Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

A pint-sized version of the iPad is coming, says one analyst.

The Dog-Bark Snake Bot You've probably heard of robot snakes before, useful in search-and-rescue scenarios because they can worm their way into confined spaces--perhaps in collapsed buildings--that other machines can't match. You may also know SAR teams sometimes use sniffer dogs to help them locate victims trapped in rubble. But you've probably never conflated these two notions, and pictured a SAR dog that has a slave snake-bot that it can deploy and control with a bark.

If 2012's CES gadget fest has a theme already it's "thin, thinner, thinnest." But in the endless quest for skinny devices, what gets left out?

iPhone Reuters is reporting a poll of potential purchasers of smartphones in several nations--and top of the list sails Apple's iPhone.

Fresh rumors from a source in Korea say that a new tablet computer, built by Samsung and sporting Microsoft's upcoming tablet-centric OS Windows 8, will be revealed at MS's BUILD developer conference next week. Bill Gates championed the idea a decade ago, but it never took off. With Samsung embroiled in a patent war with Apple over its Android tablets, perhaps this time MS's persistant innovation may pay off.

This and more important news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day. Wikileaks Leaks

The company famous for the BlackBerry smartphone and the recent PlayBook tablet is trying to maintain its stronghold on small businesses. RIM is on the ropes

The latest travel trend is incorporating tech into offerings at hotels, airports, on airplanes and more. Virgin America and Ace Hotel in NYC have announced partnerships with Google to provide guests with Chromebooks for free on select flights. iPads, however, are already lots of other places

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most difficult problems for designing mobile devices is finding a way to minimize the size of the device while simultaneously maximizing the size of the display. To get the best of both worlds, researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in South Korea have designed and built a prototype of a seamless foldable display that folds in half without a visible crease in the middle.

1. Sony's woes are deepening: Sony Online Entertainment has also been breached , as well as the PSN, and over 24.6 million user accounts are affected. It's early days, but Sony thinks over 12,000 credit cards have been compromised one way or another and personal info on the millions of other users may include addresses, names, dates of birth, and encrypted passwords

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day. Verizon Can Hear You...24 Hours Later Verizon's 4G LTE data network has just come back online after a 24-hour blackout

1. Wal-Mart just handed over around $300 million for Kosmix, a topic-curated social media platform that's just six years old. The new firm will join the @WalmartLabs division, trying to build-out the retail giant's online shopping experience--which is now set to get a big injection of social media thinking, and will probably leverage Kosmix's smart semantic interpretation code to come up with purchase suggestions 2

01 / Nissan For creating the Leaf, the first mass-market electric car. 02 / Nike > > For its mix of sports, style, and yes, plastic bottles

When DreamWorks Animation's Phil Captain 3-D McNally first entered Wednesday's Samsung showcase in New York City, he wasn't drawn to all the shiny gadgets blanketing virtually every wall, floor, and ceiling. Nor a Maxell-blow-your-hair-back display of the latest and highest-definition TVs, or the tablets, or smartphones.