Back when the iPad was still just a rumor, the Wall Street Journal reported that one of the features that Apple had been working on with their upcoming tablet was the ability to recognize users by face. One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share

There have been an increasing number of rumors about the next generation iPad which is expected to launch sometime in early 2012. Digitimes is the source for many of these reports, but some of the claims are becoming increasingly questionable

BGR reports that Apple is planning to launch a completely redesigned iPhone in the fall of next year, following the trend set by the iPhone 4S of new hardware being released later in the year as opposed to the mid-year timeframe used previously. According the report, the next iPhone will utilize an aluminum back panel rather than the glass found on the iPhone 4 and 4S.

China Daily reports ( via Electronista ) that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn is investing $1.1 billion to nearly double the size of a recently-opened iPhone manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou, China, banking on continued strong growth of iPhone sales. The base will be centered on the Foxconn Science Park in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan, increasing its current production lines to 95, said the Henan provincial development and reform commission during a conference.

Reuters reports that Apple has been fined the equivalent of $1.2 million in Italy over issues related to warranty disclosures. According to the report, Italy's antitrust regulators ruled that Apple has not been providing adequate disclosures about the two free years of product warranty assistance required under Italian law, while also pushing customers to purchase AppleCare extended warranties without disclosing that many of the benefits overlap the standard warranty. The authority said Apple Sales International, Apple Italia and Apple Retail Italia did not properly inform customers that they were entitled to two years of free assistance under Italian law

Digitimes reports that Apple's suppliers are set to begin preparing materials for the new Apple television set during the first quarter of 2012, with the company reportedly targeting a launch for the second or third quarter of the year. Apple is said to be initially working on 32-inch and 37-inch sizes

FocusTaiwan reports ( via 9to5Mac ) that Apple pushing its manufacturing partners to meet deadlines that would allow the company to launch the iPad on Steve Jobs' birthday, February 24th. A local Chinese-language newspaper reported Friday that iPad3 might be launched on Feb.

Intuit today sent out an email to its Quicken for Mac customers providing an update on the company's efforts to develop a version of Quicken 2007 compatible with OS X Lion. We noted earlier this year that Intuit was looking for a way to make Quicken 2007 compatible with Lion following Apple's discontinuation of Rosetta support for PowerPC-based applications like Quicken.

Following Apple's lead in pulling out of Macworld Expo several years ago, Microsoft today announced that next month's keynote presentation at CES in Las Vegas will be the company's last at the major consumer electronics show.

Squeezing in one last release before Christmas, Apple today seeded developers with an updated version of OS X 10.7.3. The new version, known as Build 11D36, comes with no documented known issues and is said to include iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight and Safari as focus areas for developer testing. The delta version of the new build for updating from OS X 10.7.2 weighs in at 986 MB, while a combo version good for updating from any previous version of OS X Lion weighs in at 1.2 GB