A slew of insider trading charges were leveled Friday against a Portland, Oregon-based analyst who allegedly provided significant leaks regarding the technology industry. Consultant John Kinnucan was accused of two counts each of securities fraud and conspiracy for reportedly passing on secret information about F5, Flextronics, and SanDisk to hedge funds that in turn unfairly benefited from the information to a combined $1.58 million. Sources at Flextronics and SanDisk ended up relating information about Apple’s iPhone patterns.

The techniques were said to have involved expensive meals and other attempts to court key executives that then passed on the private information. Don Barnetson, formerly of SanDisk, had admitted taking information between 2008 and 2010 from Kinnucan in return for leniency from prosecutors.

Among those who received insider info from Kinnucan was believed to be former Carlson Capital staffer Dan Grossman, who had previously worked at Level Global. This last firm itself had faced insider trading arrests and was shut down as a result.

The charges are considered a possible culmination of Operation Perfect Hedge, a government investigation made public in late 2009 that was meant to curb insider trading among hedge funds and other investors. A year later, Kinnucan drew attention when he refused to wear FBI surveillance equipment to relay information about trading and even warned many of those he knew by e-mail that a probe was underway.

If convicted, Kinnucan could face sentences of up to 20 years each for three of the charges, and a maximum of five years for one of the conspiracy charges. [via Reuters]

An apparent discovery Sunday has shown what’s purported as the iPad 3′s mainboard with an unexpected A5X, not A6, processor name. The WeiPhone details don’t directly indicate what this would imply, but they imply more of an evolution than a major overhaul. A date code on top implies it was made in 2011 week 46, or about November 14-20 and the timeframe when iPad 3 production may have started.

The board also shows two 16GB Hynix flash memory chips for storage, although it’s unknown if 32GB will be the baseline or just a mid-tier model like in 2010 and 2011.

Two possibilities exist for what an A5X could mean depending on Apple’s interpretation of what a fifth-generation part uses. It could be a quad-core version of the existing ARM Cortex-A9 architecture in the A5, making it more of a parallel to (if likely faster than) NVIDIA’s Tegra 3. Alternately, though less likely, it could still be dual-core and use either a higher clock speed on a new 28-nanometer process or the new ARM Cortex-A15 architecture that Samsung is using in the Exynos 5250.

Graphics will likely get a boost regardless of the underlying processor given the likely 2048×1536 display. Most 2011-era mobile graphics couldn’t handle that resolution or would be too slow. As such, it’s probable that the next iPad will use either a higher-clocked version of the iPad 2′s PowerVR SGX543MP2 dual-core video or its quad-core relative, the SGX543MP4 seen in the PS Vita.

Multiple tips have the new iPad being unveiled on March 7 with a presumed, though not confirmed, March 16 release. Even if conservative, the A5X would give Apple a time-to-market advantage by shipping months ahead of a future Samsung Galaxy Tab that would have to wait until late in the spring at best to use an Exynos 5250. [via MacRumors]

Samsung made much ado of the Galaxy Note during the Super Bowl: the massive 5.3-inch screen and pen were tickets to “freedom” from the comparatively tiny iPhone. But are size and handwriting giving smartphone owners real choice, or is it an attempt to shoehorn the phone/tablet crossover into a market that doesn’t want it? Our review of the Galaxy Note will find out if it’s rethinking smartphones or just rewinding back to 2006-era PDAs.

Nokia’s social and location apps lead Başak Özer chose an interview late this week to tell the public that the company’s Pulse app would be reaching Android and iOS devices. Without giving a timeframe, she told the Boston Business Journal that the private social aggregator would be leaving Windows Phone soon. The company was breaking its preference for exclusive apps since it was social and needed to be on “every platform.”

The app, out on Windows Phone since the fall, taps into existing services like Facebook and Twitter to automatically let a family or close circle of friends know when something has happened, such as when a photo goes up or one of them has checked into a given location. Future work from Nokia would include a fresh social network and a larger suite, Özer said.

Like a number of Nokia’s more recent efforts, Pulse has been developed in the US, in Boston, rather than in Finland or other Euro-centric areas. The effort is part of a broader shift that acknowledges North America’s greater importance in the smartphone era and has seen phones like the Lumia 900 jointly developed across continents with the US as its primary target.

For most of the pre-Windows Nokia era, the company typically only paid lip service to the US, routinely promising a renewed commitment that usually amounted to just one or two imported European models and limited marketing or consideration for the country. Until 2012, most Nokia smartphones had to be bought in the US either through Nokia directly or through an importer, both without any contract discounts. [via EETimes]

LightSquared faced even deeper possible consequences from its revoked 4G network permission Friday after investors sued its parent company, Harbinger Capital Partners, for allegedly wasting money in the deal. Movie producer Lili Schad and others accused Harbinger of being “deceptive and misleading” by promising the LTE-based network only to have it rejected by the FCC over GPS interference concerns. Harbinger founder Philip Falcone (pictured) and his company either knew or were careless in ignoring that GPS would be a problem, the lawsuit said, and were costing investors “substantially all” of the money they had invested.

Investors hadn’t been told that LightSquared would exist, or if they had that a minimum 60 percent of Harbinger’s primary fund would go into it. The plan was reportedly very different than what investors were told. Schad personally invested $4 million and was hoping to get back whatever she had lost in investment value between October 2007 and the end of 2011.

Even on Friday, however, Falcone was fighting to keep the plan active. He and LightSquared have alleged a conspiracy, with staff in agencies like the NTIA supposedly having a vested interest in protecting the GPS industry by taking down a threat rather than fixing its own supposed interference problems. It may go so far as to ask for Defense Department spectrum rather than abandon plans.

The company still only has until mid-March to complete its deal if it wants to avoid losing a Sprint deal. A complete shutdown of the plans would have ripple effects for numerous small carriers that would buy time on the network as well as Sharp, which was preparing phones and tablets to enter the US. [image via Maggie's Notebook]

Apple finished the week by agreeing to a settlement (active in the next few weeks) over the iPhone 4′s antenna issues. US customers who were unhappy with the antenna performance of the smartphone will have the option of getting either a free bumper case or $15. Owners will have up to 120 days to make a claim, starting from April 30, and will be both e-mailed in advance as well as given notices in Macworld and USA Today to make sure they can take advantage of the compensation.

The settlement is the result of a class action that merged 18 different lawsuits. All of them had argued that Apple hadn’t disclosed the iPhone 4′s “death grip” problem, which dropped the data and voice signals to at times very low levels if the user covered the external antenna gap on the left side, bridging the cellular and Wi-Fi antennas in a way that hurt the signal. Apple offered its own free bumpers at the time and may have limited the impact of the settlement.

The issue ended up being overblown in perception relative to its actual impact, although it may have contributed to Mark Papermaster’s exit from Apple as well as competitors’ ads. Apple eventually fixed the problem permanently with the iPhone 4S, which uses a dual antenna system that switches if the owner’s hand attenuates the signal in one area.

The lawsuit’s conclusion comes with an unusual connection to a much more recent case as one of the core attorneys representing the class, Ira Rothken, is defending Megaupload against US government piracy allegations. [via CNET]

Blockbuster has started informing users of its Blockbuster on Demand service for TiVo that the app will no longer be available on their Premiere DVRs. According to Blockbuster, the move is the result of the company ‘updating’ its technology platform and that it will no longer support the platform. Instead, Blockbuster has pointed users to ‘our other devices or [to] stream via PC or Mac.’

Other TiVo devices are currently unaffected, however it seems that this may only be temporary — Blockbuster has already deleted its TiVo registration page from blockbuster.com. However, while the Blockbuster service is on its way out from TiVo’s services, updated Netflix and YouTube apps should arrive before the end of the year.

Looking to the future, TiVo has also released a new TiVo Platform SDK. The SDK enables third-party developers to develop applications TiVo devices, websites as well as mobile and tablet applications that can tap into TiVo services. The SDK has been released to a limited number of developers, although TiVo plans to roll it out to a wider base in the coming months. [via Zatz Not Funny]

The ABC TV network has announced that it will be screening a special edition of Nightline next week focusing on working conditions in Apple’s supply chain. The network received special permission from Apple, giving it rare media access to the inner workings of where Apple’s products are made. Network anchor Bill Weir took a film crew with him into factories on Shenzhen China, claiming that he is the first journalist to ever get a look inside.

‘For years, Apple and Foxconn have been synonymous with monster profits and total secrecy so it was fascinating to wander the iPhone and iPod production lines, meet the people who build them and see how they live,” Weir says in the preview.

‘Our cameras were rolling when thousands of hopeful applicants rushed the Foxconn gates,’ Weir added. ‘I spoke with dozens of line workers and a top executive about everything from hours and pay to the controversies over suicides at the plant and the infamous ‘jumper nets’ that line the factories in Shenzhen. After this trip, I’ll never see an Apple product the same way again.’

A side effect of Apple’s status as the poster boy for the technology industry is that the media glare has been firmly placed on the company and its Chinese manufacturing operations. This is despite Foxconn manufacturing for other high profile clients including Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Cisco, Nintendo, Dell, HP, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba and Vizio — yet none of these company’s have faced anywhere near the same level scrutiny as Apple.

Apple has also taken more steps than any other company to address the working conditions of all the employees in its supply chains. It has invited the Fair Labor Association to audit its Chinese operations and has also moved to have laborers receive pay rises. However, it is likely that the Cupertino giant will be bracing itself for additional negative press that may emerge from the Fair Labor Association report and the upcoming ABC Nightline investigation. As part of its aim to ensure greater transparency of its supply chain operations, Apple has also created a special webpage devoted to what it calls ‘Supplier Responsibility at Apple,’ an industry first.

An atypical leak on Sunday saw the the manufacturing roots of the reported iPad 3′s display more than the displays themselves. With the 2048×1536 resolution already identified, a WePost.me forum contribution showed what’s claimed to be shots from contractor Radiant Opto-Electronics’ plant as it shipped a batch of the new screens. Although located in Wujiang, near Shanghai, the displays are labeled and boxed as Samsung displays that are reportedly shipped to Samsung in Korea before they reach Apple.

Security is supposedly tight and didn’t allow careful photography, the unnamed sources said. They still managed to get multiple photos that included the production QR codes.

The images are notable in supporting beliefs that, while the iPad 3 display may have been designed by Sharp, it was still being outsourced to Korean companies to cope with the volumes Apple typically needs. Samsung and LG are known to themselves rely on outside suppliers, although they have domestic production and usually try to create an image of most of their factory output being local.

The original iPad and iPad 2 displays were originally designed by LG but manufactured by both LG, Samsung, and at least temporarily by Chimei Innolux. [via 9to5]

Huawei in a series of teasers on Weibo and its forums (one, two since broken, three, four) has provided the first official look at the Ascend D1 Q. While they don’t confirm the internal hardware, they do show a thicker design than the Ascend P1 S. The body would support talk of the “Q” referencing NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor.

Virtually nothing else is visible, although a bulge for the rear camera could support it carrying at least an eight-megapixel camera like the P1 S. Huawei has already been fast enough to add Android 4.0 support on current Ascends and should carry it over.

More is promised surrounding the phone local time at February 21. With details coming in advance, it’s not clear what Huawei’s planned event at Mobile World Congress a week later will do besides show the MediaPad 10. [via Techorz]