Imagine playing from your iPhone against anyone with an Android phone. That epic battle between Mac and PC types will be a more common option if an Austin startup is successful.

Anyone who has ever looked after a kid has probably had one of those moments where you turn around and the the spritely tyke has disappeared.

A new app from the Federal Bureau of Investigation hopes to lessen those moments of panic.

We all love lists, so here’s an interesting one to ponder. Men’s Health magazine has just ranked 100 U.S. cities by iPad usage, combining data from online ad impressions, the number of Apple and Best Buy stores per capita, and the percentage of households that own tablets or notebooks. And the winner’s are:

1 Plano, TX A+
2 San Jose, CA A
3 San Francisco, CA A
4 Boise, ID A-
5 Austin, TX A-
6 Oakland, CA B+
7 San Diego, CA B+
8 Durham, NC B+
9 Chesapeake, VA B+
10 Colorado Springs, CO B+

There’s not much to say about this right now, but Bloomberg apparently has this hypothetical iPhone 5 bills of material breakdown floating around their servers.

It hasn’t been tied to an article yet, but it is pretty interesting. I wonder how far off they’ll end up being.

There’s two main ways of charging your iPhone or iPod: you either plug it into your computer or you plug it into your wall. Either way, though, you’ll need a USB cable to get juice to your device.

That’s why the BlueLounge MiniDock is so brilliant. Just plug it into your standard Apple charger’s USB port and it’ll allow you to dock your iPhone or iPod so it sits leaning up against the wall, silently suckling from the mains.

My only gripe? It doesn’t appear that the iPad is supported. Maybe for revision 2. In the mean time, one of BlueLounge’s beauties will cost you just $20.

Made from Rhodium plated brass and hand assembled, these dashing Home Button cufflinks would make the perfect accoutrement for that iOS Geek turned Groomsman. $65 bucks will get you a pair, and enter the coupon code “iphone10” at checkout to get another 10% knocked off your order.

[via iDownload Blog]

RIM’s diseased cloaca is swelling, and it’s getting ready to pop out another BlackBerry. Will this new handset though finally serve up a credible threat to Apple’s iPhone? Nope: while it will boast RIM’s new multitouch QNX operating system, all signs point to the BlackBerry Colt being another joke of a phone when it is released in 2012.

Sometimes batteries go bad, but this 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook’s battery didn’t just fizzle out: it expanded like a marshmallow in the microwave. Just a reminder to take your MacBook in for servicing when that tell tale exclamation point dangerously pops up over your Mac’s battery icon, eh?

[via MethodShop

If the only thing stopping you from abandoning Facebook for Google+ is universal support, get downloading: a new version of the official Google+ iOS app is out, and now it supports the iPad and iPod Touch. Anyone noticed anything else different? Let us know in the comments.

Skype has just released a new update, bringing OS X Lion support and HD video calls to the popular VoIP Mac application.

Many thought the first trading day after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. creditworthiness to AA+ would elicit some reaction from Wall Street. However, Monday has been crazy on the big board, with Apple leading other shares for wild swings.

Increasingly thwarted by customs, Chinese and Hong Kong iPad smugglers are taking to the comic books to learn some new tricks for getting their wares to customers: smugglers are now firing crossbows across raging rivers and ziplining across with smuggled iPhones and iPads strapped to their backs!

Time is money. If so, the iPad is capable of saving enterprises big cash due to its ability to free employees from the desk. One company integrating the iPad into its work environment is Business Intelligence software maker MicroStrategy. The company now uses 2,300 iPads at its $454 million software firm.

A button-cute 10 year old girl may have just set a new prestigious record. It’s not for the largest number of consecutive jump rope skips, or for chewing a piece of gum for the longest time, or even for collecting the most Facebook friends. It’s for identifying a zero-day exploit in a number of iOS and Android games! Isn’t that cute?

Remember the report that Apple was preparing its own Netflix-killer called iTunes Replay for launch in the next few weeks? Well, don’t hold your breath… it’s not coming anytime soon and, as usual, you can blame a reclacitrant Hollywood for having to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Here’s one time Microsoft’s molasses-like startup routine could pay off. A Florida company is suing Apple, charging the tech giant infringed a patent for quickly booting Mac OS X. The lawsuit names the MacBook Pro as one of the Apple devices that is claimed to use the disputed patent.

We have theorized before that Apple was holding back its much rumored iOS 5’s Nuance speech integration as a feature to be revealed at the iPhone 5 launch event, and it looks like we may have been right, as a couple of new screenshots have popped up showing just how speech recognition will be integrated with the operating syste,.

Apple rivals are more likely to fight amongst themselves then score a knock-out blow against the iPad, one Wall Street expert said Monday. The iconic iPad will still have 60 percent of the market by 2020, he contends.

Many of us first encountered Apple Computers in schools, but Apple’s once dominant position in the educational market has seemed to fade over the last decade. Now Apple’s setting out to do something about it, as they’ve just released a brand new sub-$1000 iMac aimed for schools and institutions.

One of my favorite things about Mac OS X Lion is the introduction of new trackpad gestures that make my computing experience a lot more efficient. One of the gestures I use the most is the new swipe gesture in Quick Look.

This week’s roundup must-have apps features the long-awaited Skype app for the iPad, a beautiful new music app from Rdio, the quickest and easiest way to sell your old gadgets through eBay Instant Sale, and a new digital magazine from AOL that’s tailored just for you.

It seems as if I’m the only person having issues with Lion–it’s like I am trapped in Brain Candy and I’m the only one not taking the happy pill. I’ve been a Mac user for a long time, and every new upgrade brought butterflies to my stomach. This time around I was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack, but the excitement wore off quite quickly. Since then I have turned into a ranting bitch.

Two weeks after releasing iOS 5 Beta 4, Apple has now pushed a fifth beta out to developers. You can grab iOS 5 Beta 5 with your registered developer account in the Dev Center, and the update can also be received as an over-the-air update on a device running iOS 5 Beta 4.

A trendy Atlanta eatery is the latest to adopt a growing hospitality industry trend: using iPads as interactive menus.

Guests at the Do Restaurant at The View make their selections on Apple’s culture-changing tablet, which are then relayed to iPads in the kitchen. Waiters of the human variety come in only to bring orders to the tables.

Apple is mixed up in all kinds of patent issues. As a result, the company has been accused of unfairly trying to kill Google’s Android platform, and of being a “patent troll.”

But such criticism is misplaced. First, the accusations are false. Second, the real blame should be reserved for the US Congress, which has the power to fix our broken patent system, but year after year fails to do so.