SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 5, 2012

We've arrived at another Friday evening, which means that the weekend lies ahead. Today, as many of you probably already know, was the one-year anniversary of the passing of Steve Jobs. Apple paid tribute to Jobs in a new video released today, and it was announced that three modified MacBook Pros will be auctioned off in memory of Jobs. On the lighter side of things, Lenovo is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ThinkPad with a look back through time, and Samsung's profits for Q3 2013 managed to break company records (not an easy thing to do, considering how popular Samsung is).

The LG Nexus G has been tipped for a reveal later this month, and it looks like problems with component yields might mean that we're headed for iPad Mini shortages (assuming the rumored tablet actually exists, of course). The Kindle Paperwhite has officially been jailbroken, and Rovio was spotted teasing a new Star Wars-Angry Birds tie-in earlier today, leaving us to wonder what's in the pipeline. Sprint might be looking to rain on T-Mobile's MetroPCS parade, and Anonymous is at it again, this time bringing down government sites in Sweden in the name of The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Wii U pre-orders are hard to find these days, but provided you've got the cash to burn, you can pick one up on eBay. iPhone cases were popping up left and right today, like this Loop Mummy case for the iPhone 4/4S and these Moshi cases for the iPhone 5. Xi3 has gone to Kickstarter to fund its new X3A and X7A modular computers, and one analyst is saying that HP's stock should be worth negative $2. Ubisoft gave us a brand new ZombiU development diary, and we heard that increased iPhone 5 quality demands led to a strike at a Foxconn factory in China today.

New algorithms may eventually lead to cell phones that charge twice as fast, while NASA explained why Curiosity is collecting dirt from the surface of Mars. Motorola has managed to fight off Microsoft in a patent dispute over in Germany, while astronomers say they've discovered a new star circling a black hole at the center of our galaxy. Pokemon Black and White 2 launch in the US this Sunday (are you ready to be the best?) and we found out today that New Zealand authorities may have been spying on Kim Dotcom much earlier than they've admitted.

Finally tonight, we have quite a few original articles to share with you. Don Reisinger asks if Bill Gates will be remembered in the same way as Steve Jobs when he's gone, Chris Burns explains why the iPad Mini will be free when it launches and what the iPad Mini needs to fix when it comes to Apple tablets, and Chris Davies has a review of the Synology DS213air NAS. That does it for tonight's evening wrap-up – we hope you have a fun weekend!