In case you are not familiar with Square, Square is an application that allows anyone to accept payment cards using their mobile device. This is done with a tiny card reader that plugs into the headphone jack on the device. Unfortunately, Square is unavailable outside U.S. for the time being.

Square intends to bring immediacy, transparency, and approachability to the financial world. We want to enable all people to accept payments instantly, with access to all the information they need, in a way that feels amazing and engaging.  When you think about it, paying someone is just another form of communication, an exchange of value that deserves to have the same design and product considerations that every social service prides itself on maintaining.

Square is, in my opinion, a very interesting and innovative technology and I am really looking forward to see how this turns out. Have you tried Square? What do you think?

You can follow @Square on Twitter.

On the contrary, the iPhone App Store is still far ahead, having 180.000 apps and counting. But it wouldn’t surprise me if we see a statistically significant decrease of the gap between iPhone apps and Android apps by the end of this year.

What do you think?

Google believes that developers should have their choice of tools and technologies to create applications.

Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering, Android

In a blog post today, Andy Rubin announced that Google is partnering with Adobe to bring the full web, great applications, and developer choice to the Android platform.

Lockerz is an invitation-only website created to connect members through commerce, content and social networking. Once invited, you’ll be able to watch exclusive video, buy great products, discover new music, play games, and connect with friends. You’ll be able to do this all in one place, AND you’ll get rewarded for just doing the things you love. When you watch a video, play a game, or even log in, you’ll earn Pointz (or “PTZ”) Lockerz own form of currency. Turn around and redeem your PTZ for incredible merchandise, unique experiences and exclusive deals and sales.

Personally, I have to say that I am impressed. And this is one of the very few times that I am impressed by such kind of service. Not only by the quality of this service but also by its, almost hidden, business model. And here are a few reasons why Lockerz impressed me:

The name.

It is quite quite memorable isn’t it? And cool, too.

The logo.

The logo design and the typography used is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally good. It is smooth and stands out.

The web interface.

I just hate it when I see Web 2.0 startups in 2010 using awful user interface because it feels like going back where using HTML frames was cool. Well, be sure that Lockerz is definitely NOT one of those startups. Lockerz’s web interface is quite attractive.

Everything else

From Lockerz’s favicon to that Lockerz Ceramic Coffee Mug, this thing is a top-notch product and you should give it a try.

It is quite interesting that a video web service like this suddenly feels so attractive for business. Lockerz offers a very attractive business model that wouldn’t surprise me if one day I find out that there are users out there spending many-many-many hours watching videos online. Oh wait a minute. This is already happening. Plus now you get to win a free iPod. ;)

So, did you get your pointz today?

For the time being such capabilities existed in the iPhone but only limited to the bookmark syncing via MobileMe features or via apps like Instapaper.
There is also Google Web History which merged with Google Bookmarks last summer and now has some great features like viewing your web activity, searching the full text of pages you’ve visited, getting personalized search results and more. However these features are only available if you install the latest Google Toolbar and there is no immediate access via your mobile phone.
So, Weave is here to change this. You don’t have to install any toolbar and now that there is an API out there the possibilities are numerous. Mozilla already released a number of early prototypes and sample code that have been developed alongside the Weave APIs including a web-based Weave client, an iPhone Weave client, a commandline Weave client and a WebOS Weave client.

Now that Weave API is out I would love to see a Weave client for my Android phone along with some import/export features in Weave or even better some Ubiquity commands to interact with the Weave.

By the way, does anyone know when the latest Ubiquity version will be available for Firefox 3.6?

• Steve Jobs showed up saying they want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary new product.
• There was a little talk about the success of the iPod and the iPhone over the last years with some historical and data reference. Plus, saying that Apple is a mobile devices company, that’s what we do.
• After wondering if there is room for a third category device in the middle of a laptop and/or a smartphone, Steve just said iPad.
• From that time and on it was all about applauding and embracing this new magical thing called the iPad.

We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts — we want to make the best tech, but have them be intuitive. It’s the combination of these two things that have let us make the iPad.

iPad’s main features inlcude:

• 9.7-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
• 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip
• Wi-Fi + 3G model
• 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack
• Built-in speakers
• Microphone

You may find out more about the iPad here. However, as you may have noticed, there a few missing features.

If you ask me, I was getting ready to catch up with the event along with gdgt’s and engadget’s live coverage. I was ready to listen to whatever Steve was ready to say. I mean, we were all ready for the best tablet pc ever, right? Well, the first impression of the iPad was like “hmmm.. it’s not bad”. Not that I don’t think this is an exceptional mobile device. Maybe I was overwhelmed by all the buzz going on about the Apple Tablet. I was waiting for something truly innovative and outstanding.

The User Interface was awesome, as usual in all Apple products. Could be better though. The whole idea of downloading the same apps you download for your iPhone was a bit surprising and also a good way to endorse the power of the iPhone App Store. Everything else seemed to be quite elegant.

Anyhow, Apple’s iPad has definitely killed the netbook market and we are about to witness, as I have said before, a change in personal computing in the years to come shifting the Personal Computer (P.C.) towards the mobile devices.

Don’t forget to check out this real-time look at twitter mentions of terms related to Apple’s product launch earlier today.

It is a totally cool new feature and it is really-really-really fast accessible. You just swipe right to get a quick view of your browser’s tabs, or just swipe left to access some hidden buttons like the back and forth buttons, preferences and the bookmark button. I have to say that I ‘ve been using Android for a couple of years (incl. emulators and real phones) but I didn’t have that fast access to the browser’s tabs or settings and the same goes for the iPhone’s Safari browser. Although both platforms provide a quite fast access to the browser’s tabs and/or settings, none of them was as fast as the new mobile Firefox. I like this new approach of mobile browsing experience and I could probably get used to it very soon.

Furthermore, there is a zoom-when-tap-a-textfield feature where the browser zooms in the tapped input field so that you can easier check what you type (keep in mind that this very first version of Firefox for mobile is available for phones with a 800×480 pixel resolution screens which makes things a little bit crowded when it comes down to the 3.5 inch screen). And of course there is the all-time-classic double-tap-zooming.

Lastly, there couldn’t be a mobile Firefox without having mobile add-ons! There are currenlty 40 or so available add-ons. I ‘ve already tried the Mozilla Mobile Add-ons Challenge award winner, TwitterBar by Christopher Finke. Have you?

The first one (foursquare) which is available on both iPhone App Store and Android Market is the one that, in my opinion, is the predominant candidate for this convergence. The second one (Gowalla), looks a lot like foursquare but outcomes foursquare when it comes to the user interface (for the time being..) which is definitely far more attractive. However both of them can be considered as the best location-based social app. The latter (rally) is the newest member of the “location” family and it claims that it brings real friends together by utilizing some unique concepts like the “home” location. I didn’t have the chance to use rally but to what I ‘ve heard, rally is taking a long shot here by refreshing/filtering your social network and I am sure it will be discussed a lot in the near future.

Do you like/use/prefer/enjoy/dislike/etc. any of these apps? The sure thing is, we ‘ll see more apps like these coming up and there is nothing you can do to stop this. :P