After discovering that Apple had registered iSlate.com in late 2006 (we dug a little deeper and found trademarks had been filed for ‘ISLATE’ in both the United States and Europe by a company that was most likely a dummy corporation set up by Apple), MacRumors has now discovered another possible name for the upcoming Apple tablet.

MacRumors bases its report on the filing for a US trademark for ‘IGUIDE’ by another Delaware-registered company called iGuide Media LLC, which can be linked to Cupertino by means of signatures on the documents coming from Apple’s Senior Trademark Specialist, Regina Porter.

Let’s dig a little deeper, once again.

Domain names

There’s no indication that Apple owns any domain name that contains the term ‘iguide’. The identity if iguide.com is shielded from public WHOIS records, but not by Mark Monitor, the brand protection firm Apple usually works with. The domain name iguide.net belongs to a company called iGuide Media, a marketing and design firm started by Jon Warren back in 1997 and led by a Brian Noon from 2002 to 2006, when the company was sold.

I checked a couple of other TLDs (.ca, .fr, and more) and found no indication that Apple owns any of those.

Trademarks

Two trademarks were filed for ‘IGUIDE’ by iGuide Media LLC (through a James Johnston) in the United States: a principal and a service mark, both on 18 December 2007. The description of goods and services given to iGuide Media is very similar to the one given to Slate Computing, the supposed shell company set up by Apple used to register the trademark for ‘ISLATE’, although it leans a bit more to a focus on software and services than hardware.

On the exact same day, iGuide Media LLC filed for a trademark in Europe as well: search OHIM for ‘iguide’ and you find a trademark filing that has all the Apple marks on it: the legal representative is ‘EDWARDS ANGELL PALMER & DODGE UK LLP’ (the same as for ‘ISLATE’ and ‘MACBOOK’, among others), and the priority country is Trinidad & Tobago, the same as when Apple filed for the ‘iphone’ trademark in Europe.

Noteworthy: the status history suggests that the community trademark application was registered (not filed) in February 2009, and that the full examination of the CTM application has been completed very recently, on the 18th of December 2009 to be exact.

Final thoughts

If I were betting man, I’d still be putting my money on the name iSlate for the tablet, Magic Slate for a possible peripheral, and iGuide for a service linked to the hardware device(s).

Here’s why:

- Apple doesn’t seem to own, directly nor indirectly, any ‘iguide’ domain names
- The ‘ISLATE’ and ‘MAGIC SLATE’ US trademarks were not filed for separately as a service trademark, unlike ‘IGUIDE’
- The ‘ISLATE’ US trademark was filed earlier than ‘IGUIDE’, by a different shell corporation (and the same as ‘MAGIC SLATE’)
- NYTimes editor Bill Keller’s mention of an ‘Apple slate’ device in a past speech
- According to Trademarkia, the ‘ISLATE’ trademark application was extended a second time last September, to show use in commerce
- The slightly different description for ‘goods and services’ for both Slate Computing and iGuide Media

Or, of course, we’re all wrong, and none of these names will ever be actually used by Apple. I would deem that unlikely, but we can’t know for sure.

Besides, has Apple announced that it’ll be selling a tablet computer yet?

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What’s not to like about free directory assistance? Investors are pouring yet another $6.7 million into Jingle Networks, the company behind 1-800-FREE-411. The funding round was disclosed today in an SEC filing, and it brings the total amount raised by the company to almost $90 million.

The investors in this round were not disclosed in the filing, but previous investors include First Round Capital, Goldman Sachs, Hearst, and Liberty Associated Partners.

Jingle runs voice ads before giving out directory assistance numbers, and competes with GOOG-411. Last year, before the U.S. financial meltdown, it was looking to IPO, launched a broader voice ad network, and even hit profitability on a per-call basis.

The IPO talk stopped as soon as the advertising recession hit, and you’ve got to wonder how that voice ad network is doing now, and whether it is still profitable per call. I’d be surprised. If they were profitable, why would they have to raise $6.7 million now, on top of the $7.5 million they raised just last February. Maybe this one will get the company back over the hump and ready for an exit.

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The Chumby One, much like the original, is an interesting beast. For all intents and purposes, it's a mod-friendly box that sits on your nightstand and pushes out real-time information that it pulls down from the web. That said, the inbuilt display may be too small to be considered "glanceable" in some scenarios, and if you're ferociously nodding your head up and down in agreement, we've a hack you should probably see. One xobs recently discovered that a composite video output could be added to the Chumby One, enabling it to output its information onto any display with such an input. Granted, the device can only support a single display at a time, but hey, who ever said you could have your cake and eat it too?

Chumby One gets composite video output via marginally difficult mod originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2009 is coming to a close, which means it’s time to reflect on the events that shaped the last twelve months. And there’s nothing like a whirlwind animated musical to put everything into perspective. Cue JibJab, which has just released their annual Year In Review: a two minute video romp that recaps the last year in all its glory. The video is packed will everything from momentous events like the induction of our first black President to moments of unparalleled stupidity (Balloon Boy). Even Three Wolf Moon made the cut.

This is the fifth year that JibJab has produced their Year In Review, and we’re told it will be seeing airtime on a number of national television networks tomorrow. For those wondering how the video was made, the company has put together a thorough blog post detailing its production.

Aside from the video, CEO Gregg Spiridellis tells us that JibJab is having a very strong holiday season. The entertainment portal, which offers customizable Flash videos, greeting cards, and a variety of other content, drew 33 million unique visitors in the last month according to Quantcast. Spiridellis adds that the site has served 90 million video views this quarter alone (which was likely helped in part by its always popular ElfYourself feature).

Watch the video in the embed below:

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