

If Apple began producing a 7-inch iPad, it would obviously become a direct competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which is also 7 inches (although maybe not in price). The Kindle Fire has been a bestseller for Amazon since its launch last year – the most sold product during the holiday shopping season.

Although people are buying, a recent study suggests that Kindle Fire owners aren’t quite as happy with their product as iPad owner. Only 54% reported being “very satisfied” with their device, a substantially lower satisfaction rate than iPad users (74%). Of course, we can’t say how the screen size impacts these figures.

And what about Google, who’s also been rumored to be getting back into the tablet game in a big way. Could we eventually have a three-headed 7-inch tablet monster?

Would you want an 7-inch iPad? Or do you agree with Jobs, that it would just feel like an oversized smartphone? Let us know in the comments.

Before you get too bummed out, I should probably tell you that they say Apple will hold the big iPad 3 media event in March, however.

All Things D are quoting sources that say the iPad 3 launch event will be held in San Francisco during the first week of March. One likely location is the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (previous Apple announcements have been made there).

If things fall in according to history, that means that the actual release of the iPad 3 will happen mid-March, a week or so after the big launch event. A couple of weeks ago, some analysts predicted a late March release date for the tablet.

The same source goes on to discuss the iPad 3 specs. Previous rumors said that the new tablet will have a high-def retina display, possibly 2048×1536, as well as much improved graphics. Apparently, that’s all part of the new package, as is a faster chip.

Other rumors we’ve heard include a major camera upgrade, a battery upgrade, and LTE support.

Leaked images revealed on Thursday also suggest big internal changes for the iPad 3, with little in the form of external differences.

Have you been holding out for the iPad 3? Let us know in the comments.

On Sunday, reddit user mercenary-games began an AmA session (Ask Me Anything) titled “IAmA Former FullTime Zynga Engineer – quit 6 months ago.” They alleged former employee says that they worked at Zynga for 8 months and eventually quit. They also make a point to say that this isn’t about a grudge -

No, this isn’t payback, or about a grudge. This is just word from someone who’s seen what this industry is capable of doing. Good, and Bad. No, I was not under contract, I was full time, offered stock (common shares, not that options bullcrap). I sympathized with contractors on how they were treated, most of the time. No, I was not some IT mangler. I worked for one of their “game studios”, basically the front lines where content made it to the masses.

The user offered proof in the form of a Zynga termination certification letter, available for your perusal here.

So there’s the evidence. Either this person is genuine of full of it – take your pick. If you choose genuine, then what he has to say about Zynga is pretty interesting.

When asked about some “creepy” stuff that the company does, our engineer talks about information gathering and how that is used to target a specific type of player:

Spying on players. Getting intimate gaming data, their habits, their networks, and how to effectively monetize given X.

Here’s another example;
Internal metrics researchers often give studio wide talks on what trends are going on. They’ve basically tracked down very popular players and also players who’ve spent an excess of 10k into the game. We often tweak our features to match and maximize for a particular gaming habit. We do this for massive populations of players. Players are not aware of this. To me, that’s a big brother like issue, someone is measuring and monitoring your behavior intimately, and you don’t know how that data is going to be used.

They go on to call the super users ($10,000+) Zynga Black or “Whales.” They apparently make up about 5% of Zynga players.

They are the “hardcore” crowd Zynga caters too. Every other player is treated as a spammer.

[Zynga] designs the game purely to fit the needs of the “whales”. Everyone else is treated as an “enabler”; spam messages, beg for tools, etc

Our former engineer elaborates on “creepy”:

The creepy factor at Z comes when they start designing for “behavior” instead of game design and fun. Behavior is what they are looking for. Behavior is what they measure, on a massive scale. It’s not about having fun to them, its about monetizing the fun, cloning games, buying indie studios, and suing the shit out of other companies. THAT is creepy.

On the issue of gameplay, they say that the actual gaming part of Zynga’s plan is secondary. Marketing is key:

Another issue was skewing gameplay for the sake of profit, example; I actually resorted to BAD MATH, to make the case for making a feature more fun. At the end of one sprint, a QA dude was complaining about the drop rate of a specific item being absurdly insane, and therefore UnFun. I looked at the code, and tweaked some values, gave it back to QA guy, and fun was restored. Product Manager overrides this, goes for unfun, yet more profitable version.

And later, “Zynga is a marketing company, not a game company.”

The treatment of contractors was also a topic of discussion:

Z treats them like second citizen employees, they almost have no feedback or say on their work schedule. I’ve seen people waiting to turn full time, but only spend more time as a contractor because of office politics. Worst of all; they are NOT welcome to company events, they are openly excluded from them. Yet, they want them to work twice as hard as regular full timers.

Have you swallowed your salt? Yes? Good. However, sure is interesting, right?

Apple’s WWDC is a yearly event where the company shows off its latest and greatest tech – whether that be hardware or software. Last year’s WWDC focused more on software, as Apple demoed iOS 5, Mac OS X Lion, and unveiled the iCloud. That event took place from June 6th through the 10th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Although the iPhone 4S was launched last October in a special media event, Apple has launched previous iPhones at WWDC. This year’s exact dates for WWDC have not been announced, but speculation has put it at June 10th-15th, as WWDC is historically a June event.

MacRumors points to Moscone’s event calendar, which previously had June 10th-15th blocked out for a generic “Corporate meeting.” Currently, the dates have shifted to June 11th-15th, but it’s still scheduled for a corporate meeting, a placeholder for WWDC that has been used before.

Of course, this information relies on a few speculations – one if which is the validity of DigiTimes, which has definitely been wrong in the past. Last week, Foxconn sources said it was “go time” for production – something that would suggest a summer launch. It appears that the intensified rumor season is upon us.

According to 9to5 Mac, the iPhone 5 is getting ready to begin production. Based on previous iPhones, this would likely indicate that the device will launch this summer.

The tip comes from sources inside Foxconn in China. Apparently, these are the same sources that went against the grain when regarding the last iPhone release and said Apple was planning on launching the 4S instead of the expected 5.

Not only do we get info on a possible production timeframe, but the sources say that multiple sample devices already exist, but they are all different from on another to varying degrees. Although they couldn’t say for certain which of these prototypes will most resemble the final product (if any), they did mention that all of them have certain features. This includes that big 4+ inch screen that everyone has been clamoring for.

This corroborates other analysts who predicted that the next-gen model would have at least a 4 inch screen. Of course, Apple has been rather stubborn about that 3.5 inch screen size.

Although some recent report said that the new iPhone will in fact be slimmer than the 4S, it won’t have a teardrop shape according to the Foxconn sources. The teardrop rumor was one of the most prevalent ones preceding the iPhone 4S release.

Whether or not this proves accurate, we can be assured that the iPhone 5 is going to be one the biggest devices in history. It might even be available on T-Mobile, too.

The Poynter Institute, whose mission it is to make sure “communities have access to excellent journalism,” has posted an interesting series of articles pointing out journalism’s failures with regards to former Penn State football head coach Joe Paterno.

Paterno is reportedly in serious condition in a hospital in State College, PA, but is still alive. However, Penn State student news site Onward State reported that Paterno died last night. Once that initial report came out, various other news organizations jumped on the story and started falsely reporting his death too.

While it’s been deleted now, CBS News tweeted that he had died, apparently based on the Onward State report, but without attribution. Poynter shows the embed.

In another of the Poynter articles, Craig Silverman points out how “journalists’ hunger for glory” can get them in trouble. “The tension between speed and accuracy is always highlighted in these cases,” he writes.

“Journalists need to do a better job calculating the risk of being first, rather than focusing on the benefit,” Silverman writes. “How many people would have recalled — or cared — that Onward State broke the news? Aside from some journalists, I’d wager very few people. This kind of breaking news report spreads quickly, and whatever credit that may have gone to Onward State in the early minutes would have disappeared once the information was confirmed and widespread.”

The speed vs. accuracy issue has become more of a challenge for reporters thanks to the realtime nature of today’s web. This seems to be brought to light when false death reports emerge, then are proven wrong. Remember when this happened with Jon Bon Jovi recently?

It does make you wonder how many other falsities are being taken as truths, with stories that don’t demand as much attention as the death of a celebrity.

Onward State’s managing editor has resigned. He posted the following apology:

Earlier this evening, Onward State reported that Joe Paterno had passed away; however, the mountain of evidence stacked opposite that report became too much to ignore. At this time, I would like to issue an official retraction of our earlier tweets.

Devon Edwards

All Things D cites multiple sources, saying that although this date is subject to a split-second change, late May is definitely the target right now. This means that the IPO documents must be filed soon, as the SEC review will take several months to complete.

Rumors of Facebook filing their IPO papers have been flying around for the past couple of months. November reports suggested that they could be filed as soon as December, but that obviously didn’t happen.

Last month, another report cited sources that said that Facebook was looking at some time between April and June of 2012 for its IPO, a timeframe that is now corroborated by this latest prediction.

Like I mentioned before, the Facebook IPO is shaping up to be the biggest tech IPO in history, as they aim to raise $10 billion and a $100 billion valuation. If accurate, the IPO would be about 6X bigger than Google’s IPO.

A little more info from All Things D’s sources:

Unlike Google’s more kookified 2004 IPO, sources said Facebook’s is probably going to hew to a more traditional offering script.

That is likely to include a hefty consortium of irksome investment bankers — think firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on top of the filings and a spate of smaller ones (Allen & Co.) below and you have the approximately accurate idea.

And, while shot-caller-in-chief Zuckerberg will be the one key voice in the IPO, the man to watch has and will be CFO David Ebersman.

The longtime Genentech exec, who came to Facebook in 2009, been doing all the heavy lifting in preparation for the IPO, said sources, and will continue to do so.

In November, daily deals company Groupon filed the biggest internet IPO since Google.

This week, we heard that the iPad 3 might have graphics that are as much as 20 times more powerful than its predecessor, and that its LCD displays will be provided by Samsung and LG.

Now, Bloomberg is reporting, citing “people familiar with the product” that the next iPad will have a high-definition screen, run a faster processor and work with next-generation (LTE) wireless networks. Bloomberg reports:

The company’s manufacturing partners in Asia started ramping up production of the iPad 3 this month and plan to reach full volumes by February, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. The tablet will use a quad-core chip, an enhancement that lets users jump more quickly between applications, two of the people said.

Apple of course will not be commenting on rumors.

For our full range of iPad 3 rumor coverage, see this link.

Realistically, with the number of times that Castro has been declared dead and then alive again, he might very well be the most successful communist vampire ever. Regardless of whether Castro was dead or not did not deter Tweeters from taking to the Twitter.

He’s dead! He’s alive! He’s dead! He’s alive! Basically, rinse and repeat those sentiments and you have summarized sixty years of political speculation on the subject. It’s worth noting that Wikileaks Argentina repeatedly posted that Castro was dead despite contrary reports that he was still alive. No word on yet on why they’re so insistent that he’s dead but as of 54 minute ago they were still saying this is confirmed. Either they’ve got the scoop of the decade or they’re really betting the farm on the hope that they’re right.

Since 2011 was such a bad year for dictators around the world, it would be fitting that Castro would want 2012 all to himself. Why start sharing in death when that virtue was roundly ignored during his life? Alas, such questions are for idle minds as Fidel Castro is actually still among the living. At least, that’s what Cuba’s official blog is saying. In fact, according to the post, upon being told of his premature demise Castro “studied, analyzed and then laughed at the rumors on Twitter.” Good to see the old bearded one’s enjoying the exaggerated reports of his death.

In fact, what makes this less funny is that Euronews has speculated that the Castro death hoax may even be a devious method to spread some malware. So, while it’s fun to continue speculate on the death of Cuba’s iconic despot, enjoy with caution as you might end up getting your computer pwned in the process.