In just two and a half hours, we can all expect Steve Jobs to strut on stage and orgiastically unburden himself of the many new secret products and developments kept a lid upon in Cupertino for the past few months… but thanks to some too-eager web monkey’s blunder over on the official Apple support forums, we have semi-official confirmation of several new products that we now know to expect later today.

Apparently, the official Apple forums have already been setup with new sections dedicated to iMovie ’11, iPhoto ’11 and GarageBand ’11… all of which are applications to be found in the rumored iLife ’11 software suite that is expected to be announced today.

There’s more juicy gossip than that though: the Polish geeks who found the new product sections also found one for the new MacBook Air, as well as a “Reserved 2010” section, which could be just about anything. Does Steve have a surprise announcement up his sleeve, or will that Reserved 2010 sub-forum turn into an official section for Mac OS X 10.7 or even the CDMA iPhone?

If you mostly play around with Macs, you’ve probably never heard of Cool Master: the company usually dedicates itself to the task of making the sorts of outrageous, glowing computer cases favored by the sort of mouth breathing PC uber-nerds who list their Counterstrike stats on their curriculum vitaes.

It’s interesting, then, to see Cool Master release a product that can be used by Apple fans, even if it is as bog standard a gadget as an external battery pack.

Called the Choiix Power Fort 5.5 Whr, this battery pack is about the same size as an iPhone and has a single charge port on the bottom that will allow it to juice up any gadget under the sun capable of sucking down electricity through the USB standard.

For Apple-only households, this means you can juice your iPod Touch or iPhone up for an additional eight hours. iPods can expect another 48 hours of on-the-road battery life. Even the iPad should get a few extra hours from the Choiix, and Cool Master says that the 5.5Whr can be recharged up to 300 times while retaining 85% of its total capacity.

Is it worth buying? If you’re looking to recharge a variety of devices, it might be a good deal, but it’s hard to tell, given how cagey Cool Master is being about the price.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt2_lZFnpbQ

There’s plenty of Twitter clients on the App Store, from Twitter’s official software to power apps like TweetDeck, but watch this peaceful and somnolent video for the somewhat regrettably named Super Twario and you’ll have discovered one of the most pleasant Twitter clients around.

iBooks is plenty impressive, but despite Apple’s own leap into the realm of e-books, Amazon is going strong with the Kindle platform. They’ve managed to price the Kindle affordably enough at this point that few who only want an e-reader are likely to spend another few hundred on an iPad, and they’ve successfully managed to leverage their real strength against iBooks time and time again: if you buy a book through Amazon, you will not only be able to read it on every gadget out there, whether you have a Kindle, an Android smartphone, or a Mac… but thanks to their Whispersync technology, you’ll even be able to keep your bookmarks and annotations synced across every platform forever.

It’s nice to see Amazon fighting so ably against the competition of iBooks to their empire, and even nicer to see a new update to their Kindle for Mac software come down the pipeline which adds improved Whispersync functionality, which will allow you to keep your notes and highlighted passages synced across all your devices. There’s also a refreshed interface which looks much more Mac-like than previously.

If you buy Kindle over iBooks — and there’s absolutely no shame in that — go grab the latest update now.

The conventional hard disk drive may be going the way of the floppy disk, a retirement accelerated by Apple’s increasing use of flash memory in such popular devices as the iPad. Hard drive maker Western Digital could see shipments for netbooks and inexpensive laptops fall by 10 to 20 percent, the company CEO told reporters Tuesday.

CEO John Coyne told analysts investors should take a longer view about his industry in words meant to reassure a nervous Wall Street. “What I would say to investors is to look at the long-term demand for storage, the fact is the most appropriate solution for mass volume storage is hard drives and to look at the long-term progress the industry has made over the last 10 years,” he said in a call.

Obihai Technology, a tiny Cupertino start-up, this month brought to market its first product, the OBi110 — an unassuming $70 box with blinky lights that may well prove to be the most disruptive telephony device to come along in a decade.

The OBi110 is the physical hub in a multi-layered communications model the company believes can revolutionize the way consumers use their mobile, Internet and fixed-line telephony services, bringing emerging social networking behaviors together with maturing Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to create total communication freedom at the personal level.

With web and mobile-based software products, including an iPhone app presently in Beta testing, Obihai is poised to show the millions of consumers who’ve bought magicJacks and all 237 of them who’ve bought an Ooma just how IP telephony can be done.

AppBackr was launched this week as an invitation only beta. The service offered by AppBacker, Inc. of Palo Alto, California offers iOS app developers a new way to get cash advances for future app sales. Developers earn these advances by selling their apps wholesale to buyers via the AppBackr online catalog.

The return on the buyer’s investment depends on whether or not the app sells well. This sounds risky for the buyer, but not necessarily since they are expected to promote the app in magazines, blogs, etc. or they might just hire a good public relations firm to help.

Therefore AppBackr provides three very important services to app developers that are not very easy to come by:  marketing, financing, and an online wholesale sales catalog.

Jailbreak developer p0sixninja recently tweeted an image link that revealed a nicely jailbroken Apple TV. The jailbreak showed the injection of a new menu option which was like the ones used in hacks for the previous version of the Apple TV.

There is a lot more to do before this one will see prime time since the iOS based Apple TV generation two doesn’t even include an app launcher at this time.  It will be interesting to find out what Apple’s plans are for the new Apple TV. Perhaps a hint might leak out today during Apple’s special event.

This jailbreak isn’t publicly available yet so don’t get all excited just yet. Oh heck, go ahead be excited Apple TV fans. This looks like fun!

If you’ve ever spent any time exploring the world of OS X notebook applications, you’ll have bumped up against Eastgate Systems’ Tinderbox, without doubt one of the most powerful of them all.

It’s also one of the most expensive, and the one that polarises opinion most often. Tinderbox fans simply love the advanced features it comes with; critics point to the difficulty newcomers will have in getting to grips with them.

So, enter stage right: Twig, which although I’ve thought long and hard for a better term, is perhaps best described as “Tinderbox lite”. So what is it, exactly?

For those of us of a certain age, there’s an almost physical tug at the heartstrings when we see the distinctive Pacman profile. So if you like the thought of your MacBook’s lit-up Apple logo as a Pacman power pill, this decal by LastFuse should be on your Christmas “just-a-little-treat-for-myself” list. You can buy it in black or white from this Etsy store – be quick now, I have a feeling these will disappear fast.

This Wednesday, Apple holds a media event in Cupertino entitled “Back To The Mac.” As soon as they sent out the invitations, the internet started frothing with rumors. What will OS X 10.7 look like? Will there be a new MacBook Air? Will my iPad finally make coffee? The list of apple rumors is tremendous. Vegas odds makers are even taking bets on what Apple will unveil during the announcement.

I think the New York Times bits blog described the frantic Apple rumor mongering best:

When Apple makes an announcement about a coming press event it can sometimes feel like the National Hurricane Center has identified a new hurricane.

There is usually rampant speculation surrounding the importance and impact of the event: Will it be a Category 5 announcement with a revolutionary device, or a less-important Category 1, with basic updates to operating systems or gadgets?

Keeping with this tradition, the blogosphere was in full swing on Friday as technology experts and Apple fans tried to guess what Apple’s chief executive will announce next Wednesday when the company hosts “a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X,” and other new products.

And this isn’t a new phenomenon. This happens Every. Single. Time.

I wanted to know why. How can a computer company create such a frenzied pitch about a routine product announcement? And what can other companies learn from the Apple method? After looking at Apple product launch and product development strategies, I have come up with a few deductions. Here are some of the secrets that make Apple fans incredibly loyal and the press keenly interested in Mac product updates.

Next time you go to the hospital, your doctor might whip out an iPad to show you X-rays,  check drug interactions or review your medical history.

These are just some of the uses doctors are finding for Apple’s handy tablet computer in the Chicago area where three local hospitals are iPad early adopters.

At MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, the device “went through here like wildfire,” once doctors realized they could use the device to quickly access hospital records said Dr. Richard Watson, who works in the ER room. “At least half of our staff here in the emergency room has their own iPad and carries it and uses it.”

One expects great things from an app costing double its nearest competitor (which happens to be the excellent $5 Cyclemeter). And for the most part, BiCycle — a $10 cycling app that uses the iPhone’s GPS receiver to log data — delivers. But while the app is well-designed and contains features not found elsewhere, there’re a few gaping holes that should make potential purchasers pause before taking the plunge.

It’s war! Again. Or still. Whatever. Apple CEO Steve Jobs launched an “epic rant” during an earnings call this week blasting Google’s “fragmented,” er, “open” approach to apps and extolling the virtues of Apple’s “closed,” I mean “integrated” iOS platform.

“We think Android is very fragmented and getting more fragmented by the day… We believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.”

In retaliation, Google mobile strategy chief Andy Rubin apparently posted the following dorky reply on Twitter:

the definition of open: ‘mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make’.

That’s a set of Linux commands for copying Android.

Does Rubin have a point? No, seriously. What’s his point?

Since Google hasn’t mounted a coherent defense against fragmen… I mean the open approach to mobile platforms, does anyone here want to try?

Go here to read the whole post on IT World.

First up is a number of refurbished MacBook Pro units from the Apple Store, starting with a 2.26GHz 13″ model for $929. Next up is a Superleggera iPhone 4 case bundled with two screen protectors. We wrap up today’s featured deals with a 23-inch aluminum widescreen Cinema Display LCD monitor for $380.

Along the way, we check out a 16GB iPhone 4, an iPod touch with GPS and an 802.11g Airport Extreme. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple’s put down webOS before in the smartphone wars, but you can’t keep a solid operating system down for the count: six months after HP acquired Palm, they have just announced webOS 2.0 and the Pre 2 smartphone.

Over the weekend, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg met for some dinner, and smart money would rest on the bet that they were trying to work out some sort of deal where Facebook and Ping come together at last.

But could Apple’s interest be far more bold than merely ironing out some differences? Peter Kafka over at All Things D certainly thinks so: he speculates that Apple may want to buy Facebook outright with its $51 billion in cash reserves.

Here’s Kafka’s reasoning. Asked by Jobs what Apple intends to do with all of its cash, Jobs responded: “We firmly believe that one or more unique strategic opportunities will present itself to us, and we’ll be in a position to take advantage of it.” As Kafka sees it, Facebook’s a good bet for such an acquisition.

Deep down in their guts, iOS and OS X are basically the same beast, distinguished largely by their user interface shells… so could tomorrow’s reveal of OS X 10.7, “Lion,” make OS X’s UI more like iOS than ever before? An unconfirmed report says yes.

According to the report, the upcoming update to Lion will be heavily based on iOS in many of its trappings. It’ll still be Aqua, but “the iOS influence is [more] visible in the new OS user interface.”

Yojimbo users, here’s the news you’ve been waiting for.

Yojimbo 3.0 is out today, and with it comes a companion iPad application that lets you take your Yojimbo database to go.

We see sexy, elegant and manly iPad satchels all the time, but what about the sandalwood-scented fashionista who wants to sling his MacBook Pro around town with the same proud strut as a GQ model? The Shoulder MacBook Sleeve by Hard Graft might fit the bill.

Made of 100% wool woven into asphalt grey felt, the Shoulder MacBook Sleeve features a tuck-in closure, a dark black removable leather strap held in place by tanned hazelnut leather, as well as a removable extras case for cables and power adapter. Very sexy indeed, and the price isn’t actually bad: just €139.00.

Who is leading in mobile advertising – Apple or Google? A new report seems to offer conflicting views. One graph (shown above) appears to indicate mobile ads served to Android devices grew at a faster pace in the third-quarter – 37 percent versus 10 percent for Apple. However, a second set of numbers illustrates a 156 percent increase in ad impressions and 316 percent revenue jump for the iPad between July and September.

Millenial Media, a mobile advertising network, Tuesday also announced while Apple accounts for 30 percent of the devices connected to its system, ad requests sent to Android devices grew 1,283 percent since January. The iPod touch and iPad accounted for two of the top four devices connected to the company’s network.

This chart tracks the dizzying rise of new products in Apple’s sales mix. Currently about 60% of Apple’s sales come from products that the Cupertino company launched in the last three years.

“This last quarter is not a holiday quarter. Now imagine what next quarter will look like on this chart,” writes Horace Dediu, who charted Apple’s sales in the graph for Asymco. “Think back to 2001 before the iPod. The orange band was all that Apple had.”

Source: Asymco

You’ve always wanted to paint your face up like a singer at the Beijing opera, right?

No? You sure?

Although investors voiced some disappointment that Apple’s quarterly financial picture didn’t match some expectations, analysts Tuesday weighed in with a more optimism. The key phrase: the best is yet to come.

“We believe [the] iPad supply chain will expand substantially into the calendar fourth quarter,” Sterne Agee analyst Vijay Rakesh told investors this morning. Although Apple’s sales of 4.2 million iPads this quarter was below the 5 million Wall Street expected, the analyst views the lower number as a “strategic decision to allocate capacity to [the] iPhone 4 and the best is yet to come.”

This is the RM Slate, an 11.6 inch multitouch tablet running Windows 7, priced at £399 (about $630).