I'd like to follow up on my previous post on the end of days for Bitts. While I will be writing for Skatter Tech in the near future, I always wanted to create a Daring Fireball-esque website, i.e. links to relevant technology news stories with my own input for each. That's exactly what I'm doing with the GT Daily, or GTD for short. I'm launching this brand new website on June 1st where I will gather up some of the best articles of the day in the technology industry and comment on them. It will hopefully be on gtdaily.net, but I make no promises as I haven't purchased the domain name yet.

I have some pretty unfortunate news this afternoon. Bitts has reached the end of the road. As you may or may not know, for the majority of the time on Bitts it has been a one-man show. Hi, I'm George. I launched this tech news site on December 1, 2009 and since then have written over 1,000 articles up until this point. Since its launch, I've seen a slow and steady increase in followers and for that I must thank you. I really did enjoy serving up the news each day as well as writing the occasional editorial piece. The site will remain up probably for the rest of the year since I have so much content that still generates views. But while this is the end of the road for Bitts, I'm happy to announce that this is not the end of the road for me.

Amazon has a lot to worry about with the Kindle today. Barnes & Noble unveiled their Kindle killer at a press event. Yes, it's the real Nook 2. It's being branded as the "Simple Touch Reader". It's incredibly cheesy, I know. Still, this guy has a lot to offer.

First things first. The new Nook has been completely redesigned. It's thinner and lighter than before, removes almost all buttons in favor of a 6-inch E-Ink touch screen display, and goes for a black hue this time around. A touch screen was next logical step for Barnes & Noble after including small, LCD touch display in the first Nook.

Aside from the design, it is jam-packed with new features. My favorite is the new two-month battery life, making this e-reader boast the longest battery life of any e-reader on the market. It also has the largest store with over two million available titles ready to be purchased. And speaking of reading, that gets better too. Barnes & Noble included the new E-Ink Pearl display -- the same one on the current Kindle -- with 50% better contrast.

Rumors are circulating today that an AT&T representative supposedly had an exclusive chat with a few big guys at Apple that said the iPhone 5 would not be released until October. For quite a while now, the media has been pinpointing September as the release date. Still, the iPhone 5 could be announced in September at the annual iPod event and ship in October to fit in with this new rumor. I wouldn't take this too seriously though.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer slipped news that the update for Windows Phone 7 tomorrow dubbed "Mango" will bring over 500 features to the operating system. This announcement comes just a day before the event, so it's fairly odd timing, but it's likely to prevent gadget nerds (even if just a few) from sleeping well tonight.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the tenth anniversary of the tenth anniversary of Apple's retail stores coming up pretty soon. An exclusive report from BGR details the possible plans for a new product launch of some sort coming within a couple of weeks. Just to quote an excerpt of what they had to say:

Apple stores have apparently already received hardware to install, and are expecting more hardware to come on Friday or Saturday. All materials that Apple stores have received have been instructed to be under lock and key until after close on Saturday night.

It is also said that certain Apple employees from each store have been asked to work a night shift from this Saturday into mid-Sunday. Whatever is coming appears to be very high profile. The last time there was this much hype over an Apple mystery was when Gizmodo got their hands on an iPhone 4 prototype in April of last year. So what is it going to be?

I didn't even want to let these images see the light of day on my blog, but with all the media attention that these ridiculous photos are getting, I need to set everyone straight. You may recall the following floating around the web recently, am I correct?

The first image shows the iPhone 4 cameras in comparison to what is claimed to be the new iPhone 5 cameras. It's supposed to support the second image, which tries to convince us that the flash will be moved all the way to the right of the iPhone 5. Why doesn't anybody see anything wrong with this? Fine, the iPhone 5 front-facing camera isn't too bad because it's only slightly longer than the iPhone 4. The rear-facing camera, however, is totally different. The lens itself looks exactly like the front-facing cameras of both models and not like the much larger lens of the iPhone 4 rear-facing camera. This seems to imply that the iPhone 5 camera would be downgraded dramatically. Someone show me the sense in this. Plus, since the camera part is much longer, it would imply a redesign of the internals of the iPhone 5. A redesign completely contradicts recent rumors that the iPhone 5 will look identical to the iPhone 4.

RIM has reportedly issued a recall on nearly 1,000 faulty BlackBerry PlayBook units tonight. Luckily, if you happen to be one of the few that actually owns a BlackBerry PlayBook, the recall only applies to customers who purchased their tablet at Staples. All of the faulty units have been shipped to Staples, but not all of them may have been purchased just yet. Engadget has the full list of 935 serial numbers that are being recalled and you can view that list right here.

If you were asked "Hey, what's the fastest selling portable gaming system?" what would you guess? Nintendo DS? PSP perhaps? Well, you'd be dead wrong. The iPhone 4 has officially received the honor of claiming such a title by the Guinness Book of World Records.

It's hard to believe that we've come this far in technology. A smartphone -- something that wasn't very smart just a few years ago -- is actually not only qualified as a portable gaming system, but the fastest selling one in history. iPhone 4 sold approximately 1.5 million units on the first day of availability, according to sales estimates. On the other hand, the PSP only sold a comparably depressing 200,000 units on the first day. The Nintendo DS sold 600,000 in the first week.

No doubt you've heard of the big announcement today as part of day two of the Google I/O conference. That's correct, the magical and revolutionary Chromebooks have made their debut and I have a few thoughts on them. I wasn't able to report the news as it happened but if you are unaware of what a Chromebook is at this point, a quick Google search might settle your confusion. Or read on.