TomTom unveiled a new version of its iPhone and iPad app at CES 2012 that utilizes data from social networks like Facebook and Twitter to provide users with enhanced navigation to friends, places, and events. The press release does not provide much information on exactly how TomTom is using social network data, but the company claimed it would be a source for turn-by-turn navigation features baked into the current iOS apps. TomTom will obviously have to avoid user-generated data that might be inaccurate, but it is unclear what specific data the app will access

Two Mac developers have created an alerts service , which you can sign up for free right now, that will let you know the very moment that tickets go on sale for this year's WWDC in San Francisco. Just put in your cell phone number, send back one code for verification, and then you'll get a text the instant tickets show up, which should give you a nice head start on making sure you get in the door for the conference

The Wall Street Journal reports that data from executive compensation tracking firm Equilar shows Apple CEO Tim Cook set to see a major windfall during the first quarter of 2012 with the vesting of two separate restricted stock unit grants currently valued at nearly $100 million. Of all the Silicon Valley executives who have a vesting event scheduled for the first quarter of 2012, the one who stands to reap the most is Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook, the study found.

As a social network, Twitter has become a big player in the last year with over 200 million active account holders accounting for over 1.6 billion search queries each day. Unlike networks such as Facebook, Twitter exists to connect users to the combined knowledge of the world by allowing them to follow friends, experts, companies and celebrities

USA Today takes a look at the effect rumors of an Apple television set are having on expectations for next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with the industry's existing players working hard to avoid to being caught flat-footed by Apple as mobile phone manufacturers in many cases were by the iPhone. While rumors have pegged the Apple television set as offering Siri-powered voice recognition and control, the new report offers a few other tidbits of information on the project including claims that the company is working to launch models of at least 42 inches and that a 50-inch model is currently in the works in the its design studio. Apple is said to be looking at a 42-inch or larger LCD TV with built-in Wi-Fi

AllThingsD reports that Apple is said to be planning a special event in New York for the end of this month. The event is reported to be for a "media-related announcement" and not for the iPad 3 or an Apple television set. According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement

Just before Christmas, shipping estimates for Apple's 12-core Mac Pro model increased to 1-3 weeks , and while that specific model does tend to occasionally see some extra lead time, the shipping delays were later noticed to have extended to nearly any customized Mac Pro order. Even as simple a customization as increasing the RAM on an "In Stock" standard Mac Pro configuration increases its shipping estimate to 1-3 weeks. Quad-core Mac Pro shipping estimate bumped to 1-3 weeks by upgrading RAM Increases in shipping estimates in Apple's online store can sometimes be indicative of an upcoming product refresh as the company draws down supplies ahead of launching the updated models

Safari running on Apple TV Over the past few days, iOS developers Steven Troughton-Smith and TheMudKip have managed to hack the 2nd generation Apple TV to run iOS apps at full resolution.

BBC reports that Apple's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, has been awarded a knighthood in the United Kingdom.

We received a tip that the following image had been posted to a Korean forum (registration required). Unfortunately, little other information was offered, but it was claimed to be an image of the upcoming iPad 3 Display panel.