This last week has been nothing short of a huge moshpit of technology news. OS X, Android, and everything in between. Check it.

New MBPs

New MacBook Pros finally went live in combination with Intel’s launch of Light Peak, which was rechristened “Thunderbolt”. I’m blown away by the specs on these suckers; the cheapest configuration has 4 GB of RAM with a 2.3 GHz i5. At the high end, you can grab 8 GB of RAM on a quad-core i7 with a 1 GB graphics card. Especially given the comparable pricing, the rationale behind the purchase of desktop machines is fading fast. Hook a monitor up to one of these guys, and you’re no longer sacrificing performance for portability. The laptop is the new desktop and the tablet is the new laptop.

I’m not Lion, this is pretty awesome

The distribution of 10.7′s developer preview is arguably a bigger deal than the new MBPs, as it’s more of a noticeable experience and will affect the entire Mac line. Lion is no doubt a phat pile of hotness, but unlike Snow Leopard, the UI changes will take a little getting used to. Interestingly enough, server capabilities are now included with all shipments; coupled with the discontinuation of the Xserve line, I see this as a shift of Apple’s server strategy to be more consumer-centric. And +1 to them for avoiding fragmentation.

Xoom drops (without Flash)

Why don't you Xoom in on this image?

The Motorola Xoom, one of the better contenders in the tablet space, has also been released – fresh with some sweet Honeycomb. Although I’ve never personally handled the device, it seems to be the man’s man of tablets with a heavy design, rough edges, and a lot of the Droid mentality surrounding it. And in a cruel twist of irony, it’s currently not shipping with Flash.

Consumer Reports still hates the iPhone

Months after bashing the AT&T iPhone over the Antennagate scandal, Consumer Reports is yet again showing no mercy for Verizon’s iPhone over the same problem. Although I have a hard time believing that Apple wouldn’t reevaluate the design and fix this *gripping* issue, I can also understand not expending too many resources on a phone that’s nearing the end of its lifecycle. And sales don’t seem to be hurting too badly.

Assange extradited to Sweden

On the political side of technology, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange was extradited to Sweden over something totally unrelated to the site.

Are you lucky enough to be ordering a new MacBook Pro? Are you adventurous enough to install Lion? Are you Xooming to Best Buy to get a tablet? Are you irritated by my parallel structure and puns?

Drop a comment.

Last week’s been full of previously whispered happenings coming to life…here’s a few of the high points.

Verizon iPhone drops

After what seems like a lifetime of waiting and thousands of blog posts, it’s finally here. The Verizon iPhone. And it broke all kinds of records, including Verizon’s first-day sales within two hours; further investigation also shows that it could have been compatible with both GSM and CDMA carriers. Now let’s stop talking about it.

iPad 2 buzz builds

Just as with the iPhone 5, it’s pretty obvious that the iPad 2 will be coming sooner rather than later. Some recent spy shots from China show a lighter display, although most of us are still in the dark in terms of what resolution the device will have. A Retina Display is all but discarded at this point; 2048 x 1536 is the current popular consensus.

The Daily finally unveiled

The Daily, News Corp’s attempt to push their content to a digital audience, launched on the 2nd. For $.99 per week or $39.99 per year, it’s not an awful price, but from what I’ve seen of the app, it doesn’t seem to be worth it. Especially with the existence of free apps among the likes of Flipboard (which also seems to be a smoother experience), I doubt most technically inclined iPad users will bite.

Bing steals from Google

Couldn’t help but chuckle at this one. After a hefty quarrel at Farsight 2011, Google’s now pointing fingers at Bing for stealing search results. Apparently they’ve been suspicious for a while, and set up a random keyword association (hiybbprqag) to a page that Bing indeed also miraculously happened to have in their database. Gasp.

IPcalypse!

Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife…we’re out of IPv4 addresses. Not strictly speaking, that is – millions are still in reserve and available for ISPs to distribute. But at some point in the near future when those are exhausted, the switch to IPv6 will be inevitable.

Drop any cash for the Verizon iPhone? Thoughts on The Daily? Building an underground bunker for when IPv4 is no more?

Thought I forgot? Joke’s on you! Because of some traveling, this is coming a little late, but last week was a pretty big one in terms of technology happenings. So here goes.

Sony

Sony’s really been at it recently – they’ve announced the next generation PSP, codenamed NGP. It’s running an impressive quad-core A9 processor, and is focusing on a new UI, location, and augmented reality. Their Xperia Play (aka “PlayStation Phone”)  has also found its way into the hands of Engadget’s team; I got a chance to play around with the device at their show and was pleased with where it’s headed. The UI was ambitious but rough, and on the hardware side, it’s a little less phenom than the NGP, with only a single core processor.

NFC and iPhone 5 rumors grow

Even though the Verizon iPhone’s been at the front of most iOS-related news, June isn’t that far away, and with it will likely be coming an iPhone 5. Commercial Times reported that production should start around May, and will turn the most shipments ever. Big surprise. There’s also been a decent amount of buzz surrounding Near Field Communications (NFC) and its eventual migration to the device - being able to tap your phone on a card reader to pay would be nothing short of awesome.

Verizon iPhone plan details surface

Might want to enlarge this.

Looks like $30 per month will get you an unlimited data plan for the iPhone on Verizon, although the newly-announced “mobile hotspot” feature will run an extra $20. I’m curious as to how strict Verizon will be about enforcing the use of jailbroken apps such as MyWi or PdaNet – possibly detect insane amounts of data and bill appropriately?

Oh, Zuck

In a debacle I find somewhat amusing, some sly fellow on the interwebz managed to gain control of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook fan page, and posted the following message:

Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011

The page was shut down.

LinkedIn’s IPO

We’ve been waiting for this one a long time: LinkedIn has finally filed their IPO. They haven’t announced the actual date of the offering yet, and have been pretty tight-lipped about the price, though most of the details should be readily available by 2011. I’m particularly interested as to how this will influence the IPO roadmaps of other prominent web companies (I’m looking at you, Facebook).

Thoughts? Itching to get ahold of the next PSP? Going to wait in line for the iPhone 5? Comment away!