A Massachusetts man is held in jail without bond today. He’s accused of  murdering his girlfriend Kristen Pulisciano as their daughter’s friend watched via iPad video chat. Christopher Piantedosi, 39 years old, showed up at his girlfriends home Thursday and began a heated argument.

Police say the argument grew louder and their 15-year-old daughter who was in her room video chatting on here iPad went to go check on them. She found Christopher holding a knife. At that point, here mother fled to the girl’s bedroom and locked the door.

Christopher allegedly kicked in the door and proceeded to stab his girlfriend repeatedly with a butcher’s knife. All the while, the daughter’s male friend could see the murder taking place over video chat from the iPad.

“He could hear the victim saying, ‘Please, please,’ and he could hear the daughter yelling, ‘No! No!’”  Middlesex assistant district attorney Nicole Allain said. “He then heard the defendant say, ‘You’ve got to die. You’ve got to die.’”

The daughter rushed out of the home and called 911. By the time authorities arrived, Christopher had fled the scene. It was reported that Kristen Pulisciano suffered 34 stab wounds to the neck and chest.

On Facebook, Pulisciano’s daughter posted a photo of her with her mother and wrote, “im glad ur in heaven. no more crying. sorry for all those fights. i tried to help. it was [sic] to late. i love u forever.”

Sound a bit ridiculous? Maybe. An online casino site by the name of Roxy Palace recently posted an article saying that their research shows that 1 in 10 men would rather own the new iPad than find a potential love interest. Possibly a more surprising claim is that the poll conducted also found that about 3% of men would be prepared to leave their spouse if offered a brand new iPad.

On the other side, woman overwhelmingly preferred to find a man over being given an iPad. 84% to be exact. The numbers came as a shock to many, including myself. Roxy Palace is no doubt trying to pick up some extra traffic to their site by creating and publishing such a poll. It isn’t clear where or how the poll was conducted but it’s worth noting that the men and woman participating probably have a strong interest in gambling.

The new iPad is faster and more beautiful than ever but for for most Windows-based desktop users, it’s hard to substitute one for the other. OnLive a primarily remote gaming service allows streaming of games and service so the device itself isn’t doing all the work. A while back OnLive released a virtual instance of Windows 7 that could run on the iPad for free complete with office 2010.

This move had virtual desktop companies in an uproar,  claiming that OnLive isn’t properly licensing the software. Microsoft later confirmed that OnLive was indeed, not licensing the software appropriately and Microsoft was in-talks with OnLive to reach an agreement.

Brian Madden, a technologist and blogger about virtual desktops, today explains that OnLive has converted their Windows 7 hosted instance service to a Windows Server 2008 R2 instance. Microsoft explains that it’s impossible to offer a hosted Windows 7 instance with each user paying for a license. Windows Server 2008 R2 is extremely similar to Windows 7 and with some tweaks can look just like the average W7 desktop would.

Prentke Romich’s Minspeak is a special touchscreen device that will let mute children and adults speak by using a set of buttons on-screen. When touched in sequence the device will recognize sentences and speak for the user. Minspeak, up until, now has has little competition.

startup Speak For Yourself found themselves in court after Minspeak claimed that Speak For Yourself’s significantly cheaper iPad application with “dynamic keyboard of symbols” and “the ability to redefine these keys” violated Minspeak’s patent.

Nieder of Speak For Yourself stated that it is needed on the market as an cheap alternative to the more pricy dedicated portable device:

I sent emails out (to users, AAC experts, and company reps) asking about whether PRC (Prentke Romich Company) was developing an app for the iPad, and the answer was a clear no.

For my daughter, the bottom line isn’t about what happens in the courtroom, it’s about what happens to her app. Her iPad, equipped with its special case and Speak For Yourself, is now her communication device. She doesn’t care about who is making the money, or patent law, or big guys vs little guys – she cares about being able to tell me that she wants milk instead of water, or she wants to go to the zoo, or about who she played with at school.

She wants to be able to talk.

The Reg asked Minspeak whether it had plans to make an iPad app, and a spokesperson got in touch to say:

Like most companies, we don’t publicly share our future product development plans. However, we recognise the importance of consumer technology as a permanent aspect of the assistive technology field, and are planning to participate in a way that will provide solutions that focus on client outcomes.

That’s right. According to M.I.C. Gadget (a Chinese tech blog), they’ve received an early production version of the iPad 3′s rear case. The case is said to be a bit thicker and have more tapering than the iPad 2 would require. M.I.C. Gadget reports that the case suggests the iPad 3 will be 1-1.5mm thicker than the iPad 2.

Other speculation that supports M.I.C. Gadget’s claims are that the increase size of the iPad 3 is to support a retina display, 4G LTE technology and even a slightly larger battery. According to the latest rumors, Apple will unveil the iPad 3 on March 7th.

Apple’s iPad sales in China may quickly come to a screeching halt. Proview Technology and Apple have been in and out of court for some time on the matter of who owns the ‘iPad’ trademark. A Chinese court ruled recently that Apple is not entitled to use the iPad trademark. This means that Apple will either change the name of it’s tablet PC or pay a huge sum of money to Proview Technology.

Between 2002 and 2004, Proview trademarked IPAD in European Union, China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. In 2006 Proview sold the trademark to a 3rd-party which turned out to be a company working under Apple. Soon after the deal was struck, the two companies began to argue whether China was included in the deal.

This was a result of Apple suing Proview for the IPAD trademark in China. Now that Proview has won, the company has stated that they will begin to take legal action against iPad resellers as well as consider suing Apple for trademark infringement in return.

Read the whole story at China Briefing

According the reports from the Mac Observer, Apple is currently working with supplier overseas to build pre-production components for the nect-gen iPad. The key component being a 9.7-inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel display.  rumor has it that Apple has ordered parts that roughly translate to 1.5 million iPads for the next quarter year.

The Wall Street Journal. “Suppliers will ramp up production and try to improve the yield rate for the new iPad in the fourth quarter before its official launch in early 2012.”  The only concern for Apple and it’s competitors, will consumers wait for the iPad 3, skipping the holiday season or will an Android-based tablet PC be the preferred choice.
 

With the Holiday season picking up and Apple holding the top spot as having (arguably) the best smartphone and tablet PC on the market, it’s no wonder that knock-0ff and fake iPads are trying to be past as the real deal.

MarkMonitor Inc., a company that specializes in brand protection tells us that nearly 18k fake iPad and Android devices were for sale on a single day in July across 23 sites. What’s more, over 5,000 sellers were trying to peddle the fake devices, many coming from China.

As retailers begin to unleash an onslaught of sales and discounts for eager holiday shoppers, suspected counterfeits are inevitably going to make a stronger presence as well. Those who have had a trying year may look for the deepest discounts and settle for a less than reputable site to buy from. Have you spotted a fake iPad? Let us know and more importantly, let the proper authorities know.

Recent analysts suggest that Apple may be working on a lower-end version of the iPad to be released early next year. Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White recounts a feeling of eminence or a foreshadow of something bad to come while visiting with technology supply chain companies at a trade show in China.

Brian also spoke to Apple suppliers which he felt pointed towards a “iPad Mini”, not necessarily smaller in screen size but smaller in price.

“Our research is pointing to the unveiling of a lower priced iPad in the first few months of 2012 that is aimed at expanding the company’s market potential by tapping into a more price sensitive consumer segment,” the analyst wrote. “Essentially, this ‘iPad mini’ will also fend off the recently announced Amazon Kindle Fire that addresses the low-end tablet market with a $199 price tag but could lead to bigger tablet ambitions from the online retailer in the future.”

[via FoxNews]

Although iOS5 has some neat new features and gestures, the real show stealer is the announcement of the iPhone 4S. Starting at $199 and order-able on October 7, the new and improved iPhone 4 will have the same look and feel as it’s predecessor but the parts have been much improved.

A quick rundown of the hardware:

• dual-core A5 CPU
• new dual-core GPU
• revamped antennae for less dropped calls
• dual-mode GSM and CDMA for global roaming
• 8-megapixel camera
• 1080p video recording with improved stabilization and face recognition

What the full details? Engadget has been reporting non-stop on the ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event.