Tablets

Tablet shipments to jump 68%, PCs to slip 10%, says Gartner

Global shipments of PCs, tablets, and mobile phones will rise by 5.9 percent this year, reaching 2.35 billion, research firm Gartner predicted on Monday.

Though PC shipments continue to nosedive, the technology industry is getting a shot in the arm from tablets and smartphones.

Worldwide PC shipments, which include desktops and notebooks, are expected to drop by 10.6 percent this year to 305 million, Gartner said. Tablet shipments are pegged to jump by 67.9 percent, hitting 202 million. And shipments of mobile phones are forecast to grow by 4.3 percent to more than 1.8 … Read more

Top 5 must-have Android tablet apps

Even the most die-hard Android fan has to admit that it has taken Android quite a while to catch up to Apple when it comes to quality tablet-optimized apps. You can't blame Google entirely, though. With the dramatic launch of their tablet-only Honeycomb OS, Google tried hard to rally Android developers around building great tablet apps. Why it took developers another year to answer that call for tablet apps is another whole story.

The good news is, Android tablet owners now have a fantastic assortment of apps to choose from. Apps that don't merely scale up the Android … Read more

Simple ways to enhance your Internet privacy

Recent disclosures of U.S. government surveillance of our phone and Internet activity have heightened interest in services that promise not to collect or share our personal information.

One such service is DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine that has seen its traffic jump since news broke earlier this month of the National Security Agency's PRISM electronic surveillance program. The Guardian's Stuart Dredge reports that DuckDuckGo's daily search count reached an all-time high of 3.1 million on June 17, well above its daily average of 1.8 million daily searches prior to the PRISM revelations.

Those numbers … Read more

Turn your Kindle Fire into an Android 4.2 tablet

For a long time I've been a fan of N2A Cards, which sells a simple plug-and-play way to turn Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets into full-blown Android tablets. After all, if you've got good hardware, why not unlock its maximum potential?

Now Kindle owners can get in on the action. N2A's new N2Aos service will install Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) on your first- or second-generation Kindle Fire, replacing Amazon's heavily customized -- and, some would say, limited -- operating system with the real deal.

There are, of course, a few important considerations.… Read more

Discover Android hardware and system info with CPU-Z

PC users who like to tinker with their Windows systems with things like overclocking use CPU-Z to get useful hardware and system data for their projects. The developers over at CPUID have now brought CPU-Z to the Android community. Whether you've rooted your Android device and are looking to overclock it or if you're just curious about your hardware's internals, CPU-Z can help.

CPU-Z for Android divides the displayed data into four tabs: SOC (system on chip), System, Battery, and Sensors. SOC shows you details of your Android device's CPU, including name, architecture, and clock speed. … Read more

FAA to loosen rules on in-flight electronic devices, says WSJ

Airline passengers may be able to use their favorite electronic gadgets from takeoff to landing if new FAA guidelines come to pass.

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to ease the restrictions on the use of certain devices at lower altitudes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Citing "industry officials and draft recommendations prepared by a high-level advisory panel to FAA," the Journal reported on Friday that passengers would be spared from having to turn off all electronic devices, though cell phones may or may not remain on the banned list.

The FAA's current guidelines prohibit the … Read more

Get a Kobo Mini e-reader for $39.99

This is an update of a deal I wrote about back in February.

With tablet prices dipping below $150 and even $100, it's no surprise to see e-reader prices in free-fall. So why not scoop one up and enjoy the benefits of an eye-friendly screen, ultra-light design, amazing battery life, and distraction-free reading?

And here's one of the best deals I've seen yet: For a limited time, you can get the Kobo Mini e-reader for $39.99, plus $8 for shipping. That's $20 less than the last time I wrote about it and $30 less than … Read more

Apple: E-book pricing verdict could have 'chilling effect'

NEW YORK -- Apple warned that a guilty verdict in its e-book price-fixing case could have a negative impact on how digital media deals are negotiated in the U.S, the company said Thursday in its closing arguments.

But the U.S. Department of Justice, which initially sued Apple and a handful of the nation's largest publishers early last year, said Apple and the publishers had two objectives when making their deals: raise e-book prices and restrain retail price competition to hurt Amazon.

Declaring that Apple violated antitrust laws and served as the ringleader in a conspiracy to change … Read more

The lowdown on Samsung's new products (roundup)

Tablets, cameras, and smartphones, oh my. At a London press conference today, Samsung let loose a number of new products that ranged from a handful of Galaxy smartphones, to several Windows 8 Ativ tablets. In addition, it announced the Galaxy NX, a compact camera that can connect photographers on the go to an LTE data connection. To make sense of all these devices, CNET compiled a list of the new goodies. But what do you guys think? Are you looking forward to any of these devices or are they a pass?

Samsung Galaxy NX Running a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, … Read more

Getting started with Video on Instagram

Facebook on Thursday held an event to announce a "big idea," according to the invitation sent out last week. Immediately rumors started circulating that Facebook and Instagram were going to take on Twitter's Vine service by adding video to the popular filtered-photo social network.

The rumors were true.

As of today iOS and Android (the Android version has yet to show up in the Google Play store, but it should be there sometime today) users will be able to install Instagram 4.0, complete with a new Video on Instagram feature.

Once you have the update installed, … Read more