Shipments of tablets running Google Inc’s Android will overtake the iPad this year for the first time, research house IDC predicted on Tuesday, as Apple Inc cedes more mobile market share to hard-charging rivals around the globe.

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The TouchPad includes a 1.3-megapixel camera on its face for video chats and a 9.7-inch touch screen. It comes with 16 or 32 gigabytes of storage and a speedy dual-core processor. It weighs nearly the same as Apple Inc.’s iPad and is about as thick.

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Microblogging sensation Twitter. which has now signed up more than 100 million users, outlined on Wednesday several revenue-generating initiatives, declaring that making money was now a primary goal.

The popular Internet service hopes to snag hundreds of millions more users in coming years by making the service easier, integrating Twitter directly into Web sites and focusing more on customizing the service for mobile devices.

At the company’s first conference for Twitter developers on Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Evan Williams said generating revenue was among the key priorities going forward — a change of tone for a firm that had previously said it focused mainly on improving the user experience.

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Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro unveiled today his latest creation: a female android called Geminoid F. The new robot, a copy of a woman in her 20s with long dark hair, can laugh, smile, and exhibit other facial expressions more naturally than Ishiguro’s previous androids.

Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, is famous for creating a robot replica of himself, the Geminoid HI-1, a teleoperated android that he controls remotely. The new Geminoid F (“F” stands for female) is also designed to be remote controlled by an operator.

In a press conference in Osaka, Ishiguro demonstrated how the android could mimic the facial expressions of the woman as she sat in front of a computer with cameras and face-tracking software.

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Microsoft Corp is set to announce its long-awaited “Project Pink” phones early next week, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday, as the world’s largest software company attempts to gain traction in the growing market for young smartphone users.

The mobile phones, to be sold by top U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless, are being targeted at heavy users of social network sites, according to sources. They will have a different name when the launch is officially announced.

In photos leaked to a tech blog last month, the new phones appear to be stylish, updated versions of Microsoft’s Sidekick device, which is popular with the youth market.

The new phones, which likely won’t be on the market until summer, are to be made by Sidekick manufacturer Sharp Corp, sources said.

Microsoft has sent invitations to media to attend an event in San Francisco next Monday, but declined to comment further. A representative of Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between U.S. phone company Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group plc, also declined comment.

The new phone does not appear to be a central part of Microsoft’s main thrust in the mobile phone market, which is centered on the revamp of the Windows software it licenses to handset makers, which will be available later this year.

Microsoft hopes its Windows Phone 7, launched with great fanfare in February, will win back share from BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd and iPhone maker Apple Inc, and beat back newcomer Google Inc, which is making ground with Android-powered phones and its own Nexus One.

Microsoft is losing share fast in the U.S. smartphone market, according to tech research firm comScore, dropping 4 percentage points to 15.1 percent between November and February.

Ahead of it are Apple, with 25.4 percent, and Research in Motion with 42.1 percent. Google is the fastest-growing rival, now holding 9 percent of the market.

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Skype has announced it is pulling Skype for Windows Mobile phones and Skype Lite for Java handsets, including Android.
The download pages for Windows Mobile and Java have been removed from Skype’s site, although existing users will not lose functionality for either Skype for Windows Mobile or Skype Lite, the company said on Thursday.

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Google Feb. 22 made its Google Earth application available for Android, a move that could boost adoption for the application that let users see satellite and 3D imagery of terrain, roads and other layers all over the planet.

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Google’s Chief Executive Eric Schmidt urged the mobile industry to embrace the mobile Web instead of seeing Google as the enemy, in his first speech to the world’s biggest wireless industry fair.

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 Series, a new entry in the company’s mobile phone strategy. After years of apparently doing absolutely nothing in response to Apple’s iPhone and the rise of Android, Microsoft has finally shown off a phone that looks truly competitive. Here is my take on the 5 best things under the hood:

A fresh start. Windows Phone 7 Series is a totally new operating system. Not an incremental upgrade from Windows Mobile 6. Not a new skin on an aging infrastructure. It’s new, new, new. From scratch. Make no mistake: That is an awesome thing.

A stunning interface. We judge gadgets by their utility, right? Well, yeah… but if Apple has taught us anything, it’s that the interface matters. There were music players before the iPod, but the iPod’s interface is what made it ubiquitous. There were smartphones before the iPhone, but its interface made it the dream gadget of everyone from teenagers to business executives. And Microsoft has reset the bar, giving us a glimpse of what the next generation of devices will surely look like.

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We talked extensively about why Android is better than some other smartphone OSes, its openness, its multitasking characteristics, but have you ever thought that its customization features could actually save lives? Well read on.

As all of you probably know, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti in the Caribbean on January 12 at about 4:53PM. It is estimated that about 300.000 people died, making this catastrophe the deadliest one since the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and the deadliest earthquake since the 1976 one in China.

In the first few hours that followed the earthquake, mobile service was completely disrupted. It was almost impossible to place a call, due to the combination of the damages on the cellular networks and the spike in phone calls. However, on some networks, SMS service was still available. People stuck under rubbles started texting to their friends and family (in Haiti and abroad) to tell them they were still alive and needed help. In Haiti, on a population of 8 million, there were about 4 million mobile phone subscribers. Those friends and family, not knowing what to do, started posting these SOS messages on their social networks, mainly on Facebook.

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