So what would you do with an RFID-equipped iPhone? Use it as a credit card, perhaps? As a driving license? A passport? As a way to find your iPhone, in conjunction with GPS? Well, if a report crossing our desk this afternoon has substance, Apple’s already exploring just what such a device could do, and has built prototype iPhones equipped with RFID chips.

We’re not saying we’re 100 percent on the source - Near Field Communications - but we’ll relate what we’ve learned. Einar Rosenberg, who runs the Near Field Communications Group on Linkedin.com, claims as follows:

“A highly reliable source has informed me that Apple has built some prototypes of the next gen iPhone with an RFID reader built in and they have seen it in action. So its not full NFC but its a start for real service discovery and I'm told that the reaction was very positive that we can expect this in the next gen iPhone.”

Yet more eBook-related activity in the education markets, with library and schools provider, OverDrive, offering up 1,001 audiobooks to US schools.

The collection - designed to work on Macs, iPods and other platforms - reflects the increased willingness of schools in the US sector to embrace electronic learning, partially, of course, to tweak a little extra out of their budgets.

However, that today’s generation of learners are used to becoming immersed inside electronic content (console games, the internet) shouldn’t be ignored, numerous studies prove getting learners engaged in how they learn actually boosts what they learn.

OverDrive’s move is just one of the many recent moves among different publishing companies to get involved in eBook and audiobook creation. And that Apple is said to be engaged in high level talks with publishers with a view to making their titles available to its much-speculated upon future ‘Tablet’ reinforces the level of activity in this market place.

BlackBerry-maker, Research In Motion (RIM), has announced plans to repurchase $1.2 billion in stock in order to compensate shareholders for the company’s slowing rate of growth.

RIM forecast its sales would slow down in its third quarter to deliver numbers shy of analyst projections, which Bloomberg terms as a sign it may have to reduce product prices to take in the iPhone.

The company isn’t too concerned at the cost of the stock buyback, saying that it would be able to continue to work on company growth, because it has plenty of cash in the bank and steady cash flow models for the coming quarters.

It intends repurchasing c.3.6% of its outstanding stock, around 21 million shares.

This news emerges as market chatter continues to speculate on a Microsoft takeover of the Canadian smartphone maker, with Cannacord analyst Peter Misek predicting such a deal last year, saying Redmond would offer $50 per share in such an acquisition.

Apple's got an interesting seed note with the latest 10.6.2 release (10C540).  Under the GraphicsDrivers category, it says:

We're not quite sure what that means but it could be a strange way of saying that AppleTVs, when connected/disconnected to the MacOS, cause issues. 

For the conspiracy theorists: The 27" iMac only takes Mini DisplayPort in, and the Apple TV only does Component and HDMI out.  It isn't likely that AppleTV 3.0 was updated to a Snow Leopard kernel, is it?

Also, the kernel has been updated to be more compatible with VMWare and Airport drivers have been updated on the new iMacs.  We heard earlier today that it was back to being compatible with Atom processors.

Other seed notes below:

iFixit today announced that they are building a community based around repairing, troubleshooting and teardowns of electronics.  The idea is to help people fix their technology hardware issues so that they don't have to throw away as much.  Bravo.

We're thinking our first teardown will be Apple's Displayport to Dual-link DVI adapter.  From Kyle@iFixit:

I am proud to announce iFixit Answers, a collaborative repair community of people helping people make devices work longer. We are launching the private beta today, but we will be inviting more people throughout the testing period. To get an invite, add your name to our list (we’ll be sending out invites to people on the list as we have room) or, if you want to be bumped to the front of the list, write a teardown!

Sign up here.

Last week, there was a bit of a fuss made over prominent Hackintosher Stell's contention that new 10.6.2 beta builds were killing support for Atom chips.  It appears that fears of the loss of Atom's support were unfounded because the latest developer build (10C535) re-enables support for Intel's Netbook processor.

Stell says:

Wow, didn’t expect to get linked all over the internet for this damn post. Anyways, in the latest development build Atom appears to have resurrected itself zombie style in 10C535. The Atom lives another day, but nothing is concrete until the final version of 10.6.2 is out.

Not a VMWare fan? There’s a new virtualisation solution for Snow Leopard in town, with Parallels’ introduction of  Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac.

This lets you run Windows, Linux and other operating systems side-by-side with Mac OS X, and the company claims it performs “22% faster than the nearest Windows-on-Mac competitor in standard productivity testing of Windows 7 64-bit on a MacBook Pro”.

Ars today questions the recent rumors that NVIDIA might be entering the x86 processor market and taking Intel on directly.  The evidence claims come from industry rumors and the fact that NVIDIA is hiring up a lot of x86 talent including employees from Transmeta.

NVIDIA recently announced that it would be giving up its chipset work on Core and Nehalem series processors - which Apple use in their products - due to the ongoing litigation with Intel.

See the guy at the right, he's a Microsoft "Answer Bar" worker.  But he needs a caption.  Can anyone help him out?

via FakeSteve.

While every handset maker and their dog’s brother is introducing their version of a touchscreen phone as the industry engages in a rearguard action against the Apple juggernaut, not every touchscreen keeps the customer satisfied, it seems.

New data from research firm, Canalysys, suggests the hype around touchscreen devices is driving the industry - everybody wants one, but not everyone’s so happy with the ones they’ve got.

According to the researchers, in Western Europe, 54% of people want their next phone to be a touchscreen device. That’s nice - but, sadly, of those who already have a touchscreen gadget, just 47% say they will stick with touch for their next handset - and it really does depend on which manufacturer produces the one they’ve already got.

For the most part, users of Apple or HTC devices will happily take touchscreen next time they choose a phone, but only 27% of those with Sony Ericsson handsets plan to.