China's Communist Party members can now carry a tablet PC to verify identification cards, read the blogs of cadres, and manage state-owned firms without fretting that using a bourgeois iPad will ruin their street cred.
Enter RedPad No 1, an Android-based tablet computer filled with software applications that serve a party official's every need. Pre-installed apps that cater to bureaucrats and managers of state-owned companies include one that allows users to check the validity of a journalist's accreditation as well as read state-run newspapers and microblogs.
Delivered in a decadent leather case for 9,999 yuan (£1,000), it is twice the price of Apple's most expensive iPad 2. The eye-popping price has China's microblogs alight with chatter over just why this device is so expensive and who is footing the bill.
"Is it the god of toys? Why don't they throw in a free iPad with it," said Looperrr on Weibo, Sina Corp's, microblogging platform. But RedPad No 1 spokesman, Liu Xianri, said that sales were completely market driven.
China's Communist Party members can now carry a tablet PC to verify identification cards, read the blogs of cadres, and manage state-owned firms without fretting that using a bourgeois iPad will ruin their street cred.
Enter RedPad No 1, an Android-based tablet computer filled with software applications that serve a party official's every need. Pre-installed apps that cater to bureaucrats and managers of state-owned companies include one that allows users to check the validity of a journalist's accreditation as well as read state-run newspapers and microblogs.
Delivered in a decadent leather case for 9,999 yuan (£1,000), it is twice the price of Apple's most expensive iPad 2. The eye-popping price has China's microblogs alight with chatter over just why this device is so expensive and who is footing the bill.
"Is it the god of toys? Why don't they throw in a free iPad with it," said Looperrr on Weibo, Sina Corp's, microblogging platform. But RedPad No 1 spokesman, Liu Xianri, said that sales were completely market driven.
Trying out Apple's tablet computer yields indifference to the popular device. Among its biggest drawbacks: poor screen resolution, the lack of a keyboard and the company's totalitarian approach to its App Store.
Apple says it sold about 25 million iPads in the first nine months of this year. Above, a shopper tests out the tablet computer at an Apple store in New York. (Emmanuel Dunand, AFP/Getty Images / March 11, 2011)
Pre-orders have begun for the new LeapFrog LeapPad tablet PC, an educational toy designed to keep your children's hands off your iPad.
The device is priced at about $100, although naturally, depending on where you pre-order from, you may or may not pay sales tax. Additionally, the online retailers you can pre-order from (not LeapFrog itself) are listing different ship dates.
Indeed, it looks like WalMart has dibs on first shipments.
LeapFrog's new $100 LeapPad tablet computer is the namesake of its older LeapPad electronic interactive children's book platform, but is nothing like it. The LeapPad is an actual tablet PC, but isn't, naturually, as capable as an iPad or LG G-Slate. It comes with a 5-inch 480 x 272-pixel (16:9) touchscreen, a tough (protective) plastic case and it even has a still and video camera, a microphone and 2GB of memory.
While it won't run iOS or Android apps, LeapFrog will have a number of child-friendly apps and educational games available, such as Disney Animation Studio, as well compatibility with over 100 downloadable apps and LeapFrog cartridges, ranging in price from $5 to $25.
We have both an iPad and a Motorola Xoom, and in both cases, our 2 1/2 year old daughter wants to play with them. Both of them are slightly expensive to let someone like her play with them, so it's with great hope that we viewed LeapFrog's Tuesday announcement of its LeapPad tablet.
It's not as though our daughter can't use the iPad; in fact, she quite deft and can unlock it and run apps. It's that it's too expensive, and we'd also rather not have her constantly taking pictures of the ceiling with the front-facing camera.
Meanwhile, LeapFrog's new $100 LeapPad tablet computer takes the name of its older LeapPad electronic interactive children's book platform. The LeapPad has a 5-inch 480 x 272-pixel (16:9) touchscreen that is encased in tough plastic, to protect it from peanut butter laden fingers, and it even sports a still and video camera, a microphone and 2GB of memory.
The LeapPad will have a number of child-friendly apps and educational games available, such as Disney Animation Studio, as well compatibility with over 100 downloadable apps and LeapFrog cartridges, ranging in price from $5 to $25.
It will also work as an interactive reader and play videos, but there's no wi-fi, so in order to download and share a customer will need to tether with a Windows or Mac computer. Additionally, for now, at least, no third-party development of apps will be supported.
The target age range is 4-9, but we are confident our toddler can work with it just fine when it ships on August 15. Pre-orders begin on June 29.
John Barbour is a veteran of the toy industry who came out of retirement to become LeapFrog’s chief executive in March. He admits that LeapFrog, once renowned for its educational "toys," lost its way for a time. “We lost direction for a few years. We are coming back. We are going to be the leader in this space.”
Certainly, a $100 tablet is more around the price for a "toy" we'd gift to our daughter at her young age, rather than a Xoom or iPad 2. That said, she knows the iPad 2, in particular, and whether the fact that the LeapPad UI is different and the apps are different will mean it's less of an attraction to her remains to be seen.
With the exception of the Xbox line, Microsoft hasn't been successful with hardware aside from peripherals (including, of course, the hit Kinect), but that may be changing. DigiTimes, which gets much of its info from upstream Asian parts suppliers, says the Redmond-based company is considering building its own branded tablet computer using Taiwanese white-label manufacturers.
DigiTimes is frequently right due to its sources, but it's also been wrong. Additionally, the word "considering" should be emphasized and noted. Even DigiTimes said this was just a rumor, and cited no confirmation from Microsoft.
Those tablets would not arrive until late 2012, running Windows 8, according to the report. In addition to white-label Taiwanese OEMs/ODMs, Microsoft would get assistance from Texas Instruments, the report stated.
Good idea or bad? Microsoft, as we stated above, has a history of failed hardware introductions. Items like the Kin, wireless routers (yes, they did those, but you probably don't remember them), and the Zune come immediately to mind. So that alone seems to point to "bad idea."
Additionally, think of how well this will sit with Microsoft's hardware partners. In other words, it won't. However, DigiTimes believes that miffed partners won't have any effect on Microsoft, at least in the short term.
Certainly, a Windows 8 tablet from Microsoft itself isn't out of the question. But it's probably better in the long-term if Redmond spends more effort a) making Windows 8 as tablet-friendly as possible, and b) spends more effort working on convincing OEMs of that fact.
Just as the Motorola Xoom launches, Motorola has been hit with a trademark lawsuit over the name of the device, the first Honeycomb (Android 3.0) laden tablet. Honeycomb is the first tablet-optimized version of Android.
The lawsuit, reported by Florian Mueller on Feb. 24 or Xoom Launch Day, comes via online payment company Xoom Corporation. It's unclear why the firm would not have taken any steps long ago, as the Xoom name has been publicized for quite some time.
According to the report, Motorola must believe that the Xoom Corporation trademark applies only in other markets than ones that are relevant to tablet computers. In October 2010, Motorola filed its own Xoom trademark registration.
Mueller does not believe this is a "troll" lawsuit, meaning strictly about money. He said,
Xoom Corporation was founded in 2001. In its two most recent rounds of financing, which took place in 2007 and 2010, it received a total of $53 million of venture capital from three world-class venture funds (Sequoia Capital, which invested in Apple in the 1970s -- what an irony -- and more recently in Internet businesses like AdMob and LinkedIn; New Enterprise Associates; and Fidelity Ventures).
A company of that nature and stature is less likely than a smaller one to file a suit against a major player like Motorola only to make a quick buck in exchange for dropping a pointless complaint. It's possible that Xoom Corporation really wants Motorola to rename its tablet computer and wouldn't settle even for a check over several million dollars. Xoom Corporation may want to defend its exclusive use of that brand.
That said, Xoom Corporation is seeking triple damages:
Motorola's alleged trademark infringement is described as "willful and intentional conduct" for which Xoom Corporation believes to be entitled to "treble damages".
It's possible that everything will be settled out of court. In fact, when Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007, it had to negotiate with Cisco to gain rights to that name. That case also saw Cisco at first sue Apple over the name, and the two companies later came to terms.
Despite an earlier statement by Apple COO in which he called currently-shipping Android tablets "bizarre," Android tablets surged against the iPad in Q4 of 2010, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics, which released the report Monday.
In fact, Android's tablet computer share increased nearly 10-fold in the fourth quarter, with Android devices capturing 22 percent of global tablet shipments. That was up from 2.3 percent in the preceding quarter. The iPad accounted for 75 percent of shipments in the period, down from about 95 percent, it said.
This strong showing by Android is without a tablet with a tablet-optimized version of Android. The first Android devices with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) are expected soon, with a Honeycomb detailed unveiling scheduled for Wednesday in Mountain View, CA.
Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics predicted the iPad's global tablet market share will probably drop to 67 percent in Q1 2011, with all the new Android tablets being introduced. He said:
"Apple’s volumes will continue to go up, but market share will inevitably go down. Even at $500 retail, based on some of the research we’ve done, that’s probably two or three times more than what most mass market consumers are expecting to pay. If you were to ask me in two years time, will Apple have less than 50 percent of the global tablet market, I think that’s a certainty."
In November, Jim Wong, Acer’s head of information-technology products, said that the company plans to introduce an Android powered tablet in April that will likely sell for as little as $299.
Research firm ISuppli forecasts 57 million tablets will be sold this year, with as many as 171 million being sold by 2014.
Proview, a Taiwanese-owned company which owns the trademark for "iPad" China says it will sue Apple for infringing on its ownership in that market, according a report in the Financial Times. Nearly a decade ago, PRoview tried unsuccessfully to market a tablet computer it called "I-Pad."
Although the product failed, the company trademarked the name "IPAD" in the E.U., China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam at different times between the years 2000 and 2004. FT notes that trademark databases validate Proview's claim.
In 2006, Proview reportedly sold the global trademark (except, Proview said, in China) to a U.S. company named IP Application Development, for $55,100. It turns out, however, that IP Application Development was really just a front for Apple.
Now, Proview's having some financial difficulties. In fact, a group of Chinese creditor banks has seized the assets of Proview’s Shenzhen unit, including the trademarks, after the company defaulted on loans worth $400 million.
Naturally, Proview’s shareholders and creditors would love to see the trademarks sold at the highest possible price, but Apple has blocked any attempts to do so via preliminary injunctions granted after Apple and IP Application Development sued Proview.
According to the FT, Apple is seeking an order requiring Proview to assign the Chinese IPAD trademark to IP Application Development, per the 2006 agreement. However, FT added, according to online trademark databases, while the ownership of the E.U. trademark for IPAD changed from Proview to Apple this year, two IPAD trademarks registered in China are still shown as belonging to Proview.
Interestingly, just prior to the launch of the iPad, Apple settled with the owner of the U.S. trademark: Fujitsu.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised Windows 7-powered slates will be seen by consumer by Christmas, in an appearance before an audience of students, staff and journalists at the London School of Economics on Tuesday. He did not go so far as promise they will be on sale, however.
"You'll see new slates with Windows on them. You'll see them this Christmas. Certainly we have done work around the tablet as both a productivity device and a consumption device."
You'll note that Ballmer continues to call them slates, instead of tablets, as most have begun doing. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, Ballmer showed off an HP tablet computer running Windows 7. However, that device seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, with no mention of it since HP acquired Palm and its webOS platform in April for $1.2 billion. Although HP says it still plans Windows tablets, it seems mostly focused on webOS tablets.
Ballmer received only 50 percent of his possible bonus after Microsoft's fiscal year 2010, which ended in June. Reasons given by the board of directors included both issues in the mobile market, as well as problems with new form factor hardware (meaning tablets).
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