A new survey of small- and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. by the NPD Group -- as reported by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com) found that 73% plan to buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of tablets over the next 12 months -- and most of them will be iPads. The NPD Group polled American businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees about their intent to buy tablets over the next year, and found nearly three quarters intend to bring touchscreen tablets into the workplace. Businesses are "determined" to embrace tablets, and the iPad remains the top choice in the enterprise, according to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "The iPad, just as it is in the consumer market, is synonymous for 'tablet' in the business market, leaving Apple poised to take advantage of the increased spending intentions of these small and medium businesses," he adds. "NPD's research shows that iPad purchase preference is higher among larger firms than smaller ones, which is...

With 2011 coming to a close, SodaHead.com, an opinion-based community, has released the results of a poll asking consumers which product was the Best New Tech Gadget released this year.  Apple took the top two spots, as the iPhone 4S was the winner with 39% of the vote, followed by the iPad 2 with 25%.  Rounding out the top five were the Kindle Fire (17%), Nintendo 3DS (12%) and the Nook Table (7%). You can find an infographic, with the results of all of SodaHead's "end of year" polls, at http://macte.ch/irA6L .

Eight of the 10 most-viewed corporate stories on WSJ.com -- the web site for "The Wall Street" -- for 2011 were about Apple, which became the world's most valuable tech company during the year. The company dominated the headlines -- and captivated "The Wall Street Journal readers' interest -- this past year, from product launches that stoked frenzy to the somber news of co-founder Steve Jobs's death," the publication says. You can read more at http://macte.ch/2lLVF .

Newer Technology (http://www.newertech.com) has announced the US$9.99 iSesamo (http://www.newertech.com/products/isesamo.php) a thin pry tool for opening common electronic devices such as iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Blackberrys. It's designed for repair technicians and "do-it-yourselfers." The iSesamo features a thin, flexible steel blade that slides into microscopic seams of the most common electronic devices. Whether replacing a battery, a display LCD, touch screen, or internal components, it's designed to make accessing electronic devices quick and simple.

Although Apple said iTunes Connect would be shut down from Dec. 22 until Dec. 29, Apple put the website back up today, reports "9to5Mac" (http://www.9to5mac.com). Designed for Apple developers, iTunes Connect is a suite of web-based tools that allow you to submit and manage your apps for distribution on the App Store and Mac App Store. In iTunes Connect you can check the status of your contracts, set up your tax and banking information, obtain sales and finance reports, request promotional codes, and manage users, apps, metadata, and your In-App Purchase catalog.

Customer experience analytics firm, ForeSee (http://www.foresee.com), has released the results of their annual Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index, showing that after seven years spent jockeying for first place, Amazon and Netflix are headed in divergent directions. Of more interest to us, however, is the fact that Apple climbed one point in the Index to a score of 83. That put it at a five-way tie with Avon, QVC, VistaPrint, and JC Penney. Meanwhile, Amazon climbed two points to score 88 on the study’s 100-point scale, registering the highest score from any retailer in 14 consecutive studies. On the flip side, Netflix’s well-publicized blunders caused its customer satisfaction to plummet by seven points and 8% to 79. After years of being separated by a point or two, Amazon and Netflix, which are increasingly in direct competition as Amazon expands into streaming video and rentals, are now separated by nine points in terms of satisfaction. Netflix saw scores drop in every single...

Wave Soft has released eXtra Voice Recorder 2.0 for Mac OS X (10.6 and higher), an update to their Productivity app that lets users record and organize audio files. It costs US$9.99 and is available worldwide exclusively through the Mac App Store in the Productivity category. Accessible via the menu bar, eXtra Voice Recorder offers audio recording, hot key control, categorization and search tools for recordings, audio editing, adding comments, recording without pauses, audio markers, continuing previous recordings, email of audio, meta tag notes, export to MP3 or AAC, and Dropbox compatibility. Users can adjust the app to stop recording when they stop talking, eliminating long pauses. What's more, users can add several layers of text and subtext to help identify recordings, as well as content within recordings. Each recording can be given a title and there's a large text field, Description, with enough room for a detailed summary. Titles appear on a scrolling list that can be...

A "plausible" phishing scam is making the rounds and is aimed at Apple customers, reports "TG Daily" (http://macte.ch/a3TMX). The email claims to come from the company's customer support, and asks for billing information to be updated. "Failure to update your records will result in account termination," it says. Customers are asked to click on a link that takes them to a sign-in page and then a page asking for credit card information. While the link looks genuine (it's store.apple.com) the related URL isn't an Apple address, notes "TG Daily."

In the months since GameStop began accepting trades on the iPod, iPhone and iPad, the company has seen strong consumer enthusiasm for the program. Customers are taking advantage of this new option to put money in their pockets or use store credit to pay for video games, consoles and pre-owned gaming tablets and mobile devices by scoring trade credit, says President Tony Bartel. Customers can receive up to US$180 for an iPod touch, up to $300 for an iPhone and up to $400 for an iPad. For complete details on trades, visit http://www.GameStop.com/iTrades .

iFunia has released AVCHD Converter version 3.5.0, an update of the AVCHD video converter and AVCHD editing software that enables Mac users to convert interlaced and progressive 1920 x 1080, 1440 x 1080, 1280 x 720 AVCHD or AVCHD Lite videos into a variety of video and audio formats on Mac OS X. Version 3.5.0 has reclassified the conversion profiles by device type, as well as added support for the iPhone 4S and Amazon Kindle Fire. Additionally, it's now available in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian interface languages. Priced at US$32, iFunia AVCHD Converter 3.5.0 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 ("Lion"). To get more info or to obtain a free trial version, go to http://www.ifunia.com/avchd-converter-mac.html .

MaBaSoft (http://www.mabasoft.net/) has updated Application Wizard -- their application launcher, quitter, and switcher for Mac OS X -- to version 3.2. The update adds the possibility to run AppleScripts, allows users to sort running applications chronologically and exclude applications from the Switch menu, and fixes some minor bugs. Application Wizard lets you open, quit, show and hide applications, open them automatically at startup and force them to open using Rosetta, turn single application mode on and quit background-only applications and the Finder. With the software you can also navigate volumes and frequently used folders to quickly open enclosed items, access favorite files, recent folders, Address Book contacts and your iPhoto or Aperture library, preview images, music, movies and PDF files, copy pictures and display slideshows, view the metadata associated with files and check system memory usage. Application Wizard 3.2 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. A single-user...

Historically, more iOS and Android apps are downloaded on Christmas than on any other day of the year.  This is due to a massive influx of smartphones and tablets given as gifts.  With record-breaking mobile growth for both Apple and Google this year, Flurry Analytics (http://www.flurry.com/) -- a cross-platform mobile application analytics provider -- has been anticipating an equally record-breaking Christmas.  In 2011, Apple’s App Store is on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads, which will double the cumulative number of downloads earned across 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Android Market also set records, more than tripling its life-to-date downloads of three billion, reached in May 2011, to now over 10 billion cumulative downloads reached this December, according to Flurry. Putting into perspective the sheer size of new devices activated on Christmas Day, Flurry established a baseline using the average from the first 20 days of December.  Over this period, daily activations had...

Apple's supply chain will start preparing materials for the Apple-branded HDTV (the so-called "iTV") in the first quarter of 2012 with the sets rolling out in the second or third quarter of next year, reports "DigiTimes" (http://www.digitimes.com), quoting unnamed "industry sources." Sharp will reportedly product the displays for the TVs, which will be available in 32-inch and 37-inch versions, the article adds. "DigiTimes" also says that the set-top box Apple TV will live in in a "next generation" model, though the article doesn't elaborate. Apple has reportedly turned to Jeff Robbin, who helped create the iPod and the iTunes Store, to guide development of the company's HDTV effort, reports "Bloomberg" (http://macte.ch/LOVFk), quoting unnamed "people with knowledge of the project." According to the sources, Apple is working to integrate seamless content search features into the device. "For example, instead of having to separately check to see if a movie or show is available through...

Apple iOS and Android devices were apparently popular gifts worldwide over the holiday weekend, with the number of new devices seen by Localytics over 12 times higher than previous weekends. Global growth in the two competing platforms was virtually tied, but with strong regional differences across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Localytics provides mobile analytic services to top app publishers across over 200 million devices. A key metric tracked by publishers is how many new devices, or customers, use their applications. By calculating the number of new devices across its entire publisher base, Localytics can estimate the growth of iPhones, iPads, Android phones and other devices. Among the top 20 countries for mobile devices, Localytics saw a huge increase in both Apple iOS and Android devices over the Dec. 23-26 weekend compared to previous weekends since Nov. 25. The US and Germany registered the highest growth rates for iOS while South Korea and Sweden had the highest growth...

Apple attracted more online visitors in the United States during November than Wal-Mart. According to a comScore press release first noted by "Ad Age" (http://macte.ch/yw3k9), Apple’s Web properties saw more than 79 million U.S. unique visitors last month. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart saw nearly 59 million. iTunes, Apple's digital-content store made up about 30% of Apple's more than 79 million in U.S. unique visitors in November. Apple gets almost as many web visitors as the largest newspaper site, that of "The New York Times," notes "Ad Age." Per comScore, Apple was the No. 13 web property ranked by U.S. unique visitors in November. Amazon is the biggest retailer by this measure, at No. 5. Ebay ranks No. 15, and Walmart No. 18.

Data Conversion Laboratory, (DCL), a provider of digital publishing services, reports 70% of 411 respondents to a survey drawn from a cross section of the publishing industry cited "quality" as the most important consideration when publishing an eBook. Another important finding is that 63% of the respondents plan to publish a digital book in 2012. "Eighteen months ago, more publishers were concerned about getting their information onto an eBook platform and quality was not the overarching theme it is now," says DCL President and CEO Mark Gross. "The survey demonstrates that the publishing industry realizes consumers will not tolerate typos and bad formatting in an US$15 eBook." In another shift from tradition, 64% of the respondents stated they were interested in publishing non-fiction and technical digital content. This statistic is indicative of an expansion in the use of e-readers from casual reading of novels to a myriad of business and technical applications, Gross adds. "The...

The new trailer for Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ "The Dark Knight Rises" smashed the record for most combined downloads through the iTunes Movie Trailers site (http://www.itunes.com/trailers) and the iTunes Trailers iOS app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The trailer went online at 10:00 Monday morning, Dec.19, and was viewed more than 12.5 million times in its first 24 hours, breaking the previous record by well over two million. The trailer can be viewed in HD at http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thedarkknightrises/ . Opening on July 20, 2012, "The Dark Knight Rises" is the epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The film is directed by Nolan from a screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer.

Gameloft, a global publisher of digital and social games, has released the action game 9mm on the Mac App Store. It requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and costs US46.99.   Here's how the game is described: "Now Mac gamers can join in on the fun as they take on the role John 'Loose' Kannon, the leader of a special team of hardened cops that aren't afraid to bend the law to clean up the streets. After killing a local drug lord's brother and stealing millions in cash, the theft makes Kannon's whole team the target of every gangster in the city. Now Kannon has only one option, take down the gang leader that's hunting them before they get taken out first." For more info, go to http://www.gameloft.com .   

Avatron Software has unveiled Air Dictate, an app that enables Mac users to enter text onto their computers by by talking into an iPhone 4S. It's available at a special introductory price of US$0.99. Avatron says it's the first developer to use its own user interface to enable Apple's Siri technology to take dictation. Apple expressly prohibits developers from using private application programming interfaces (APIs). And, there aren't any public APIs enabling Siri to take dictation. Avatron programmers, independent of Apple, have devised codes that empower Siri to automatically convert speech spoken into an iPhone 4S into a Mac's text field, just as if it was typed on the computer's keyboard, says CEO Dave Howell. "While Siri does what you say, until now it lacked the ability to take iPhone's users' speech and automatically convert it into text on Macs," he says. "Air Dictate does exactly this, dramatically simplifying and speeding the inputting of text without a keyboard onto any Mac...

Nuclear Nova Software has released Fractal 3D on the Mac App Store. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher. Fractals 3D is Nuclear Nova's second graphics and media app on OS X. It's on sale during the first week for US$1.99. The regular price is $4.99. Featuring double precision 64-bit mathematics, it's a tool for generating and exploring fractals such as the Mandelbrot and Julia sets. The 2D view allows for surveying and customization, while the 3D view captures images that can be exported at up to 16-megapixel resolution.

Klemen Kloboves has announced a free trial of Contrast, a Mac OS X (10.6.6 and higher) app designed to help users scan documents using a digital camera. You can try it on the product website (http://www.contrastapp.com/try.html), right from your web browser. Or you can purchase it for $9.99 at the Mac App Store in the Utilities category. Contrast uses an algorithm to enhance images, ensuring a white background and black text, according to Kloboves. Printing the resulting image requires much less ink and text is easier to read, he adds. Contrast purportedly requires almost no configuration. It can process multiple files in one job.

Selectsoft has released Quickstart American Sign Language on the Mac App Store. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, cost US$6.99 and is available in the Education category. Quickstart ASL offers a way to learn signing, covering such topics as greetings, emergency situations and more. In nine video lessons, professional sign language interpreter Renee Moore teaches basic skills needed to communicate with deaf friends, family, customers and co-workers. Quickstart American Sign Language combines video lessons, text and a quiz to teach basic ASL skills. The app uses a videobook format that lets you easily navigate to find and review lessons.

Mapdiva has updated Artboard (http://mapdiva.com/artboard), their vector drawing software for Mac OS X, to version 1.3. It's available exclusively on the Mac App Store in the Graphics & Design category. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 and costs US$25.99. Version 1.3 features a redesigned user interface for creating simple styles as you draw, dozens of new built-in styles and editable vector clip art, and a help resources panel featuring an orientation video for new users. With Artboard, you can design logos, posters, floor plans, technical drawings, fashions, web graphics, and more. Use pre-designed templates to create fliers, invitations, signs, and business cards. Artboard includes over 1,600 styles and fully editable clip art, including speech bubbles, buttons, maps and flags, people factory, and home planning, plus a library to store your own creations. The software features a style generator and stacked styles, providing a range of effects. It takes advantage of a Core Image-...

The Atomic Dashboard is a new, interactive chemistry resource and learning tool from Bitwixt Software Systems. It requires Mac OS 10.6.6 or higher, costs US$14.99 and is available at the Mac App Store in the Education category. The Atomic Dashboard is designed for educators, students, scientists, and the simply curious, It features an interactive periodic table that lets you explore the chemical elements -- their properties, periodic trends, history, and relevance to society. It sport a 3D Molecule Library and physics-based, 3D models of atomic orbitals, molecules, compounds, gases, and crystals, The Atomic Dashboard is designed to help you explore the relationships between the behavior of atoms and molecules and their 3D structure.