For anyone still wondering whether Apple plans to give its new iAds a competitive advantage over other mobile ad networks on the iPhone and iPad, just take a look at the slide above. It was attached to an email sent to an app developer from a Quattro Wireless sales rep which I obtained (Quattro is Apple's recently purchased mobile ad network). The email starts off:

We're excited to announce a brand new program launching this month called ViP (Verification of iTunes Purchase).

The VIP program is aimed at app developers who use iPhone ads to drive downloads and purchases of their own apps. It will tie the ad directly into purchasing data from iTunes, letting app developers measure the conversion rate of ad impressions to downloads.

It's a fact that if we weren't all so busy blogging about technology that we'd all be busy blogging about dogs. We love dogs! All of you folks out there without dogs are normally deprived of the joy and pleasure associated with dog ownership, but thankfully April 24-30 is everyone to enjoy dogs! And to help you celebrate, CrunchGear is giving away ten Dog-e-Minder electronic dog tags!

CrackBerry Kevin takes out some aggression...

While we won’t fault anybody for choosing an Android phone over the other offerings (though with webOS soon on America’s three largest networks, you need not feel forced into it), we do wish there were a level playing field on the corporate side of things. We’ve seen revenue sharing from the carrier to the phone maker (hello, original iPhone), but it’s not often we see it in the opposite direction. But that’s what we’re seeing from Google, at least that’s what MocoNews is reporting.

According to their anonymous sources at two different carriers, Google has an agreement with those carriers and the device manufacturers that if they support certain Google functions (e.g. Gmail, maps, etc) with built-in advertising, Google will share those revenues with the carriers and manufacturers.

Obviously, nobody’s going to issue a comment in the affirmative of this, they rightfully refuse to discuss confidential agreements. It’s also no secret that we’re generally fans of Google’s services, but their implementation on webOS sometimes leaves something to be desired.

So here’s the question: is Google playing fair? We have no idea how much Google is paying to companies for their cooperation, nor how much those payments have influenced carrier or manufacturer decisions to support Android. What we do know is that Palm can't be happy competing with somebody that is actively paying carriers and manufacturers to support their products and services. Or maybe that's just one of the benefits of having pockets so deep they might as well be bottomless.

[via: Android Central, Phone Scoop]

Next time you visit Long Beach, make sure to take your smartphone. The Washington beach town -- known for its kite museum, beach drive and Jake the Alligator Man -- has introduced new signage that incorporate QR codes at more than two dozen points of interest.

So we finally have the official press release from Panasonic, we of course got a glimpse of the G2 and G10 the other day, but now we know all the news that's fit to share. Both look like some decent kit, and a definite step up from most of the P&S cameras out there.

The man behind the boards for bangers like "I Wanna Rock" and "Ha Ha" chops it up with us.

Interested in hopping on board with that Palm Pre Plus or Palm Pixi Plus on Verizon later this month? Well, Big Red is looking out for you and with their brand new plans you can get away with sacrificing only a single limb instead of an arm and a leg. Boy Genius Report got the scoop on Verizon’s new plans, and not only have they been made less expensive, but made fewer as well through means of consolidation (from sixteen choices down to six). How it breaks down is all after the break.

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