Toshiba excites with thinnest tablet
Toshiba showed off its new Excite X10 tablet at CES on Sunday evening, coupling it in demonstrations with its latest lineup of Smart TVs.
The Excite is a 10.1in tablet, which Toshiba claims is the world’s thinnest and lightest at that size – 0.3in thin to be specific and weighing 1.2lbs. Read more
One Laptop Per Child unveils tablet
Marvell and One Laptop Per Child will unveil their first tablet prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Sunday evening.
The chipmaker and the non-profit trying to bring affordable computing to schoolchildren worldwide plan to show a fully functional version of the long-awaited X0 3.0, which they describe as “a low-cost, low-power, rugged tablet computer designed for classrooms around the globe”. Read more
A year after they charged into the annual Consumer Electronics Show with more than 100 devices, tablet makers are returning to Las Vegas next week as a ragged and battle-scarred army that has failed to dent the success of Apple’s iPad.
Despite the deep war wounds – most notably HP’s abandonment of its TouchPad and Research in Motion’s $485m writedown as it was forced to discount deeply its PlayBook device – the iPad rivals are banking on a new Android operating system, the arrival of Windows 8 and improved content offerings to help them cut into Apple’s two-thirds share of the market.
Apple could face product bans in Germany
Apple had a bad week in its multi-front patent war, capped by the real possibility of an iPhone and iPad import ban in Germany. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Malware targeted towards phones running on the Android operating system continues to be on the rise, TechCrunch reports. According to McAfee’s security report for the third quarter, the amount of malware targeted at Android devices jumped nearly 37 per cent since last quarter. This follows a 76 percent rise in Android malware in the second quarter. Read more
Kindle Fire fights Nook Tablet
No tablet maker has made much of a dent in the iPad’s share of the market, so why should we expect more from a couple of eReader makers looking to expand beyond books?
Price is the key reason. The Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are more than 50 per cent cheaper than the cheapest iPad and could win a new audience looking for value and pure content consumption, if only in the US. I have had a limited time using both in their launch week and initial thoughts are after the jump. Read more
Good news and bad news for news on the iPad
The iPad era has already held more than a few twists for news publishers: hailed as the saviour of newspapers, media owners then fell out with Apple over changes to its terms of service, only to fall back in love in time for this month’s release of its Newsstand application.
But where has all this wrangling left consumers? A timely survey by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the Economist Group, finds that for more than half of US tablet owners, skimming headlines or settling down for longer reads is central to their daily routine. Willingness to pay for news remains stubbornly similar to the regular web, while apps – the main mechanism for charging – are still less popular than the browser. Read more
When HTC chief executive Peter Chou said this month that he was on the lookout for further acquisitions, he wasn’t kidding. The Taiwanese smartphone company on Tuesday announced it had acquired Inquisitive Minds, a US company that developed Zoodles, a kids-friendly browser designed to give children a safe browsing environment. Read more
First look: Amazon’s Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire looks to have the price, services and marketing muscle to take significant share of a US tablet market thus far dominated by the iPad.
Amazon, with its music, video and eBook services in the US can capitalise on the key usage of tablets as consumption devices, although its weaker offerings abroad would be one reason the Fire will have no international launch this year. Read more
After using Sony’s cameras, consoles, e-readers, televisions and Walkman tape recorders over the years and enjoying its films, music and games, it’s nice to find a little of all of these inside its first tablet.
The Sony Tablet S, just launched, is an all-rounder of a device drawing its strengths from Sony Electronics’ diversity. It also has the trademark Sony style and the quirks that go with it. This is no plain vanilla tablet like many of its Android counterparts and it suffers less in comparison to the more mature iPad 2.
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Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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