Microsoft takes hits after bad PC numbers
photo: Flickr / ToddABishop
With Q1 PC sales breaking records — and not in a good way — Microsoft is taking heat with two analysts downgrading its shares. Read more »
Privacy in the mobile age? You’re doing it wrong, say EU regulators
A group of data protection officials from across Europe has published its opinion on smartphone apps. It makes for ugly reading, as the fragmentation of the mobile ecosystem renders compliance near-impossible. Read more »
Here’s what Ubuntu will look like on tablets, and why enterprise users might be interested
Canonical has shown off the tablet UI for the touch-friendly Ubuntu, with many of the features pitched squarely at the corporate market. Whether it succeeds there depends on how Windows 8 fares in the enterprise. Read more »
Poll: Should Nokia build a Windows RT tablet? (I vote no)
Rumors are again surfacing that Nokia plans to build and sell a 10-inch Microsoft Windows RT tablet. Whether this is true or not, there isn’t much upside for Nokia here: it doesn’t have expertise in this area, and it can’t afford another product flop. Read more »
HuffPost Live’s new iPad app could be a second screen breakthrough
photo: HuffPo Live
HuffPost Live’s new app could help usher in an era where content producers seek to dominate not just our TV but our tablet devices — at the same time. Read more »
Microsoft Surface reviews: come for the hardware, tolerate the software
The first reviews are in for Microsoft’s Surface, its first attempt at making personal computer hardware. Though reviewers mostly like the Surface hardware, with its keyboard cover and kickstand, the software is another story. Read more »
Acer’s Iconia W510: a $499 Windows 8 tablet with optional dock
Acer’s new Iconia W510 blends the tablet and laptop worlds with Windows 8 and an optional keyboard dock. The thin slate on its own starts at $499, but $749 doubles the flash storage and includes a keyboard dock with battery, providing 18 hours of runtime. Read more »
Can HP jumpstart its cloud computing effort?
photo: Shutterstock / drser
The troubled IT giant is about to tweak its cloud services effort according to a Bloomberg News report. The question is whether yet another new strategy can give the company the traction it needs so badly. Read more »
Microsoft’s Ballmer drops clues on Surface pricing and what’s ahead
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicates a “sweet spot” for the price of the company’s upcoming Surface tablet, which is expected next month. He also discusses the company’s path over the next five to ten years. Read more »
Video look at the useful $15 Blurex Nexus 7 case
Can a $15 tablet case really be any good? After just one day with the Blurex Ultra Slim case for Nexus 7, the answer is yes. Aside from protecting the tablet, it gives full access to all controls and offers three viewing angles in landscape. Read more »
Sky TV’s new iPad remote control is a blank slate, literally
Pay-TV leader BSkyB is the latest to turn the iPad in to a TV remote control. Its approach relies on the tactility of the entire tablet screen and requires an additional WiFi dongle. Read more »
Hallelujah, Christians get their own e-reader
Christian Family Stores’ new e-reader, the color-screen edifi, is a low-end version of Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color — and $10 cheaper, at $149.99. Can features like safe-search web browsing and Christian apps entice shoppers to buy the edifi over more mainstream devices? Read more at paidContent »
Microsoft’s Ballmer to Apple: It’s on (again)
Steve Ballmer, unbowed by a negative Vanity Fair story that paints Microsoft as a company that no longer competes effectively remains … well, Ballmer. In a recent interview, Ballmer said Microsoft will take the battle to Apple again in tablets, in smartphones, in cloud. Read more »
Report: Tablets now drive more ecommerce traffic than smartphones
Monetate, which analyzed more than 100 million online shopping experiences, said that in the first quarter of 2012, tablet traffic to commerce sites hit 6.52 percent, overtaking smartphones (5.35 percent) for the first time. Tablets are already ideal shopping devices and they’re only growing in popularity. Read more »
What the future of a News Corp. newspaper spinoff should look like
photo: Flickr user Mark Strozier
News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch has confirmed that the company is considering splitting itself in two, with the newspaper assets spun off as a separate entity. What would — or could — the digital future look like for that standalone newspaper unit? Here are a few ideas. Read more »
Google’s hot new tablet: Nexus 7 with Android 4.1
The rumors were true: Google launched the Nexus 7 tablet on Wednesday at its annual Google I/O developer event in San Francisco. Nexus 7 runs Android 4.1 and will be sold directly from Google in the Google Play store alongside the Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Read more »
MightyText: a texting service you (and your carrier) will love
MightyText has taken the beta wraps off of its over-the-top messaging service, which extends an Android phone’s SMS capabilities to PCs and tablets. Using the same phone number, a MightyText user can send and receive text messages from a PC or tablet browser. Read more »
Android this week: Razr beats iPhone; Acer outs HD tablet; Intel phone shows promise
Has one single Android phone outsold the iPhone 4S? Apparently so, at least at Verizon, where the Motorola Razr and its 4G LTE radio is tops. Acer is taking on Apple’s iPad with a $449 tablet while an Intel phone — yes, Intel — gets a nice review. Read more »
Collaboration on the move has a long way to go, survey finds
A new survey by collaboration tools company harmon.ie reveals that working while you’re on the go is far from painless, finding that while mobile working is hugely common, remote collaboration tools are still slowing productivity, leading to errors and causing headaches. Read more »
AT&T launching smart home pilot in Atlanta and Dallas
AT&T’s Digital Life program may have started overseas, but this summer AT&T will offer its new connected home service in two U.S. trial markets, Atlanta and Dallas, where it will install home monitoring and automation devices that homeowners can access from a browser, smartphone or tablet. Read more »
How smartphones and tablets are fueling commerce
Smartphones and tablets are driving both in-store and online commerce, but their roles are distinct in many ways. Nielsen shed some light on how consumers are using both devices to aid their shopping. Overall, 79 percent of respondents have shopped using their smartphone or tablet. Read more »
Android this week: Cheaper Asus Transformer Pad reviewed; HTC One S impresses
The Asus Transformer Prime tablet now has a cheaper cousin called the Transformer Pad TF-300 and reviews are starting to trickle in. The Pad starts at $380 and has a $150 dock option. My look at the HTC One S smartphone shows a premium handset experience. Read more »
Evernote & Pinterest just had a baby: Enter the new Springpad
Springpad has long been compared to Internet note-taking sensation Evernote, but starting today Springpad will likely be compared to another darling of the startup world, Pinterest. On Wednesday Springpad evolved into its third iteration, transforming the information capture service into a social networking engine. Read more »
Subscriber Content
Why tomorrow’s iPad will need a battery breakthrough
The single biggest constraint for mobile devices today is batteries, and this includes the new iPad. If Apple wants to keep delivering cutting-edge improvements to its always-on, lightweight tablet, it needs to know the stakes in the looming battery race, and how to break through them. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Subscriber Content
How scribbling on an iPad makes your work life easier
If you spend a lot of time writing in the margins of reports or filling out endless forms, there’s something you should know: You should be using a tablet for all of these things. Here are four iPad apps to get you on your way. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon is stifling the e-commerce revolution
Amazon continues to defy gravity deep into its second decade. That’s terrible news for consumers and competitors says Michael Schreck of Zmags. E-commerce needs competition to innovate. But for that to happen, we need to ditch the old e-commerce model, and embrace discovery shopping. Read more »
iPad users account for 25 percent of Fab.com’s sales
Fab.com said iPad users represent 15 percent of its customer but make up 25 percent of revenue. And 40 percent of iPad users make their first purchase within 3 months. IPad app users are expected to bring in twice as much revenue as non iPad users. Read more »
Apple iPad event live blog
Join us Wednesday morning as we live blog Apple’s iPad event in San Francisco starting at 10 a.m. We will kick things off here at around 9:30 a.m. PT, so be sure to bookmark this page and come back then. Read more »
Mobify launches tablet optimization tool for websites
Mobify is betting that companies want to optimize their websites for tablet use in the same way many have modified their sites for smartphones. The company is releasing a tablet optimization product that makes it easy for a site to convert to a more tablet-friendly design. Read more »
A $199 Nook Tablet takes aim at Amazon’s Kindle Fire
Barnes & Noble announced a $199 version of its Nook Tablet on Tuesday with half of the memory and storage of the current $249 model. B&N is taking aim at Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire, but it doesn’t have a full-featured ecosystem to compete with. Read more »
Two become one: how magazines will ape their apps
In a reversal of today’s content publishing model, print magazines pretty soon could start looking a lot like their app equivalents. The drawback to this custom production? It’s expensive. Read more »
Microsoft OneNote on Android: nice but late to the party
Microsoft added Android support for OneNote, enabling Android users to take notes from their device and sync them in the cloud. But a few key features are missing that appear in competing apps. Is this space owned by Evernote or can OneNote succeed on Android? Read more »
Is the spectrum crisis a myth?
Mobile operators insist we are fast approaching a mobile datapocalypse where their networks will no longer be able to meet mobile broadband demands. But are these claims of a spectrum crisis red herrings? A couple of telecom industry commentators think so, and they’re calling the carriers out. Read more »
2012: The year websites optimize for tablets
Mobify’s CEO Igor Faletski, whose company helps sites optimize for mobile, said almost all of Mobify’s work thus far has been to optimize for smartphones. But he said this year many sites are preparing to build specifically for tablets, taking advantage of their unique capabilities. Read more »
Spool’s next bet is on collaborative curation
Today Spool is mostly being used to bookmark and sync content that you want to consume later across multiple devices. But there is an opportunity for it to go beyond managing interesting content and enable its users to share content with relevant groups. Read more »
Razr boosts Moto’s sales, but triggers no revival
Motorola Mobility said its newly re-envisioned Razr led the way to increases in total device shipments and revenue in the fourth quarter, but considering Moto’s vastly reduced market share, those increases didn’t lead to much. It shipped 5.3 million smartphones and a paltry 200,000 tablets. Read more »
Two years, 55M iPads later, Apple still rules tablets
Just under two years since Apple introduced the original iPad, the company said Tuesday that it’s now sold a total of 55 million units. And in the last three months of 2010 alone, Apple sold 15.4 million, a company record. Read more »
There’s room for both tablets and e-readers (for now)
Although there’s some overlapping functionality between tablets and e-readers, it doesn’t seem to set up either device to cannibalize the other; at least not yet. The number of adults who owned either a tablet or an e-reader doubled this holiday season. Here’s why neither is “winning.” Read more »
Tablets: the perfect shopping device
In just a short time, modern tablets have become potent shopping tools that generate an outsize effect on online commerce. 2011 was the year that the tablet became an online retailer’s best friend as it emerged as the preferred device for many shoppers to make purchases. Read more »
At CES, Samsung plans content for every screen
Samsung spent most of its CES press event explaining how it will expand its app and media ecosystem to every screen in the house and going out the door. Perhaps that’s why Samsung has a smartphone or tablet available in practically every possible screen size. Read more »
