Apple appears to have hit another consumer sweet spot with the iPad Mini. So, how much sweeter can it get in 2013?

First, some numbers that point to just how popular the 7.9-inch iPad seems to be. NPD DisplaySearch had originally expected display makers to ship 6 million iPad Mini displays in the fourth quarter of 2012. But last month it quickly upped that estimate to about 12 million.

Though it's not clear if display makers were actually able to ship that many, owing to supply constraints in regard to displays, it's safe to say the Mini'… Read more

Are you experiencing a slightly dry feeling in your mouth? Are your limbs offering involuntary jitters and twitches?

The fiscal cliff negotiations can do that to you.

However, Google would like to tell you that it understands the pain of entering 2013 without a sheet to the wind.

Having presented a charming doodle for New Year's Eve (below), featuring so many of the characters from the doodles of 2012 (you can see all Google's doodles here), today it presents the cleanup.

Reality has chimed. The cleaners have arrived. Robert Moog, Moby Dick, and Niels Bohr have all gone … Read more

It's been six months since Google unveiled its Google Glass project, and it appears the tech giant is still hard at work ironing out the kinks to get the product ready for consumption.

In an interview with IEEE Spectrum published today, the head of the Google Glass project, Babak Parviz, said his team is continuing to try out new ideas and that both the software and hardware development is coming along.

"We constantly try out new ideas of how this platform can be used," Parviz told IEEE Spectrum. "We're also trying to make the platform … Read more

If you like to take pictures but really love to tell a story, you'll appreciate the easy to use InstaFonts, which lets you add customizable text to your images. You can insert a caption, create a short description, or just let others know who's in the picture.

With its clean, intuitive interface (and limited options), there shouldn't be much of a learning curve with this app, even for those who've never done any image editing. InstaFont's main window displays the image you want to add the text to over a short menu that lets you … Read more

It won't take long for you to create collages of your digital images with InstaCollage Pro, but this app isn't without its flaws. One you can overcome, but the other proved to be a bit of a deal breaker.

The interface for InstaCollage Pro is pretty bare-bones, with clearly labeled icons for the main functions of adding borders or frames, but not much else. There are some sliders at the top labeled only Vertical and Horizontal, which could have used further onscreen explanation, but ultimately, the process of creating the collage took only a couple minutes and a … Read more

Last update: January 2 at 11:13 a.m. PT

However walled your garden, rodents still pad around, cockroaches still shuffle.

One can only, therefore, feel sympathy for Apple's new ad for the iPhone 5.

It features the mysterious and wonderful Williams sisters. They are in a dream. They are playing the dreamy Jeff Daniels at ping-pong.

And yet the ad also features the phone's "Do Not Disturb" feature, which users can switch on to silence in-coming calls, alerts, and notifications, or set up to perform such silencing during a preordained period of time. And who … Read more

I could have been a better geek in 2012. When it comes down to it, there just aren't enough hours in a day to do all the gaming, social networking, rooting, modding, and general geekery we'd like to. When forced to make the choice between a family vacation or staying home to indulge in nerdy pleasures like crunching the data generated by the newly flashed firmware on my Wi-Fi router, that trusty old Linksys model and my other devices tend to be the ones that get scorned.

But I resolve that this New Year will be different. … Read more

Applying a vintage look to your photos is fairly easy with Vintique, an app that offers 39 filters for customizing images.

With Vintique's simple, intuitive interface, it's easy to get started. At launch, the app presents two options: capture an image or choose one from the camera roll. There are only two resolutions available. The default is only 612x612 pixels, but you can toggle to high resolution, which doubles it to 1,224x1,224 pixels. Once your image is selected you'll see the available filters and click one to apply it. There are options to edit the … Read more

The publishers give fair warning that this game is designed for those who delight in being disgusted. Amateur Surgeon, they note, is brought to us "courtesy of the ever-controversial Adult Swim network." This means there will be blood...and guts. If that isn't your cup of tea, the gameplay might not be enough to keep you interested.

There is a simple storyline: you're placed in various situations in which you, the amateur, need to perform surgery on patients with the makeshift tools around you -- but the emphasis is on graphically displaying the surgeries and your … Read more