With Apple’s stock climbing through the roof, so is it’s place in worldwide smartphone shipments. Apple is now second place in shipments against RIM (research in motion). As the iPhone’s sales continue to rise and move to new grounds with Verizon Wireless, Nokia could fall from it’s number one spot in worldwide sales.

Nokia, which has been around since the cell phone stone ages (seriously like only 10 years), Apples goal is in sight to become the top phone maker worldwide. According to Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped more than 14 million phones in the third quarter of this year. RIM only sold and shipped between 8 to 12 million Blackberries in comparison. The game could change by early 2011, when Verizon and Apple seal the deal and start selling more iPhones to another huge network.

With demand extremely high, and prices becoming increasingly competitive, Apple may become the new Walmart on technology on day. Lets see what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve in 2011.

Who said Flash would fade away? Adobe may have some very good news coming it’s way as a possible partnership with Microsoft could revive the companies confidence in the future of the web. Flash could still have a place for itself on you monitors and phones.

When CEO Steve Ballmer of Microsoft stopped by Adobe Systems Inc., everyone smelled a takeover. It turned out to be more of a partnership between the two companies that both won’t leverage against the competitors. The areas which these companies seek to dominate are mobile and cloud computing.

Apple and Google have both taken stock in their gains in both cloud and mobile. Microsoft and Adobe hope to gain some ground by making an all-star team. Micorsoft could help Adobe with more integration of Flash into mobile devices. Adobe was hammered after Apple’s Steve Job’s claimed that Flash had too many vulnerabilities and that HTML 5 was really the future.

A partnership between Microsoft and Adobe could show some gain against Apple and Google but they are both years behind in the fast-paced mobile world.

It’s almost staggering when you finally see Microsoft release a new product, especially when Apple dominates the media stream with all their new releases. Microsoft had a pretty big week for the unforgotten company. This week, Microsoft unveiled Internet Explorer 9, a new look for their Office software, and a developer tools set for Windows Phone 7.

There is no doubt that Microsoft is now in the shadow of a giant Apple. They have also fallen behind with their browser. With the release of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is trying to bridge the gap between Mozilla’s Firefox and the powerful Google Chrome. Some new features that IE 9 will come packed with include tag tabs, faster speed, support for HTML 5, and what they are calling “Jumplists,” which allow easy access to certain tasks that you can set.

The anticipated Windows Phone is starting to show some light by allowing its devs to download a new tool set which include the Windows Phone Emulator, Expression Blend 4, and XNA Game Studio. The holiday season is going to be insane with companies scrabbling for market share that is eager to get the latest product.

The Microsoft/Yahoo transition is in full force and so far moving very smoothly. Last week the organic search on Yahoo was switched to Bing’s results. This week began the long and hopefully smooth process of moving paid advertisers on Yahoo to Microsoft Adcenter.

Starting October 1st, Microsoft Adcenter will be the central platform to handle paid advertising on both Bing and Yahoo. This part of the transition involves moving millions of campaigns which include keywords, ads, and statistics from Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform to Microsofts.

Everyone knows that Google has dominated the Search Engine space from the beginning. With Microsoft’s increased exposure on Yahoo, the company is expected to gain 26 to 30 percent of the market. The competition is getting better and better in the Search industry.

It’s almost official. Apple’s rumored iTV platform will be on store shelves in September. Once named Apple TV, the new platform now called iTV will be running iOS and is expected to change the way we watch tv.

The rumor came from Digg founder, Kevin Rose, who posted on his blog that the revamped Apple product will take the world by storm before everyone else’s version of TV/internet connect-ability gets released. It’s sure to be a hot item for the holiday season and should put up some sharp competition against Google TV as well as some TV manufactures new App upgrades.

Apple iTV will cost $99 which is pretty darn reasonable as it will just allow any feature you have on your iPod,iPad, and iPhones. Get ready for a crazy holiday season with tons of tech upgrades for our living rooms.

Every once in a while we are a little paranoid about our reputations being scarred via the web. Googles CEO, Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks “every young person will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends social media sites.” Makes you a little worried about the picture you were tagged in, huh?

It’s no secret that Google stores data about each search we preform for a nine month period. But is it really gone forever? We have seen person reach some sort of importance in the media only to be squashed by some photo they were in several years earlier.

Is it possible that Google is not abiding by all the privacy concerns that all of us have? We seem to think so. Especially when the CEO tells us that we will someday have to change our names.

The good news today is that the Search Alliance is starting to roll out with Bing and Yahoo. This will allow sort of a partnership (alliance) between the other two Search Engines to compete and fight back at the evil empire. Maybe we all won’t have to live under Googles rules much longer.

Apple is back in the news but its not for any of their products. A global supply manager for the company is accused of accepting over a million dollars in kickbacks from the companies Asian suppliers.

Paul Devine, the 37 year old ex-employee, has plead not guilty in a San Jose, CA court room. Devine is also being hit with a civil suit from Apple Inc. after he accepted the million dollars in payment.

The overseas company involved in the kickbacks is Pegatron, which is the parent company to Kaedar Electronics. They have admitted in paying commission between 2005 and 2008.

So far the Apple Inc and Pegatron are still doing business after this incident was discovered.

As the holidays approach, so does the gadget releases. Apple is getting ready for it’s seasonal release of the product it hopes to be under everyones Christmas tree. The rumors floating are all regarding the release of the new supped-up, Apple TV.

Engadget has it’s sources and they were told that Apple will be “releasing a $99 version of the set top box.” The new Apple TV will have just about everything the iPhone does when it comes to apps. Engadget claims that Apple will also change the name of the device to iTV. The name change may be the result of the Cupertino company trying to wash it’s hands of the older version that was considered to be the companies hobby product.

iTV will be coming along side Google’s released version called Google TV. The competition in the mobile smartphone world may not have been enough for the two giant companies that they are now both fully focused on our living room experience.

It a very competitive market in mobile lately and the phone that really had the throne up until a couple years ago has just stepped up it’s game. RIM has just introduced the Blackberry Torch 9800 to keep it’s loyal customers happy.

So let’s get down to specs. The new Blackberry smartphone weighs about 5.7 oz and sports a 3.2 inch touch display. The resolution is pretty mighty for Blackberry, glowing at 480 x 360. Blackberry didn’t completely drop the keyboard, the phone features a slide-out one.

Other features include multitasking, an all-in-one email box which is great for the business professionals. The phone will be priced at the norm, $199 with a two year contract with AT&T. The choice is yours!

Wanna know about our military’s tactics, sources, and operations in Afghanistan? Well go ahead and join in on treason with those over at WikiLeaks. The editor of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, released over 92,000 military documents that compromise our fellow americans fighting in the war.

While Mr. Assange believes he has not compromised national security, he certainly has put the Afgan intelligence in harms way by releasing names of those that have helped us to fight the Taliban. While Mr. Assange isn’t violating any laws by publishing the material, the source that gave it to them will be arrested and punished.

As much as I back the First Amendment and I think the crew at WikiLeaks are idiots, here is the one example we were all looking for of how it can hurt us.