AT&T’s recent embarrassment — the security flaw that exposed the email addresses and serial numbers of over 114,000 iPad subscribers — is disturbing on two fronts. The obvious one is that such vulnerability existed in the first place. More insidious, though, was the botched manner in which AT&T handled the breach — including waiting six days to reveal the flaw to their customers.

Now, granted being exposed by a notorious organization like Goatse added insult to injury. But no matter how tasteless any of their site content might be, the engineers that comprise "Goatse Security" (got to love that) were spot-on in their assessment. Even so, AT&T’s senior VP for public policy and privacy, Dorothy Attwood, characterized the group as hackers who "maliciously exploited" the system to access the e-mail addresses.

Goatse Security rightfully took issue with this and called out AT&T for sloppy iPad security, pointing out that “all data was gathered from a public web server with no password, accessible by anyone on the Internet. There was no breach, intrusion, or penetration…” They also noted that while it took one-hour to gather the email addresses, it took AT&T almost a week to notify customers.

Yes, Goatse Security chose to use a third-party to notify AT&T of the problem and then past the information on to Gawker Media. But, according to the group, they made sure the security breach was fixed before publicizing it, thus they acted responsibly.

Or did they? Sean Sullivan, Security Advisor at F-Secure, an anti-virus company, begs to differs. He believes a line was crossed when Goatse harvested the data, an unnecessary step that violated the privacy of iPad subscribers. But this action is precisely what nefarious individuals would have done, without the courtesy of contacting AT&T through any means.

As the FBI is now in the early stages of digging through this mess, it remains to be seen whether this is simply an object lesson for AT&T and Apple or a criminal matter. My bets are on the former. Yet, when all is said and done, the real losers are the trusting public.

So it wasn’t that long ago when it seemed like every analyst was bracing themselves for iPad’s epic fail. Zdnet compiled some really funny instances of analyst error:

Jan. 27. ABI Research analyst Jeff Orr says that the iPad is “no sure thing.” In a familiar anti-Apple trope, the iPad’s problem is its missing Adobe Flash and so-called “gaps.”

ABI predicts that 4 million tablets such as the iPad and the lesser-known Archos 5 will ship this year.

What this prediction said was that the iPad would be a dog and that its competition would fill out most of the sales. Reality check: The several tablets touted by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer in a January keynote have all been pulled from the market.

Feb. 4. Shopping site Retrevo ran a couple of “studies” to determine interest in the iPad. It said that the hoopla over the iPad had failed to convince potential buyers.

This company says that it uses “artificial intelligence to analyze and visually summarize more than 50 million real-time data points from across the web to give shoppers the most comprehensive, unbiased, up-to-date product information they need to make smart, confident decisions about what to buy, when to buy, and where to buy.”

Note to Retrevo technology engineers: Perhaps it’s time to rework the algorithms, no?

Read more at zdnet

Here’s three specialty use cases for the iPad:

Health Care: Medical Clipboards Make Way for the iPad

If you think of the iPad as a big clipboard, then iPads for medical staff walking around a hospital and checking in on patients is a no-brainer, says Mort Rosenthal, chairman and CEO of Enterprise Mobile, a systems integration firm.

As hospitals move toward electronic medical records, doctors and nurses will need a way to get at them quickly and easily. With iPhones, though, calling up a patient’s charts or entering data (such as a signature) on a tiny screen isn’t practical. That’s why tablets found a niche market in the medical industry.

Given the iPad’s ease of use, there’s a good chance the iPad will displace clipboards and tablets. One developer in Mobclix’s network who is working on a medical iPad app says he’s excited about the iPad’s ability to record notes, especially voice.

Hospitality: Double Tap for Our Specials Tonight

Two weeks after Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a few developers at Macworld Expo in San Francisco had already received iPad app contract work or were in negotiations. Two separate developers mentioned to me that they were working on iPad apps for high-end restaurant chains.

In this scenario, the iPad replaces paper menus. The apps would show dishes and information about them, perhaps even video of certain dishes being prepared. There may be drilldowns that, for instance, give information about a type of fish or spice in the dish.

Both developers told me that the app development deals were still in the early stages, as restaurant chains crunched the numbers to see if iPads could be used in such a way. After all, iPads cost a little more than paper menus.

Media: Newspaper Savior?

The drumbeat of the iPad’s potential to save the newspaper industry hit a crescendo when the Wall Street Journal announced plans for an $18 monthly iPad subscription.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg reviewed the iPad and app and had this to say: "I was able to try a pre-release version of The Wall Street Journal’s new iPad app (which I had nothing to do with designing), and found it gorgeous and highly functional—by far the best implementation of the newspaper I have ever seen on a screen."

Read the rest of the article

In an open letter posted on Apple.com, Steve Job’s makes a compelling argument as to why Apple has turned their back on Flash.

"Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain."

The rest of the letter continues here: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

My initial impressions of the iPad were pretty good but one of the things that really annoyed me was the weight shape and size of the iPad. It’s a beautiful device don’t get me wrong, but like many Apple products functionality is trumped by design. When holding the iPad while laying down the weight and oleophobic screen doesn’t lend well to your grip and if you try to get a better grip on the iPad you start to encroach on the touch sensitive part of the screen giving you undesirable touch tracking.

I like the look of the official iPad case since it had a cover which doubled as a tilting stand. The case fits snugly and I had no trouble accessing the ports and buttons. However, this is case you will want to leave on since it is rather difficult to take off and put back on. I am not sure what the material used on the case is but it’s somewhat like a neoprene or a synthetic microfiber, but more like a rubbery plastic surface. The one downside I found with the case is dust collects pretty easily around the edges especially if you wipe the finger prints off the screen with a cloth frequently.

Overall, I am happy with the case and will likely be the one I keep for a while.

More photos of the iPad case.

Here are some photos i took from the ipad unboxing experience. Just the basics are included, a charger, cable and the ipad. Also a quick reference and some stickers are included in the envelope. It was a bit underwhelming in terms of accessories, but a typically fun apple unboxing experience.

One of the most interesting things about the ebook/netbook/tablet market is that it is all in flux. When you look at a laptop, PC or Mac, you are getting almost the same thing in terms of functionality. But with this new market there is a lot of experimentation going on and eDGe reflects this.

eDGe is being marketed as an e-book reader and a netbook…it looks like a small laptop when it is folded. When opened one side reads like a "kindle" screen for reading and the other screen is a full color touch screen for Internet, music, email and whatever.

Sounds great? But it sort of falls flat. There is no standby mode so the battery drains in 10 hours if you leave it on and it takes 1 1/2 minutes to turn on which is just way too long. One major downside is that it weighs 3 lbs. which is just way too much. Another major downside is that unless you buy the ebooks from their store you will have to download the ebook to a computer and then transfer it to the eDGe. Kind of misses the point for me.

On the up side it does have a USB port and SD card. But I kind of feel like this product would have been great if the iPad wasn’t coming out, but in light of the iPad it feels like it is good but just not good enough.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that,

Now, I don’t know if we can totally trust these "people briefed by the company," but what we do know is that it appears that Apple is working on a CDMA version of the iPhone. So while a Verizon version of the iPhone is probably not going to be released in the next month, there is a good chance that in the fall one with the release of the iPhone HD, Apple will extend to working with other carriers.

And if the iPhone is offered through Verizon there is a good chance that the iPad will also…..that is some serious speculation but I am hopeful.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with someone that works at Apple who confirmed that not only would there be no Flash support on the iPad but that it was relatively silly to think that there would be.

I asked him if this was Apple making a stand to move us towards HTML5 but he said that it had nothing to do with that. The real reason is that Flash was created for mouse interactivity. Flash assumes that your eyes are where the mouse is pointed. But since the iPad has no mouse and doesn’t really function in that way then it would never work on an iPad/iPhone.

He compared it to using metal wheels on an asphalt road. It just doesn’t work, no matter how good it worked in the past it isn’t going to work here.

So there we have it….good thing Brightcove is porting things over to HTML5.

Some have dubbed this an iPad for "older folks" The WePad has been built with a purpose: reading newspaper and magazines –both of which are things that old people apparently like to do.

Anyway, the WePad device will work with the existing Android Market and also have its very own WePad AppStore. It’s a bit larger than the iPad and features only 6 hours of battery life (the iPad is rated for 10 hours). It does, however feature a built-in Webcam. (which I think the iPad will eventually have also)

The company is set to " release further details on our partners and product timeline on April 12."