Apple became the biggest fish in the very small touchscreen tablet pond when it launched the iPad this past spring. But more fish will arrive starting mid-month when Samsung launches its Galaxy Tab mobile device in Europe (US and Asia will get it "in the coming months"). After being rumored and teased for weeks, Samsung officially unveiled its entry into the burgeoning market at the IFA show in Germany on Thursday.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a 7" widescreen touch tablet powered by Android 2.2. The Tab will use the same TouchWiz UI used on Samsung's line of Galaxy S smartphones, which gives it a very iOS-like look and feel. Also following the iPad's lead, the device has a metal back, black bezel, bottom speakers, and even a 30-pin connector.

Twitter officially disabled Basic authentication this week, the final step in the company's transition to mandatory OAuth authentication. Sadly, Twitter's extremely poor implementation of the OAuth standard offers a textbook example of how to do it wrong. This article will explore some of the problems with Twitter's OAuth implementation and some potential pitfalls inherent to the standard. I will also show you how I managed to compromise the secret OAuth key in Twitter's very own official client application for Android.

OAuth is an emerging authentication standard that is being adopted by a growing number of social networking services. It defines a key exchange mechanism that allows users to grant a third-party application access to their account without having to provide that application with their credentials. It also allows users to selectively revoke an application's access to their account.

Even though it's set to hit PCs and consoles in a little over a month, there has been little in the way of multiplayer details for the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: Black Ops. This all changed yesterday when Activision held a press event in Los Angeles to reveal the multiplayer gameplay: COD fans can expect bots, enhanced customization, and a new currency that can be used both to upgrade equipment and to gamble in competitive play.

Microsoft has announced that Windows Phone 7 has hit the release to manufacturing milestone. The OS has been finalized and has been sent off to Microsoft's partners around the world, who in turn will put it on their hardware and networks in time for this holiday season. All that's left before release is manufacturer additions and testing. Prepare yourself for a Windows Phone 7 launch event; devices will hit Europe in October and the US in November.

"Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released," Microsoft wrote in a blog post. "We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes. We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready."

Since the release of the Technical Preview, Microsoft has fixed bugs, fine-tuned performance, polished the interface, and added features. (Side note: prototype phones will not be getting an upgrade to the RTM build.) Redmond is being secretive about the new features, only disclosing a couple related to Facebook. Users will be able to filter Facebook friends to only those already in the phone's contact list, as well as "like" Facebook posts and write messages on Facebook walls directly from the People Hub. Microsoft also added a more visible search option to the contact list after it found that testers were not aware they could search their contacts by using the phone's physical search button.

There is still one more milestone to reach on the developer side of things: the final SDK is slated for release on September 16. In early October, the Marketplace will start accepting application submissions. This will include applications from the hardware companies and network operators; their software has to go through the Marketplace validation process just like applications will.

This doesn't leave much time for Microsoft to accept apps and populate the online store for the early adopters. Still, with the final RTM code now available, the company should be able to refocus on its partners and third-party developers over the next few weeks.

Read the comments on this post

After a month of rumors and leaks, Microsoft has released the Arc Touch Mouse. The device is available for presale on Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and Buy.com for $69.95. It will ship in early December, and will officially be available online and in stores in January 2011.

Redmond is touting Arc Touch as "the first mouse designed to flatten for portability and pop up for comfort." It's all about portability: less than 15 millimeters thick at its widest point, it collapses to turn off and pops up to turn on. The mouse requires two AAA batteries that Microsoft says give it more than six months of battery life (the two-color battery life indicators will keep you informed).

In addition to its compact form factor (see the Silverlight demo), the Arc Touch has a capacitive touch scroll strip: move a finger slowly on the strip for controlled scrolling, or flick a finger for fast scrolling that can be stopped with a simple tap. The mouse uses a capacitive sensing technique and sensor pads to detect each position and velocity change, and also includes haptic feedback to simulate the bumps of a traditional scroll wheel. The strip also has three tap buttons: page up, page down, and a reprogrammable (Microsoft's IntelliPoint software required) middle click area.

The Arc Touch includes Microsoft's usual mouse features such as a magnetic 2.4GHz wireless Nano transceiver that snaps into the bottom of the mouse and BlueTrack technology to let users use the device on virtually any surface. The only requirements are a USB port, and either Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

Read the comments on this post