Fevered anticipation for Apple unveiling

Anticipation mounts as the world eagerly awaits details of Apple's 'latest creation' today, reports IBTimes.

While little is known about the device, speculation has been mounting for years, reaching an apex after the company beckoned the press to gather in San Francisco for an unveiling.

Observers expect the company to unveil a tablet device that Apple hopes will revolutionise the way media is delivered to consumers. Books and newspapers can be read on the device, like an e-book, but it will also play rich digital content, and offer Web capabilities.

Google is preparing a social networking task force. Open-standards guru Will Norris announced on his blog that he'll be starting a new job at Google on 1 February, joining a few other prominent social networking thinkers who have also recently made the jump to Mountain View, states CNET.

Google's involvement with social networking and community sites has been spotty at best: its Orkut social network is still big in Brazil, but minute elsewhere; its OpenSocial and Friend Connect projects have been generally well-regarded experiments, but completely smoked by Facebook in terms of prominence.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog) has started to set up its e-commerce operation ahead of the 2012 Games, writes Computing.co.uk.

The online store will stock thousands of London 2012 products, from clothing and collectables to toys and soft furnishings. Online retail specialist vendor eCommera will build and operate the Web site.

According to Locog, the supplier will use its own e-commerce software to provide an “end-to-end enterprise-grade platform that can cope with the scale and complexity of operating a global business”.

A Nebraska man is pleading guilty in federal court to a computer-disruption charge for his role in the 2008 distributed denial-of-service attack that temporarily shuttered Church of Scientology Web sites, says Wired.com.

Los Angeles federal prosecutors said Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20, signed a plea agreement admitting his role in the January 2008 attack, bringing to two the number of defendants convicted in the attack on Scientology.

Mettenbrink is expected to officially enter his plea, which carries a year sentence, prosecutors say.