Over at CRN - the best place to find out about what's happening in Australia's sales and distribution channels, I offer some opinion on whether the iPad could spawn a grey market in locales where the 3G version doesn't arrive promptly through Apple's official channels.

Apple's distribution model for the iPad tablet looks, smells and feels a lot like its approach for the original iPhone. And if history is any guide, that means a strong potential for a grey market.

Here's the full story.

Apple announced the iPad about 12 hours ago and it's been occupying most of my time today. I managed to get a story out early this morning via IT News about whether the iPad matches the hype that surrounded its release.

Frankly, I'm a little underwhelmed. Although some of the technology is undoubtedly impressive it really isn't much more than a over-sized iPhone minus the camera.

I'm sure that the coming weeks will reveal more and once it's actually released in about 60 days we'll know everything there is to know. But, until then, I'm thinking that the iPad is a solution looking for a problem.

To be fair, Apple's design teams usually do a top notch job in the design of their products. However, there's one thing they have messed up on several times recently - the placement of USB ports on the MacBook family of notebooks.

I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro. It's is probably the best notebook I've ever owned or used. But whoever decided that the best place for the USB ports was to have them close together is living in a bubble. Many USB devices, in particular USB modems, are wider that that the space between ports. This means that when one device is plugged in you can't acces the second port. Devices with USB cables suffer similarly if the cable connectors aren't extra slim.

So Apple, please do something about this. 2mm of extra space on either side of the ports would make a huge difference for most of us. That's all I ask - 4mm please.

I've been around long enough to remember when Netscape was THE browser. It only took about a year for Microsoft to realise that the wide-open-to-the-world Internet was going to take off and that they're closed Microsoft Netwrok was a failure. In those days there were a few different search engines to choose from (Alta Vista was my favourite) and the expansion of the World Wide Web and ubiquitous Internet access were on their way.

Now, almost 15 years later, Internet Explorer is still the most used browser by some margin but almost everything else in the net is strongly influence by Larry page and Sergei Brin's Google. From its start as the fastest, smartest search engine of its time it is now a juggernaut and it has Microsoft in its sites.

Just putting aside things like Google Apps, You Tube, Flickr and a few other bits and pieces for the moment, the release of Chrome last year told us something very important about Google - they're planning to be a force in the tech world for many more years to come. Chrome's popularity is growing rapidly. Regardless of whose stats you look at, Google is either already the third most used browser behind Interent Explorer and Firefox or it's soon going to be number three. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that of all the people who get a choice in the browser they get to use, they're probably number two behind Firefox with Internet Explorer coming third.

Google's multi-platform foundation and standards adherence, combined with Google's huge market cachet makes it a formidable opponent to its rivals. Even the "dev" build (found at this page) is stable enough for real-world use (although I have heard of a few compatibility issues with some CMS apps).

A number of things are happening in the tech world at the moment. People are realising, more and more, that they can choose what software they want to use on their computer. In the past people saw updating their software as being like updating firmware in a washing machine - something you didn't bother doing. That sort of inertia is a big part of IE's significant, but dwindling, lead in current browser usage stats.

Chrome's main rival is, of course, Firefox. Firefox is extremely popular and the entire plug-in ecosystem that's grown up around it makes it a platform for developers and users. However, Chrome has a similar ecosystem developing. IE on the other hand... nothing. This time next year, I expect that Chrome, Firefox and IE will be close to equal in usage stats. Recent security issues with IE have lead to some government agencies moving away from IE and record download stats for Firefox and Chrome.

There's good news in this shift for all of us. Competition gives customers choice and breeds innovation. This will lead to having a better browser no matter which one you choose. We''ll all see better security, more functionality and increased reliability in our browsers. I fear that Microsoft's constant fight to make IE more secure will simply become a marketing cross that they won;t be able to bear. The stigma of security will burden it with a reputation for unreliability even if they resolve their problems. It'll be like Apple's constant and continuing battle to convince people that compatibility issue with files systems and document formats is a thing of the past.

If Firefox and Chrome can escape any serious security issues, maintain reliability and continue to be a viable host for a symbiotic relationship with developers then they'll overtake IE and fight for the tile of The World's Most Popular Browser.

There's an interesting story that's emerged from earthquake shattered Haiti. American filmmaker Dan Woolley used the iPhone app, Pocket First Aid, to treat himself and used photos shot under the rubble wth his digital SLR camera to find a safer spot while he was trapped.

While this sounds like ths stuff of miracles the real surprise is that his iPhone battery didn't go flat. Anyone with an iPhone will attest that the most you'll get from a single charge is about a day. So, how did Wooley get his iPhone to survive for over 60 hours.

Chances are that he disabled a few things. I've used my iPhone with 3G disabled and that's made a huge difference to battery life. Plus, bieng in a dark space, I expect that he could have kept screen brightness at a minimum and turned off the GPS and Bluetooth.

I assume that he didn't use the iPhone to catch the latest YouTube videos or listen to some tunes.

The entire blogosphere and more than a few traditional news outlets are all saying that Apple is going to be announcing a tablet during the big event they've scheduled for 27 January 2010 (3.00AM on the 28th for those in Australia). While the idea of a tablet has some attraction to the market, I'm not convinced that they're going deliver one.

CES saw many many companies release and announce tablets and eReaders. At the moment, it's fair to say that on the eReader side of things, Amazon owns the market with a device that has the entire book buying and reading process refined. When Apple released the iPod there were other MP3 players around but none had high capacity hard drives and Apple managed to nail the usability through the iPod/iTunes ecosystem. In other words, they weren't first to market but they were arguably best to market.

With the tablet, Apple won't be delivering something new or something that hasn't already been well done by something else. For Apple to turn the hype of a tablet into market success they'll need to not only create a great product but fulfil a need that the market may not even know it has. Remember the hysteria surrounding the MacBook Air. Sure, the Air is a damn sexy product (I've owned one) but its limitations and the introduction of the 13-inch MacBook Pro have rendered the Air to all but obsolescence.

So, if Apple doesn't announce a tablet, what will they unveil. I suspect that it will be something from the shopping list below.

1 - A new Apple TV with integrated tuners making it a full PVR solution

I've got an Apple TV. If it had a high definition tuner and Apple applied its software engineers to the task of making this Steve Jobs hobby project easy to use then they'd have a winner. For the win, they could release a software update so that existing Apple TV units could install a USB tuner to the unused port at the back of the Apple TV.

2 - A netbook (they described this as a "nascent market" last year and hinted that they were doing some product development)

The establishment of the 13-inch MacBook Pro line basically made the MacBook Air into a firth wheel. I suggest that the 13-inch MacBook Air will be superseded by a lower cost 10-inch MacBook Air. However, if this happens, Apple won't be calling it a netbook in order to avoid the stigma that comes from some of the cheapest, more underpowered netbooks it would compared with. Also, unless it costs less than $800 USD it won't sell.

3 - The iPhone nano - a smaller, cheaper iPhone (fits their iPod strategy)

This one's less likely but still on the cards. While Apple might not be the biggest seller of handsets on the market, they practically own what David Pogue calls the "app phone" market. recent research from Gartner says that Apple owns practically all mobile application sales. While I'm not sure that Gartner's figures are 100% correct (What about the installed base of Palm and Windows Mobile apps? How about sales from independent software vendors?).

A second model, appealing to the portion of the market that wants a more compact form factor would be a sure-fire winner.

4 - A new iLife and iWork update (an anticlimax for all the hype)

iLife updates were typically released at the Macworld Expo. Although Apple is no longer attending the Expo, an iLife update is on the cards. iWork is less likely although the paintball effect on Apple's media invitation could point to an expansion of iWork to include a drawing program. The establishment of features like Instant Alpha in the other iWork apps makes me think this is a possibility.

5 - A huge shock: Steve Jobs to resign as CEO (stay on as chairman)

Let's face it - Jobs is a busy guy with many interests and the company didn't go belly up when he took his medical leave of absence in 2009

I think it's incumbent on all Australian Internet users to understand exactly what the proposed Internet filter really means.

I've penned a story at Hydrapinion about this very important matter.

Please read it and respond in whatever way you feel is best.

I've been a very busy little bee over recent weeks. However, a number of my stories have appeared around the place. One was on the subject of CAPTCHA - those boxes of hard-to-read characters that are designed to stop automated web-bots from working.

You can find the full story in the technology section of The Age by clicking here.

Business cards are a fact of life. But filing them and being able to find the right card quickly is a major hassle. For the last few weeks I've been scoping out a business card scanner but the cost is, in my view, prohibitively high given that it's a piece of hardware that I'm only likely to use a few times a year.

Most scanners come with some software that performs optical character recognition, or OCR, on cards and then uses the text to populate a new entry in your address book. CardSnap turns your iPhone into a business card scanner. Rather than loading all the OCR onto the iPhone, CardSnap lets you photograph a business card. Once you've checked that the image is OK you send the card up to an online service where the OCR is performed. A couple of hours later, the scanned card comes back and you review the result of the OCR.

I put CardSnap through its paces by scanning a pile of 80 cards. Each card was photographed with my iPhone 3GS. It's worth noting that this app relies on the 3GS's superior camera. If you've only got a first generation iPhone or a 3G then you'll need to shell out for Griffin's Clarifi iPhone case as CardSnap relies on a decent camera to get the best result from the OCR.

Once a card is photographed it goes into a queue that you can view using the "Cards" button. From submission to return it takes about 24 hours although we received some cards within a couple of hours.

The OCR process was quite accurate although we did encounter some problems. For example, where the business card didn't have a country on the address the software populated the field with United States. I'd prefer to have an option to set the default country. Also, when an address had a dash or slash in it, like 2-4 Smith Road, the dash or slash was omitted.

Once a card comes back from OCR processing, it's important to review the card. As the photo of the card is retained this is reasonably easy although having a way to review the card and see the photo at the same time would make that much easier.

As well as testing CardSnap with a batch of cards we've used it at meetings to quickly capture the cards of other people. It works well - there's lots of "cool" factor when you do this - although it does mean that my meeting trick of arranging cards in front of me on the table so I don;t forget names is not longer practical as I don't keep the cards any more.

At $9.99USD ($12.99AUD) CardSnap is much cheaper and more portable than a business card scanner. It works quite well and the OCR accuracy is over 90%. The daly between scanning and receiving the result is annoying but given that I'd probably not carry a scanner to every meeting it doesn't make the actual workflow any slower.

If you collect lots of business cards and lack the time or discipline to enter all the details into your contact list then CardSnap is excellent value.

I'm not sure that the title bar on Apple's mail.app had this right.

I do get quite a bit of spam but not that much!