Friend of mine, a smart journalist, had his iPad stolen. He couldn’t help that — the thief broke into his house. But his private, personal data wasn’t stolen, exactly. Donated, more like. He had no passcode set on the iPad. All his email, calendar, address book, and work documents were free for the taking. Oh, yeah. He had the iPad …
Tablets
Latest Amazon Tablet Rumor Comes Courtesy of Captain Obvious
We’ve all heard the rumors that Amazon will launch a tablet or two by the holidays, but for this latest rumor, you might want to sit down.
According to the consumer research team at Detwiler Fenton, these upcoming Amazon tablets will include—wait for it—streaming video.
Reportedly, it’ll be the same video service that’s already
…
HP TouchPad Struts Its Stuff Before Launch, but Is It Enough?
If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, HP would like to explain how its TouchPad distinguishes itself from other tablets.
A new series of videos touts the TouchPad’s key features, ahead of its launch on July 1 (starting at $499). They show off the TouchPad’s card-based multitasking that lets users run lots of apps at once, and the …
Welcome to the Post-Post-PC Era
Over at TIME.com, my Technologizer column for this week is about Microsoft’s demo of Windows 8 last week and Apple’s demos of OS X 10.7, iOS 5, and iCloud this week–how they relate to each other and what they might mean for the future of personal technology. I refused to talk about the PC dying, but I did say that we may be seeing the …
Asus Padfone: A Smartphone That Snaps into a Tablet
If you really think about it—reeeeally think about it—tablets are currently little more than gigantic smartphones. So why not build what amounts to a large-screen dock for a smartphone and call it a tablet?
That’s what Asus is planning to do with its recently-announced Padfone. It’s an accessory for an Asus smartphone that …
Hey Asus, What the Heck Is This? A Tablet-Phone Hybrid?
Tablet teasers aren’t really my thing, but Asus has piqued my interest by promising more than just another thin touch screen slab.
At the Computex trade show next week, Asus will reveal a device that it says will “break the rules.” A teaser image shows what looks like a tablet and phone coming together, along with a tagline: “Pad or …
Is It Even Possible to Make Windows Work Well On a Tablet?
Rumor has it that Steven Sinofsky–the guy who runs Windows for Microsoft–will show off the next version of Windows at the Wall Street Journal’s “D” conference next week. (I used that possibility as an excuse to write about the Windows 8 I’d like to see for this week’s Technologizer column over on TIME.com.)
Sinofsky will supposedly …
Do Gadgets Really Make Our Lives More Complicated?
A new study published by Ad Age takes a look at the various ways new technologies—in particular, e-readers and tablets—influence the lives of the affluent, concluding that at the end of the day, additive technologies make life more complicated than not.
Assuming that “affluent” means households earning annual median incomes of …
Number One Plus: Can HP Tablets Take Down the iPad?
HP’s TouchPad tablet is due out this summer and, speaking to the press recently, HP’s Eric Cador said, “In the tablet world, we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”
That’s a direct shot at Apple’s iPad, though Cador didn’t specify a timeframe or explain how his company plans to take the top spot in …
BlackBerry PlayBook Flopped Hard, Says Retail Source
Someone in retail’s not happy about Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook.
An anonymous source, reportedly from a “major big box retailer,” told Boy Genius Report that RIM’s tablet missed sales targets by more than 90 percent. The source also said that return rates were much higher than those of the Motorola Xoom, which itself was …
Can Dell Get Tablets Right with a 10-Inch Streak Pro?
In the game of Android tablets, Dell has two strikes against it.
Strike one was the original Dell Streak, a 5-inch tablet remarkable for its lack of identity. Was it an oversized phone, or a diminutive tablet? Dell’s press releases suggested the latter, but the only way to reduce the Streak’s shocking $550 price tag was to sign up for …
Post-PC: Tablets and Phones Are Killing Computers, Right?
A coworker came by my desk late yesterday afternoon and, seeing that I had an iPad propped up next to my laptop, asked why we weren’t writing more posts here on Techland about how to use the iPad. Before I could say something like, “You see a square you like and you poke it with your finger,” he asked why I was using both an iPad and a …