Gadgetory

it's Thursday August 11 2011 I'm Wilson Tang on cnet com and it's time to get loaded the san mateo county district attorney's office has filed formal charges against two men who obtained a prototype iphone 4 last year and then sold it to gadget blog gizmodo the device was apparently left accidentally at a bar by Apple employee it was later found and then sold to gizmodo for five thousand dollars Brian Hogan has been charged with misappropriation of lost property in Sage wallaroo was also charged with misappropriation of lost property and possession of stolen property neither Gawker the parent company of gizmodo or any employees of gizmodo were charged HTC is announcing they are acquiring a 51-percent stake in Beats Electronics that's the company that manufactures the popular and high-quality beats by dr. dre brand of headphones and speakers HTC says that they plan on allowing the company to operate independently but will integrate the technology into HTC phones HP has decided to permanently cut the starting price of its touchpad to just three hundred ninety nine dollars that represents a hundred dollar price drop for the 16 gigabyte Wi-Fi versions original price this past weekend the company ran a promotion at various retailers and found consumers more apt to take the tablet plunge in comparison the popular ipad 2 and android-powered tablets from motorola and samsung started just 499 dollars google is reportedly in a rush to finish the ice cream sandwich update to its android operating system the software was originally slated to appear at the end of the year but appears that the company wants to stop the buzz around the iphone 5 launch new device is running the software may launch as early as october and ice cream sandwich is expected to bridge the compatibility gap between the smartphone and tablet versions of the OS verizon is joining ATT to prevent users who have jailbroken their phones from tethering their devices reports of surfacing that users who attempt to tether the phones without the appropriate data plan were blocked by verizon they were then forwarded to a page to sign up for tethering plans ATT has also reportedly sent letters to users its aspects of tethering advising them to either stop sign up for a tethering plan or have ATT do it for them Nintendo is offering a new color for its 3ds handheld game console next month it's called flame red and it joins cosmo black and aqua blue however the 169 dollar device will keep the same design those are your headlines for today I'm Wilson tang for cnet.com and you've just been loaded