Thanks to Chad for putting this together:

Technology Round-Up

Poll

A new survey indicates that approximately 19% of U.S. adults own a tablet. Do you own or are you interested in purchasing one? [Poll]

Apple

Apple had the highest earnings in its history.

Apple is once again the top smartphone manufacturer in the world.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has defended Apple’s ethical stance in China.

An untethered jailbreak for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S has been released.

A Wisconsin school has invested its Microsoft settlement money into iPads for its schools. Speaking of iPads for schools, a pilot program from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt indicates that students’ math scores increased 20% with iPad textbooks.

Apple is starting to make headway into the corporate world.

iCloud now has 85 million users.

New Apple devices may support 802.11ac, a gigabit WiFi connection.

Apple may bring its magsafe charger connection to iPhones and iPads as well.

iBooks Author is a new way for authors to write content for the iPad.

Rumor has it that Apple will offer its employees $500 off a new iMac and $250 off a new iPad on top of the existing 25% employee discount.

Internet

Facebook is expected to file its initial public offering papers in the next few weeks. The valuation could reach $100 billion. The company is also rolling out Timeline to all users within the next few weeks.

Twitter will start censoring tweets it feels are inappropriate.

The FBI is building an application to scour public information on all major social networks.

Filesonic and Fileserv have shut down their file sharing services to avoid becoming the next Megaupload.

One man who ordered a book on Amazon received $300-$400 worth of cocaine for free.

Spotify now has three million paying subscribers.

Mozilla will jazz up Firefox’s default home page.

Israel plans to build a national broadband network.

Google

Google+ is now available for anyone 13 and older in most countries.

The White House has now Google+.

Google's cloud music service now lets people download their entire cloud library at once.

27,000 Chromebooks will be distributed to students in three states.

Google Maps is getting public alerts.

Google Earth now has better rendering.

Electronics

Nintendo has posted its first annual loss in company history.

The new Neo Geo will feature a 4.3-inch screen and 20 retro titles built-in.

The next version of the Xbox will be six times more powerful and may be released in fall of 2013.

Researchers at Purdue University have created a medical implant that is powered by sound waves.

The U.S. Government has ruled that the Chevy Volt is not prone to catching on fire.

Check out a new electric vehicle sponsored by MIT and the Spanish government.

Tesla plans to release the four-door electric Model S to the U.S. in mid-2012.

One guy received a little something extra with his ATM cash withdrawal, a dead mouse.

Paramount Pictures lets people stream their ultraviolet Blu-ray movies from the cloud.

Boxee Box Live TV is now shipping.

Linksys plans to unveil 200mbps powerline networking components.

Logitech will release a new Harmony remote in the next few months.

Mobile

Anyone using a cell phone in North Korea during the first 100 days following Kim Jong-il's death will be charged with a war crime.

AT&T has reported great Q4 2011 earnings.

Motorola lost $80 million last quarter.

Now that the T-Mobile/AT&T deal is dead in the water, T-Mobile is dealing with its lack of an iPhone offering by offering official support for unlocked iPhones.

Australia's new 4G network can hit speeds of 40.77mbps down/20.07mbps up. That's faster than most people in the U.S. can even get home internet.

Five million people may have fallen victim to Android malware that was present in at least 13 apps on the Android Market.

The Sprint Galaxy Nexus registration page is now available. Speaking of the Galaxy Nexus, Amazon is selling the Verizon version for a mere $99 on contract.

The Droid Razr Maxx is available with a ridiculously-powerful 3,300 mAh battery. By comparison, your round-up author's LG Thrill 4G (which features a battery-draining 3D screen) has a 1500 mAh battery.

Images of the LG Optimus 3D 2 have leaked.

The PS Vita will be sold in the U.S. with an interesting bundle combining 250GB of data from AT&T, PSN games, and an additional memory card.

Ice Cream Sandwich will be the beginning of the end for the menu key.

Check out a not-so-glowing review of the Blackberry Curve 9360.

Reports are in that Microsoft paid Nokia $250 million to adopt Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone 7.5 can now sync multiple Google calendars.

Apps

The Steam beta is now available for iOS and Android.

Think you can shoot hard enough for the NHL? The Hardest Shot app uses the iPhone’s microphone to measure your shot speed.

Android users with the SwitchMe app can create guest accounts for their phones so they can show off the features without sharing their private texts and such.

Google and MIT have released App Inventor which allows non-developers to create Android apps.

Computer/Tablet

A Colorado judge has forced a man to decrypt the data on his computer. Fair or a violation of his rights?

Symantec has had to issue warnings to its customers after portions of its source code were stolen.

Windows 8 will feature accelerometer sensor support. It will also feature integrated 3G/4G connectivity. The OS may also feature Kinect built-in.

The Ice Cream Sandwich-featured Acer Iconia Tab A510 could arrive in Europe in April.

Acer, Asustek, and Lenovo will start offering Thunderbolt ports on their computer in the near future.

KDE 4.8 for Linux has been released.

Tips/Tricks

With tax season rolling around, check out Lifehacker's list of the top five tax preparation tools.

Keep your windows organized with Tiles.

Add a news notifier to Chrome with Gnews.

Use Siri to tweet with Sireet.

Add timestamps to your iPhones texts with the xmessages jailbreak.

Improve the iOS 5 notification center with Launch Center.

Use UndoClose to reopen windows you have accidentally closed.

Use cooking spray to prevent your car doors from freezing over in cold weather.

Learn how to look your best in photos.

Miscellaneous

Jon Rubenstein, the former Palm CEO who joined HP during the merger, has decided to leave HP.

Intel has paid $120 million for 190 patents from RealVideo. Who would have known that the old streaming video pioneer was still worth that much money?

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Contributor: CyberInferno (Chad)

that war crime charge for cellphones in korea is ludicrous.

hahaha i can't imagine ordering a book and getting ANY cocaine.

Awesome, is it just me or was this absent the last few weeks?

Originally Posted by popdisaster00

Awesome, is it just me or was this absent the last few weeks?

Yes, this has been absent for a while.

Well, keep 'em coming!

Is it worth it to Jailbreak an Ipad2?

Half of the links don't work. At least the ones in blue text.

Originally Posted by esposimi

Half of the links don't work. At least the ones in blue text.

They worked for me. Try putting your pointer on the first word of the link.

thank you for this, it's always a fun read. props to OP, i'm sure this takes quite a bit of time to research and write-up.

Steam for android, yet no linux client... :(

Originally Posted by popdisaster00

Awesome, is it just me or was this absent the last few weeks?

Originally Posted by Linda Ferreira

Yes, this has been absent for a while.

True story...my bad...definitely trying to get it back on the weekly track though!

Originally Posted by esposimi

Half of the links don't work. At least the ones in blue text.

Sorry about that. See the post below.

Originally Posted by flask

They worked for me. Try putting your pointer on the first word of the link.

Yeah, I tried using Microsoft Office Web apps and apparently the copy and paste from it messed up the links. Thanks for discovering the workaround. Back to Google Docs for next week!

Originally Posted by re7ard1337

thank you for this, it's always a fun read. props to OP, i'm sure this takes quite a bit of time to research and write-up.

Thanks for reading!