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Apple today announced the iPhone 4s, an upgrade to its popular iPhone 4 that is not the iPhone 5.

Many had expected the iPhone 5, a technological marvel that would have raised its owners' children, prepared five-star cuisine and paved the way for comprehensive peace settlements across the globe.

Instead, Apple announced a new phone that is reportedly an upgrade from a previously released product. It also has a voice-recognition feature called Siri.

Here's the real story from the San Jose Mercury News:

In a closely watched but ultimately anticlimactic product launch, Apple (AAPL) on Tuesday unveiled its latest iPhone, with a low-key Tim Cook emceeing his first event since iconic CEO Steve Jobs resigned in August.

Disappointed fans jumped all over Apple for releasing merely an upgrade to the iPhone 4, dubbed iPhone 4S, instead of the widely expected iPhone 5. But analysts reminded them that many cool features -- faster operating system, slicker camera and video -- were hiding under the hood.

"The improvements in software and the new camera, for example, are impressive," said analyst Roger Kay with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "But if you don't have a new look on the outside, people tend not to get as excited."

Cook seemed comfortable on stage but was working a room clearly missing the energy Jobs used to infuse into these events. The real star of the show was Siri, the new voice-recognition feature billed as the user's "personal assistant," a female voice that soon will be helping millions of Apple fans answer e-mails, make dinner reservations and remember to pick up the dry cleaning, all without a single key stroke.

As of this writing, the world has not fallen apart.

If you haven't heard by now, HP has made plans to exit webOS devices like its touchpads as it tries to emulate IBM's IT service model. They made the announcement this past Thursday after making news that they may spin off their PC division.

The HP Touchpads were seen as the company's latest shot into the lucrative tablet wars brewing between heavyweights such as Samsung, Acer, and of course, Apple. The Touchpads went on sale roughly six weeks earlier - only to be unceremoniously discontinued.

The 16GB version had cost about $500, the 32GB version about $600. With the announcement, several vendors dropped the prices almost as early late Friday night to $99 and $150, respectively.

Stores across the internet were flooded with purchase orders thanks to posts on deal sites leading many to quickly run out of stock. Best Buy in Canada had the 16GB version listed online for $99 before it was wiped out. Other vendors, such as those on Amazon, haven't quite participated in the frenzy yet listing the pads at close to their retail prices at the time of this article.

In the United States, there have also been reports that Best Buy and Office Max are among several chains that would be shipping all of their pads back. The store clerks at my local Best Buy had no idea what was going on. I showed up along with several other people to try and snag one until we were told that, after ratcheting things up to management to confirm the truth of what we were saying, they would be shipped back instead.

However, others have had better luck elsewhere at places such as Wal Mart. Online, sites such as HP's own store to lesser known ones with an online presence were hit hard, often making it seem as if the store were actually broken. Ebay is already rife with hoarders flipping the ones that they had managed to snag at the new low prices.

It isn't so much that this is an HP Touchpad that is driving people to it as it is the low price for a decent piece of hardware - hardware that can be made to do anything with the right software. A team is already tweeting that they're working on porting Google's Android OS over to the touchpad.

You might have a better chance at snagging a pad next week as HP starts receiving all of the stock that is being shipped back to them - they're selling the devices at the discounted costs - though who knows? Someone might have forgotten to check that Wal Mart just down the street from you.

Sony held their press conference at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena with over 6000 attendees waiting to see what they had to offer up this year, especially in light of the PSN outage. Though they didn't drop too many bombshells, Sony did their best to get people excited for the Move and their new handheld, the PS Vita. 

Microsoft started the day off with their press briefing on what you can expect from them in the coming year. And thanks to the miracle of streaming, everyone could catch it from any number of online channels. There was plenty to talk about. Literally.

Following news that Apple's popular iPhone and iPad products keep files tracking users' movements, the Wall Street Journal reports smartphones using Google's Android operating system transmit users' locations to Google.

Apple phones also transmit similar data, the Journal reports.

Google and Apple are gathering location information as part of their race to build massive databases capable of pinpointing people's locations via their cellphones. These databases could help them tap the $2.9 billion market for location-based services--expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

In the case of Google, according to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour. It also transmitted the name, location and signal strength of any nearby Wi-Fi networks, as well as a unique phone identifier.

Network World has an ongoing story broken by Mohamed Hassan, an IT expert, who reported the discovery of a keylogger program on two new laptops bought from Samsung. When Samsung was initially asked about it, they had first pointed fingers at Microsoft.

Later, however, when the incident was escalated upwards, a supervisor at Samsung admitted that the software was knowingly put there to "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used." Examining the program, a keylogger called "StarLogger", it records every keystroke made - even the ones that you think are safe when you type in passwords. It runs in the background, silently, and can email the results back without the user knowing.

If this is widespread across more than the two Samsung laptop models that Hassan investigated (an R525 and an R540), it's a blatant security vulnerability evidently sanctioned by the company. The supervisor's answer is telling because that's exactly what it implies.

If you're not familiar with what a keylogger like this can do, just imagine inviting someone to look over your shoulder while you do your banking or email who then reports your keystrokes and password back to a total stranger. It would also be as if Toyota or Ford secretly installed video cameras inside their cars to monitor just how people use them, sending the data wirelessly to wherever.

When I first heard about this, I was amazed that a company would even think that this kind of thing was okay. It's not the first time this has happened, either. Sony was caught a few years back for rootkits that secretly installed on PCs when you played any of their music CDs on them, rootkits that were found to inadvertently open security holes and cause problems for Windows machines in general, forcing a huge recall of all affected discs.

People already have a lot to worry about when it comes to protecting their information online. The last thing they need to do is to worry about whether the company they're buying a new PC from is also trying to get it...and leave the door open for everyone else to do the same.
 
UPDATE (3.30.11): Samsung has launched an investigation and is working with Mr. Hassan and fellow security expert, M.E. Kabay

UPDATE (3.31.11): It turns out that in the end, it was a false positive. Samsung is completely in the clear, though as Network World has commented, odd that an employee would admit that there was a keylogger on these laptops when asked by Hassan. Nevertheless, it turns out that the virus scanner used to detect the software, VIPRE, mistakenly identified another piece of software for the keylogger. VIPRE has since been updated and GFI Labs, the developer of the scanner, have issued apologies all around.

Microsoft is expected to stop producing its Zune MP3 player, although the software is expected to live on in smartphones running Windows operating systems, Bloomberg News reported.

Zune, introduced in 2006, never managed to break the iPod's grip on the music-player industry and became the brunt of late- night talk-show jokes. Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s iPod led the market with 77 percent of unit sales last year, while the Zune failed to crack the top five, according to NPD Group Inc. By adding the Zune features to the Windows Phone software, Microsoft aims to gain ground in another challenging area -- mobile phones -- where it's lost market share to Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., declined to comment on plans for the Zune.

I would comment if I have an opinion as to whether the Zune was or was not actually superior to the iPod, but I have a Sandisk Sansa, which it totally OK.

The MIcrosoft Zune, shown here in many versions, is reportedly leaving the marketplace.