Stories by: Ian Paul

Just when we thought the $99 Hewlett-Packard TouchPad was gone forever, the tablet that refuses to die is coming back for one last sale, according to online reports. A limited quantity of refurbished TouchPads will reportedly go on sale at HP's eBay Store starting at 6 p.m. US Central Time (7 p.m. Eastern) on Sunday, December 11.

Some iPhone 4S users are still complaining about rapid battery drain following Apple's iOS 5.0.1 system update that began rolling out to users Thursday.  IOS 5.0.1 was supposed to fix several bugs that caused some iPhone 4S and older iPhone devices to rapidly discharge their batteries. The update also brings more multitouch gestures to the original iPad, several bug fixes for iCloud, and improved Siri voice recognition capability for Australian accents.

Apple isn't the only company reportedly plotting to revolutionize the television set, Sony is also on the case, according to company CEO Howard Stringer.

Amazon appears to have quietly acquired Yap Inc., a speech recognition start-up company, fueling speculation that the online giant is getting ready to produce a voice command service such as Apple's Siri or Google's Voice Actions for Android.

Six weeks after announcing Timeline, Facebook fans are still waiting for the social network to roll out its new profile layout that helps you organize and surface your past Facebook activity. CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Timeline "the story of your life" and a "new way to express who you are" during an Apple-inspired keynote presentation at Facebook's F8 developer conference in September. At the time, Facebook said Timeline, which will replace the current user Profile view, would be available in a "few weeks," but over a month and a half (and one lawsuit later) users are still waiting.

Google Maps is moving you off the street and inside local businesses with a new feature called Business Photos that shows you 360-degree images of store interiors using Street View technology. Business Photos lets you peek inside select stores in 10 U.S. cities and surrounding areas including Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C. The new feature is also available in Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand and the U.K.

Windows XP users, your favorite operating system is a decade old, and if you're still using it, you're not cool anymore, at least according to Microsoft. That's the software giant's recent take on its aging OS, which is still more popular than Vista or Windows 7 worldwide. Microsoft is hoping the final cadre of users hanging on to XP will start to dump it and move to the more modern Windows 7.

Hackers looking to port Apple's Siri digital assistant to iOS devices other than the iPhone 4S claim to have a rudimentary version of Siri running on the original iPad. Twitter user Jackoplane recently posted screenshots online showing Siri fully integrated into the iPad's operating system. The only problems is Siri can't do much on the iPad right now since most of Siri's processing takes place on Apple servers. Similar to the version of Siri on the iPhone 4 that hacker Steve Troughton-Smith had up and running earlier in October, the iPad doesn't appear to be able to interface with Apple's servers.

Nintendo 3DS and Wii console owners will get a number of updates in late 2011, including Hulu Plus on both devices and 3D video recording on the 3DS, Nintendo announced Friday. Hulu Plus will land on the Wii and 3DS by the end of the year, while Nintendo promises 3DS owners they will be able to record up to ten minutes of 3D video by the end of November.

Will Blackberry-maker Research In Motion finally lay out clear plans for its next-generation devices on Tuesday during the company's Blackberry DevCon Americas developer conference in San Francisco? That's what some critics are wondering as RIM attempts to overhaul its image following a number of setbacks in recent months. Most recently, the company's reputation was battered from a multi-day service outage leaving Blackberry fans all over the globe without messaging and Internet capabilities.