For those of you waiting for the release of Maxis' Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), it seems like the long wait is finally drawing to a close. During a studio visit from producer Thomas Vu, he confirmed to CNET that the game will be going gold by next week. Everything seems good to go for the game's September release on the PC and the Mac. More details on this development in our full article.

A contact of the Crave CNET website from computer manufacturer Asus has reportedly confirmed that Asus is indeed working with Apple to create a Tablet PC.

So far the only way to get a Mac Tablet PC is from third-party manufacturers such as Other World Computing. If this rumor holds true, then we can might actually be seeing an official Apple-made tablet system pretty soon. More information can be found by clicking on the "read more" link below.

CNET has just released the poll results for their top 20 most wanted products for the week ending October 28. And from the looks of it, Microsoft's getting a pick-me-up as their upcoming Zune 2 media player pulls ahead of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 to first place. From an ugly duckling to a swan, indeed.

Getting into specifics, the Zune 2.0 player (available only in black) will carry a new iPod-style Zune pad, a 3.2-inch screen, and a set of downloadable features that are expected to be available come this fall. And while Sony has already made plans to phase out their 60 GB PlayStation 3 by the end of this year, the polls indicate that it's still on shoppers' wish lists at third place.

Other notables we spied in the list were the Apple iPhone, which got fifth place, and the recently released black PSP Slim, which was at eleventh place.

Over at CNET, their Top 20 Most Wanted Products for the week ending April 22 just got published. Much to say, the top four seem to echo who really are on the spotlight of the gaming and gadget world. Of course, charts and figures will always show different things, depending on the people who answer the polls or whatnot. Here's the lowdown on CNET's own list though.

The PlayStation 3 is finally on the top spot. Compared to last week's spot on the fifth, that's a big bump up, so much so that it brought the Nintendo Wii down the ladder by one rung. Yeah, the Wii was king of the hill last week (and reigned king uninterruptedly ever since March 25), but the PS3 somehow managed to catch up and finally take the throne. The Xbox Elite, on the other hand, is slowly and steadily on the rise, from last week's Top 4 to this week's Top 3. Just four weeks in the charts, and the Elite has already achieved the third spot. Quite a feat in itself.

On to gadgets though, we're not surprised to find the Apple iPhone snuck up there. While it had second place last week, guess the march of the consoles brought it down to the fourth spot. The notable thing about this item on the list is that, while it continuously jumps up and down a few spots every week, it's pretty much consistent and never left the Top 5 ever since it debuted on the list (debuted on the Top, no less) on January 14!

You can click the Read link below to check out the full Top 20, which contains other miscellaneous gadgets like laptops, cameras, mobile phones, and mp3 players.

Gizmodo writer Eric Lam gave a reaction and correction post to CNET's Erica Ogg for her article discussing how iTunes may be streamed to a mobile phone in the future. The CNET write-up got a lot of fans excited until Lam burst the bubble.

Lam explained that the article does hold some water in terms of feasibility, but there's a lot more to it than just having your phone synced with a computer or iPod.

"What they're talking about is using the excellent, yet non-specific ability of a Slingbox to stream iTunes to an Apple TV," says Lam, "using a HD equipped Slingbox Pro to stream Apple TV to your Sling Client-equipped Palm, or Windows Mobile phone."

Lam also said that there's a fat chance that iPhone wouldn't support Sling videos. Audio should be a non-issue, but unless there's a drastic change in the last stages of the iPhone, that would be a smart prediction.

"The article speaks of future support, but isn't this possible with the mere addition of a few IR codes?" asks the Gizmodo scribe.

State Senator Carl Kreuger, a Democrat representing New York's 27th district in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn, has recently announced his plan to introduce legislation that would ban the use of electronic devices (iPods, BlackBerrys, cellphones, DS Lites, PSPs) while crossing streets in major cities.

Sen. Kreuger has claimed that the phenomenon of "iPod oblivion" has led to a number of fatal accidents on urban streets. While he did not cite any statistical studies that have indicated a rise in such incidents, he did refer to the January death of a 23-year-old Brooklyn man who, while tuned into his iPod headphones, walked into the path of a city bus.

The bill would basically make it illegal to use any kind of handheld device while crossing the street in major cities like New York, Albany, and Buffalo. Offenders would end up with a US$ 100 fine and a criminal court summons.

Joggers and other exercise buffs who like to pass the time listening to tunes while burning calories would have to limit their iPod use to city areas in which no street crossing would be involved.

While this proposed bill may infuriate handheld gamers, music loving exercise buffs, and Wall-Street BlackBerry addicts, Kreuger stands fully behind this bill, saying that tuning in and tuning out is a fatal combination on the streets of New York. CNET News reports that Kreuger said this in a statement:

You can't be fully aware of your surroundings if you're fiddling with a BlackBerry, dialing a phone number, playing Super Mario Brothers on a Game Boy, or listening to music on an iPod

We here at QJ would like recall George Carlin's view on children and "dangerous toys" and prefer to think of this "iPod oblivion" phenomenon as a passive form of eugenics: If you're too dumb to play your PSP while crossing a traffic-heavy street, then you're probably just too dumb.

Stuck in a dilemma between getting a Samsung Q1 and an Apple Newton? Well, the guys at CNET pitted those two against each other just for fun. The verdict? Read on.

Undeniably, Apple's Newton MessagePad 2007 has been around for quite some time - since 1997 to be exact. It features handwriting recognition, and touch-screen display plus a stylus, all packed in a simple design. It doesn't boast of a full color screen, but runs on an efficient and virtually virus-free OS.

The Samsung Q1, on the other hand, has a sleek, shiny look as opposed to the "industrialized" design of the Newton. Its screen has 16.7 million colors, so you would be able to watch your favorite movies here. It also has better networking capabilities and handwriting recognition than the Newton.

However, the Newton can run up to 30 hours with four AA batteries, which dealt the final blow on the Q1, which only runs for 2.5 hours. And while the latter costs £799, the decade-old Newton can be bought in eBay for £50.

So take your pick. If you're more into practicality, you might want to get a Newton. But if you're into sleek, modern gadgets, maybe you'd consider getting a Samsung Q1 instead.

In case you don't know, the 99 Cents Download isn't very popular with major music labels. It does sound a bit small, considering Michael Jackson has to feed his chimp and llamas. And then there's Whitney and Bobby's "hobby" which isn't exactly cheap. But we found out the artists don't even get all the 99 cents. The record label does! Which explains why it's the record executives, not the artists, who's been crying all the way to the bank.

Michael Kanellos, an editor at CNET News, says record labels make the most from legal downloads. Record companies keep about 72.5 cents on average for a 99 cent song. Does the rest go the Bubble's retirement fund? Not at all. The credit card company also gets a small slice. Then the last slice goes to the people who sold the song. No wonder Jackson isn't doing much singing these days.

Most Silicon Valley executives seem to have forgotten some lessons they have learned way back in business school or while they're taking their MBAs - that important moral lesson happens to be put the customers first, above profits, above income, above anything. This is what CNet Executive Editor, Charles Cooper, believes. His opinions focused on the incompatibility of the iTunes Music Store to non-Apple mp3 players.

He mentions that the decision to make the iTunes incompatible to others was a good business decision that most likely contributed to why Apple's iPod is the best selling mp3 player around, and why Creative is being portrayed as a green-eyed monster jealous with the attention and profits that the rival's product is getting. The iPod + iTunes combo entailed big money and profits, but did they put out their customers first? Well, certain European countries don't think so.

We have mentioned the problem that Apple had with France and Denmark with regards to why the iTunes is incompatible with non-Apple mp3 players. Apple has until the end of July to explain to regulators in Norway, Denmark and Sweden why songs sold on iTunes could not be played on rival devices. Harsh words have been exchanged, lawsuits have been filed...but the pervading question is still, "how are the consumers?"

From my understanding of what Mr. Cooper wrote, he believes that Apple will be pressed to bring down the walls it has erected i.e. the incompatibility of iTunes with other mp3 players, to guarantee that the momentum behind its great invention continues into the next decade. I couldn't agree more with him.

Apple has been known for its good customer care activities, I believe that customer care should not be the means to continue propagating a product, thus it should be the reason why a product exist in the first place. The profits is of course part of the equation, but the problem is that businessmen have been focusing on things they can't control instead of things that are within their reach. Customer service is something they can control, and, for the sake of damage control, make the iTunes compatible with others.

You read that right. At least that's what CNET's Daniel Begun says. He ran a series of tests comparing the performance of Windows XP SP2 on an Intel Mac using Apple's Boot Camp Public Beta (which gives users a dual-boot system), Windows XP on Parallels Desktop for Mac (which allows users to run both OSs at the same time and seamlessly switch back and forth between them), and Mac OS X Version 10.4.6. All these were installed on a 17-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM and an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics chip.

The CNET labs ran a few of their own benchmarks on the MacBook Pro to see how the three compared in terms of how the applications ran on each. Their test comprised attempting to process images using Photoshop CS2, running Microsoft Office 2003, encoding iTunes, playing Quake 4, and just plain booting each of the systems up.

I'll spare you the gory details; suffice to say that XP-on-Parallels only beat the others in the boot time test. But as Begun says, "This also just goes to show the danger of drawing too many conclusions from this type of testing... If we spent more time tweaking Parallels, we probably could have beefed up its overall performance." Begun and the lab testers were won over by Parallels' overall stability, usability and the ease of switching between OSs it affords users - its performance shortcomings were negligible given its advantages. Sounds A-OK to me, what do you guys think?