Consoles and Gadgets: Tablet

Showing posts with label Tablet. Show all posts

Apple names April 30th, 5PM as date and time for 3G iPad retail launch

There was a bit of confusion with Apple's online store update yesterday as to when the 3G version of its iPad will actually make its retail debut. Let that fog of ignorance be no more, as Cupertino has today named April 30th, a Friday, as the day the WiFi + 3G slate will arrive in stores. In American stores, that is, don't get all excited if you live outside the 50 states. That's also the date when early (read: before yesterday) pre-orders will be fulfilled. Deliveries for those were promised for "late April," though clearly this date has more of the late and less of the April to it.

via: engadget

Keepin' it real fake: iPad QWERTY slider edition

We're not about to cover every iPad knockoff that emerges from parts unknown, but this particular device packs just enough KIRF innovation to get us to take notice. The biggest selling point, so to speak, is the tablet's sliding QWERTY keypad, which packs some MacBook-esque keys and a ThinkPad-style pointing stick. As if that wasn't enough, you'll also apparently get WIndows 7 for an OS, along with a 10-inch display of unspecified resolution, and an Atom N450 processor at the heart of rig. No indication of a price -- or even a name, for that matter.

source: Shanzhaiben

Toshiba's tablets said to offer Tegra 2 power, have we already seen the Android version?

News continues to trickle out about Toshiba's upcoming tablets, which we learned just last week would come in both Windows and Android flavors and would be shipping before the year is through. Now it seems that both versions, despite offering different designs, will offer NVIDIA Tegra 2 internals. That both tablets will be manufactured by Compal makes us wonder if we weren't given a preview of the future Tosh model when playing with a 7-inch Android prototype at CES in January, pictured above. There's a video of that after the break to refresh your memory, a relic dating from the pre-G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra era. Simpler times, those.

via: engadget

Keepin' it real fake: Moonse iPad knockoff loses a few inches, runs Android

This is far from the first iPad knockoff to emerge from KIRF-land, but Moonse's new E-7001 tablet may just be the first to garner some serious interest -- if it ever actually turns up for sale, that is. Supposedly, the tablet will sell for as little as 900 Chinese yuan (or about $130), which will get you a 7-inch touchscreen, a 600MHz Rockchip RK2808 processor (which could possibly be upgraded to a Cortex-A8 before launch), Android 1.5 for an OS, an SD card slot for storage, built-in WiFi, and a promised five hours of battery life. What's more, while it is slightly thicker than an iPad, it apparently weighs just 0.7 pounds, or about half as much as the iPad, and it boasts a few advantages of its own, in a front-facing camera and a USB port. As you may have guessed, there's not even a hint on availability, but it does seem to at least exist in prototype form, and there's plenty more shots of it at the source link below.

source: Shanzaiben

Toshiba reveals more tablet details, confirms Windows and Android versions

It wasn't that long ago that we heard confirmation from Toshiba America's Jeff Barney that there was a slate coming from the company in early 2011. Now Jeff has disclosed a bit more information to Reuters, including the presence of not one but at least two of the things, and he's saying they'll be out before the year is through. The first will be a premium model running Windows 7, roughly 10 inches in size and, interestingly, having not one but two screens. (Is this you, Courier?) The second will run Android and is said to come in at a lower price, though beyond that it's up to you to decide what kind of specs it should have. The prime intent for both is "media consumption" according to Barney, who sees the presence of slates as "expansive like netbooks." In other words: not stealing sales from the company's laptop business. Given he also took the time to talk up the 50-percent boost in Toshiba laptop and PC sales this year, he'd better hope that's the case.

via: electronista

Onda VX560 looks like a slate, acts like a PMP, outputs 1080p

While most Chinese PMPs are regulated to our “PMP Brief,” every once in a while one comes along that impresses us enough to devote an entire post to it. In this case, it’s the Onda VX560 PMP — a 7-inch PMP that supports 1080p HD playback and eReader functionality.

Let’s start with the video. The Onda VX560 can display H.264, RM, RMVB, MKV, AVI, MOV, MPG, FLV, DAT, VOB and TS video formats on it’s 800 x 480 resolution display. It also has a HDMI port and USB OTG for streaming to larger media. What really sets this one apart from other PMPs (aside from its larger screen size) is the included eReader function that supports PDF, TXT, PDB, UMD, LRC and CHM eBooks. It features 360-degree rotation, font selection and multi-mode Text-To-Speech (although no dialects are listed).

Also not listed is the price and when the VX560 might hit the shelves.

source: Cloned in China

iPad international launch delayed until the end of May

24diggsdigg Uh oh. Looks like all that US popularity has taken Apple by surprise and the European arrival for the iPad will be shifted back from the earlier promised "late April" to the end of May. Citing more than 500,000 tablets sold in the first week of American availability, the Cupertino brain trust urges its international audience to look forward to May 10, which is when availability and pricing for the rest of the world will be specified.

source: Apple

Telstra's landlocked T-Hub tablet phone launches in Australia

A few years back, Telstra -- synonymous in Australia with "communication" -- told Apple it had no business making a cellphone. Look how that turned out. To make a long story short, the company has since repented, and is on the verge of releasing an app-filled touchscreen phone of their own, the Telstra T-Hub, on April 20th. Thing is, this tablet stays plugged into your wall. Marketed as a "family organizer," the T-Hub stores contacts, surfs Facebook, plays YouTube, displays photos, accesses personal bank accounts and even sends text messages like a smartphone, but does it all while connected to a landline telephone jack -- albeit with cordless handset as backup. While existing Telstra customers can get the device for $300 AUD, the company would of course prefer you get it for $35 with a 24-month service agreement... for a minimum total cost of about $1980 AUD with 2GB data per month. We're not Australian, but compared to US iPhone pricing, that doesn't sound terribly fair.

source: Telstra

Sharp's 3D tablet panel doesn't require glasses, RGBY 3D TVs launching this summer do

Don't think Sharp's going to sit by and let Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony have all the 3D TV fun. The Japanese company, and fourth-largest LCD TV maker, plans to begin selling its own 3D TVs in Japan this summer before launching in the US, Chinese, and European markets sometime later in the year. To prove it, Sharp ponied up some sample RGBY ("Y" for yellow) 3D LCD panels it claims to be the "industries brightest" in sizes up to 60-inches. While these biggie panels all require active 3D shutter glasses for the extra-dimensional effect, Sharp was also showing off a 10.1-inch 3D display prototype for netbooks or tablets that -- like its 3.4-inch parallax barrier display announced last week and suspected to be headed to Ninty town -- doesn't require glasses at all and can be produced with or without a touchscreen. No word on when that pup might begin mass production, however. 60-inch panel pictured after the break with a real live woman doing the pointing -- amazing.

via: engadget

Archos 7 Home Tablet sized up by FCC

Now that everyone and their grandpappy's thoroughly caught up in tablet frenzy, it's time for some of the lesser beasts to start coming out of the woodwork. Next up? The Archos 7 Home Tablet, which just garnered the last bit of FCC approval it needs to see a late April release. With a comparatively slow 600 MHz Rockchip RK2808 inside, don't expect the Home Tablet to set speed records like its younger brother, but do look forward to a reasonably competitive price when the video-friendly Android device arrives stateside. See what it looks like with a paintjob (and sans "Ewe" logo) in our video from CeBIT after the break, or peek pics of an government-sponsored teardown at the source link.

via: engadget

Hiton HT-960 tablet rocks HP Slate's specs, $100 cheaper price

Right now HP's Slate is looking like it'll possess a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 touchscreen, all for somewhere between $549 and $599. What we have here is another tablet offering almost identical netbook-like specs (though with only 16GB of SSD storage compared to HP's 32+) at a price of just $418. That's quite a savings if you can get over the rather chunkier styling -- and the unfortunate Windows XP install. You can even get 3G wireless for an extra $80 if you're so inclined, and according to the site it's available to ship right this very moment. But, after the recent issues with another no-name tablet, we'd think twice before dropping our credit card on this particular order form.

source: eCrater

CTL gets into the tablet teaser game with a video of the 2go PC Slate

Well, what do we have here? Indeed, it is another Windows 7, Atom-powered tablet, but this one happens to be from CTL, reputable maker of those Classmate PCs. Unlike some others CTL's done its teaser video of its 2go PC Slate just right by revealing most of the vitals including the full specs and availability. In case you don't feel like hitting the read more link to watch the short clip, here's the Cliff Notes version: The 10-inch capacitive touchscreen slate is powered by a 1.6GHz Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, and has two USBs and a 2-megapixel webcam. That's right, a netbook with its keyboard chopped off. The software overlay that you see in the blurry picture above is actually Intel's Blue Dolphin interface for the Classmate PC, so perhaps the company is planning to use that to skin the underlying Windows 7 Home Premium OS. It should all be ready by early June for that popular $499 tablet price, but in the meantime CTL, we wouldn't object to you giving HP a call and teaching them how to make a teaser vid!

source: engadget

iPad vs. JooJoo... Fight!

Sure, they might be worlds apart in quality, usefulness, and desirability, but even still, comparisons are inevitable. The iPad (right) and the JooJoo (left) hit the hands of consumers on the same weekend, offer large-screen browsing experiences controlled entirely by a capacitive touchscreen, and... well, you get the idea. So, how do the two devices stack up externally? It's a pretty fair fight, hardware-wise. The JooJoo is thicker and heavier, but also scores a good amount more screen space -- its 16:9 ratio almost turns it into an extruded lengthwise version of the 4:3 iPad. Unfortunately, that screen is a real let down when viewed off axis, and isn't nearly as responsive or accurate as the iPad's in use. Both of the devices offer scratch resistant glass fronts and brushed aluminum backs, though there's a bit of give to JooJoo's materials that smacks of slightly lower quality. You can read the reviews to get an idea of how dramatically different these two devices are in actual use.

source: engadget

iPad Reviews – Not a Laptop Killer, But Pretty Close First of iPad reviews are now popping up on the Internet. From Wall Street Journal, to USA Today, to PC World, to New York Times, all have great things to say about the product. One thing however most of them have agreed upon is the fact that it is not really a notebook/netbook replacement, but rather a great companion which could do tasks like email, web browsing, music, videos, book reading and so on with great ease.

According to The Houston Chronicle’s Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus, the iPad creates a new category of mobile devices:

It turns out the iPad isn’t as much a laptop replacement as I thought (though it could easily be used as one). Instead, it’s an entirely new category of mobile device. For example, now when I want to surf the Web from the couch or back deck, the iPad is the device I choose. Starbucks? Same thing. Think of the iPad as a new arrow in your technology quiver, an arrow that will often be the best tool for a given task.

I had high expectations for the iPad, and it has met or exceeded most of them

Mossberg of WSJ found the battery life of the iPad to be exceptional – he got well over the quoted 10 hours. He managed to “watch four feature-length movies, four TV episodes and a video of a 90-minute corporate presentation, before the battery died midway through an episode of The Closer” – all on a single charge! Now that is amazing! His verdict on the iPad is:

So I’ve been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook. I probably used the laptops about 20% as often as normal, reserving them mainly for writing or editing longer documents, or viewing Web videos in Adobe’s Flash technology, which the iPad doesn’t support, despite its wide popularity online.

If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social-networker and emailer, and a
consumer

of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music—this could be for you. If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.

I will be getting mine by the end of this week, we’ll for sure have a review of it, along with some hands-on videos. Stay tuned!

via: redmondpie

First Look: Apple iPad The Apple iPad ships this week, and with its arrival, Apple may singlehandedly usher in the era of tablet computing slate-style devices that look very unlike a typical computer. Bolstered by clever integration between hardware and software--as we've come to expect from Apple thanks to products like the iPhone--the iPad is a multi-purpose slate that holds the potential to be different things to different users. The various pricing options also reflect this: $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB), $699 (64GB). Add $130 to each of these Wi-Fi models for a 3G option in late April.

It's true that the iPad resembles an oversized iPhone, but in some ways, that comparison diminishes all sorts of new potential. The iPad's screen is three times larger than that of the iPhone/iPod Touch, and that extra real estate primes the iPad for activities you couldn't even consider doing with the comparatively tiny iPhone/iPod Touch screen.
Based on my initial launch-event hands-on with the iPad, this device's functionality exhibits both promise, and disappointment. The latter reflects its flexibility as a full-on alternative to a netbook.
Equipped with the same underlying operating system as the iPhone and iPod Touch, it comes as no surprise that the iPad immediately feels familiar. The main menu mimics that of the current iPhone OS, with four icons across and four rows down, plus Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod icons in a row at the bottom. Icons have the same characteristics as those on the iPhone, and include Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Maps, YouTube, iTunes, App Store, and Settings. One new item is a dedicated icon for Videos--a logical addition given the device's roomy screen. Beyond that, you can add apps from the Apple App Store; a separate section will highlight apps optimized for iPad. The 3G iPad won't have phone or traditional SMS functionality.

The iPad packs in 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless, and as mentioned, a 3G option is expected in late April. The iPad also has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and is powered by Apple's 1-GHz A4 processor system-in-a-chip.

The 9.7-inch LED-backlit screen uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology to achieve better color and contrast, and a wide 178-degree angle of view. Its native resolution of 1024-by-768 pixels is sufficient for watching high-definition video, viewing photos using the slideshow feature, and for flicking-through content.

The screen dominates the device, with a wide black bezel surrounding its fingerprint unfriendly oleophobic (oil-resistant) display. That bezel almost seemed like overkill, until I took the iPad in hand. Then, I found the bezel necessary, as that's where my fingers automatically gravitated in order to hold the device in my hands. While the iPad is super slim (just a half-inch thick), I actually had some difficulty handling it steadily in anything longer than short spurt. At 1.5 pounds, and measuring 9.6 by 7.5 by .5-inches, I found it too heavy to comfortably hold in one hand, which is troublesome if you plan on using it as an e-reader. Other e-readers, like Amazon's Kindle 2 or Spring Design Alex eReader, are much lighter in hand and therefore make for a much more comfortable user experience. I found using two hands much more viable, but my relatively small hands then had issues trying to reach across the expanse of the vertical unit's on-screen keyboard. Furthermore, I quickly realized my hands would tire in this position after reading just a few chapters of a long novel.

Because of the larger display, pretty much all of the native applications we're used to viewing on the iPhone look and function better on the iPad. What I've seen so far of video playback of content purchased on iTunes appeared stunning on the iPad.

Like the iPhone before it--and unlike what we expect from future, competing Windows-based tablet devices, the iPad has a minimalist design, with virtually no complexities and smooth, aluminum back. At the bottom of the iPad are the dock connector and the speaker grille. The sole buttons are Home Button centrally situated beneath the display, and the volume rocker on the side. The iPad is missing integrated expansion (via USB or flash memory, or both); and, so far as we know before shipping, it's missing multitasking--which the bigger screen practically begs for in this Facebook-driven, always-connected age.

Yes, Apple will offer separate dock-connectors for accessing digital images via a USB port or an SD Card, but these are exorbitantly priced, and won't open the iPad for use in a way that mimics a more versatile netbook. And I find it stifling to think that a device capable of much more than my iPhone 3GS can't just take a USB flash memory drive and access any of an array of file types. This omission in particular is a serious limitation to iPad's functionality--and its ability to compete with less expensive, slightly heavier and bulkier, but more full-featured netbooks.

A little more on the iPad's integrated input capabilities. Simply put, if you plan to do a lot of typing, the iPad's touch keyboard is no match for the physical keyboard found on a netbook. The touch keyboard is a larger version of the iPhone's. But in the pre-shipping version of the iPad, the keyboard lacks the iPhone's letter magnification when you press a key, and I missed this visual cue immensely. It also lacks the haptic (vibration) feedback common to Android phones. So with no physical or visual feedback when you press a key, I found myself frustrated as I tried to pound out a long e-mail or note.

As I already mentioned, when using the keyboard in vertical mode, my small hands had difficulty maneuvering around the keyboard--my thumbs couldn't stretch across the whole device to reach the keys. Horizontal mode felt much more natural, but as a touch-typist, I still made more errors than I would with a physical keyboard. More critically, while I've gotten fairly speedy with tapping away on my iPhone 3GS' keyboard, I didn't feel anything near the same speed or affinity for the touch keyboard on iPad during my initial hands-on--something I attribute to the physical expanse of the device, and how my fingers aligned with it relative to the keyboard. To type, I needed to put the device flat on a surface, not a particularly comfortable experience. (Apple will soon have a $69 keyboard dock accessory.)
According to what was known as of the launch event, the iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2 (which has not been released for actual iPhones yet). While the friendly, easy-to-use, interface gives the iPad an immediate built-in audience, the lack of a freshened design for the iPad feels like a let-down considering how long the iPad has been in development. There might be some as-yet unknown incremental differences between versions 3.1 and 3.2, but on the surface, the iPad's interface looked exactly like a blown-up version of my iPhone 3GS'.

In my hands-on before the iPad shipped, the OS didn't translate very well from the much smaller iPhone to the iPad. It's not so much about the touch aspect of the interface; in fact, navigating by touch is a huge benefit on the large screen, and superior experience to, say, the joystick-based navigation of the comparably sized, non-touch Amazon Kindle DX screen. But images, icons, and text weren't as crisp as I'd expected on the early model at the launch event's pre-production model. At times, I found the experience much like watching standard definition video on an HDTV, in that some aspects of the operating system's visuals didn't appear optimized for the iPad's display. I'll update this review after seeing the shipping product later this week.
ad_icon

On the whole, Apple has done a good job of optimizing its built-in core apps for the iPad's large screen.

As a photo viewer, the iPad shines. Photos looked superb on the iPad's display, and it uses all of the familiar multitouch gestures (flick, pinch to zoom) found on the iPhone's photo app. The iPad's ample screen showcase images well, and it permits you to preview many more images, more easily than on the smaller iPhone.

The iPad's photo application is much better than the iPhone's, too, with on-the-fly slideshow creation (complete with transitions). Simply choose from among five transitions and pick the music you'd like to add (if any), and you're off. I don't see the iPad replacing inexpensive digital photo frames, but I certainly do understand how an iPad might double as a photo frame while it's standing upright in its dock.

Another convenience: The photo app provides different ways of viewing the images (including sorting by places, people, events, and a mini-thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen to jump quickly to other photos in the album). Unfortunately, the sorting capabilities will only work if you're using iPhoto--which means that those of who use any number of alternative imaging applications for the PC or the Mac (the majority of potential iPad users) are left in the dark with regard to those features. And how convenient it is to use the photo viewer for non-Mac users remains a question I look forward to answering when I can try iTunes for the PC with the shipping iPad.

The e-mail app has been redesigned to take advantage of the spacious screen, too. For example, when in landscape mode, the e-mail app shows recent messages and a search bar at the left, and displays the selected message at the right--an approach that's not viable on the iPhone's smaller screen.

The Calendar app benefits greatly from the iPad's display. Now, calendar entries are more readable, and the day and weekly views in particular look terrific. For example, in the weekly view, a drop-down menu makes it simple to switch among different calendars for your household.

The reimagined, highly visual iPod library looks very different on the iPad. In landscape view, you can easily see video-playback chapters, or view info about the video while previewing it in a pane at right. hows how video-playback chapters look in the Video player.

One of the big pitches for iPad is for using it as an e-reader. And here is where iPad has the potential to be divisive. On the one hand, Apple clearly has the retail digital download model down pat with its iTunes store, so it's reasonable to assume that Apple may be able to entice consumers to shop for digital books, too.

The bigger question is, how well does the iPad--with its glossy, glarey screen and slightly greater weight--do as an e-reader? Stay tuned for our full review of the shipping iPad, complete with a report of the Apple iBookstore and iBooks reader experience.

My first impressions on the subject? The iPad makes it easy to browse your library books, represented visually by colorful book covers. The iBooks app, in horizontal mode, allows you to have two pages on the display at once--and it tries to mimic the experience of reading a book, right down to the visuals of additional pages on the left and right, and the darker area in the center, where the spine would be. I could easily scroll along the bottom of a book to jump to a specific page, with no notable delay when doing so. And I particularly liked how the iPad showed the page number, and out of how many, you were jumping ahead to; and, how it indicated the number of pages remaining in the chapter. (Just one more chapter before I go to sleep...I swear!) Dedicated e-readers could learn something from this part of iBooks' design.

I found the iBooks reader's page-turn animations are both cool and annoying. The flicker for a quick page turn bugged me--nevertheless, it was better than suffering through the multiple flashes that one endures on most E-Ink readers as they try to redraw the page.

One of the big concerns among developers and users before the iPad's announcement was whether iPhone apps would work on the device. Thankfully, they do, but the experience on the iPad isn't exactly ideal. You can either view an iPhone app as a small window or doubled to fill the display. On the pre-shipping iPad, I demoed the 3D-intensive Assassin's Creed and Oregon Trail apps, and was immediately put off by the obvious pixelation. Text in Facebook iPhone app looked fuzzy, too. Again, the analogy here is to standard definition content versus high-definition content on an HDTV.

Another concern remains Apple's lack of Adobe Flash support, which means as-is services like Hulu and the full YouTube catalog can't be viewed on the iPad. Even as some sites switch to HTML 5, the lack of Flash is disappointing, given the format's prevalence across the Web.

Based on my initial handling of the pre-shipping iPad, I was a tad underwhelmed: The reality is that the iPad looked and behaved like an iPhone (or iPod Touch) on steroids--and that's not always a good thing given the potential for the iPad to make a run for replacing my netbook--or even my PC--for certain activities. I'm intrigued--but need to see the iPad-specific apps in use, and try the shipping version to get more of a feel of just how the iPad complements the existing pantheon of mobile computers. And how well it works together with the iPhone, in terms of sharing both data and apps.

via: internet

iPad Unboxing Videos If you’re wondering about the box contents which are included, along with the standard iPad packaging, you’ve come to the right place. We have compiled a couple of unboxing videos in one place so you get an idea what you’ll get in with your iPad come this Saturday.

So after the first of the iPad reviews, the first unboxing video of iPad to hit the Internet was done by Andy Ihnatko. He showed off the contents, which are pretty much like in any standard Apple packaging that you would expect. It includes instruction manuals, a wall charger, the standard Apple USB cable to copy data, a couple of Apple logo stickers and of course the iPad itself.

In the second of videos, actor/comedian Stephen Fry shows off a brief unboxing/unpacking, which mostly includes all the extra bits of official accessories that you can order with the iPad. This includes the iPad Case, iPad Dock and iPad Keyboard with Dock.

via: tipb

Toshiba JournE Multimedia Touch Tablet There’s been a lot of discussion about a possible Apple iTablet and the Crunchpad, but it’s Toshiba that has announced their JournE Touch Tablet.

Built upon the Windows CE platform, this gizmo comes with a 7-inch touchscreen display, an ARM-based processor, 1GB memory storage (expandable via the SDHC slot) and includes 802.11b/g WiFi network connectivity. The handheld mobile Internet device (MID) is all about multimedia playback and supports H.264, DivX and WMV media. The 800×480 display can play reduced-quality High-Definition videos or full HD quality video via the HDMI output. Video streaming is an integral component of this device and support for YouTube videos and the movie service Acetrax is included as is Picasa, Facebook, IM Chats and viewing Flickr archives.

The JournE should launch later this year with pricing still to be announced.

via: internet

100,000 iPads Sold on First Day? Business Insider is reporting that approximately 91,000 iPads were sold in the first 6 hours of the presale. With the presale lasting 8 hours, they must have hit 100,000 pre-orders today. These numbers are just estimates, but still impressive.

Business Insider’s Source, Philip Elmer DeWitt, had been following the sales throughout the day. He estimated that Apple had sold 20,000 iPads in the first 2 hours, 74,000 in the first 4.5 hours, and finally 90,000 in the first 6 hours. If these numbers are any where close to accurate, then Apple must have surpassed 100,000 units by the end of the day.
Of course, these numbers are not official. They are estimates from 3rd parties. It is not known if Apple will report their numbers right away. They usually like to announce a giant number at one of the keynotes.
Did you order your iPad today? I reserved one for pick up, so I can take part in the launch festivities. Only a few more weeks!
You can follow me on twitter or join our facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google and Apple.

via: internet

PadNotes App For iPad [Video Demo] PadNotes is a new iPad App that permits to write, draw, or highlight text on any document while using any image or PDF file as the background. It can be used for quickly filling out forms, taking notes, drawing a shape and exporting the completed documents as images or PDF files via e-mail or network sharing.

Regardless of age, PadNotes will really make it fun to do image drawing on iPad. You can draw straight lines, or curves with multi-color pens of your choice, just by choosing from selection bar. You can fill different portions with different colors of your selection. You can also erase full, or part of it if you make mistake.
Taking notes in long hand wasn’t so much fun ever before. You can write, draw, make graph and take notes either in long hand or in typed form in color or in black & white as you wish. Reading documents, books etc with highlighting functionality, and writing notes in the side margin of the document was never so easy before. Turning pages and going smooth to and fro in the document is also fun in itself.
For students, they can do their homework of Math class here. You can even fill forms and copy/paste from other documents without any trouble. It saves time and energy and provide sharing facility with others.

Here is a video demo which shows PadNotes running using iPad SDK.

via: internet

Apple's iPad: Is it a computer? It seems obvious that the upcoming Apple iPad is a computer, but many people -- both Apple supporters and haters -- seem to feel passionately that it's not a computer. So what is it?
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "computer" as "a programmable, usually electronic device, that can store, retrieve, and process data." That certainly matches the description of the iPad, the iPhone, and other smartphones, as well as video game consoles, and programmable Hewlett-Packard pocket calculators that came out in the 1970s.

But some seem to get worked up denying that it's a computer. That's true of both the device's defenders and detractors.

Blogger Richard Lord, for example, writes: The iPad is not a computer:
--My considered opinion: the iPad is a revolutionary device, because it’s not a computer. The iPad isn’t for writing, it’s for reading. It’s not for making films, its for watching films. It’s not for developing software, it’s for using software. The iPad is a consumer device. What makes the iPad revolutionary is its single-minded focus on media consumption.

Kate MacKenzie doesn't say the iPad is not a computer. But she does call it a "computing appliance," proclaiming: "The Mac Is Dead. Long Live Apple's iPad Appliance":
--Both the iPhone and iPad are computing appliances; powerful, easy to use, inexpensive, and available to a rapidly growing customer base -- those of us who just want to do things with our apps, and not be beholden to whatÕs inside.
The iPad represents a computing toaster; no, a computing kitchen full of tools, but each easier to use than anything available on a Mac (or, a Windows PC). Those Mac and PC users with many years of computing experience will decry the iPad as being a toy, not suitable for real work, not even really a computer. The rest of us will simply use it, again, and again, and often in situations where a Mac once ruled. We will download apps, play games, communicate with one another, and leave the past behind.

Also, consider the comments on my tongue-in-cheek post last week, "How to get an iPad before they go on sale." "Cymru Plaid" says:
--For most people, computer means PC - it runs a real operating system, you can connect peripherals to it, etc. This isn't a PC. It's just a huge iPod... Unless you think the iPod is a computer. In which case you're a blasted idiot.

Cymru's opinion is pretty popular, many people believe the iPad is not a computer.
But they're wrong. Of course, the iPad is a computer, as is the iPhone and iPod, even the iPod Nano. They store, retrieve and processes data, in the form of music and videos. They're electronic. And they're programmable -- even the iPod Nano gets occasional updates from Apple.

The iPad is a computer. It appears to be a very simple, easy to use, and relatively inflexible computer, compared with a Mac, Windows, or Linux PC. But it's still a computer. Arguing otherwise is silly.

via: internet

Console and Gadgets

Categories

Featured Video

Subscribe

Followers

Recent Posts