Reports have surfaced saying that Apple has begun talking to television component makers, lending credence to the oft-repeated rumor that an Apple-branded TV set may be in the works. Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, predicts it may arrive sometime this year.

The Apple TV set is one of the more persistent rumors surrounding the company, and there’s no doubt Apple is interested in the market—Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson said Jobs wanted to “…do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant.”

However, there is some speculation as to whether Apple will enter the market at all. The Apple TV, a digital media receiver designed to feed content to a television, hasn’t sold particularly well since its introduction in 2007. And it’s often been stated that Apple won’t enter a market unless it can revolutionize it—as they did with portable music players and smartphones.

So then the question becomes, can Apple revolutionize the television market? One of the biggest issues is content, and analysts see three potential scenarios: Apple could take the TiVo model of providing hardware but not content, model a set-top box and pull content from providers such as Hulu and Netflix, or adopt a paid-content provider model where Apple collects monthly fees for custom content.

According to industry experts, producing a TV isn’t a quick proposition—most take a year to design and produce—but it’s not impossible to imagine Apple pulling off a product release late in 2012.

Although Samsung has chosen to hold off on unveiling the Galaxy S III at the Mobile World Congress event this month, it looks like there may be some exciting news from the mobile phone giant after all. Here’s what we think might be happening:

Galaxy Nexus: The popular Galaxy Nexus might be receiving a slight upgrade. Rumors include a CPU bump to 1.5GHz (from 1.2GHz in the current model) and an increase in camera resolution to 8MP.

Galaxy S II Plus: The Galaxy S II may also get some attention in the form of a faster and slightly improved version known as the Galaxy S II Plus. It’s rumored to have a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and a 4.5” Super AMOLED Plus display, in contrast to the Galaxy S II’s dual-core 1GHz CPU and 4.3” screen.

Tablets: Reports have surfaced that two as-of-yet unannounced Samsung tablets have recently received Wi-Fi certification. One of these may also include a quad-core CPU, which would certainly be a step up for a mobile device.

These updates sound intriguing, although they are of course rumors and are wholly unsubstantiated by Samsung. The next few months could prove to be interesting for the company, especially with the recent news of Apple losing their bid to ban the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and Galaxy Nexus in Germany. We’ll definitely be watching Samsung’s presentation at the Mobile World Congress event later this month closely.

Security software company Symantec reports that 13 Android apps, including several listed in the official Android Market, contain what could be considered to be malware.

The malware in question is called “Android.Counterclank”, and Symantec claims it to be capable of harvesting user information and making unauthorized changes to a user’s Android device, such as adding bookmarks to the web browser. Users of the apps in question reported having a new search icon randomly added to their device’s home screen that displayed a page very similar to the Google search page when opened.

There is some disagreement as to whether or not Android.Counterclank should be classified as malware. Free, ad-supported apps are far from unusual in the Android Market, and ad networks are notorious for toeing the line between permissible advertising and invasion of user privacy. Lookout Security, which focuses on Android security issues, believes Symantec’s accusation to be overblown and stated that Counterclank’s behavior is mirrored by as many as 10 competing ad networks.

Here is a list of apps containing the Counterclank software:

• Counter Elite Force
• Counter Strike Ground Force
• CounterStrike Hit Enemy
• Heart Live Wallpaper
• Hit Counter Terrorist
• Stripper Touch girl
• Balloon Game
• Deal & Be Millionaire
• Wild Man
• Pretty women lingerie puzzle
• Sexy Girls Photo Game
• Sexy Girls Puzzle
• Sexy Women Puzzle

Although Android.Counterclank may turn out to not be especially damaging, it serves as a reminder to be aware of what you choose to download on your smartphone or tablet. And be honest with yourself: is “Sexy Women Puzzle” really worth having if it comes with free malware?

Although Apple’s education-focused event announcing textbook sales through the iBooks store occurred less than two weeks ago, industry analysts report that more than 350,000 textbooks have been sold in the iBook format. Additionally, as many as 90,000 copies of Apple’s textbook authoring tool have been downloaded.

In an event on January 19, 2012, Apple announced a new initiative to bring textbooks to iOS devices, with an obvious focus on the iPad. Similar to their previous efforts to bring computers into schools, this new announcement seems to be an effort to put iPads into the hands of students across America—and if early sales numbers are any indication, they might succeed, at least in the K-12 education system.

However, many believe the push to digital textbooks in university curriculums will be an uphill battle, with the primary concerns being the differing economic situation of students and the sheer quantity of textbooks used by most colleges. A spokesperson for Barnes and Noble’s college textbook division was quoted as saying, ““In a lecture hall of 250 students, all with different economic concerns, one might have an iPad, another a PC, another a print rental…. We’re moving into a digital world, but we have a long way to go.”

Unlike middle and high schools where school districts increasingly provide technology such as laptops to students to facilitate learning, most colleges expect students to buy their own equipment, which makes standardization difficult. A textbook can’t be offered solely in digital form if some students don’t have access to such a device. Additionally, while K-12 education often uses a fairly limited number of textbooks and other materials, university education demands a wide variety of textbooks, which presents an obvious problem in digitizing every textbook a college student might need.

In any case, Apple’s early sales numbers look promising, and most reviews of the textbooks themselves have been positive. The shift to a digital learning world is coming—it’s just taking longer than we would like.

Before long, your computer is going to be watching your every move—Microsoft is reportedly working on integrating the Kinect motion sensor into laptops. The Kinect, which is a special Xbox peripheral that uses a camera and microphone to watch and listen to a user for commands, has been successfully hacked to work on a computer by hobbyists, but the device would need to be modified significantly to work in a portable product such as a laptop.

The Kinect was released in early November 2010, but hasn’t been overly successful as a gaming controller due to fairly poor participation by game studios. Its uses as a user interface controller have been decidedly more interesting; only a few weeks after the Kinect hit shelves, videos were posted online of people using the device to play a piano as they tapped imaginary keys on a desk, control robotic arms, and navigate through web pages.

Microsoft has been surprisingly supportive of open-source Kinect products, and has released an SDK to allow programmers to more easily access its functions. This news about integrating a Kinect sensor into laptops could lead to Minority Report-esque interfaces in the future, with users speaking commands to their computers and businessmen in airports waving their arms around to view documents on their laptops.

Microsoft provided no estimates as to when we might actually see laptops with motion tracking features, but we do know that they will be licensing the technology to manufacturers rather than building a solution in-house.

New rumors have surfaced suggesting that Apple will host an event in February where they will announce their next revision of their famous iPad line of tablet computers. Some have suggested that an unveiling event may happen on February 24th as it would then coincide with the late Steve Jobs’ birthday.

Additionally, the rumors suggest that iOS 5.1 will be introduced alongside the iPad 3 and presumably be shipped with the devices. Recent inclusions in developer builds of iOS 5.1 have alluded to support for a next-gen Apple A6 chip. Indeed it is expected that the iPad 3 will ship with an improved A6 chip with quad-core capabilities.

The rumors come from a japanese website that claim the announcement will come in early February while actual shipments of the device will come in March. The delay seems reasonable as production of a third generation iPad would be halted during the Chinese New Year.

Last year, the iPad 2 was made available for purchase starting at 5PM on March 11th.