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Motorola’s new video, called Tablet Evolution, opens in a museum. First up is an Egyptian hieroglyphic tablet (good graphics, but heavy), then the Ten Commandments tablets (durable, but can’t edit), the Rosetta Stone tablet (multi-lingual support, but low-res), and on through others to Apple’s iPad (like a giant iPhone) and the Galaxy Tab (Android OS for a phone). Finally, the camera rests on a tablet covered with a cloth and on a pedestal bearing Motorola’s logo.

Motorola has certainly raised expectations. The new tablet, based on the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 or Honeycomb, will be released at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month — as will a variety of other tablets, each seeking to become an iPad slayer.

Few details are available about the Motorola tablet. Google Vice President Andy Rubin showed one at the D: Get Into Mobile Conference earlier this month, but he didn’t do a full demo and was mum about the details.

Observers indicated that the tablet Rubin held had a screen size of about 10 inches and a unique interface. Rubin mentioned that it runs on a Nvidia dual-core CPU, and noted its 3D image-processing capability as he showed a new version of Google Maps.

For months, the iPad has had the tablet category almost entirely to itself. In November, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab started selling, and, according to Samsung, has reached sales of a million units — although it’s not clear if those are all to end users or if the number includes distribution channels.

Now with CES only a few weeks away, the battle of the videos and the leaked reports has begun. While not matching the production value or humor of Motorola’s teaser video, a company called Notion Ink has released a basic demo video of its new tablet.

T-Mobile launched its much-awaited second Android phone Wednesday, the myTouch 3G, with a pre-sale program for existing customers. The company said existing customers who take advantage of the pre-sales period, which lasts until July 28, can get delivery before the device is available nationally through stores beginning Aug 5.

Chief Marketing Officer Denny Marie Post emphasized that T-Mobile sees the myTouch as providing customers with “boundless ways to make their phone a true expression, and extension, of themselves.” These personalization touches include the ability to modify the device with new widgets, icons and wallpapers, as well as adding any of the thousands of applications available at Google’s Android Market.

The carrier also said it will launch a new app next month through the Android Market, called AppPack, that will help customers chose apps to personalize the myTouch.

Pre-designed shell patterns will soon be available through retail and online channels, and a dedicated Web site will allow customers to design their own shell. The customized shell can include a photo, a graphic design, or a selection of shapes, icons or logos.

Ramon Llamas, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said he doesn’t think the “heavens parted and the angels sang” over the birth of this newest Android device from T-Mobile.

But, he said, it is a “lot better than the G1″ for people who see smartphones and similar devices as expressions of themselves. The G1, he noted, has been called “the Jay Leno phone” because of its “big chin” where the keyboard slides out, although he described the features as “pretty darned good.”

But he said the design of myTouch 3G is sleeker, and the features and overall experience “hit all the right notes.”

Facebook will again tweak its privacy controls to give its 200 million users simplified control over what they want the public and their friends to see. In the past months, Firefox has added multiple privacy controls that confused and angered its members.

Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said Wednesday that Facebook will begin a series of tests to simplify choices. “With the test we’re announcing today, we’ll move toward simplifying these settings and putting them all on the same page,” Kelly said.

Facebook users will soon begin to see the move to new settings. During the process, Facebook will ask offer a Transition Tool so users can select their level of sharing.

The settings will be tested by 40,000 U.S. Facebook users in week one, using one of the six versions of the Transition Tool. Tests in week two will include 80,000 users worldwide.

In week three, Facebook will slowly begin rolling out the final product to all users.

“I think that Facebook very much needed to revamp its user interface, the many mechanisms that deal with privacy controls,” said Ray Valdes, a Gartner analyst. “This had become complex due to a steady accumulation of features over the years that needed to be put back in order toward a more cohesive user experience.”

The slew of updates and changes to the social-networking site included the “everyone” option in March, which allowed users to share all information, including photos and posts. Last week, Facebook launched a beta version of the Publisher Privacy Control, which allows users to decide who can see their published content on a per-post basis.

Combined, those features enable users to allow some posts to be seen by everyone and other posts to be seen only by selected friends.

Global Gaming Factory X AB, a Swedish software company, has agreed to acquire The Pirate Bay video-sharing Web site — whose owners are under fire for brokering copyrighted content — for nearly $7.8 million.

Pirate Bay is one of the largest video-sharing sites on the Internet. The site has more than 20 million visitors and more than one billion searches per month. The four Swedish men who launched the infamous Web site are behind bars. In April, the men were ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages to copyright holders for infringing on their intellectual property. The men have appealed the verdict.

Global Gaming Factory said it plans to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners when it takes control of the site in August. Global Gaming Factory has the largest network of Internet cafs and game centers and claims access to the largest group of game players on the Internet.

“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most-visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary,” said Hans Pandeya, CEO of Global Gaming Factory. “Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality.”

The File-Sharing Backbone

Global Gaming Factory has also entered into an agreement to acquire the shares of Peerialism AB. Peerialism AB is rooted in the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and SICS, the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. The company is currently owned by its employees. Peerialism develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new peer-to-peer technology.

Bowing to a request from the European Commission, 10 major device manufacturers have agreed to adopt a universal battery-charging design for their mobile handsets. Though the agreement only applies to mobile-device sales within the member states of the European Union, the standard is expected to have a far wider impact since the mobile-device market is essentially global.

Phone-charger compatibility will make life much simpler for consumers, noted EU Industry Commissioner Gnter Verheugen. “They will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger,” Verheugen said. “This also means considerably less electronic waste, because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones.”

Eliminating Waste

Today’s plethora of external power supplies for mobile phones means there are many chargers that can only interface with a particular handset. Any user buying a replacement handset today must get a new charger — even though the charger for the previous phone may be in perfect condition.

According to the EC, the disposal of old chargers generates several thousand tons of waste each year. Moreover, consumers are paying for an accessory they shouldn’t have to replace.

Beginning in 2010, consumers will be able to charge mobile phones from any external power supply compatible with the new common charger specs. Additionally, the agreement will protect consumers from unsafe operations, which can occur if an incompatible external power supply is used to charge a phone.

A new memorandum of understanding governing the changes has been signed by representatives of Apple, LG Electronics, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Texas Instruments. Verheugen said he was very pleased with the self-regulation agreement. “As a result, the commission does not consider it necessary to introduce legislation,” he said.

Despite the netbook craze that has many PC manufacturers competing at the low end of the mobile-computing market, Hewlett-Packard is rolling out a new generation of consumer desktop PCs just in time for back-to-school sales.

The redesigned lineup includes the HP Pavilion, the HP Pavilion Slimline, the HP Pavilion Elite, and the Compaq Presario. Beyond the new looks that aim to add style to student rooms — from buttons and ports to the glossy piano-black finish with silver accents and touches of chrome — the PCs are heavily focused on digital-content storage. And the new HP Touchsmart software suite enhances the “touch” experience around photos, videos, music and other digital content.

“This new generation of desktop PCs features a fresh and modern design, unbeatable performance, and tremendous value,” said John Cook, vice president of worldwide consumer PC marketing at HP. “And with matching monitors and accessories, it’s easy to customize a desktop solution that combines performance with style.”

Multimedia Flavors

The Pavilion, Slimline and Elite lines include the HP MediaSmart software suite, a multimedia and entertainment package that lets users watch TV or Blu-ray movies, share photos via Snapfish, or burn music, slide shows, and playlists to DVDs.

The Pavilion Slimline s5000 series is half the size of a conventional PC tower and small enough to fit on a desk, a small office, or a dorm room. Pricing starts at $289.

The HP Pavilion p6000 series is optimized for surfing the Web, mixing soundtracks, or creating home videos. This model retails as low as $269.

The HP Pavilion Elite e9000 series targets consumers engaging in multimedia tasks, from video editing to gaming and multitasking. The retail price starts at $599.