There are rumors that Apple’s iPad launch has already run into some rough patches that are uncharacteristic for the company, but how much substance is actually behind them? One frequently mentioned challenge is having a sufficiently impressive array of available content that’s compatible with the device. The company reportedly has reduced the number of top-level categories in its iBookstore from 35 to perhaps as few as 20. That could mean that Apple is consolidating some categories to avoid displaying any that would appear understocked with iPad offerings.

When Apple enabled in-app purchases for iPhone applications, it seemed as though the days of “free” and “paid” versions of any given app were coming to an end. Soon, I thought, everything in the store would start out free as a teaser and then charge for an upgrade. That hasn’t exactly panned out universally, but Vlingo’s new voice application does charge in the way I thought all apps would charge by now. You can download it for free, but getting to the premium features costs $10. Vlingo is a speech-to-text app that can use that text in any of six general ways.

With global organizations depending on the sharing of sensitive information to support everything from financial transactions to patient care records, many believe they are relying on secure methods to exchange data with trusted partners. However, there is often a significant and alarming gap between perceived security and real vulnerability. To handle transmission of valuable company data, typical methods that are considered secure include FTP technology, “secure email,” regular email, courier services and the postal service.

Sometime later this year, HP will release its Slate tablet PC device. What we know now is that it will run Windows 7 as well as Adobe Flash and Air, according to information revealed by an HP executive. However, it appears that the company is attempting to be quite selective about how and when it doles out further details on the device. The Slate’s ability to work with two significant Adobe technologies widely used on desktops and laptops is demonstrated in a new video posted by Phil McKinney, HP’s chief technology officer, on his blog.

Although its operating system and apps are so buggy that new vulnerabilities are discovered with frightening regularity, Microsoft now wants Internet users to pony up to cover the cost of cybersecurity. The idea was put forth by Scott Charney, Redmond’s vice president for trustworthy computing, during a speech at the RSA Conference 2010 security convention earlier this week. His argument is that PC users who don’t run antivirus apps or back up their computers or patch their systems regularly are like cigarette smokers who poison other people with second-hand smoke.

The lawsuit Apple filed this week may target smartphone maker HTC, but Cupertino is likely shooting for much bigger prey. Specifically, Google is the real focus of Apple’s wrath, said Chris Hazelton, research director for mobile and wireless with the 451 Group. Based on the details of the lawsuit, “an argument could be made that it’s targeting HTC,” he noted. However, the numerous issues listed on Apple’s simultaneously filed complaint with the ITC are “all based on what the operating system does and how it interacts.”

Gaming companies like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft ask a lot of their customers. Every few years, they are encouraged by the companies to spend a few hundred bucks to upgrade to a fancy new console. But as far as I can recall, only Sony has ever asked its fans to not play those consoles. It happened Monday, thanks to a bug that kept those with older PlayStation 3s from accessing the PlayStation Network. An item on a company blog described the glitch as a problem with the console’s internal clock, which apparently thought it was a leap year.

You don’t have to search very hard on Apple.com to find the 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report, the company’s internal audit of how workers are treated on the assembly lines at the overseas third-party companies making its Macs, iPhones and iPods. “Read about Apple’s continuing commitment to social responsibility” says the link on the lower right-hand corner of the home page. The link might as well say, “We’ve seen how child labor scandals torpedoed Nike and Kathie Lee Gifford, and we have no intention of letting that happen to us.”

In a ruling that could have profound implications for the future of the Internet, three Google executives were convicted of privacy violations on Wednesday over a video that aired briefly in 2006 on the now-defunct Google Video site. David Drummond, Google’s SVP and chief legal officer, Peter Fleischer, the company’s chief privacy counsel, and George Reyes, its CFO, were all given six-month prison sentences by Judge Oscar Magi for allowing the posting of a video depicting the bullying of a disabled teen by classmates in a Turin technical school.

Bloom Energy, a clean energy startup based in Sunnyvale, Calif., officially launches its core product this week. However, the company really had its coming-out party on Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” with executives giving CBS’ Lesley Stahl a first look at a $700,000 wireless power-plant-in-a-box called, appropriately enough, a “Bloom Box.” Those executives claim Bloom Boxes will bring cheaper, cleaner and greener energy to American homes and businesses. Images from the “60 Minutes” story show Bloom Boxes being ferried around the company’s manufacturing facilities.

Cloud computing describes an Internet-based computing infrastructure that has abstracted users and user applications from the underlying computing resources that support them. In concept, cloud computing is functionally different from previous IT architectures in that users no longer need to own, have expertise in, or have control over the underlying technology — they are only aware of borrowing and consuming IT services, much as they would with telephony, electrical or plumbing infrastructures.

Innovation was certainly on display at this week’s Google Buzz press conference, but there was only one moment that truly registered an 9.5 on my personal Coolness Quotient meter. That was during the mobile segment of the demonstration. Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra spoke into his Android phone, and the magic of Google Voice, combined with GPS-tagging and location-based services, allowed him to post his “buzz.” I know that reads like something Jeff Spicoli of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” might have said.

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