Engadget has managed to get hold of a very interesting internal presentation slide from Hewlett-Packard which compares Apple's iPad to HP's very own Slate. Since we didn't yet know anything about the Slate's specifications, this one is pretty revealing. While that's interesting in and of itself, the slide is also interesting in that it illustrates so well what sets Apple apart from companies like HP.

Ah, Intel's IA-64 architecture. More commonly known as Itanium, it can probably be seen as a market failure by now. Intel consistently failed to deliver promised updates, and clock speeds have lagged behind. Regular x86-64 processors have already overtaken Itanium, and now Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2008 R2 is the last version of Windows to support the architecture.

I wanted to post this just because Barbara and David Mikkelson of Snopes.com are heroes of mine. Any savvy internet user knows that their web site is a great source for unraveling the never-ending stream of false internet rumors. The New York Times article also mentions FactCheck.org and PolitiFact, which are two other truth-telling sites that educated people ought to be aware of.

Swedish company People of Lava has announced an Android-based internet-connected television. Say what you will about this particular product, but I personally think this is a very good idea that is a long time coming. I don't really care that much about having a TV that can do things. I use a TV as a glorified monitor, hooking it up to various boxes like DVRs that do the heavy lifting. But what I do care about is having electronics that don't suck. And I think I can make a blanket pronouncement here: by and large, the software that consumer electronics firms make for their hardware is very, very bad.

Even we are eager with iPad news - especially this variety. How long has the iPad been out and about in the US? A day or so? Yeah, pretty much. That's all it took: the iPad has already been jailbroken. Rooted. This means that if you didn't plan on buying the iPad because you don't want to be shackled to Apple, and were waiting for a jailbreak, you won't have to wait long.

"There is a lot of misconception around support for multitasking in the iPhone and its giant cousin, the iPad. What follows is my analysis of the situation. I am not privy to any insider Apple information. Moreover, while my knowledge is certainly colored by my work on Android, I'm not drawing a comparison or using any Google-specific knowledge." Interesting stuff about how Android does multitasking.

Yeah, just in case people think we forgot: Apple launched its iPad today. It's just that since the rest of the web is pretty much clogged with iPad "news" items at this point, I don't really know what to add; who'd you rather hear from, someone who owns one, or someone like me, the small orphan child pressing his face to the glass of a candy shop full of delight he can't afford (because he lives in the wrong country)? About the only meaningful item I've seen today is Engadget's iPad review, so let's take a quick look at that one.

It's a simple equation. Results = Developers x Time; and for Songbird, it's not working out. Yesterday, they announced they will drop Linux support in favour of Windows, Mac and to meet plans to include video features in the next release. The comments are intensely angry, as you can imagine. An untested Linux version will be kept around "for use by our Songbird engineers who develop on the Linux platform".

I'm posting this one day late, because I didn't want it to get lost in all the April 1 nonsense. We've been in the computer age for a while now, and while that gives us the privilege of dealing with some truly great products and innovations, it sadly also means that we are starting to lose the pioneers that defined this industry. Yesterday, Ed Roberts shuffled out of life due to pneumonia. Dr. Henry Edward Roberts developed the Altair 8800, considered to be the first personal computer.

In November last year I stated that it would only be a matter of time before it happened. Also in November Joel Webber, a Google engineer had the inspiration to port Quake II to HTML5 from Jake2--a Java port of Quake II--using Google Web Toolkit; the same toolkit used for writing Google Mail | Maps | Wave in Java and compiling into JavaScript. With the help of two other Google engineers (Ray Cromwell and Stefan Haustein) in "20% time", it works! Just!

"The US Patents and Trademark Office has today made public a Microsoft patent application (serial no. 240,729) related to the graphical user interface found on the hotly anticipated Windows Phone 7 Series mobile OS. Filed in September 2008, this application describes a 'contiguous background' that extends beyond the dimensions of the screen (either vertically or horizontally, but not both) with anchored 'mixed-media' elements being littered atop it - all of which is to be served on a 'media-playing device'. That should sound pretty familiar, given that it's the central navigational concept of both Windows Phone 7 and the Zune HD, and as such it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to seek to legally protect its uniqueness."

"Microsoft found its latest request for a multiple-judge review, in a long-running patent-infringement suit with Canadian tech firm i4i, rejected by a federal appeals court. Microsoft had asked for a panel of 11 judges to review its arguments in the case, in which i4i alleges that Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 violate its custom XML-related patents. In August 2009, a federal judge in a U.S. District Court ordered Microsoft to pay $300 million and pull copies of Word 2003 and 2007 from store shelves within 90 days, a ruling that set off months of legal maneuvering."

This article coveres some of the new HTML 5 capabilities of modern browsers including powerful HTML 5 features such as multi-threading, geolocation, embedded databases, and embedded video. Learn how to use them in your applications.

With the release day of the iPad fast approaching, it's time for the usual lucky few to shine their lights on Apple's new device. As usual, these first-hand reviews by blogging heavyweights are incredibly positive (with a few notable exceptions), and if they are correct in their predictions, then the iPad will change everything in computing.