TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

This cute winking cat is in fact a camera. So advanced is its design that — according to the website — “There is no need for you to say ‘Cheese!’”

This is because it is “no longer a camera,” but “more like a pet.”

As you may have guessed from this whimsical nonsense, this little kitty comes from Japan, and is called the Necono. In his belly he hides both a microSD slot and a USB port, and hidden behind his eyes are a lens and an LED. The latter winks at you when you trigger the countdown for the self-timer. Necono can also shoot video, and offers video-out via USB, for use as a webcam.

Apple unveiled the iPad 2 on Wednesday, showing off a handful of upgrades intended to cement the tablet’s market-leading position.

With dual cameras (front and back), an upgraded A5 processor, support for HD video recording and playback and a thinner profile, the iPad 2 looks to be a worthy successor to the first model.

The iPad 2 will be available for purchase starting March 11, Apple says.

Despite the increased power, Apple claims that the new iPad will have the same battery life as the first model: 10 hours of active use and about a month of standby.

The biggest feature of Photojojo’s Ring Flash Adapter is its price. At just $40, it costs less than many home-made solutions.

Like any other adapter, the Photojojo RFA uses the light from the flashgun you already own to provide illuminations. This light fires into the plastic interior and is channeled into a loop around your lens. Thusly redirected, the light now projects evenly onto your subject, giving the tell-tale ring-flash look.

Apple will announce the iPad 2 next Wednesday, March 2nd, as made rather obvious by invites sent out to press this morning. Apart from the new iPad, that means one thing: speculation. I’m not immune, so here’s my list of things I think will make it into an already capable machine. I have stuck to features, rather than things like CPU speed, as the internal specifics matter less than what they actually enable you to do.

Cameras

Obvious, this one.

Motorola’s Xoom tablet will cost more than the iPad, but the mobile company feels confident that it can compete with Apple.

The Xoom will go on sale for $800 in the United States, Motorola mobility chief Sanjay Jha told The Wall Street Journal, and it will include 32GB of storage and compatibility with the new 4G network.

Jha believes that 4G compatibility will make the Xoom worth the extra money for consumers.

BARCELONA, Spain –- Europe’s biggest wireless industry trade show starts here on Monday. This year, it’s likely that cellphones will have to share the limelight with a relatively new product category: tablets.

At previous years’ Mobile World Congresses, we have seen the rise of Android, the takeover of multitouch and the push into 3G. But this year the show comes hard on the heels of the International Consumer Electronics Show (which saw the introduction of as many as 80 new tablets) and Google’s announcement of Honeycomb, the tablet-tailored version of its Android operating system.

Sprint wants you to believe that two screens are better than one. Its new Android-powered smartphone, the Echo, will feature two touchscreen surfaces in a hinged design.

Made by Japanese electronics manufacturer Kyocera, the phone’s dual 3.5-inch WVGA screens can be operated independent of one another or combine in “tablet mode” to add up to a single 4.7-inch integrated display (albeit one with a hinge in the middle).

The Echo’s highlights can be seen in the phone’s obvious multitasking potential. The phone can be operated like most other touchscreen smartphones in its single-screen mode, but in “Simul-task Mode” users can run separate apps on each screen — like, say, open a text on the upper screen while reading an email on the lower one.

Gadget Lab’s favorite note-taking app, Simplenote, has just seen a major new update. But don’t worry. If you love Simplenote because it is so, well, simple, then you can keep on using it as if nothing had changed.

Here’s a list of what’s new:

Passcode lock
Better tags
People tags
Group tags
Lists
Dropbox integration

Let’s start with the last item first. Premium users (the app is free, but you can pay a yearly subscription to go pro) can now sync their notes with Dropbox.

If you spill water on your iPod or drop it in the toilet, you’re out of luck: Apple’s warranty doesn’t cover water damage. The rules about what counts as water damage may have gotten more lenient recently, however.

Apple’s iPods have a Liquid Contact Indicator inside the headphone port, and if water comes in contact with it, it turns red. Originally, Apple has refused to service a product if that indicator is red, but a support document (below) suggests there’s some leeway.

Monster cable has taken enough time off from suing people to come up with yet another new cable. The Monster iMotion CarPlay 3000 might sound like a made-up product from Mad magazine, but it is in fact a car charger for your iPhone or iPad – with a twist: it lets you control the music with a Ben Kenobi-like wave of the hand.

The cable consists of a torpedo that jacks into the cigarette lighter, a dock connector for the iDevice and a 3.5mm audio-out jack plug which slots into the car stereo.