In the past, Blackberry makers Research In Motion have had questionable success in updating their handsets to be competitive in a post-iPhone world, but that’s not about to stop them from challenging Apple’s iPad: the company is expected to debut their own 7-inch tablet at next week’s RIM Developer Conference.

Rumored to be named the BlackPad, RIM’s iPad-clone is expected to run some variation of the the QNX operating system instead of their own Blackberry OS 6. At 7 inches, the BlackPad would be closer to the (still untested at market) form factor of the Samsung Galaxy Tab than the iPad’s 9.7-inch display, and would likely be similar to the Galaxy Tab in other key specs as well, such as dual camera capability.

Interestingly, sources speaking to the WallStreet Journal say that RIM is going a curious direction when it comes to 3G: the only way you will be able to access cellular networks on a BlackPad is by tethering it to a BlackBerry smartphone.

Apple’s Find My iPad feature strikes again, this time a cross-country escapade with a happy ending.  It begins when Southwest traveler Curtis Cogdill left his iPad on the airplane when traveling from Sacramento, Calif., to Portland, Ore:

After some discussion as to whose fault it was, Cogdill used his iPod Touch and Apple’s Find My iPhone MobileMe app to locate the iPad. While the family was in Oregon, the iPad had taken a cross-country trip to Orlando, Fla.

“You could zoom all the way in,” Cogdill said. “You could tell it was sitting where an airplane would be sitting at the terminal.” [CNET]

But the story doesn’t end there.  The wayward iPad soon took another journey.  While tracking his iPad, Cogdill watched as his beloved iSlate left the airport and traveled to a nearby home.

Lost, then found, then stolen – what a day.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending.  A Southwest supervisor, along with the police, recovered the iPad soon after the rightful owner contacted the airline.  The family is happy with the outcome, and MobileMe likely has another lifetime subscriber.

[via CNET]

After scratching his head for awhile and wondering what to do with a Macintosh Classic II , Maker Matteo from Ithaca, New York repurposed his old faithful Mac into a shelf-top clock.

From appearances, it looks like the clock — which Matteo rather laughably calls “steampunk” in style — only came into being after its creator accidentally doused his Mac Classic in acid then shot with a bazooka, but the innards of the admittedly ugly timepiece work well enough: a 16MHz CPU, 4MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive running MacOS 7 and a dozen different shareware and freeware clock programs, including one that counts down the seconds to Matteo’s death.

Yeah, it’s hideous, but we love it: this is just the kind of bizarro clock I can imagine discovering thirty years from now in the basement of an elderly and now quite eccentric Steve Wozniak. Great work, Matteo!

Earlier this month, a member of the Chronic Development Team announced that he had discovered an exploit that would allow any iOS device currently on the market to be jailbroken forever, no matter how Apple patched it through software. Christened “SHAtter,” the exploit is widely anticipated, not only because it will allow versions of iOS 4.0.2 and above to be jailbroken, but because the only way Apple can fix it is through hardware. Once SHAtter is released, all current iOS devices will essentially be jailbreakable forever.

Here’s a warning, though. The SHAtter jailbreak still isn’t out, which means that any website or program claiming to be capable of jailbreaking a device running iOS 4.0.2 or above is likely a scam unless it was released by the Dev Team themselves… and chances are, it’s something much worse.

According to security researcher Costin Raiu at the Kapersey Labs, there is a new exploit in the wild that is being circulated as greenpois0n, a purported iOS 4.0.2 or above jailbreaking tool. Instead of actually jailbreaking iOS devices, though, it instead steals your passwords.

It’s easy to forget after the remarkable ease of August’s JailbreakMe exploit that jailbreaking your iOS device is actually a complicated process and not one that should be conducted by amateurs. As always, remember that the only real source to trust when it comes to jailbreaking your iPhone is the iPhone Dev Team… and unless they have released a tool directly to jailbreak your device, you should stay far, far away.

Last week, Twitter announced a serious overhaul of their website. It might mean diddly to iPhone users though, who usually access Twitter through any one of a growing heap of mobile Twitter apps — all of which are equipped with a vastly superior set of features compared to Twitter’s site (at least, currently).

Now, I’ve always held that selecting a Twitter app is a highly subjective, personal process, kind of like picking out a bicycle saddle — you just sort of squish around on it for a few days and see if it feels right. Personally, I currently tend to favor HootSuite over any other Twitter app, even though I’ve installed, and sometimes use, half a dozen or so others. But one Twitter app has foisted itself to essential status: Twitter’s own official app. And it’s above the rest for one key reason, really.

The Apple iPad appears to be spearheading an expected 296 percent jump in flash memory for 2011. Once known for producing iPods and iPhones with insatiable appetites for memory, the iPad (along with its rivals) tablet device means 1.7 billion Gigabytes of flash memory will ship next year – up from 428GB used this year, according to iSuppli.

The hardware analysts expect 8.8 billion GB of flash memory will ship by 2014. “Tablets have stolen some cache from netbooks,” declares senior memory and storage analyst Michael Yang. Part of the reason for the iPad’s popularity is its use of NAND flash storage, rather than traditional hard disk drives.

The role of iPods and earbuds as inner-cochleal deafening devices has been debated for years, with recent studies suggesting very strongly that hearing loss in children and teenagers is much higher than it should be thanks to the likes of Apple’s portable media player.

It might not be quite time to strike a new iPod off of your child’s Christmas list, though: a new study suggests that the prevalence of young people suffering from hearing loss thanks to loud music may be much lower than it has seemed.

According to a report done by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, the conventional hearing tests are producing false positives for hearing loss at a rate of about ten percent.

That’s not enough, obviously, to throw caution to the wind. Cramming ear buds down your aural holes, putting on some Iron Maiden and then wildly spinning your iPod’s volume wheel until brains start dripping from your tear ducts is still going to have some consequences.

That said, it seems that the threat iPods pose to the hearing of our nation’s youth is about the same as it ever was: as long as you listen to your iPod at a lower, more responsible volume, you’re fine

The blog AutoSpies.com captured pictures at the Paris Motor Show of BMW’s new replacement for the old-and-busted rear-seat DVD screens: Apple iPad cradles that rotate, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. No, this isn’t just some concept. It’s the new hotness.

The cradle debuted on the new BMW X3, but will be available for all other model series starting in the Spring.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHOZZJ_2Wjg&feature=player_embedded

Samsung’s just pushed live their latest advertisement for the first of the prestige-band iPad competitors, the Samsung Galaxy Tab… and while you certainly shouldn’t expect device agnosticism from someone who has “Cult of Mac” written on his paychecks, I’ve got to say, I think they did a pretty good job enumerating the Tab’s relative advantages over the iPad.

In about two minutes, the commercial quickly and compelling puts ticks next to the boxes of all the iPad’s more niggling omissions — web cam and expandable storage being the most obvious — and even a few that no one really cared about, like the fact that you can’t also use the iPad as a big stupid looking phone, which you can with the Galaxy Tab.

The Monday Giveaways are BACK and we’re badder than ever. This week’s slate of apps has everything from Zombies and custom ringtones to everyone’s favorite game, Words with Friends! We’ll pick 5 random winners to win 4 great apps and if you want a chance to get your hands on some these iPhone apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:

1. Follow us on Twitter (you must do this, if you’re not following us, we can’t contact you if you win).
2. Tweet this: @cultofmac and @appular are tearing it up with FREE iPhone apps! #cultofmac
3. Your tweet will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll contact the winners on Tuesday or Wednesday about how to get the codes!
4. Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away: