Just the other day, AT&T announced that it was able to work with Sling Media in order to optimize Sling player for AT&T’s 3G network. That’s good news for consumers and all, but it appears as though AT&T might have been doing a little posturing to make itself look like the good guy. After all, Sling users were disappointed about the lack of a Sling player on the iPhone when the application had been avaiable on BlackBerry for some time – and on AT&T’s network, no less.

In November 2009, Apple launched a feature dubbed iTunes Preview, which essentially enabled people to see what music is available on iTunes from their Web browser without the need to fire up – or install – the desktop software program.

At the time, you weren’t able to actually listen to a sample of music tracks from your browser, but that changed earlier this year when Web-based audio previews were quietly added (paving the way for the imminent roll-out of iTunes.com).

This morning, Apple activated the iTunes Preview feature for iPhone / iPod Touch applications in addition.

If there is one rumor that tends to come and go and agonizes Windows Mobile fans, it’s the one about a Zune phone. Although it’s not officially confirmed, Gizmodo has it on good word that Microsoft will be introducing a Zune phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year. More specifically, it will be a Windows Mobile 7 phone with Zune features and capabilities, so it’s not a Zune phone, per se.

TDK’s main business is producing not too sexy electronic materials and data-storage media, which means the company announcing [JP] new headphones today is a rare occasion. The TH-WR700, to be marketed under Imation’s “TDK Life on Record” brand, are wireless headphones (2.4GHz) that are based on Kleer (not Bluetooth) technology.

Looking at the iPad SDK, programmers are starting to say that the new version of the iPhone OS will support video calls, file downloads, and some sort of multitasking. There’s also several other features in the SDK that won’t work with the iPad, but would be applicable to the iPhone in it’s current configuration.

Are you totally one of those home theater geeks? Do you have $29.99 to burn? Then get yourself to the appery and buy the SIM2Calc app. The app allows you to tune your high-end projector for ultimate picture quality. This also assumes that your projector is one of the expensive ones from SIM2.

Japan-based Bird Electron has announced [JP] the Ezison 100 today, a quite unusual speaker for the iPhone (or iPod touch) that’s supposed to turn those devices into some kind of electric guitar. The Ezison 100 is (hand)made in Japan, with Bird Electron saying they used mainly wood and acrylic fiber in the production process.

I could have sworn that it’s illegal to have stuff hanging from your rearview mirror in some states. Fuzzy dice, Hawaiian leis, air fresheners – all hilarious and/or kitschy, for sure. But your iPhone? Seems a bit much, although it’d be nicely positioned to use GPS features.

This one is for the the ladies: A cute, heart-shaped active speaker box for the iPhone or iPod that doubles as a dock and also offers a mirror that pops up when you open it. Aptly named iHeart [JP], the “Jewelry Box Speaker” is the brain child of a Japanese company called Marubeni Infotec.

Crying baby? There’s an App for that! (Boo!) It’s called Cry Translator, and it takes the various shouts and screams of your baby and “translates” them to proper language.

This morning, after many months of rampant speculation over the enigmatic Tablet, Apple officially invited scores of press to a special media event to be held January 27. The debut of the Tablet seems all but a given according to most reports, but there are some secondary announcements that also stand to be huge — especially the rumors that we may also see the launch of iPhone 4.0. This afternoon, Fox News “confirmed” that we’d being seeing the latest iteration of Apple’s hugely popular mobile OS for the first time. Should that be the case, there’s also a good chance we’ll see launch of a very important new feature: background applications.

First things first. While the title of the Fox News article is “Apple Tablet, iPhone 4 Launch Confirmed for January 27″, the body of the article later says that it’s “likely” that Apple will unveil those two products (along with an updated iLife suite), and also notes that Apple is known for suddenly removing features or products from their announcements at the last second — none of which makes the news sound totally concrete. That said, there are plenty of reasons why iPhone 4.0 could be making an appearance alongside the Tablet, and why it will bring background apps with it.

So we always hear about how hard it is to get an iPhone app approved by Apple, but here’s an interesting case; an 11-year old boy managed to not just write an app, but get it approved, and now he’s donating some of the proceeds from the sale of that app to a children’s hospital.

This kid didn’t just teach himself how to program, but he also managed to get the app approved, something that many adults can’t seem to manage. The app is called iSketch and it’s a drawing and painting program with your choice of brushes, and colors, along with the ability to send your drawings via email. Now 11 year old Cameron has committed to donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of his app to the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA in Westwood and Santa Monica.

Here is a product, and here is a question. The product is a steadicam for the iPhone and Flip. Certainly video on those devices is shaky enough to warrant such a product. The question, then, is this: is there anyone who cares enough about their video to want a steadicam, yet still shoots with a Flip or iPhone?

What happened to your iPhone? It broke?! How?!! Just stopped working?! Really?! You didn’t drop it in the toilet? You dropped it in the toilet, didn’t you? Ah, the truth comes out. You dropped it in the toilet.

Tingalin, the makers of the world-famous Tingalin app, have outdone themselves. Their new app, based on the magic of the Jersey Shore but not directly affiliated with the MTV show in any way features a number of useful tools for the Situation-in-training.

While the upcoming “fake tan” system is not yet in place, the app does have a nickname generator, a fist pump challenge that acts like Guitar Hero for bros, as well as a list of useful pick-up lines for meeting and wooing drunk honeys.

A full video explanation follows.

To be honest, I don’t really care which is the better smartphone (or super-duper phone): the iPhone 3GS, the Motorola Droid, HTC’s Droid Eris, Google’s Nexus One, Nokia’s N900 or the Palm Pre.

It’s just great to witness this seemingly never-ending advancements in mobile technology, both on a hardware and software level, and to see increased competition drive innovation at such rapid pace. Just compare the market today to five years ago, and you can’t help but be amazed by how far we’ve come – I still remember my epic struggles to get my previous phone (HTC S710 with Windows Mobile) to do half of what I really wanted it to.

In short: if all phone manufacturers keep on pumping out better phones, I’m a happy camper (for the record: I’m still very pleased with my iPhone 3GS as my primary device).

But comparisons will be comparisons, and MOTO Development Group this morning announced the results of its DIY touchscreen analysis, based on some touchy testing of the capacitive screens of the Nexus One, the iPhone, the Motorola Droid and HTC’s Droid Eris.

What AppMakr lacks in vowels they make up for in coolness. AppMakr is a dead easy app design engine that allows you to enter a URL or search term, pick a few images, and publish an app to the App Store in a few minutes.

The service uses RSS feeds and searches to build a comprehensive feed of your website or “personal brand” that is updated automatically. You can then push the app live for $199 or download the app to your own machine for $499.

Legendary RPG creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is working on a new game for the iPhone. In case you don’t recognize the name, he helped create a few games you might of heard of: Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy.