Apple needs iPad 3 to overtake HP

Apple is likely to outshine Hewlett-Packard (HP) as the world's top PC maker before the second half of next year, says research firm Canalys, but it'll need some help from the iPad 3, reports Cnet.

Currently, as the world's second-leading PC vendor, Apple has seen its share of the market jump to 15% from 9% over just the past year. That growth is largely due to heavy demand for the iPad, which Canalys considers a personal computer.

But fourth-quarter iPad shipments in the US may take a hit from Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets, which are launching at consumer-friendly prices. As a result, Canalys believes HP and Apple will duke it out for the top spot this quarter, but that Apple will ultimately grab the lead after the iPad 3 debuts next year.

Many of Facebook's 800 million-plus users can be connected with just four or fewer shared contacts, the company has revealed, writes V3.co.uk.

A recent survey from Facebook and the Universit`a degli Studi di Milano found that while users tend to concentrate their friend groups around a similar age and locational range, accounts on different sides of the globe can often be linked in the span of just four for five individuals.

The information contrasts the commonly held notion of six degrees of separation between two individuals.

Siri, Apple's iPhone 'personal assistant', has been hacked so that it can now be used to control a domestic thermostat, reveals The Telegraph.

The development comes after the release of an instruction manual that software developers can use to get inside Apple's Siri technology and modify it for their own purposes.

Web developer Pete Lamonica spent five days getting the artificially intelligent personal assistant to interact with the software that controls his heating system's thermostat. Now he can control the temperature remotely simply by using his iPhone 4S to lower or raise it.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come out against the merger of cellphone giant AT&T and T-Mobile USA, according to the Associated Press.

Julius Genachowski made his position known in a document he circulated to fellow commissioners yesterday.

Genachowski recommended sending AT&T's proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile to an administrative law judge for review and a hearing. That's what the FCC does when it opposes a merger.