Week in review: Apple tablet rumors gather, Seesmic launches Look

Here’s our rundown of the week’s business and tech news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Apple tablet roundup: Who’s going to use the thing? — Apple’s tablet has provided no shortage of rumors. Everything from design specs to pricing have flooded the internet from various media outlets and sources. To gain a better perspective on the scope of rumors, we put together a snapshot below of the most recent speculations.

Three ways the Apple tablet will save the Earth — Yes, the headline is a bit facetious. But even if Apple’s tablet doesn’t save the planet, its users will be cutting carbon in three major industries.

Want new apps for your Android or iPhone? Here are the best directories — The best way to find new apps is to use one of the 20 or so directories out there that try to make sense of the thousands of apps. Writer Jacob Lyssy tried out a number of directories over the course of the week and recommends his favorites.

Will The New York Times meter kill traffic from social media? — Following the newspaper’s announcement that it will start charging visitors a flat fee for full access to its site, we looked at data from Hitwise to see how the move might affect traffic.

As Oracle-Sun deal gains approval, Oracle exec’s affair splashed on billboards — Just as the European Union finally gave its blessing to Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystem’s, Oracle’s co-president found details of his 8.5-year extramarital affair splashed on billboards around the United States.

And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:

Seesmic goes after mainstream consumers, tablets with Look — The typical Twitter client, which is used to read tweets, might resemble rocket science to grandma. With that in mind, Seesmic, which is behind several mobile, desktop and web-based social media clients for keeping track of tweets and Facebook updates, is going after regular consumers with a new product called Seesmic Look.

Google: Our focused approach paid off, ‘We like the Chinese people’ — While crowing about Google’s strong fourth quarter earnings, the search giant’s executives looked back on 2009 as a whole. Google seemed to elbow its way into many new markets over the course of the year, but Vice President of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg said it also benefited by deciding to “double down” on its core products like search.

AdMob: Apple may break its tie with Nokia for world domination — Apple, with its iPhone OS, is the dominant force in North America, Western Europe, Latin America and Oceania, while Nokia, running the Symbian OS, still leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, according to December 2009 survey data published by mobile advertising network AdMob. But data shows that Apple may finally be making inroads on a global level.

Facebook shows off latest versions of its game and app dashboards — Facebook showed off a new version of its dashboards that are meant to give more attention to games and other apps on its social network. It gave developers access to the new design so that they can start creating apps that are well-integrated with the dashboards.

BumpTop launches for Mac, turns your desktop into your desk (+100 accounts) — BumpTop thinks it can bridge the gap between your computer desktop and your physical desk. An application that launched initially in April of 2009, BumpTop launched a Mac version this week.