TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Dieter Volkers’ Door Claxon is a beautifully clever combination of a doorknob and a doorbell. Or rather, a doorhorn.

At first the Netherlands-based designer’s handle looks like little more than whimsy, but look again. First, it’s plain fun to have the horn honk through the handle, but then we see that the inside handle is also the perfect shape for a horn-speaker.

Apple is likely to introduce a new iPad at a San Francisco press conference scheduled for next Wednesday.

The company this morning sent e-mail invitations to members of the press with a not-so-subtle image of a calendar entry peeled back to reveal the corner of an iPad screen.

The event comes at the correct timing, as Apple’s original iPad was released April of 2010, and Apple’s mobile products typically get refreshed after one year. The event date puts to rest rumors that the iPad would be “delayed” until summer. (Never mind that it’s impossible to delay an unannounced product.)

Apple has not officially commented on details about the iPad 2, but some credible publications claim the tablet will have front- and rear-facing cameras, a thinner body and a more powerful graphics processor.

The Verizon iPhone and AT&T iPhone have gone head-to-head in thousands of broadband tests, and the numbers tell the story you’d expect: AT&T’s network is much faster.

Ookla, creators of the Speedtest.net broadband test, compiled data from tests run by iPhone customers using the Speedtest.net app on both AT&T and Verizon. On average, the reported AT&T iPhone transfer rates were roughly two times faster than the Verizon iPhone’s.

The AT&T iPhone’s average download speed was 1,769 Kbps, and the average upload speed was 730 Kbps.

Nokia on Friday announced it was putting the decade-old Symbian operating system to rest, and future Nokia phones will ship with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software.

The decision will be famously remembered as the time Nokia jumped off what its CEO called a “burning platform” to reverse the company’s downward spiral in the phone market.

Apple has started production of a thinner, lighter and faster version of the iPad, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Citing the usual “people familiar with the matter,” WSJ claims the new iPad will include front- and rear-facing cameras for videoconferencing and shooting photos, similar to the iPhone 4.

The WSJ added that cellular data plans will be available for the iPad 2 through Verizon and AT&T.

Globalscale’s DreamPlug looks to have the build-quality of a $5 card-reader from your local dime-store, complete with ill-fitting plastic panels and 1980s utility-chic color-scheme. But who cares? This is a tiny PC that is smaller than the average wall-wart, and sips just 5 watts of power – the same as a USB port supplies.

The DreamPlug packs a 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva CPU, 512MB RAM (and 2MB storage, upgradeable through a microSD slot). You also get a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB-ports, an eSATA port, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR and even Wi-Fi (b and g).

Intel’s quick response to a chip flaw illustrates how much is at stake in the rollout of a new CPU.

Codenamed “Cougar Point,” the flawed chip is part of the chipset supporting Intel’s second generation Core series of processors, codenamed “Sandy Bridge,” which were released in early January. Intel announced yesterday that it had discovered a design flaw in the chip and immediately halted shipments of the affected products.

This curious plug-ejecting power-socket has just won first prize in the The Future Perfect Company design competition. The brief: Come up with “attractive and aspirational” designs that help people carry on as normal when they get older.

For most of the world, pulling out a plug is as simple as yanking a cord.

2011 marks the second year that the annual Apple-centric trade show Macworld must go on without Apple.

The conference, which starts Wednesday, is smaller than it once was — and its biggest celebrity speaker is C-list comedian Sinbad — but it’s still alive and kicking. For app vendors, makers of iPhone and iPad accessories, and OS X software vendors, it’s still a good way to get in front of a crowd of eager Mac addicts.

Das Keyboard, the company behind – you guessed it – the Das Keyboard, will now sell you some mint-green keycaps to replace your WASD keys. Aimed at gamers, the keys can be had with or without letters to fit (or contrast with) either the lettered or blank Das Keyboard. For $15 you also get a red escape key, a key-puller and free shipping.

The Das Keyboard, you might remember, is the rackety-clackety keyboard with the Cherry MX-style key switches, which make a noise fit to wake the neighbors and also give a very positive click to let you know you have pressed the key properly. I reviewed one back in October 2008 and was told by the company not to pop the keycaps off. I did anyway, to make the command and alt keys match the standard Mac layout, and it seems the Das Keyboard has finally agreed.