Apple’s known to reveal new products at their trademark events, typically taking place in the first quarter.  And according to AllThingsD, the company is not holding an event this month.  But they will be holding one in March, where they will launch the iPad 3.

Soures claim that the event will happen during the first week of March in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big events such as this.

The iPad 3 is “a device similar in form factor to the iPad 2, but running a much faster chip, sporting an improved graphics processing unit, and featuring a 2048×1536 Retina Display — or something close to it,” said the report.

Apple denied Samsung Galaxy 10.1N ban, again

Apple’s appeal to ban Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1N is once again denied by the German court.  If you recall, Apple sued Samsung, accusing the Korean manufacturer of blatantly copying the iPad with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.  The Samsung tablet was subsequently banned from being sold in Germany.  So Samsung did the next best thing: they redesigned the tablet and called it the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N.  Apple wasn’t happy with that–they believed that Samsung just changed the name but it’s still the same infringing device, but German courts do not agree with the iPad maker.

Last week, the Munich Regional Court rejected Apple’s request to ban sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet and the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in Germany and today, the Dusseldorf Regional Court rejected Apple’s bid for an emergency ruling.

“The Galaxy Tab 10.1N now sufficiently differs from the form Apple has registered as a design right,” the court said in a statement. “Apple’s iPads and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1N now are two competing products of equal value.”

What makes the 10.1N different from the original Galaxy Tab are: the silver boarder surrounding the tablet, in landscape orientation it doesn’t have any physical buttons on the left and right side but have speakers on both sides located on the silver boarder, still on landscape the power and volume buttons are on top as well as the port for a headset, and the mic and power port are located at the bottom.

Apple Calls For Help

Apple has always been the aggressor in filing court cases but with consecutive court losses, especially the one against Motorola Mobility, they’re getting frustrated and now asks for help.

According to Mac Observer, Apple wrote a letter to the EU’s European Telecommunications Standards Institute pleading for it to set guidelines for how patents that cover industry standards are licensed.  Apple’s legal team claims that the lack of licensing standards led to lawsuits that could’ve been avoided if there were guidelines set.

“It is apparent that our industry suffers from a lack of consistent adherence to FRAND principles in the cellular standards arena,” Apple’s intellectual property boss, Bruce Watrous, said.

“This common base, as between two negotiating parties, should be no higher than the industry average sales price for a basic communications device that is capable of both voice and data communications,” Watrous added.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute has not commented on Apple’s letter.

Apple Supplier Got “Swagged”

According to a report from 9to5mac, Foxconn, the controversial supplier in the tech industry, was hacked by a group going by the name of SwaggSec.  The hackers released a dump of Foxconn internal information, including a mail server login/password dump and logins to various online procurement sites and Intranets in retaliation to the horrid working conditions at Foxconn factories.

SwaggSec addressed a letter to Foxconn, it’s quite long but here’s the first part, it kind of summarizes what they want to tell Foxconn.

## Hacking Today for an Entertaining Tomorrow.
Users of Cyberspace,
So Foxconn thinks they got ‘em some swagger because they work with the Big Boys from Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple? Fool, You don’t know what swagger is. They say you got your employees all worked up, committing suicide ‘n stuff. They say you hire chinese workers ’cause you think the taiwanese are elite. We got somethin’ served up good…real good. Your not gonna’ know what hit you by the time you finish this release. Your company gonna’ crumble, and you deserve it.

But Foxconn isn’t the only one that’s been targeted.  Protesters are planning on making Apple Stores their venue for their rally against the working conditions in Foxconn.  They want better working conditions for the workers laboring on their beloved iDevices.  Yeah, the protesters are Apple users.  Think of it this way, these fanbois don’t want the Foxconn scandal to tarnish Apple’s name because they love their iDevices so much.  Either way, Apple will come out sparkling.