There's no Ice Cream Sandwich for you, baby. Verizon has announced the smartphones and other devices eligible to receive the sweet Android 4.0 dessert, and all but two are 4G LTE. That's right, if you're among the 95 percent of Verizon subscribers on 3G, and you've got Android, no upgrade is planned.

Only 5 percent of Verizon subscribers currently have LTE, even though the service is available to over 200 million in 196 metro areas. Verizon offers about two dozen LTE smartphones, tablets, netbooks and modems/mobile hotspots. Only 15 devices make the cut.

Mac owners with Skype installed have a new version of the chat tool to install, and despite the small increase in the version number, there’s actually a lot packed in.

One of the biggest improvements in Skype 5.6 for Mac is the addition of automatic updates -- this is something that will be welcomes by anyone who likes to ensure that they always have the very latest version installed. It is an important security measure, too, as it means that any problems that have been detected with previous versions can be fixed automatically.

If iPhone 4S is any measure, perhaps LTE isn't important after all.

I asked the same question right before Apple announced the 4S in early October and honestly expected that 4G LTE would give Android handsets competitive edge. Not the least. According to Gartner, iPhone sales reached 35.46 million during calendar fourth quarter -- all without LTE. iPhone ranked tops in sales for the quarter and the year. The point: Sure, mobile geeks will pine for faster data. But will anyone else? Nah.

All eyes are on Apple, as the company prepares for its iPad event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco Wednesday. It is widely expected to debut the next-generation model of the market leading tablet, but like always the Cupertino, Calif. company is bound to have some surprises in store.

What can we expect to see? I've compiled some of the most likely things the next iPad will have, as well as anything else Apple will show off at the event. Let's hear from you. What do you think Apple's going to do Wednesday? Let us know in the comments.

If you’ve installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you can’t have missed a glaring omission. The familiar Start button is gone, something that has fazed many users who have taken the plunge and decided to test drive Microsoft’s next operating system.

If you're feeling lost. There is hope. Start8 is a remarkably simple, yet nonetheless remarkable, free tool that can be used to restore the Start menu.

Tomorrow, Apple holds a media event where the next iPad is expected to launch. There are rumors aplenty, with the most consistent being higher-resolution display -- 2048 x 1536. That's mighty big for a small screen. While the Apple Fan Club banters around rumors like Depression Era kids kicking tin cans, I wonder about the fundamental question: Why does iPad need a high-res display?

It's not an idle question; 2048 x 1536 is unusually high resolution in computing. My Lenovo ThinkPad T420s display is 1600 x 900. Apple's 15.4-inch MacBook Pro is available with resolution up to 1680 x 1050. Then there is 1080p, which is 1920 x 1080. By many measures, iPad with greater-than HD resolution would be exceptional. That's nice to have, but do you really need it on a 9.7-inch screen? Someone does, and Apple is right to go after the market opportunity. For starters: Education, healthcare and publishing. Simply put: An iPad HD would be a transformative product.

Google on Tuesday unveiled a major change to the Android Market: a name change.

Since Google's content market is for Android devices and beyond, the destination formerly known as the Android Market, is now known in the United States as Google Play.

Last year, Google completed its upgrade of the Android market, adding video, music, books, and a rich browser-based interface to the store which had previously only offered Android applications and games.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the RTM of SQL Server 2012, the latest version of the company's widely-used relational database server platform, which will launch to the general market on April first.

The trend in SQL Server this time around is "Big Data," the enterprise buzzword that seems to be gradually encroaching on the cachet of "cloud." In short, Microsoft is positioning SQL Server 2012 as the way businesses can take advantage of the unfathomably large amounts of data created every year --1.8 zettabytes of information (aka 1.8 trillion gigs,) for example, was created in 2011 alone.

LulzSec is gone now following the ratting out of its top members by the group's apparent leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu". Charges were filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, charging four members with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

Those charged on Tuesday include Ryan Ackroyd aka "Kayla" and Jake Davis aka "Topiary" of London; Darren Martyn aka "pwnsauce" and Donncha O’Cearrbhail aka "palladium" of Ireland. A fifth, Jeremy Hammond aka "Anarchaos" of Chicago was also charged, but in connection with the Stratfor hack that occurred last December. He was arraigned separately of the rest of LulzSec.

The joke is on LulzSec this morning following the arrests of three top members of the group, and charges filed against two more. The action follows the cooperation of its leader, Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu", who has reportedly worked with authorities since his arrest last June.

Monsegur plead guilty to 12 hacking-related charges in August. Although details of his arraignment have yet to be made public, the charges against four of the five are now available online.

eBay's payment processing subsidiary PayPal is no longer relegated to online purchases and auctions. Mobile payment app Tabbedout on Tuesday announced it now includes PayPal as an option to let users pay their bar tab or restaurant bill if they happen to be in Austin, Texas. And in just three days, a lot of people are going to be happening through Austin for the SXSW Interactive, Film, and Music Festival.

The Tabbedout mobile application is available for free on Android and iOS, and it lets bar and restaurant patrons open, view and pay their tab with their credit card on a smartphone. By doing this, the idea is that servers can more quickly and easily collect payment without actually having to process cards, come back for tips, and so forth. Within the app, the tab is kept, a tip calculator is included, and credit card data is stored locally and password protected. The system, of course, only works if a restaurant or bar has partnered with Tabbedout, and the startup has about 400 partnerships thus far.

When you need to capture what is on your screen, the chances are you reach for the Print Screen key on your keyboard to copy a shot of the desktop to the clipboard. This image can then be pasted into an image editor, tweaked in whatever ways you deem necessary and then used as required. For many people this is enough, but anything beyond capturing an entire desktop or program window involves some degree of work.

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft seemingly recognized that more and more Windows users were finding a need to capture desktop images and included the Snipping Tools to help make things a little easier. While somewhat more advanced than simply hitting Print Screen, if you spend any amount of time capturing what you see on your desktop, you really need to use a dedicated tool, and this is where Snagit 11 could be of assistance.

I don't dislike Metro, as indicated in my Windows 8 Consumer Preview review. That doesn't mean everyone will, or even should embrace the new user interface. Early reception to Metro is mixed. I think Windows 8 has great potential and may be a market success, but Microsoft should listen to those people complaining about the "reimagined" UI.

Microsoft should pull back from its Metro frenzy and take a more commonsense look at how real users do things. There needs to be better intergration between Metro and the desktop motif. Rather than view the desktop simply as a legacy environment and put all their "eggs" in the Metro "basket", Microsoft should give more priority to the "old way" and to better integrating the two UI motifs so they flow as one. Windows 8 is one operating system, not two.

The popularity of Facebook shows no signs of abating, and after annoying a large percentage of its users with the forced introduction of the timeline, the social network has released a Windows app to help irate visitors fall back in love with the site.

Facebook Messenger for Windows is a standalone app that provides access to your online friends ready for chatting and keeps you up to date with everything that is happening with your Facebook account without the need to visit the site itself.

Adobe has released version 4 of its photo cataloguing and editing tool Photoshop Lightroom. This high-end tool, aimed at photography professionals and enthusiasts, debuts with new basic video-editing capabilities and more photo-editing controls, among other improvements.

Photoshop Lightroom 4 also costs 50-percent less for new users: $149 for new users, and $99 for upgraders, compared to $299 and $99, respectively, for version 3. A 30-day trial is available for download for Windows and Mac users.