So it’s official. The Apple tablet rumors have ended.

At this morning’s Apple event in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled what Silicon Valley has been whispering about for years. Dubbed the ‘iPad,’ Apple’s tablet could be just the thing to launch smartphone-notebook hybrids into the mainstream.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary new product,” Jobs said at the event.

The iPad is fundamentally a netbook-sized iPhone. Outside of the design, the most impressive thing about the iPad is its 10-hour battery life, which is pretty representative of what we should expect from the category. Also impressive is the weight – 1.5 pounds.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Usually when we think about human-machine interaction, we imagine robots acting like regular people but without any emotions. Science fiction has tried to define what the future of these machines that might one day replace humanity will be, but that event doesn’t actually seem possible in the next few years. But one industry could be very interesting for the future of human-machine interactions: video games.

We had the example of the Wii, released in 2006, which captures your movements with controllers and reproduces them on screen. What Microsoft revealed at last year’s E3, the Natal Project, is simply a game changer: with some basic hardware (sensors with infrared signals, HD video camera and microphone), users no longer need controllers to play videogames. What is the trick? As Scientific American revealed a few days ago, there are algorithms developed by Microsoft research in Cambridge, England, that can recognize gestures “by extrapolating from experience” like a human being. The article offers very good insight into the technological challenges of the project. The Natal release is planned for the 2010 holidays and will be the big event for the entire industry. But not only that.

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Tablet computers have been around for a while, but they didn’t really capture the imagination until last year, when rumors of the Apple Tablet swirled with a fury.

Deloitte predicts that netbook-sized tablets – NetTabs – will fill in the space between notebooks and smartphones, reaching perhaps $1 billion in 2010.

NetTabs are netbook-sized tablets whose functionalities are modeled after smartphones. Their cost will be in the $400-$800 range.

“With a new form factor and significant processing capacity, connected portable devices will likely be purchased by tens of millions of people in 2010,” according to Deloitte. “These devices have an advantage over smartphones—which are small for watching videos or web browsing—and notebooks, netbooks, and ultra-thin PCs, which are too heavy, or expensive.

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While m-commerce is growing, the biggest turn-off to potential customers is poor site design, according to Compete’s quarterly Smartphone Intelligence survey.

Thirty-seven percent of smartphone users have purchased something non-mobile in the last six months. The major obstacle to upping this number is that many sites are broken.

Eight percent of customers who tried to make a mobile purchase were unable to do so. That’s almost one-in-ten potential purchases failing at POS.

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“Privacy” has been in the headlines a lot this past week, from lingering uncertainties left by the Tiger Woods story, to Eric Schmidt’s widely derided anti-privacy statements and Facebook’s (also derided) security changes.

Which makes it strangely apropos that Techcrunch reported Friday on Blippy, a still-in-beta service that shares your credit-card transactions with your friends online.

That’s right, share your credit card purchases with friends. Online. Sure, you might think that that’s probably the last thing you’d want to do, but, in all fairness, some people would.

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So far, U.S. online holiday spending is up 3 percent, according to comScore. That’s a fairly healthy increase, all things considered.

As of December 6th, consumers have spent $16 billion online this holiday season.

Online sales have dropped off since Thanksgiving and Black Friday’s respective growth of 10 and 11 percent. Cyber Monday sales grew 5 percent year-over-year to $887 million, while the following week’s sales fell to 3 percent growth before falling into the negative over the weekend.

“After a strong beginning to the week, we saw growth rates decelerate over the weekend to put this past week of holiday shopping in line with our 3 percent growth forecast for the season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

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Analysts were lukewarm on 2009 Black Friday sales, but from all indications, they were better than expected. At least online.

Online Black Friday sales grew 11 percent compared to last year’s, according to comScore. Overall Black Friday sales grew 3 percent, about what analysts had predicted.

ComScore reports that 2009 Black Friday online retail sales reached $595 million, the second highest spending day of the year.

“While this acceleration in spending suggests the online holiday season may be shaping up slightly more optimistically than anticipated, it may also reflect the heavy discounting and creative promotions being put forth by retailers that now encompass the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,” said comScore chair Gian Fulgoni.

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Within three years of purchase, nearly one in three laptops will fail, according to warranty-provider SquareTrade.

Two-thirds of these failures will be due to hardware malfunctions; the rest, from accidental damage.

“In SquareTrade’s experience, the 31% laptop total failure rate is higher than most consumer electronics,” write the report’s authors, Austin Sands & Vince Tseng.

“Given that the typical laptop endures more use and abuse than nearly any other consumer electronic device (with the possible exception of cell phones), it is not surprising to see such high failure rates,” the authors write.

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There’s an old concept in religious mysticism called bilocation, literally the ability to be in two places at once. While once a way to be canonized as a saint or burned as a witch, a sort of bilocation is being made increasingly possible with technology.

A great example of technology allowing us to virtually be in two places at once are services like Alarm.com, which allow you to monitor your home security from anywhere online, via computer, PDA or phone (there’s even an iPhone app).

Through the website or app, users can monitor the status of their home – whether doors are locked, when they (or windows or cabinets) are opened, when somebody enters a specific room – as well as control the home’s environment, for example turning lights on or off.

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The FDA is strengthening its efforts to catch online scammers who purport to sell swine flu vaccines.

The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent last week the first joint-agency warning letter to Weil Lifestyle LLC, ordering the company to cease marketing fraudulent supplements that it claims prevent H1N1.

Earlier this month, the FDA and the World Health Organization warned consumers against internet pharmacies purporting to sell Tamiflu, the vaccine released at the beginning of October. In 390 of the 400 cases surveyed, the online pharmacies were not certified to sell Tamiflu online.

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