Apple bought Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company. The best online advertising platform company is Google and is due to the company having the world’s most popular search engine. So my simple understanding is: for Apple to become a formidable mobile advertising platform, my guess is the company needs to have a popular mobile search engine. And what better device to start such a search engine than on the world’s most popular smartphone: the iPhone.

Cowon’s W2, a 4.8-inch MID running Windows 7, will be available January 25 in Korea for KRW599,000 (about US$534) to KRW739,000 (about US$659). The 4.8-inch LCD sports a 1024 x 600 pixel format. Other specs include: WiFi BG, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Intel Atom running at 1.33GHz, 1GB RAM, TV-Out. The W2 looks nice but there is something amiss. It might be just me but the bezel seems to be too thick for such a small device. And a Windows 7 MID? Make sure you have microscopic accuracy when pointing. Source: Akihabara News

A security flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) was exploited in the recent attacks on Google China. And Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security has released a warning: stay away from IE 6, 7 and 8. I wonder what would happen if the South Korean government issued a warning like this… I’ll tell you: complete chaos. Source: BSI via Mashable, Engadget

Didn’t know I had an airline named after me! Kidding aside, Jin Air, a Korean Air subsidiary, is renting Sony’s PSP Go for KRW4000 (about US$3.50). Source: Siliconera via Joystiq, Engadget

For some reason I want to ruggedize my fragile high-tech gadgets, especially my 17-inch MacBook Pro. I bumped into Huzzk: rubberized, inner 4-mm neoprene protection and water resistant sleeve. There are two sizes: 13-inch and 15-inch. Unfortunately none for my 17-inch. The search goes on. Source: Huzzk

McDonald’s: My favorite place for a quick bite to eat. Coffee too. And now free WiFi. Cool, I guess I’ll be taking my notebook and staying a bit longer. Source: Reuters via Engadget

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler compares the Nexus One from Google to his love, Apple’s iPhone:

Android is like a very nice painting done entirely with broad strokes. The iPhone is more like a masterpiece in which every little detail has been meticulously defined. Just as people have different tastes in art, people will have different tastes when it comes to the iPhone versus the Nexus One. But that doesn’t change the fact that some pieces of artwork are considered to be masterpieces, while some are considered to be merely very good.

Quite an interesting analogy. Let me spell it out very clearly: the iPhone is a masterpiece. The Nexus One is merely very good. Read the rest of MG’s article at, “An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus One“.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber’s take on one of the many reasons why Apple’s Newton failed:

The Newton was a pre-Internet concept that debuted at the start of the Internet revolution. All modern computers are now seen as communication devices. The Newton wasn’t designed around that. I’m not arguing that Apple should have somehow invented Wi-Fi in 1993, but rather that the lack of any wireless IP networking was the biggest factor that kept the whole concept from being compelling to enough people to make it a hit. The Palm Pilot wasn’t any more of an Internet device when it debuted, but it didn’t have to be, because it cost less.

Definitely worth reading the entire post titled “The Original Tablet” in light of what most experts agree will be an unveiling of Apple’s next tablet on the 27th.

LARGEST: LG Display announced a newspaper-sized e-paper. The 19-inch e-paper is 250 x 400mm in size and is about the size of an A3-sized newspaper and just as thin and light at 0.3mm and 130g. LG Display uses a metal foil instead of a typical glass substrate allowing the company’s e-paper to be flexible with increased durability compared to glass-based displays. A gate-in-panel (GIP) technology was used to integrate the gate driver IC directly onto the panel furthering improving flexibility.

SOON: According to LG Display, the 19-inch flexible e-paper is the largest flexible display and provides a reading experience very similar to a real newspaper. We don’t know when the 19-inch e-paper will be commercially available but the smaller 11.5-inch version is expected to hit the market in the first half of 2010.

SMALLER: A real newspaper you can fold and then put under your arm or into your briefcase. I’m not sure if you can do that with the 19-inch flexible e-paper: if you have a large enough briefcase, sure, but most of us will probably want something a bit smaller. Source: DIGITIMES

A steering wheel made of Lego for the iPhone: cool! Probably needs a few more gears and a larger steering wheel to smooth out the control but this is probably just a starting point for Lego-based augmentation of iPhone and iPod touch capabilities. Source: YouTube via AutoMotto, Autoblog

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