Apple Inc is expected to show off a snazzier line of iPods on September 1, as speculation mounts the consumer electronics giant may also unveil plans to reinvigorate its long-neglected TV project.

Let’s look at a handful of $100 PC upgrades that can add a new lease of life to your existing system

WarMouse announced that its much-anticipated multi-button laser joystick mouse is now shipping. With a patented design featuring 18 buttons, an analog joystick, and a 5600-CPI laser sensor

A security expert has identified flaws in the design of some automated teller machines that make them vulnerable to hackers, who could make the ubiquitous cash dispensers spit out their cash holdings.

SanDisk on Wednesday announced a Secure Digital card that can store data for 100 years, but can be written on only once.

Lenovo has introduced a pair of environmentally-friendly laptops just in time of Earth Day this week.

The ThinkPad L series, comprised so far of the L412 and L512 notebooks, are being touted as highly durable and as being the “greenest on the market.”

Now that the iPad is in the hands of early adopters, the hard work for Apple Inc. begins.

Eager customers intent on being among the first owners of this new class of gadgetry stood in long lines across the country Saturday. They seemed willing to buy first – and discover uses for the iPad later.

In some ways, it was reminiscent of the lines and hoopla surrounding the 2007 launch of the first iPhone. The difference: People knew then that the iPhone would replace their existing cell phone, an appliance that has become a must-have for everyone from uber-geeks to stay-at-home moms.

With the iPad, which fits somewhere between phone and computer, Apple must convince people who already have smart phones, laptops, e-book readers, set-top boxes and home broadband connections that they need another device that serves many of the same purposes.

Many of the earliest iPad buyers say they will have a better idea of what they’ll use it for only after they’ve had it for a while.

That didn’t stop them from imagining, though.

Beth Goza has had iPhones and other smart phones, along with a MacBook Air laptop, yet she believes the iPad has a place in her digital lineup. She likened it to a professional tennis player owning different sneakers for grass, clay and concrete courts.

“At the end of the day, you can get by with one or the other,” she said outside an Apple store in Seattle’s University Village mall.

But she clearly doesn’t want to just “get by.” She’s already dreaming up specific uses for her iPad, such as knitting applications to help her keep track of her place in a complicated pattern.

Danita Shneidman, a woman in her 60s, wanted one to look at photos and videos of her first grandchild, born this week in Boston.

And then there’s Ray Majewski, who went to an Apple store in Freehold, N.J., with his 10-year-old daughter, Julia. The iPad is partly as a reward for her straight A’s in school, and partly a present for himself.

“I like the electronic books, and my daughter is really getting into them as well,” Majewski said. “I was thinking of getting a Kindle (e-book reader) but then said to myself, ‘Why not get an iPad because I can get so much more from that than just reading books?’”

Apple Inc’s iPad hits store shelves on Saturday and consumers at long last get to see for themselves whether the tablet device is worth all the breathless publicity.

The iPad goes on sale at 9 a.m. at the company’s more than 200 retail outlets in the United States, along with many Best Buy stores.

Wall Street is curious to see if the device — touted as a bridge between a laptop and smartphone — can win a mass following like the iPhone has, and will be monitoring crowds at Apple stores this weekend to gauge its appeal.

The afternoon before the much hyped tablet computer went on sale, a smattering of customers lined up at stores in New York, Washington, Boston and San Francisco, in marked contrast to the thousands that ushered in the iPhone in 2007.

With many able to pre-order the gadget since mid-March, there was little reason to stand in line ahead of Saturday’s 9 a.m. launch. Those who ordered early enough online get their iPads on Saturday, via pickup at a store or home delivery.

Analysts say the company has already received several hundred thousands in pre-orders, with sales estimated at anywhere from 4 million to 7 million or more in the gadget’s first year.

MUCH AT STAKE

Apple unveiled the iPad in January after months of fevered speculation, and its stock has risen steadily over the last two months.

It has plenty riding on the iPad, which it calls a new category of device: a lightweight media consumption device that tries to fuse the best attributes of a smartphone and a laptop.

The iPad’s touchscreen measures 9.7 inches. At 1.5 pounds, the device resembles an oversized iPhone and runs on the same operating system. It starts at $499 for a short-range Wi-Fi model, topping out at more than $800 for a 3G-enabled version.

The iPad is designed for using media of all sorts, including games, video, pictures, electronic books and magazines. It can access roughly 150,000 already existing iPhone apps, as well as new ones freshly designed for the iPad.

Broadcom has announced a new series of products that aim to bring the high-speed switches usually only seen in the most powerful datacentres to smaller enterprises.

The company said that the new BCM56840 series offers up to 64 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) or 16 ports of 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE). Such connectivity can now be deployed by medium-sized enterprises that could not normally afford such fast connections the company said.

The new BCM56840 switch series sets the bar and delivers unprecedented levels of integration, reduced power consumption and ultimate performance,” said Martin Lund, general manager of Broadcom’s Network Switch business.“This new level of functionality will allow our customers to build innovative products to create the datacentre of the future.”

The new switch series is built around 40nm process technology and has been designed to scale up to allow the expansion of datacentres. It has also been optimised for cloud computing network configurations.

Broadcom also claims the switch has the lowest power use and lowest latency at 640 Gbit/s of any Ethernet switch. It is now being installed with selected customers.

“The datacentre segment is an important growth area for our business,” said Henry Tso, chief technical officer of IP networking developer H3C.

“Broadcom’s latest series of high density 10GbE solutions enables us to meet the virtualisation and converged scalable services demands of our customers’ next generation energy efficient datacentre.”

Intel Corp released its newest server chips on Tuesday, as it seeks to maintain its dominance over rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc, and prepare for an expected rise in demand.

The new microprocessors, designed to power both servers and high-end desktop PCs, are the first of Intel’s server chips featuring smaller transistors that have helped the company’s laptop and desktop chips push stronger performance while eking out better energy efficiency.

Intel also built in security features the company says can encode and decipher files much faster, effectively removing the “encryption tax” or computer performance lost due to protecting files.