Rosemary Hattersley

Most iPad and iPhone owners rely on their Apple ID password to prevent access to their account details. This won't stop a hacker gaining access to your personal account and log in details. Here's how to hack an iPad.

Whenever you want to change a setting on an iPad or iPhone, aside from non-critical items such as the alarm clock time or the volume, Apple prompts you to enter your Apple ID. Ideally, there will be a four-digit PIN code preventing anyone who isn't you being able to get as far as the settings menu, but not all of us are that careful.

RIM has finally put a date and a price to the BlackBerry Playbook tablet. It will cost $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB Wi-Fi version. Best Buy is taking orders from US and Canadian customers from today. The Playbook will ship on 19 April. RIM will also sell LTE and HSPA+ versions of the BlackBerry Playbook, but prices and dates for these have not yet been revealed.

The Playbook has a 7in WSVGA capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. It runs off a 1GHz dual-core processor and has 1GB of RAM, plus up to 64GB of internal memory. As with most tablets, the Playbook will have a GPS accelerometer, a six-axis motion sensor and a digital compass. It runs the BlackBerry Tablet operating system and is capable of 1080p high-definition video capture thanks to its 5Mp main camera. It also has a secondary 3Mp camera and an HDMI out port.

The Apple iPad 2 is a lovely sliver of a thing. Just 8.8mm thick, the redesigned Apple tablet has lost the sturdy but reassuring book-like corners of the first iPad and is instead svelte like the MacBook Air. The frame around the edge of the 9.7-inch screen is gone too, allowing the finger to glide across the entire surface area in a far more luxurious way.

The iPad 2 is noticeably nippier than the previous model too. It now has a customised for Apple 1GHz dual-core A5 system on a chip that is twice as fast as on the iPad. Though there's no talk of multitasking or the capability to manage the apps you launch on the tablet, the sort of tasks the iPad 2 lends itself to draw heavily on both the processor and the graphics chip. These include on-the-fly video editing using an updated version of iMovie -- now a $4.99 iPad app -- and real-time goofy animations that you can share with friends you're video-chatting to over FaceTime.

The Motorola Xoom was the most advanced tablet that we got to try out at Mobile World Congress. Other tablets, including the HTC Flyer, certainly look promising, but the Xoom is the launch device for the Google Android Honeycomb OS -- the version of Android developed specifically for tablets -- and the devices on show at MWC were fully working ones used for live demonstrations.

Motorola marketing director Tom Satchwell gave us an indepth tour of the device, occasionally pulling out his very own Xoom to demonstrate a feature that he actively uses on it.

Opera is demonstrating an Apple iPad version of its Opera Mini web browser at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Opera Mobile claims to be the fastest smartphone web browser and recently announced it has 100 million users. Apple initially prevented the app -- a direct competitor to its own Safari mobile web browser -- from being distributed via the App Store.

Online electronics stores and IT retailers are engaged in a battle royale as Christmas and the frenzy that is the traditional buying silly season approaches.

Amazon UK this week announced it would be running a Black Friday discounting spree, slashing the cost of popular computing and electronics products by as much as 50 percent and promoting the one-day-only deals throughout next week.

Google and Huawei have announced an Android smartphone that runs the Android 2.2 mobile OS. Huawei says the IDEOS phone is the first mass-market handset to be offered with the Android 2.2 OS preinstalled.

The Huawei IDEOS will carry a SIM-free price tag of between US$100 and $200 depending on where it's bought. Huawei is currently in active negotiations with a number of carriers keen to offer the Google-branded device. The phone is set for "commercial launch" in mid-October in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

RIM has unveiled its first 3G-enabled BlackBerry Pearl handset and looks set to roll it out across all four main mobile phone networks in the UK by June.

The handset offers a "stepping stone" for mobile phone users accustomed to tapping out text messages on their numeric keypads and who aren't sold on the idea of switching to a Qwerty keypad but who like the idea of the enhanced functionality of a smartphone. The Pearl 9100 3G is designed to appeal to the 90 percent of mobile phone users who have never used a smartphone and who don't want to learn a new way of typing messages, RIM's spokesman told PC Advisor.

Online data thieves will jump at the chance to harvest even the most innocuous personal information. But you can tighten up Facebook security with just a few careful steps.

As we outlined in our recent in-depth look at the latest online security threats, the little bits of information with which we furnish web apps can be collectively turned against us.

Whether you're a committed telephone addict, a tabloid aficionado, or a web surfer extraordinaire, we're sure you can't help but notice that every couple of days seems to bring another security scare. Scare stories make for good headlines, of course, but some affect you more than others. Such is the case with privacy -- something we're increasingly expected to manage for ourselves.

There are plenty of straightforward ways to claw back some peace of mind. As we outlined in our in-depth look at the latest online security threats, the little bits of information with which we furnish web apps can be collectively turned against us.

Sony is readying itself to roll out an update to current PlayStation 3 games console owners to allow them to take advantage of the new Full HD 3D TVs and 3D programming that are about to launch.

"PS3 users worldwide will only need to upgrade the PS3 system software via the internet and there is no need to repurchase the system to enjoy 3D games," said Nainan Shah, vice-president of new platform, planning and development at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, the branch of Sony under which the PlayStation falls.

Olympus is celebrating 50 years since the 1959 launch of its ground-breaking PEN 35mm film camera - the first affordable, consumer portable camera and one that Olympus believes was a ground-breaking launch.

This week, it launched a digital version broadly based on the original 1959 design. The 12.3Mp Olympus PEN E-P1 is larger than a standard compact digital camera such as a Canon Ixus or a Sony Cyber-shot and has interchangeable lenses.