This week saw the first edition of the The Daily being released, the first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad. The Daily is the first application made available on the App Store as a subscription. Users will be billed directly to an iTunes account, with costs of $0.99 a week or $39.99 for an annual subscription.

 

At The Daily's launch press event, a Reuters eyewitness reported about an apparent iPad 2 sighting, complete with “front-facing camera at the top edge of the glass screen”. Reuters, not normally known to indulge in rumours, also stated that a source with knowledge of the device confirmed its existence, adding that other features could be included on the final release model. 

 

In related iPad 2 news, local retailer of the original iPad, Incredible Connection, announced that 70% of their iPad stock sold out in three days. In the press release Incredible Connection CEO, Dave Miller, also interestingly stated: “Version 2, due out in America at the end of February, will have both flash and cameras.” Miller’s statement fuels the general speculation that the iPad 2 will indeed see the light of day at the end of the month.  

 

 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Sega would not have been the only company to have a blue hedgehog mascot in the form of Sonic (who coincidentally turns 20 on 23 June 2011). Facebook at one stage considered a hedgehog mascot themselves.

 

The paper reported that Napster founder and former Facebook president, Sean Parker, had a Facebook mascot concept in mind, featuring a likeable blue hedgehog. 

 

A former Facebook employee, Ezra Callahan, wrote about it on the popular Q&A website Quora. “True story: in the very early days of Facebook, Sean Parker wanted to make Facebook’s mascot a hedgehog. We had early plans to build a local business program around each college on the site (a Yelp-like service similar to what later became Facebook Pages). As part of that, Sean wanted us to send each participating business a little blue stuffed hedgehog. Matt Cohler and I even sourced a couple companies to make them…The local business program was shelved mid 2005 (we decided a revenue product wasn’t as important after the Accel financing), and Sean let his dream of the hedgehog go with it.”