MacRumors

AllThingsD reports that Apple's iPhone media event apparently scheduled for October 4th will be held at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California rather than the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco as has been typical for their iPad and iPod events.

Sources close to the company say the demonstration — currently scheduled for Tuesday October 4, a date first reported by AllThingsD — will be held at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California.

The report notes that it is unknown why Apple has chosen its own Town Hall Auditorium for the event, but offers a couple of theories including the possibility of uncertainty in locking down a date preventing Apple from booking an outside venue or a desire to give new CEO Tim Cook a more intimate venue for the first major product introduction under his official watch.

Apple has certainly used its on-campus facilities for media events in the past, most recently last October's "Back to the Mac" event. The site has also been used for the company's iOS media and developer preview events typically held each spring ahead of new hardware releases, as well as last July's press conference to address concerns over antenna performance on the iPhone 4.

Apple's iPhone introductions have until this year taken place at San Francisco's Moscone Center as part of larger events, with the original iPhone first being shown at Macworld Expo and later introductions coming at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has been Apple's major off-campus site for those media events not associated with conferences such as Macworld and WWDC. It has typically hosted Apple's fall media events that have focused on iPod and iTunes, and has also been the site of Apple's two iPad introductions.

AppleInsider reports that Apple has started denying vacation requests for employees during the 2nd week of October.

Apple is quietly denying requests for employee vacations during the second week of October, hinting that the company currently anticipates an influx of customers to its stores around that time related to availability of its new iOS 5 and fifth-generation iPhone products.

Specifically, dates from October 9th through 12th and October 14th through 15th are said to be restricted, suggesting Apple plans on launching new products during that time.

The first set of dates from October 9th-12th could represent iOS 5 launch, as Apple has informed AppleCare to expect an influx of support calls starting on October 10th. Coincidentally, Twitter has announced their own developer session in London on the same date. The October 10th Twitter developer session is said to have a "heavy focus on the iOS 5 Twitter integration".

Meanwhile, the 14th to 15th dates suggests that Apple may be preparing for a retail launch of their next generation iPhones on that Friday, the 14th. The timeframe is consistent with other circulating iPhone rumors as well as our knowledge of Apple's expected availability for the White iPod touch.

Apple is expected to hold a media event on October 4th to announce the next generation iPhone as well as the official launch of iOS 5.

Update: UK Apple Stores have been similarly told to block out the "first two weeks of October".

Apple has sent an email to developers notifying them that their iCloud libraries housing iTunes Match data will be wiped on Monday, September 26th at 9AM PDT. The reason for the wipe is to "improve the overall quality and reliability" of the service. The news comes after Apple wiped all the iCloud backup data on Thursday, September 22nd.

We believe these are preparations for Apple to launch the final Golden Master (GM) version of iOS 5. Apple had been planning to declare iOS 5 as GM on Friday, September 23rd, though we haven't heard confirmation yet if that had actually taken place. Also on schedule was to start installing iOS 5 GM onto new devices in their factories on Monday, September 26th. Assuming all this has remained on schedule, we expect the final GM version of iOS 5 to be release to developers as early as next week.

iCloud and iTunes Match services have been running in developer beta for the last couple of months. The public release is scheduled for "Fall", and it seems likely Apple will announce the ship date at their rumored October 4th media event.

Comcast, the United States' largest cable and internet provider, is working on a television streaming solution for iPads, to compete with Cablevision and Time Warner. The streaming product was announced earlier this year, but details haven't been released until now.

The product, called AnyPlay, allows Comcast subscribers to view live television on their iPad as long as it's connected to their home network; users must have a special Motorola box which, apparently, takes the live cable stream and sends it directly to the Xfinity TV iPad app over a local wireless network. The service won't work over Wi-Fi from other locations, or via 3G.

Update: Engadget believes the Motorola Televation cable TV-to-IPTV box is what Comcast will be using for AnyPlay.

Other solutions, like Time Warner's, stream live video over an internet connection. Comcast's AnyPlay appears to be a cable box that sends video to the iPad rather than to a television. Users can watch "most" channels included with their Xfinity TV service. Users can register up to 10 tablets, but only watch live TV on one tablet at a time.

Currently, Xfinity customers can use the Xfinity TV app to watch On Demand programming, search TV listings, and schedule DVR recordings.

There is no indication of release dates or availability, but AnyPlay will be available in limited markets at first, and spreading to all Comcast customers eventually.

Comcast previously used the "AnyPlay" name on an announced but never released product with Panasonic in 2008.

As noted by AllThingsD and This is my next, Amazon has just sent out invitations for a media event scheduled for next Wednesday, September 28th. The invitation is silent on what the topic of the event will be, but the company is widely expected to introduce its own low-cost Android tablet.

Reports from earlier this year indicated that Amazon was planning to launch a 9-inch Android tablet before October, but it appears that Amazon's first offering may in fact be a 7-inch tablet. TechCrunch's MG Siegler spent some hands-on time with the device, noting that Amazon has basically forked Android to create its own look tightly integrated with Kindle and other Amazon offerings.

Simply put: it looks nothing like the Android you’re used to seeing.

The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. The main screen is a carousel that looks like Cover Flow in iTunes which displays all the content you have on the device. This includes books, apps, movies, etc.

[...]

But the key for Amazon is just how deeply integrated all of their services are. Amazon’s content store is always just one click away. The book reader is a Kindle app (which looks similar to how it does on Android and iOS now). The music player is Amazon’s Cloud Player. The movie player is Amazon’s Instant Video player. The app store is Amazon’s Android Appstore.

Perhaps most notably, Amazon is said to be targeting a $250 price point for the device, half that of Apple's entry-level iPad.

Numerous iPad competitors have been introduced over the past 12-15 months, with a number of them being hailed as the biggest challenge to Apple's dominance before failing to gain customer acceptance. But Amazon's ability to integrate its extensive content offerings with a low-cost tablet device has sparked renewed speculation that Apple may finally face a strong challenge in the tablet market.

Apple today hosted a grand opening event for its new Nanjing East retail store in Shanghai, the company's largest store in China so far. M.I.C gadget posts a series of photos of the opening and reports that over 500 people were on hand for the event. The store reportedly employs 300 people.

The main portion of the store covers two floors, and as with many such locations the first floor is focused on product displays while the second floor is dedicated to customer support and training. Additional floors include space for meeting with business customers and offices for Apple's Chinese operations.

Apple will be opening another massive new store in the region tomorrow as its IFC Mall store in Hong Kong debuts. Checking in at over 16,000 square feet and with over 300 employees of its own, the new Hong Kong store offers a prominent presence for Apple in one of the world's major financial and shopping centers.

In addition to the two new flagship stores in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Apple will be opening five other stores tomorrow as the company closes out fiscal 2011 and sets the stage for its upcoming iPhone launch.

Associated Press reports that Samsung is becoming more vocal about its efforts to go on the offensive against Apple in the patent dispute between the two companies, accusing Apple of "free riding" on Samsung's intellectual property with its products.

"We'll be pursuing our rights for this in a more aggressive way from now on," Lee Younghee, head of global marketing for mobile communications, said Friday in an interview.

Lee, a senior vice president at Samsung, did not say what form the South Korean company's stronger stance would take or if there would be more lawsuits. But her remarks suggest a definite change in tone. She described its previous approach as "passive."

Lee suggests that Samsung has been relatively "passive" in the dispute thus far out of respect for the fact that Apple and Samsung have a close relationship for component supplies, although Apple is reportedly looking to minimize its reliance on Samsung in that regard.

Lee said that Samsung has kept that relationship in mind amid the dispute with the Cupertino, California-based company, and has largely been pulling its punches.

"We've been quite respectful and also passive in a way" in consideration of those links, Lee said during the interview in her office at Samsung's headquarters building in southern Seoul. "However, we shouldn't be ... anymore."

It hasn't taken Samsung long to follow through on its promise to become more aggressive, as Dutch site Webwereld.nl reports [Google translation] that Samsung has filed suit against Apple in The Hague, requesting a ban on sales of Apple's 3G-enabled iOS devices in the Netherlands. The suit explicitly names the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, and original iPad, but does not limit its claims to the listed devices.

Apple argues that the patents in question are so basic to wireless telecommunications technology that they should be subject to FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) conditions that would require Samsung to license them to all competitors under fair and reasonable terms, which Apple does not believe Samsung has been offering in its discussions over the patents. FRAND conditions are applied by standards-setting organizations in certain situations to prevent companies from engaging in anti-competitive behavior by refusing to license patents that are crucial to a given industry.

Earlier this week, sources within Samsung also indicated that the company is planning to target the iPhone 5 with patent lawsuits as soon as it is introduced.

The EFF has announced that both Apple and Dropbox have joined the Digital Due Process (DDP) coalition which is focused on pressing Congress to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

ECPA was passed by Congress in 1986, before the World Wide Web was even invented and when cell phones were still a rarity. Yet to this day, ECPA is the primary law governing how and when law enforcement can access personal information and private communications stored by communications providers like Google, Facebook, your cell phone company or your ISP.

Specifically, the DDP is supporting amendments to ensure the government can't track your cell phone or obtain online content such as emails, photos, documents and backup files without first going to court to get a search warrant.

According to the EFF, the current version of the ECPA is vague on whether these documents and information -- including the tracking of your cell phone -- are presently protected from government intrusion without any form of warrant.

Other coalition members include Amazon, Intel, AT&T, Google and many more.

Thanks Aaron