If you want to pull up some quick information about your World of Warcraft character (or anyone else's for that matter), why don't you try browsing for it on your iPhone. I'm not talking about the WoW Armory. There's a quicker way for you to do that - on the new and updated version of the Warcraft Characters app for the iPhone.

Word has been circulating around the Internet that Apple is finally preparing to launch a next gen video iPod that will feature a touch-screen panel similar to the one used in the iPhone within a year.

Longstanding rumors about a touch-screen iPod have been bolstered by a recent U.S. patent awarded to the Cupertino based company.

According to Apple Insider, DigiTimes has also added more fuel to the fire, citing "sources at upstream suppliers" that Taiwan-based Wintek will be supplying the touch panels. DigiTimes says that Wintek will "begin shipping capacitive touch screen panels in the second half of 2007".

Apple Insider also noted that during a private meeting last month at the Apple Town Hall, Apple CEO Steve Jobs mentioned that a division of the company was working hard on next gen iPods that would run an embedded version of Mac OS X.

This particular tidbit was picked up by Wall Street analysts, among them Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster. Munster wrote in a report to clients earlier this week that they "expect Apple to release high capacity iPods based on OS X sometime during or before Macworld '08 in January".

Motherboard manufacturers in Taiwan have an aggressive increase in orders for high-capacitance multi-layer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) used in the manufacturing of CPUs allegedly for the use in an AMD-based Apple notebook. With Intel getting in on the Apple action, there's no reason why the other major CPU manufacturer in the world shouldn't get a piece of the warm Apple pie. AMD Taiwan have refused to comment on this.

Although some are saying that an AMD Apple notebook is in the works, other motherboard manufacturers have claimed that there are no AMD/Apple notebooks around, firstly due to Intel having processor superiority over AMD with its latest Core Duo 2 line-up, and that AMD has insufficient capacity to manufacture chips for Apple notebooks.

This is a nice area to look at, and with the success of Boot Camp and the integration Intel processors, and if AMD processor integration goes ahead, Apple computers may steal a lot more of the notebook market, taking even more people away from their Windows laptop loyalties.

Hongfujin Precision Industry Co., the contracted manufacturer of Apple's iPod media jukebox have filed lawsuits against two Chinese journalists who wrote articles about working conditions at factories where iPods are made. According to Chinese press, Hongfujin, which is a subsidiary of TaiwanÂ?s Hon Hai Precision Industry Ltd.Â?s Foxconn Technology Group, is seeking 30 million renminbi (US$3.77 million) in damages from the two journalists.

Published articles written by the two journalists accused Apple and Hongfujin Precision Industry Co. of exploiting workers at their factory in southern China. The Shenzhen Intermediate Court, which accepted the case, froze the assets of the two reporters, Weng Bao and Wang You. The journalist rights group Reporters Without Borders have requested that the iPod contractor drop the lawsuit, but as of yet no news on Hongfujin Precision Industry Co.'s reply has surfaced.

You read that right; I did say fuel cell.

A lot of companies support fuel-cell technology because it seems a perfect solution for recharging batteries of devices like mobile phones, PDAs, laptops and mp3 players. We've only seen products like Toshiba's reported fuel cell prototype (which, by the way, isn't even portable.)

Now we have a company that's already started shipping portable fuel cells in several areas such as mainland China, Europe, Taiwan, US, and Japan. More Energy, a company in Lod, Israel and a subsidiary of Medis Technologies, has developed a disposable fuel cell that will recharge any device that needs recharging.

The creator of this portable fuel cell is Gennadi Finkelshtain who is also the general manager of More Energy. His invention is housed in a flexible plastic shell (compared to a deck of cards, this one's a bit larger). To use it, one has to squeeze the shell container which will resist lightly before you hear a click. You then plug the cable in and connect it to the device you will be recharging.

The fuel cell recharger pack from More Energy will be the first commercially-distributed device if the company meets its deadlines (in terms of mass production and shipping) come 2007.

Foxconn Electronics, the component manufacturer for Apple's iPod, denied allegations that the company's factories were "sweatshops". The company cited "huge discrepancies between the truth and the claims in the report."

Last week, UK-based The Mail reported that iPods were being made in Chinese factories where the employees worked under harsh conditions. According to the allegations, one factory at Longhua employed 200,000 workers each working 15 hours a day for US$50 monthly. During off-hours, these workers lived in rooms which housed 100 people each.

Foxconn said its workforce is only about 160,000 employees worldwide. The company maintained it abides by the employment law in China. Furthermore, Foxconn issued a statement saying it has continued to make improvements to workers' living conditions, providing safe and well-equipped dormitories complete with free laundry service, sports facilities, libraries, and other facilities.

Foxconn is  the largest manufacturer of PC connectors in Taiwan, and a leading manufacturer of connectors and cable assemblies in the world. In addtition the company also manufactures enclosures, primarily for desktop PCs and PC servers.

The MacMini came out over a year ago as an answer for those whose needs did not require, or whose budgets didn't allow, the purchase of a Dual Processor G5. A compact little machine about the size of a jewelry box, the Mac Mini was good for everything but the most extreme, high-end video processing, and could be had for under $600.

Now, a Mac user in Taiwan has reportedly replaced the stock CPU in his MacMini with a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo Merom. The souped-up Mini beat  1.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz Dual Processor G5s when it came to an iTunes .mp3 to AAC conversion, despite the fact that the Mini had a slower hard drive. In Photoshop v7 - a notoriously large and cumbersome application - the results for the Mini were also quite promising. This is especially significant when one takes into consideration the fact that Photoshop requires Rosetta to translate PPC instructions for the Intel chip.

As for the upgrade itself, it was a fairly simple procedure - and actually a good thing for the machine, since the Intel chip runs cooler than the previous one.