Developers anxiously awaiting the Google+ API (application programming interface) will have to wait a little while longer, we’re told. Although Google is hard at work on building the tools which would enable developers to build third-party applications for the new social networking service from the search giant, the API’s launch is still “months” away.

The timeframe, amorphous and vague as it is, was revealed by a Google+ project manager to a Google+ developer, who has asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

And it’s certainly disappointing news for anxious Google+ enthusiasts and developers itching to launch or use apps that leverage the network’s unique capabilities, like Circles, Hangouts, Sparks and Huddles.

Last month, for example, we had high hopes that an API was on the horizon, when Sully Taylor, Creative Director for Teens in Tech Labs and Founder & CEO at Sully Creative, released a basic Google+ application for Mac users. He had posted on Google+ that he had “access to private APIs,” which led to a firestorm of speculation about the status of the official Google+ API launch.

Sully later removed the comment from his Google+ profile at the request of Google, saying that it was “misleading.” In addition, Google also told us that no developer has private API access.

And it looks like no developer will for some time yet.

In the meantime, there are several unofficial workarounds available for accessing parts of the Google+ service, including this unofficial Google Plus API on Github and this Java object for accessing a few basics from the network, like profile details, friend lists, and posts, for example. The problem, of course, with using these unofficial methods is that they’re often difficult to build, prone to breaking as things on Google+ change, buggy and incomplete.

That said, given that Google+ launched in late June, an API launch by year-end would be a solid 6 months after the social network’s debut – certainly a reasonable timeframe (even speedy, perhaps) for an API of such scope.

Still think mobile gaming isn’t a big deal? GameStop disagrees. Though they may not be as in-depth or graphically stimulating as console or PC-based games, but mobile games are accessible to everyone. My grandma can’t play L.A. Noire, but she’s beat every level of Angry Birds. So it only makes sense that GameStop has decided to put a couple new devices on its shelves: the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

GameStop has made a push into the tablet and mobile gaming space as of late. It started an iOS device trade-in program (for select stores) that is expected to roll-out nationally sometime during this year, reports 9to5mac. The company also said in April it had plans to get into the tablet space, whether that be with a device already on the market or by building a GameStop-branded gaming slate. Turns out, nabbing the iOS trifecta was the best plan.

With the carriers set on a duopoly, there’s no better time to start opening up other retail locations for Apple products. We vote with our wallets, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the iPhone or the iPad.

GameStop recently received some bad press over taking promotional materials out of games and then selling them as if nothing had happened. Understandably, people weren’t too happy about this. But the Internet has a short memory and it seems that GameStop needs to cover all the bases in its physical stores to remain competitive.

Apple will be opening a new store in International Finance Center Mall in Hong Kong this quarter. Ming Pao Daily, a local paper, noted that the store should open on September 24.

The store is the first in Hong Kong and should ameliorate some of the crossbow-related smuggling associated with the region.

Businessweek writes that this is the fifth store in China and the other shops have so far generated $8.8 billion in revenue, no small feat. The company has long depended on resellers in the area to support and sell Apple hardware and this store will create a more central location for Macheads to get their fix.

The store should be about 20,000 square feet when finished.

China, your savior is on his way. Per a WSJ report China’s certification agency recently gave a nod of approval to the iPad 2 3G. The iPad 2 has been a hit in the China market since its May debut, but outside of Hong Kong, only the WiFi model has been available. This approval paves the way for a China Unicom 3G model and enough coin for Apple to make Scrooge McDuck jealous.

Apple is slowly warming to the massive China market. The iPhone launched in the country a few years after its US release and a recent report indicated China Mobile and Apple are in talks to bring the iPhone 4 to its massive 600 million subscriber base. A China Mobile iPhone, or even iPad, would require a different mobile radio as the government-owned telecom operates on a homegrown wireless standard rather than the GSM/CDMA type used elsewhere.

No word on when China Unicom subs will be able to pick up a 3G iPad 2. The word comes just this morning from the WSJ and alongside the news that search giant Baidu and Dell have teamed up for a series of phones and tablets. China, it seems, is the next great oil field, just sitting there, slightly undercover, for gadget makers to tap for untold riches.

Photographers, take note. A startup called JPEGmini is introducing a new photo compression technology for JPEG photos which reduces the overall file size (by up to 5 times), while preserving the photo’s quality and resolution.

The technology is designed specifically with the Web in mind, as more photographers, both amateur and professional, use online storage for photo archival purposes. With JPEGmini, photos can be uploaded, emailed and shared faster, while saving on storage and bandwidth costs.

Sounds great, of course. But the question is: does it work?

According to the company, the JPEGmini technology works by analyzing the input image using a unique quality detector which imitates the human visual system. Based on this analysis, it applies the maximum amount of compression which will not cause visible artifacts. The second part of the system is a JPEG encoder, which adapts the JPEG encoding process to the original photos, creating the most compact representation of the photos that is possible under the JPEG standard.

So, to be clear: JPEGmini is not a new file format, it uses the JPEG file format.

And in some cases, it can achieve a recompression ratio of up to 5 times, or an 80% reduction.

The key phrase here is “some cases.” JPEGmini doesn’t always surpass the capabilities of current technology, it seems. Says San Francisco-based professional photographer Jim Goldstein of JMG Galleries, in tests, JPEGmini achieves greater file size savings on larger Web images than Photoshop did. But with smaller images, Photoshop’s “Save for Web” setting (at 60% quality) did better. (More details on the tests here).

This seems to confirm what JPEGmini itself says – the higher the original JPEG photo resolution, the greater the file size reduction it can offer. (Only photos 8 MP and higher can achieve the 80% reduction rate using this technology, for example).

As a professional photographer, Goldstein was also careful to read through the Terms of Service for JPEGmini, which says that if you choose to upload a photo to the site, they can use it to promote their service. This is overly broad, but could be ameliorated simply by adding the line “upon request.”

In addition, it’s worth noting that JPEGmini preserves all the photo’s metadata.

Still, for professionals, the best savings and balance of image quality would come from saving a JPEG for a RAW file, and ideally, doing compressions in batches, not one-by-one as with JPEGmini’s service, explains Goldstein.

So perhaps professional photographers don’t have need of JPEGmini, after all. But other consumers might…especially those who don’t own a copy of Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, for example. The technology could be integrated into consumer electronics, like phones and digital cameras, too, as a way to save storage space and bandwidth when saving or sharing photos.

JPEGmini was developed by ICVT, an Israeli startup company based in Tel-Aviv. Its founder, Sharon Carmel, previously co-founded Emblaze, which developed the Internet’s first vector-based graphics player, preceding Macromedia Flash, and BeInSync, a P2P sync and backup company acquired by Phoenix Technologies in 2008. JPEGmini is self-funded.

ThinkGeek’s iCade certainly has a sense of visual flair going for it, but discerning iPad gamers who could do without the retro throwback may soon have another choice. The existence of the Atari Arcade Duo-Powered Joystick was recently confirmed in the Atari Greatest Hits app’s changelog, hopefully meaning it will make its official debut soon.

Details are still pretty scarce, but Technabob reports that the Atari Arcade joystick sports a largely plastic body with an open design that allows for easy removal of the iPad. At this point it seems likely that, like the iCade, the joystick will (for better or worse) connect to the iPad via Bluetooth to transmit control input.

The joystick, in essence, acts as a Bluetooth keyboard with certain keys bound to different on-screen actions — maybe not an ideal solution as far as control is concerned, but much easier than going through Apple’s MFi accessory certification program.

It’s far too early for judgment calls, but considering the design and button layout, the Atari Arcade joystick may soon see life as a budget peripheral. Discovery Bay Games has yet to reveal the joystick’s price point or ship date, but don’t expect it to break the bank whenever it does start making the retail rounds.

Hot on the heels of Baidu’s new mobile OS launch, reports are circulating that the Chinese search giant is partnering with Dell to build tablets and mobile phones.

China is a goldmine in terms of potential consumers. With over 900 million mobile subscribers, China is becoming one of the fastest growing tablet markets, as well. As the Google of the Eastern world, Baidu should have no problem marketing hardware under its brand name. And Dell’s business in China seems to have picked up as well, though the name carries far less weight with consumers than Baidu’s.

According to an analyst who spoke with Reuters, Dell may be “grasping at straws” in an attempt to breathe life into its tablet business. The Dell Streak 5 tablet has been discontinued in the States, but a Dell spokesperson said that the company “has a partnership with Baidu [and] the Streak 5 tablet, so the partnership will be in that space.” It’s not clear whether that means we should expect a Chinese version of the Dell Streak 5 or just another similar minitab.

Either way, Dell and Baidu will face some strong competition in China. Lenovo has seen great success in the Chinese market over the past few years, and Apple has an almost terrifyingly strong presence there. We’ve heard of girls giving up their virginity for an iPhone 4 and a Chinese teenager selling his kidney for an iPad 2.

With brand dedication like that it may be more difficult than expected to rip people away from their beloved Apple. And the companies won’t have much time to do so, either. Though neither company gave a solid timeline, a spokesperson said we may see the partnership’s first offering in as early as November.

After announcing the rollout of its movie and TV show streaming service to Latin America, Mexico and the Caribbean, Netflix is announcing a significant content deal for this international expansion. Film and TV show studio Miramax is bringing its library of hundreds of film titles to Netflix’s Latin American customers via a multi-year agreement. Netflix has been streaming movies from Miramax in the U.S. since May 2011. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.This is actually Miramax’s first international licensing deal.

Films that will be available from the Miramax library to Netflix Latin America subscribers will include Chicago, Chocolat, The English Patient, From Dusk Till Dawn, Gone Baby Gone, Good Will Hunting, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Swingers, There Will Be Blood, Amityville Horror, Scream and Spy Kids. The movies can be watched on multiple platforms, including TV, tablet, PC and mobile phones.

The international deal with Miramax is a vote of a confidence after the company suffered a blow when Starz announced last week it would not be renewing a content contract with Netflix next year.

But Netflix has been able to secure some high-profile deals for its fledgling international service, including content agreements with CBS and Telemundo. As we’ve written in the past, striking international content deals is going to be key to the company’s growth beyond the U.S., where it already has major deals in place.

Miramax has actually been looking for ways to digital distribution even beyond Netflix. The studio recently launched a Facebook app that offers movie rentals in exchange for Facebook credits. The studio also landed a recent deal with Hulu.

Japanese stationery maker Kokuyo has come up with an easy way to digitize and permanently store what you jot down on paper notepads: all you need is a an iPhone (or soon Android handset), a special app called CamiApp (available for free and in English on the App Store), and notepads made by Kokuyo.

The company says that taking pictures of the notes is enough: CamiApp adjusts the quality through using AR markers or a black frame before it lets you tag, edit, email or store your notes on Evernote or Dropbox (as JPEGs).

Kokuyo is currently preparing an Android version and thinks about exporting their CamiApp-optimized notepads.

This video (in English, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo) provides more insight:

Apple is seemingly sucking all the air out of the PC market. Major players are weary of launching an entirely new product type even one with such draw as ultrabooks. Digitimes is reporting that the first round of ultrabook orders are fairly light as companies smartly predict that consumers are still enamored with Apple products.

The first round of ultrabook (read: MacBook Air clones) were announced by Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba last week at Germany’s IFA trade conference. These svelte notebooks are built around an entirely new platform developed by Intel, which if pushed onto consumer’s properly, could usher in a new golden age for the Windows PC. But OEMs are reportedly timid and expected to artificially limit the amount of Ultrabooks for the rest of the year.

The Digitimes report indicates that these companies expect to ship less than 50,000 units citing Apple’s current dominance over the space. This will of course limit the companys’ losses if the consumer market doesn’t latch onto the slightly more expensive but incredibly thin notebooks. You see, this isn’t the first time Intel has sold computer makers on the idea of thin notebooks. Intel’s previous ultraportable platform, the CULV, also produced ultra-thin notebooks, but also ultra-high prices. This time around though, prices are more in line with consumer expectations with many even first-gen models available for less than $1000 USD.

In a way the Ultrabook platform is the Windows PC last hope. They offer a brand new form factor with similar performance over the current bulky models. They offer all the portability of a MacBook Air but with Windows. If the Ultrabook movement fails, only Steve Jobs himself will be able to build the PC Windows notebook space back to what it was before Apple hit the big time.