Research in Motion Ltd. has plans to introduce a tablet in November to compete with Apple’s increasingly popular iPad tablet, according to Bloomberg’s sources. The device, which is going to be called “Blackpad”, will cost around the same as the iPad, starting at $499.At around the same dimensions as Apple’s tablet, the Blackpad will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth that will allow you to connect to your BlackBerry’s Internet.

“They can’t wait for a second generation of devices from Apple or they’ll fall too far behind,” Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw Inc., told Bloomberg.

Several other companies, like Microsoft for example, have also been rushing to come out with their tablet to rival the iPad.

“With the success of the iPad, RIM faces an uphill battle,” said Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst William Power, who has “a ‘neutral’ rating on RIM’s stock”. “RIM really has yet to demonstrate that it can roll out touchscreen technology to match the leaders in the space, most noticeably Apple.”

RIM is also betting that its tablet will become the favorite for its e-mail capabilities and for the corporate love that it’s BlackBerry smart-phone receives.

The U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) has been in the news a lot as of recently, by sending out subpoenas to 5,000 BitTorrent users who illegally obtained a copy of The Hurt Locker and other movies. Turns out, the USCG is now being labeled “pirates” as it appears the lawyer group has stolen, and still currently being used in an altered form, a competitor’s website.

TorrentFreak says that the USCG website listed its competitor’s phone number and the same copyright text located at the bottom of the page. When contacted by TorrentFreak, the Copyright Enforcement Group had no idea that its website had been blatantly stolen and copied.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are not associated with the US Copyright Group and they are not authorized to use Copyright Enforcement Group materials,” said a Copyright Enforcement Group representative.

The representative also told the website that the USCG would be receiving a cease and desist order from the Copyright Enforcement Group.

In the Barracuda Labs 2010 midyear security report, Google was shown to give twice as much malware than Microsoft’s Bing, Google.com, and Yahoo! combined.

The report was taken during a two month period with analysis reviews over 5.5 million search results and 25,000 trending topics on Twitter. The purpose, as reported Net-Security, was to “analyze trending topics on popular search engines to understand the scope of the problem and to identify the types of topics used by malware distributors.”

In the report, which you can view here, Google distributes the most malware with 69 percent over Yahoo!’s 18 percent, Bing’s 12 percent, and Twitter’s 1 percent.

More than 25 million Twitter accounts were analyzed to measure account behavior on Twitter to model normal user behavior and find features that are strong indicators of malicious account use. The three key areas for Barracuda Labs review are:  Twitter Crime Rate, True Twitter Users, and Tweet Number.

The report found that as Twitter activity increases, the more tweets that are being written, and casual users are being more active. As the casual users increases, so does the malicious activity. Half of Twitter users tweet less than once a day, with one and then users tweeting five or more times daily, with 30 percent of Twitter accounts being deserted accounts. Almost half of Twitter users only follow five or less accounts, and only one of ten are following over 100 people.

YouTube has caved in and increased its uploaded video length limit, one of the most requested changes to the Google-owned video-sharing service.

“Without question, the number one requested feature by our creators is to upload videos longer than 10 minutes. We’ve heard you, and today we’re pleased to announce that we’ve increased the upload limit to 15 minutes,” said Joshua Siegel, YouTube’s project manager, in an official blog post on the website.

The length of uploaded YouTube videos is restricted due to the amount of copyrighted material that the website has to combat. The concern for the limit has decreased as Google has improved YouTube’s Content ID system, which will automatically flag copyrighted content.

TG Daily commented on the fact that even though YouTube’s video length has increased, the max file size limit remains the same. So videos can be 15 seconds, but still have to remain under 100 MB in size.

One thing that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has always been great at is admitting whether or not another company has struck gold with a product, and following the trend of the times.

Ballmer has been adamant about Microsoft’s venture into tablets, like he is with anything Microsoft-related, and told financial analysts that Microsoft would be entering the tablet scene with “full guns” and that the Microsoft-manufactured tablet would be running a version of Windows, presumably a variant of Windows 7.

“They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready,” Ballmer told the conference, not giving any details. “It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch.” Ballmer also noted that his company’s goal was not to only deliver products, but “to deliver products that people want to buy.”

As to how many iPads have been sold, Ballmer said, “they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.”

Tough luck if you are trying to search or browse on any Google-owned website in China, as Google.com and the rest of the search giant’s companies are no longer accessible. It is still unclear on whether or not Google or the Chinese government blocked the access. A spokesperson for Google had no immediate comment on the service blockage.

According to Reuters, some users reported no problems accessing the search engine on Twitter earlier today, and then some have had no luck accessing the website at all.

The fight between the Chinese Government and Google is no stranger to the news when Google decided that it would stop giving access to China and that it would no longer censor search results. It appeared as if everything was alright when China granted Google a one-year approval license to keep its operations going in China.

This is the first time that Google has said that its services have been “fully blocked”. Google defines this as a 67 to 100 percent blockage.

Update: All systems are go for Google in China, as the search engine has said that the non-accessibility was just an error and all Google-owned websites should be working.

According to sources close with The Wall Street Journal, Google is currently in talks with several developers of popular online games to create a “broader” social-networking website that could compete with Facebook. Google recently took stake in Zynga Game Network Inc., one of the developers that is negotiating with.

It is uncertain when Google plans to launch the gaming offering, and the plans are not finalized, but sources close say that the games and its developers will have something to do with a social-networking project that the Mountain View, California company is working on.

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt declined to comment, or confirm, the development of a new social-networking service or the social games that it would include, rumored to be called “Google Me”. “The world doesn’t need a copy of the same thing,” Schmidt said when asked if the new Google service would be anything like Facebook.

A spokesperson for Facebook said that the social-networking company wouldn’t comment or speculate on Google’s new venture, but said that Facebook has expected new efforts in the social-networking scene, and “looks forward” to the competition.

Intel is currently developing new technology that would allow the transfer of the entire printed catalog of the United States Library of Congress in a minute and a half. The library is currently the largest in the world, in terms of shelf-space, with the most books.

At an event this past week, Intel detailed its breakthrough with the new technology, also marking its milestone of 50 gigabits per second. Silicon photonics, the combination of optical technology with the more traditional silicon chip manufacturing, also has the potential to transfer a lot faster than 50 gigabits per second.

Intel CTO Justin Rattner explained, during the press event this week, that turning data into light and then back again will be affordable, and will be essential in the years to come. High definition movies, lossless audio, and HD photos will be pushing copper wiring to the limit as soon as chips start hitting 10 gigabit transfer speeds.

The process is done by transferring data by conversion of electrons into photons. Electrons are used to power computers, microwaves, atomic bombs, and just about anything else that has anything to do with technology. Intel’s photonic technology engineers the data into laser streams as large as your fingernail. These streams travel through fiber-optic cables and are decoded back into electrons from light.

Gizmodo reports that the speeds that Intel announced will allow you to download an HD film in about a second. If Intel reaches its goal of 1 terabit per second, then you would be able to download three seasons of your favorite television show in roughly the same amount of time — one second.

Intel says to have the technology deployed in mid-decade. We’ve seen Intel and other chipmakers come up with some pretty cool technology, that never sees the light of day (no pun intended), so it will be interesting to see if consumers will be able to get their hands on this Jetsons-like technology.

Barack Obama, following Bill Clinton, is now the second US president to be featured in a sports video game. Clinton was featured in the cult hit NBA Jams, while Obama will be featured in the Electronic Art’s upcoming Madden NFL 11.

In opposed to Madden NFL 10′s bland and muted celebration footage, the newest installment of the Madden franchise will end its finale with the winning Super Bowl team meeting Obama and giving him the #44 jersey. The #44 is significant because Obama is the 44th United States President. EA is definitely trying to turn winning the Super Bowl into an “memorable” virtual event, as Neowin put it.

Source: IGN [via Neowin]