Tablets

The much-discussed BlackBerry tablet may finally come to fruition as soon as next week.

It's been talked about for months, but Research In Motion has yet to acknowledge that such a device exists. But today The Wall Street Journal reported that the Canadian smartphone maker may reveal its own iPad-like tablet at its developer conference in San Francisco, which starts Monday.

The Journal's unnamed sources say the device is not ready for shipping to customers, but will by sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

The BlackBerry tablet--sometimes referred to as the "BlackPad" since RIM … Read more

This week we check out the new NFL FanVision device, which Scott demoed live from this week's Jets game. It's a slightly dated looking handheld screen that gives you access to instant replays, other game highlights, and more, all while you're sitting in the stadium.

Following that, we discuss our recent hands-on demo with the Samsung Galaxy Tab, along with the exciting news that Google Docs editing is coming to both Android and iOS within weeks.

We also act out the latest testy Steve Jobs e-mail exchange with an equally tone-deaf college student, and finally show some some amazing video we shot that very morning, of a daredevil window washer, working on a high ledge without any kind of safety harness.

… Read more

The big news this week in the world of iOS devices is that we are drawing ever closer to iOS 4.2, the update that will add new features and bring the iPad up to speed with the feature set on the iPhone 4.

As noted by our own Josh Lowensohn a couple of days ago, iOS 4.2 for iPad has been seeded to developers so they can get started bringing their apps up to date. With iOS 4.2 on your iPad, you'll be able to multitask like the iPhone, make folders for your apps, get connected with Apple's Game Center, and get an updated interface for iPad e-mail. Josh also pointed out in another story this week that the 4.2 update will turn the iPad's rotation-lock switch into a volume-mute switch just like on the iPhone.

Even more exciting, both the iPhone and iPad will receive AirPrint, a service that automatically locates connected printers on a network and over Wi-Fi without additional driver software. iOS 4.2 will also bring AirPlay to all iOS devices, letting you stream all of your multimedia to multiple TVs, computers, and set-top boxes.

iOS 4.2 is set to be released in November, but you can bet that Apple will have more tweaks before then.

This week's apps include an image collage maker with a ton of features and a driving game where the undead try to make you crash.… Read more

Update at 3:55 p.m. PDT: Best Buy issued a statement Friday afternoon saying that the rate at which CEO Brian Dunn said the iPad is cannibalizing notebook sales was "grossly exaggerated." You can read more details about Best Buy's latest statement in our story here.

Has the iPad affected consumer demand for Netbooks and notebooks? According to comments by Best Buy's chief executive, Apple's popular tablet is chopping away at laptop sales.

Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that internal estimates showed the iPad had cannibalized sales … Read more

Motorola is planning to jump into the tablet market, co-CEO Sanjay Jha said earlier this week in an investor conference, according to news reports.

Speaking to investors, Jha said that his company wants to offer a tablet that would be "competitive in the marketplace." He said that he hopes to have a "competitive" tablet available "early next year," according to The Wall Street Journal. From what CNET has heard, the Motorola tablet is known as Everest.

Although he didn't explicitly say it, Jha also indicated that Motorola's tablet could run Android 3.… Read more

During today's press conference, Samsung revealed that Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T are all on board to offer the Android-based Galaxy Tab in the U.S.

Pricing and release dates for the Android-based Galaxy Tab are still yet to be announced, and will likely differ from carrier to carrier. Samsung has also confirmed that, like the Galaxy S series of smartphones, the features and specs of the Galaxy Tab will be tweaked slightly from carrier to carrier.

Beyond the obvious need for both a CDMA and a GSM version of the Tab, in order to work with … Read more

Samsung Electronics is expected to officially launch its new Android-based tablet PC on Thursday evening at an event in New York, likely naming three of the four major wireless operators in the United States as carrier partners.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel had all reached agreements with Samsung to offer the new Galaxy Tab, set to be an Apple iPad competitor, that runs Google's Android 2.2 operating system.

Exact pricing for the new device isn't yet known, but Hankil Yoon, an executive at Samsung, recently told … Read more

Apple will soon announce a newspaper subscription service for its iPad, a recent report from the San Jose Mercury News claims.

Citing unnamed sources, the report said that Apple could take as much as 40 percent of all advertising revenue generated by the publications' iPad apps. Its sources also said that Apple will take 30 percent of newspaper subscription fees.

In turn, Apple would make all of the subscription services available in its app store. Exact details on how users would pay for the service were not disclosed in the report.

To improve the publications' advertising revenue, Apple has reportedly … Read more

A longstanding complaint with the Apple iPad is its inability to print content directly, and the best answer used to be third-party apps like Air Sharing Pro and PrintCentral that use Bonjour to share over a network.

At Apple's music event earlier this month, Steve Jobs announced that iOS 4.2 will finally allow wireless printing directly off the device, and an official press release from the company today confirms the developer release of the beta version of AirPrint.

The official iOS 4.2 software update drops in November and includes the full version of AirPrint, a service that … Read more