Today’s mobile news roundup features: leaked iPad mini photos; Firefox OS devices available in December; AMD to run Windows 8 on new chip; and Intel’s Windows 8 event scheduled for next week.

iPad mini photos leaked

Photos of the iPad mini has said to been uncovered and many believe that it is legit, since rumors regarding the iPhone 5 were so accurate.  The photos feature a smaller-looking iPad, presumed have a 7.8-inch screen, and it appears to have the same mic and speaker grid design and the new smaller dock for Lightning USB cable.

The back of the iPad mini appears to be brushed aluminum.  People are starting to question if the leaks of the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini are part of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s plan.  Though the late Steve Jobs may not agree with it, as he was very secretive, you can’t deny that if the leaks are part of Cook’s marketing strategy, it’s actually working.

It was reported that pre-orders of the iPhone 5 topped 2 million units in the initial 24 hours, more than double the first wave of sales of last year’s 4S version.  And as Friday draws near, pre-orders just keep piling up.  The thing is, with the massive amount of pre-orders, the delay in receiving your device is also getting longer.   According to reports, the delay is now up by three or four weeks and it looks like it would worsen by Friday, when Apple and retailers open their doors to sell the iPhone 5.

Firefox OS devices available in December

In July, Mozilla, ZTE and TCL Communication Technology (Alcatel) announced their collaboration in creating a new line of smartphones that will on Firefox OS in the hopes of competing with the Androids and iOS devices available in the market today.  They were planning to unveil the software in 2013 together with the Firefox OS devices and their effort is backed by global partners such as Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor.  But it seems like 2013 is too far, as ZTE and Mozilla announced that the new software will be released by December and the devices will be available by the first quarter of 2013.  The early release is due to the fact that they want to decrease their dependence on Google as about 90 percent of smartphones in China run on the Android OS with the rest running on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

AMD to run Windows 8 on new chip

Chip maker AMD announced that their newest processor, Hondo, will only be featured on Windows 8 tablets when it launches but AMD noted that it doesn’t mean it can’t be used for Linux.

“This is a Windows 8 product, only. We’re not doing Android on this platform, at least not now,” Steve Belt, corporate VP of ultra low power products at AMD said. “[…] It is a conscious decision not to go after Android.

“We think the Windows 8 space has a lot of opportunity, there’s plenty of TAM [total addressable market] there for us to go at. So we don’t need to spread ourselves into other markets, we think Windows 8 is a great place to start. Down the road we may look at Android, right now we’re focused on Windows 8.”

Intel’s Windows 8 event scheduled for next week

On September 27, Intel will be hosting an event that will highlight products using their “Clover Trail” Z2760 (PDF) power-efficient system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor.  The event showcase new products from companies such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE, whose products will be running the full version of Windows 8 – not Windows RT.

“A media event to showcase the latest Intel-based tablet and tablet convertibles, and announce details about the next generation Intel Atom processor (formerly code-named ‘Clover Trail’),” Intel said in their media invite.