Right, last time on the exciting adventures of the Orange/T-Mobile joint partnership, the EU had approved the merger and all was looking rosey as the two companies were hammering out branding plans.

Well, it seems that both the Orange and T-Mobile names will still be around on the highstreet (lots of value still in both of them, millions of pounds spent on marketing in the past few years), with them being operated by a new parent company, dubbed; "Everything Everywhere".

Right. Still, it's nice to see that one of the "big four" networks wont be dropping off any time soon, with both being aimed at separate demographics although details of those haven't been released yet.

[Mobile News]

Apple has just dished out details about the UK version of its new tablet device; the iPad, announcing that users will be able to pre-order it starting on the 10th May, with it launching on the 28th.

The WiFi models will run you £429 for 16GB, £499 for 32GB, £599 for 64GB and the WiFi + 3G models cost £529 for 16GB, £599 for 32GB and £699 for 64GB.

There's not much more information left to know about the device, seeing as it's already been available in the US for a month, but all of the questions will be answered when it does reach British fingers (with no importing required) on May 28th.

[Apple iPad]

Google announced several days ago that it would be rolling out a redesigned search results page across its market-leading search-engine to help filter results based on the content type.

This means you now have a left navigation bar to choose whether you want to search through all results, or delve deeper into text, images, video, news or any of the other areas Google looks into.

The update has also meant that the central column where search listings are displayed is smaller, and isn't quite as elegant on smaller displays (try resizing your browser window to see what we mean). The search boxes at the top and bottom have been increased in size to encourage secondary searching, although the sponsored links maintain their right-column placement.

A simple redesign like this may not seem like massive news, but with people using the search engine for hundreds of millions of search terms a day, it'll take some getting used to.

[Google]

TomTom has just announced a new voice pack for their line of satnav devices which allows you to be guided by none-other than the original Sith-baddie; Darth Vader.

He will tell you to turn left at the next junction, keep right on the motorway or even out of the way of that Rebel Alliance attack-squad waiting near the M1 (we may have made that last one up...).

He will be hitting TomTom's devices today for £7.95, with his fellow Star Wars characters being released this summer.

Quite why the selected today to launch him, we don't know. Anyway, May the Fourth be with you.

[TomTom Star Wars]

Apple has just issued a press release saying that they've already crossed the 1m unit sales for their new iPad tablet that has only been on sale in the States so far.

It has taken just 28 days of US-only sales (apart from those who've managed to get one from several importing companies) to hit that stage - a landmark which took the iPhone 74 days, and only a couple since the 3G version of the device went up for sale.

There are now 5000 iPad-specific apps in the App Store (which now contains 200,000 in total), and users have downloaded 12m apps and 1.5m ebooks from the iBookstore.

It's less than a month before it comes over here, with even more gadget lust coming from other parts of the world which will undoubtedly add a fair bit to that tally.

Twitter has just released their official Android application for the micro-blogging platform, following on from the official BlackBerry app and the recent Tweetie iPhone app acquisition.

Twitter for Android maintains the simplicity of the http://twitter.com with a nice clean timeline, as well as integration with your contacts in the phonebook (showing their latest tweet) and deep usage of Google's API as the company received help from the Android team on the development.

We'll see how this stands up next to other clients like Twidroid and Seesmic which have been doing a great job of keeping users connected to the service on Google's mobile operating system.

[Twitter Blog]

Bungie, developers of the famed Halo franchise, have just announced that they've signed up with Activision on a 10-year exclusive publishing deal.

The news means that the developers will be bringing their talent and eye for what gamers want to multiple consoles and platforms with new IP (so it seems that Microsoft still has that firm-grip on the Halo series).

This means that the company's ties with the Xbox 360 console maker have been effectively cut, although with it being the dominant non-casual console, we still expect their new titles to be hitting Microsoft's baby (hopefully a Wii shooter will be in the works as well).

What will happen to the Halo series, which really defined Bungie up to now, is unknown. Ensemble Studios (before it was shut) did a fantastic job on Halo Wars, so it wouldn't been unrealistic to see more titles in the same universe.

Activision will be hoping that this helps brush-away some of the issues it's been having with its previous darling studio; Infinity Ward (responsible for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare), which has been subject to controversy recently over royalty payments to the studio founders.

[Develop Online]