While Microsoft has been offering versions of Windows with optimizations for touchscreen displays ever since Windows XP Tablet edition, the truth is that the whole start menu, taskbar, and itty bitty close/minimize/maximize buttons in Windows weren’t really designed for touch input. But there are a number of companies coming up with software designed to run on top of Windows which makes the experience of using the operating system a little more… iPad-like.

One of the latest is Mirabyte, which is developing a UI called FrontFace for Windows tablets. FrontFace for netbooks and tablets isn’t available for download yet, but a preview version should be available within the next few weeks.

While some Windows overlays simply offer a finger-friendly program launcher, FrontFace seems to go a bit further by giving you large icons to close an application or perform other actions. The software also includes a number of original apps designed for touch input including a media player, YouTubeapp, and some games. There are also start page widgets for items including news, weather, and calendar appointments.

T-Mobile USA says it’s on track to offer its faster HSPA+ mobile broadband network in 100 major metro areas covering 185 million Americans by the end of the year. The company added 25 new cities to its coverage area this week, bringing the current number of major cities to 50 and the number of people in the service area to 85 million, which means there’s only… I guess a hundred million to go.

HSPA+ is still technically a 3G mobile broadband service, but it offers speeds which T-Mobile says are comparable to what you would expect from LTE or WiMAX 4G networks.

T-Mobile also launched a new HSPA+ modem called the webConnect Rocket 2 USB Laptop Stick. It has a rotating swivel design which allows it to fit in tighter spaces than a traditional USB modem. The company also plans to introduce its first HSPA+ capable smartphone later this year.

It’s been 7 months since I first spotted Haier’s X220 10 inch convertible tablet at CES. At the time, I was told that the company planned to sell it in the US, but I was starting to have my doubts. Now the folks at Wireless Goodness have spotted a listing for the Haier X220P at the FCC web site, which is often a good indication that a product is scheduled to hit the US in the not-too-distant future.

According to the FCC filing, the X220P features a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a 3G modem, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. The computer runs Windows XP or Linux. It has an Intel Atom processor, and while the FCC documents don’t make it clear which Atom CPU we’re talking about, the model I saw earlier this year had a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor.

Unlike many of the tablets expected to hit the market this year, the Haier X220P features a QWERTY keyboard and a swivel design that lets you fold the screen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. It weighs about 3 pounds.

Velocity Micro plans to launch a line of Google Android powered tablets with prices ranging from $149 to $299.

The first to hit the streets will be the $199 Cruz Reader and the $149 Cruz StoryPad. Both are 7 inch tablets with 800 x 600 pixel touchscreen displays, and both are due out in August.

The Cruz Reader has 802.11b/g/ WiFi, and while Velocity Micro is calling it a reader, it comes complete with a web browser, video games, media player, calendar, notepad, and other apps.

The Cruz Reader also has an accelerometer, USB port, and an SD card slot. It comes with a 2GB SD card for storage, and the battery should be good for up to 10 hours of run time. The tablet will ship in the US with the Kobo Android app pre-loaded, for access to over 2 million eBooks.

The company also says you’ll be able to download apps, magazines, and videos from the “Cruz Market,” which sounds to me like another way of saying that the Google Android Market will not be available out of the box — although it’s possible Velocity Micro simply wants to try out its own market to see if it can grab a little bit of revenue from media sales.

The Cruz StoryPad is a “kid-friendly” model with a drop-resistant case. It comes with a number of audio books preloaded, and  amedia player for audio and video playback. It’s available in pink, blue, and green.

In September, Velocity Micro will also add the $299 Cruz Tablet to its lineup. This model features 802.11n WiFi, 4GB of built-in  storage, and an 8GB SD card. It has an integrated microphone, and interestingly, a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel display. That’s right, it has a lower resolution screen than the tablets that run half the price. But that’s because this model is designed for multimedia playback. I guess.

Acer recently launched two new 11.6 inch thin and light laptops. At first glance, they look nearly identical, since they both use the same case design. But the Acer Aspire One 721 costs just $430 though, while the Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830t runs nearly $700.

The difference is that the cheap model ships with AMD’s latest low power chipset while pricier model has a new chip from Intel. Laptop Magazine has posted reviews of both notebooks and basically determines that the Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830t really is a better machine with overall better performance and almost twice the run time of its cheaper cousin. But you know, it costs more.

The Acer Aspire One 721, on the other hand, as we learned yesterday really does offer better CPU and graphics performance than a typical netbook — so if you’re looking for a step up from an Intel Atom-based machine and care more about battery life than price, it sounds like it might be worth checking out.

You can check out Laptop Magazine’s review of the Acer Aspire One 721 and Acer TimelineX 1830t for more details.

Netbook makers have been shipping low cost mini-laptops with trial versions of Microsoft for years. But now that Microsoft Office 2010 is available, PC makers are expected to take a different approach by loading netbooks with Microsoft Office 2010 Starter. And just like Windows 7 Starter Edition, Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition offers you some of the features you’ve come to expect from the full software — but it’s missing many other features.

Laptop Magazine’s KT Bradford has taken a look at Office Starter 2010, and she’s come to the verdict that you’re better off just scrapping it and installing Openoffice.org or the alternate office suite of your choice. Or you know, you could do what Microsoft is hoping you’ll do and pay to upgrade to a full version of Office 2010.

What’s missing from Office Starter 2010? Well, for starters, there’s no support for footnotes, endnotes, citations or bibliography, comments, track changes, Pivot Tables, or Pivot charts. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

A bigger problem (literally) is that the user interface is clearly not designed for netbooks with 1024 x 600 pixel displays. The ribbon UI eats up an awful lot of space at the top of the page, and there’s a large sidebar with an ad on the right that takes up even more space — leaving you with very little room to work on a typical netbook.

If you just need to create some basic rich text documents or simple spreadsheets, Office 2010 Starter may do the trick. But so will OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, or Gnumeric. The one thing Office Starter 2010 still has going for it is complete compatibility with Office documents. If you need to open a doc someone else created in Office, there’s a decent chance it won’t look quite right in a third party app. But you could also just use Office Web Apps instead of Office 2010 Starter if you just need to open the occasional Office document.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q150 is a small form factor desktop with an Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA ION graphics. The company introduced the nettop last month, and now it’s available for purchase from Buy.com, where you can find a $220 model and a $350 model.

The pricier model has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom D510 dual core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, NVIDIA ION graphics, Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit), 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and a handheld wireless keyboard/mouse/remote control.

The $220 version comes with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom D410 single core CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, Windows XP Home, and 802.11b/g/ WiFi. This model doesn’t include the higher performance NVIDIA graphics or the wireless controller.

The MiFi mobile hotspot sort of changed the way a lot of people think about 3G mobile wireless service. Instead of purchasing a single computer with a 3G modem and a data plan that’s linked to that computer, you could always have signed up for a 3G USB stick that you can plug into multiple computers — one at a time. But the MiFi lets you pay for a single 3G data plan and share your wireless connection with several devices at the same time.

It turns out there’s nothing all that special about the hardware in a MiFi. You can pretty much do the same thing using all sorts of devices that can receive a 3G data signal and transmit a WiFi signal. Device and software makers just need to enable the feature, and a growing number seem to be doing just that.

You can turn a Palm Pre smartphone into a portable WiFi hotspot, and Verizon will even let you share your wireless internet connection using a Pre without paying any additional subscription charges.

Google Android 2.2 Froyo includes portable WiFi hotspot functionality, which could theoretically turn any Android phone into an access point — but it will be up to carriers to decide whether to enable this feature or charge extra for it. Right now, it works great on my Google Nexus One running a pre-release version of Froyo on T-Mobile’s network.

And now Sony has announced that it’s going to add a “Share My Connection” feature to its Vaio Z and Y series notebooks, allowing you to share your 3G data connection with up to 5 other devices over WiFi.

Clearly the service is only useful if you have a Sony laptop with a 3G modem and a data plan. Sharing your WiFi connection with other computers over WiFi isn’t going to do very much good — although I’m kind of curious to see if you might be able to share an Ethernet connection over WiFi. But right now Sony is officially saying that the feature is designed to work with Verizon Wireless service.

The Sony Vaio Z line of laptops have 13.1 inch display, Intel Core i7 processors, and pretty high price tags of $1900 and up. The Sony Vaio Y is a bit more affordable, starting at about $770 for a machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 13.3 inch display.Both models should be available with verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband and the new “Share My Connection” feature starting June 20th.

Nettops are a strange mix between desktops and netbooks. On the one hand, the idea of a low power, tiny desktop computer makes a lot of sense if you don’t need your computer to do much or if you’re just looking for a PC to stick next to your TV for some light web browsing and video playback duties. On the other hand, if you want to watch HD video, record TV shows, or perform other tasks that are a bit more taxing on the CPU and graphics processor, the Intel Atom chipset found in most nettops might not cut it. Enter the ASRock Core 100HT.

This little desktop looks a lot like the ASRock ION 330 nettop I tested last year. But while that model had a low power Intel Atom 330 processor and NVIDIA ION graphics, the ARock COre 100HT has a more powerful Intel Core i-series processor and integrated Intel HD graphics.

The Core i3, i5, or i7 processors that are available for the ASRock Core 100HT are still relatively low power chips, but they should be able to handle more taxing tasks such as transcoding video files, playing some games, or multitasking. On the other hand, while Intel’s integrated graphics chipset should be able to handle HD video playback, I wouldn’t expect it to be as powerful a the NVIDIA ION chipset.

The ASRock Core 100HT is clearly designed to be a home theater PC, but it could also make a good primary machine if you’re looking for something that won’t take up a lot of space your desk. The computer incldues VGA, HDMI, and S/PDIF ports, as well as 7.1 channel audio output. It has 2 2.5″ hard drive slots, space for 2 sticks of DDR3 memory, USB 3.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and Gigabit Ethernet. It also comes with a Media Center remote control.

Stone is a developer from China Tencent company, the owner of China’s most popular IM software QQ. He’s invited to WWDC2010. During the conference he got robbed on a bus in San Francisco.In the fight with the robber, he got hurt with rib broken, and his iPad was badly scratched. In an email that responed to this developer, Jobs Steve continue the “APPLE CEO Writing Style”, and wrote only three words:”safe travels home”.

[Source: Stone's microblog on QQ, QQ.com]

• Apple meets iPad trademark problem in China
• Funny video:Apple’s Beijing store attacked by a Terminator robot
• Apple paid Hanvon $3.65 million in the ‘i-phone’ trademark deal
• Foxconn is building WAPI version iPhone for China Unicom