CES 2012 has kicked-off, and already the gadgets are streaming in. Today, Toshiba announced what they claim is the world’s thinnest tablet – at 7.7mm thick. In contrast, the current tablet leader, the iPad 2, rounds in at 0.34″ thick (8,636mm). Now, we can argue all we want about these small numbers, but what does this really mean for the way forward regarding tablets?

I wrote recently that we can expect a new version of Gorilla Glass – the glass that’s used on most smartphones and tablets – at this year’s CES. This new glass is set to enable thinner device designs, and it could mean that the tablet wars of this year will be largely focused on the thickness of devices.

Now, while it may be thin, does this new gadget prove a lethal competitor to the iPad? I don’t think so. Whilst form factor is an important aspect, it’s the user experience that counts the most. And so far, Apple has the best of the lot.

Toshiba isn’t the biggest company in the tablet sector, and the Excite X10 seems to be their firm foray into this hotly contested arena. The device is expected to use the Honeycomb variant of Android.

The Excite X10 is perhaps their best tablet offering to date, and if anything, it gives us a shadow of an opinion on what we could expect when Apple replies later this quarter with the expected iPad 3.

You can read the original blog post here CES 2012: Toshiba’s Excite X10, and the iPad.

Well folks, it’s that time of year already: the annual Consumer Electronics Show is upon us. This yearly gathering of tech is a good indicator of what to expect during the year, and whilst the heavyweights are pulling out (Microsoft), or are always absent (Apple), their presence is always felt.

In fact, I recently read that Apple’s very existence and subsequent rumour mill is enough to spur competitors in certain directions.

What We Can Expect At CES 2012:

1. Windows Phone and Nokia

Microsoft and an ailing Nokia last year announced a partnership to pair Windows Phone OS and Nokia devices. Now, we can anticipate a new Nokia device, the Lumina 900, to be announced. Rumoured specs suggest a 4.3″ WVGA display, 512MB RAM, and an 8-megapixel camera.

Oh, and Windows Phone 7 software, of course. With the Nokia/Microsoft partnership beginning to bear fruit in the guise of these smartphones, here’s hoping that the previous mobile giant is able to regain some of its honour.

2. BlackBerry Announcements

Research in Motion candidly suggested that they’ll have some interesting things in store for us at this year’s CES via their Facebook page. According to their Facebook page:

What happens in Vegas… is going to be broadcast RIGHT HERE and on Twitter (@BlackBerry) next week during the Consumer Electronics Show. Even if you’re not at the event, you’ll get all of the details, so stay tuned for live updates and more from CES 2012. We have some tricks up our sleeves…

Perhaps an early announcement of the new BlackBerry 10 device? While I doubt that (the company has been at pains to make it known that we can only expect this later this year), it’ll be exciting to see what “tricks” they have in store for us…

3. Gorilla Glass 2

Gorilla Glass is the legendary glass that is used on many of today’s smartphones, including Apple’s iconic iPhone. Corning, the makers of the glass, have announced that they’ll be showcasing the next generation of their flagship product, which they say will allow for thinner end-product designs. This is a clear indicator of where mobile tech will be heading this year, and in the near-future.

4. MacBook Air-like Devices

When Apple first introduced the MacBook Air, it was overpriced and many people ridiculed it as an overpriced netbook. However, it’s now one of the cheapest products in Apple’s mobile lineup (bar the iOS devices), and with the 11″ model, it proves a serious contender for the lightweight mobile crowd. And in classic Apple fashion, it has become a trendsetter for many competitors to follow.

Thus, we can expect to see a plethora of ultra lightweight notebooks from the likes of Intel, Acer and their brethren. If anything, this will spur the originator (Apple) to be at the top of their game when their notebook announcements come along (usually toward the end of the year).

5. Television

The television industry is set to be shaken this year. Talks of the elusive Apple Television are almost reaching fever pitch, and the current giants – Sony, Samsung etc. – are already scrambling to release what they might think are the future killers of this yet-to-be released product, without Apple even breathing a word about it. Expect to see lots of “smart” televisions.

As for 3D TV: whilst I still consider it to be a “gimmick”, it’s a given that we’ll be seeing a host of new sets with this capability. Hopefully priced tastefully too…

So what are you looking forward to at this year’s CES? Drop a line in the comments and let us know!

You can read the original blog post here CES 2012: A Look Ahead.

Cisco IBSG interviewed over 50 television experts, and now they have 10 solid reasons why you won’t recognize your Television in the future, all thanks to the blistering growth of the technology around us.

Get PDF file. Watch the video on how TV will change in the near future:

From Cisco:

Imagine watching television with no channels, no remote control, perhaps not even a TV set. You might catch the news on the bathroom mirror as you brush your teeth, and then check sports scores after work on the family-room window. If a football game really captures your interest, you could watch the action from any perspective you choose—the end zone, on the 50-yard line, or even in the middle of the huddle. During the commercial break, the irresistible aroma of pizza wafting from the TV might compel you to click on the logo and order a large double cheese right from the screen.

The ability to drive my hands into the television set and chomp off those cookies, that too for free, is going to create unemployment. You know why. On the brighter side, this will eliminate poverty.

What do you think? Can technology drift to such heights in the next 5 years?

Related: Transparent TV Concept.

You can read the original blog post here Prediction of Future Television Technology.

Yes! Another tablet. Another cheap tablet. Cheap? You’ll know.

This new tablet, labelled as Classpad, comes from Rohit Pande, who is a graduate of IIT and IIM — two elite educational institutes of India. To put it bluntly, Classpad tablet doesn’t paint a different picture in the tablet industry.

Classpad is yet another regular tablet, with decent specs, perhaps acutely priced and strives to make learning easier for students of India. Classpad is for the schools.

The target audience of Classpad is Indian students and teachers. Teachers can share class notes, students can flick through these notes, write tests and get results on their Classpad.

As per Times of India, this touchscreen tablet comes with a short 7 hour battery life, 1.3 GHz processing speed and is expandable up to 8Gb, with 4GB built-in memory. Available in three different sizes — 7, 8 and 10 inches — Classpad is not as cheap as Aakash.

Classpad costs somewhere between $140 to $260 — that’s Rs. 7500 to Rs. 14000. This instantly begs for the question: Is Classpad really cheap?

Let’s put Aakash in the ring and compare it with Classpad. Aakash, $30; Classpad, $140. Aakash, funded by Indian government; Classpad, from an IITian. Aakash, approximate 10 hours battery life; Classpad, 7 hours battery life.

Aakash handsomely wins.

Also, notice the 7 hour battery life, which I assume is absolutely disappointing. Why? Because students in India are usually supposed to sit in the classroom for 8 hours every day. You do the calculation.

If the tablet makes it into the hands of students, then the good side of this poor battery life will force these students to wake up early, so that they can charge their Classpad before proceeding to school. Jokes apart, but seriously, we students need a tablet that has better battery life, touchscreen that is lag-free, can be used both inside and outside the classroom and should be durable.

And, of course, affordable. Classpad leaves us craving for more, as very little is known about this device. Only time will tell whether this tablet can really make a difference in the educational ecosystem or not.

You can read the original blog post here Classpad is Yet Another Cheap Tablet For Students of India.

Well, just like that, this year has flown by. We’re at that transitional stage between two years, and with that comes a plethora of speculations and rumors about what the new year will hold in the realm of technology. It seems that geeks love to predict; after all, technology is a fast-flowing river where anything is possible.

So, with that being said, I’d like to offer my speculations on what we’ll see in 2012. Now, this year has seen some interesting developments; for starters, Amazon’s Kindle Fire has seemed to re-kindle the Android spirit (although, rather obliquely given the heavy customization they’ve had done to the open-source OS), and it really looks to be a serious threat to Apple’s flagship product, the iPad. Then there’s Windows Phone OS, which looks very promising; it offers a fresh take on the user interface with the Metro UI that forgoes the current “icon-based” model used by Apple, RIM and Android. And, of course, we have the barely-there BlackBerry platform, which floundered incredibly over the past year.

So, what can we expect in 2012?

1. The Rise of the Superphone

Not so long ago, we were in the cross-over from the feature phone to the smartphone. With the smartphone came the myriad app stores, and indie developers the world over rejoiced at getting their work onto a more marketable platform. Now, I feel us entering a new age – the age of the “superphone”.

Think something along the lines of a far superior mobile experience with faster processors, better graphics and more use of newer mobile technologies such as NFC and augmented reality. These features are legacy of the smartphone era, but they also provide the bridge over to the superphone realm, where these intuitive features, coupled with better hardware and a far greater emphasis on the mobile phone, will result in a whole new platform to play with.

2. Apple’s Television Set

The rumour mill has been working overtime since the tragic loss of the great Apple co-founder and visionary, Steve Jobs, and the subsequent release of Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography of the tech titan, where Jobs alludes to having finally cracked the user interface of the television set.

Then, Apple culture websites started posting speculations from insiders, and supposed intel from manufacturers readying components for such a television. If Apple does indeed release a television set in 2012, expect it to change this faction of the entertainment sector just as the iPod and iPad revolutionized music, books and magazines.

3. Next-Gen Game Consoles

Nintendo already announced their foray into the next generation of gaming, with the Wii U, an updated version of their once-popular gaming console, the Wii.

It looks interesting enough, but I expect Microsoft and Sony to do even better. After all, the original Wii was a lesson to them; expect more motion-integration with incredible graphics. Shows to look out for, where these announcements could happen: CES 2012, and E3.

4. The Tablet Overtakes the Netbook

There’s a very blurry line between the tablet computer and the netbook. But as tablets become more affordable, and more emphasis is placed on touch screens for lightweight computing, expect the netbook to slowly die out, and the tablet to snugly fit into the recently-departed space more permanently.

Well, these are just a few of my ideas about tech in 2012. I’m quite excited, as I am at the beginning of every year, to see what the genius engineers and designers have in store for our future. What’s your take on tech in 2012? Drop a line in the comments section!

You can read the original blog post here What’s In Store for Tech in 2012.

From LCD to LED to 3D plasma TVs, smartphones to big tablets like iPad, we are admittedly the lost generation embracing the quickly evolving technological advances.

Touchscreen seems to be the prime ingredient of successful electronic gadgets these days, and it’s already and will further mature as a part of our everyday life. To get the drift of how touchscreen devices can change our lives, here we have ExoPC showing off Exodesk, which is a huge desk-monitor going to be available to the consumers starting 2012.

This 40-inch HD touchscreen desk is the future for two reasons. One, it’s affordable. Secondly, you can do a lot of things like catching up with RSS, read and send emails, browse through Twitter and flawlessly play piano.

Demo Video of ExoDesk Touchscreen Monitor:

Exodesk is like one big tablet that cannot be carried in your back pocket wherever you go, and the only difference between this and the other tablet is that it is transparent, which surely adds futuristic flavor to the device.

Still, there’s an unsettling thought of whether such devices will be embraced by the consumer for everyday use. If yes, then how? Playing games or working on a 40-inch device is simply too much to ask for. In anyway, at first glance, I’d say Exodesk can be really addictive.

• Exodesk Demo: Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January.
• Price of Exodesk: $1299; shipping begins next year.

Via Huffingtonpost.

Related: Transparent Cell Phones.

You can read the original blog post here Touchscreen Desk Makes Life Easier [Video].

The cheapest Android tablet in the world, Aakash, price will go down further south and will continually evolve with new features, according to Times of India.

Aakash tablet to the casual eye is just another tablet. The pricing, however, is the tablet’s biggest plus point. This 7-inch Android tablet works remarkably well and is a point of pride for the Indian government for it is the driving force behind this project.

For an affordable Rs. 3000 ($60) you can have your own tablet. But there’s more for students in India.

For Rs. 1500 ($30), Indian students can book Aakash tablet. Best of all, once you have the tablet with you, there’s no need to worry about it becoming obsolete as the folks at Datawind are promising to bring new features in every six months or so.

Improved battery life, better processing power can and will be increased overtime in Aakash. And they also believe it is possible to lower the price of the tablet, to what extent and when is a moot point for now.

Nonetheless, Aakash tablet looks promising and for the current price, it’s a sure success not only in India but also worldwide. Looking at the rough figures tossed by Times of India, already 3 lakh Aakash tablets have been booked and by the end of the year 2012 around 50 lakh units are expected to be sold.

The only thing we could do, as a consumer, is to wait patiently for Aakash to hit the market, which is only a few weeks away.

You can read the original blog post here Expect Price Changes, New Features in Aakash Tablet.

Venturebeat has filed a quick hands-on review of the Aakash tablet, which is an Android powered tablet funded by the Indian government. In the review video, the test unit shipped to Venturebeat works pretty well except for the onscreen keyboard that shows a sign of sluggishness when in use. On the flip side of that, Aakash tablet plays YouTube videos really well, without freezing the tablet.

Aakash Tablet, previously known as Sakshat, has bagged attention not only in India but also all over the world, precisely because of the price, which is the tablet’s point of pride. This tablet is said to be the world’s cheapest tablet and is slated to retail for $35 in India; $60 in the US.

Around 100,000 units of Aakash will be shipped in the first phase before rolling out to the millions of students in the next year. As mentioned in one of the exclusive NDTV video, the screen of the Aakash tablet comes from South Korea while the microprocessor is imported from US, but all the parts, testing of tablet, and much more is carried out in India.

Another review video from Venturebeat: Web on Aakash.

You can read the original blog post here Aakash Tablet Reviewed [Video].

All good things come in tiny packages. And this holds true even for the digital cameras.

These digital cameras are so small that you could lose them in a snap. But then, these little toys is what makes up for a perfect gadget to take a picture or two secretly, like a part-time spy guy.

World’s Smallest Cameras

Dubbed as the ‘World’s Smallest Camera,’ this gadget is slightly larger than a marble and sits snugly on your finger. Like any other camera, it can click and shoot videos.

Priced at $100, this camera shoots AVI videos at 30 frames per second at 640 x 480 resolution and captures pictures with its 2 mega pixel image sensor.

Another smallest 720P digital camera camcorder is Y3000, which is available for $39 at DealExtreme. This digital camera is supposedly the smallest 720P camcorder that takes pictures and shoot videos in HD.

The camera can house up to 32GB memory card enough to have thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos. You can go through this in-depth video review to find out more about this camera.

If you are searching for a video and audio recorder, or something along the lines of a CCTV, then check out the Mini itsy-bitsy recorder that handles HD recording, can take digital pictures at 5.0 mega pixels and comes at an affordable price of $39.99.

You can get this camera from Amazon.com

But the standalone gadget that takes away the award of the world’s smallest camera is Naneye, which is smaller than a matchstick head.

You can read the original blog post here Smallest Digital Cameras in the World.

HP has pumped life into the TouchPad by discontinuing the support for WebOS device. What seems to be another iPad-like device is now selling like hot cakes, sparking a buying frenzy among the geeks.

Evoking people worldwide with its lustrous offer, HP TouchPad 16GB model price has been slashed from $499 to $99 while the 32GB model is slimmed down to $149.

The price cuts are enticing. Paying $99 for a tablet is no big deal, but the question that has left everyone in a tizzy is this: where does one buy HP TouchPad from?

For the US crowd, most of the well-known stores have gone Out of Stock, leaving the international TouchPad fanatics to pay twice the price to get hold of this tablet. The demand for this tablet has gone through the roof.

Availability of HP TouchPad?

Apparently, all the HP TouchPad models are sold out online. Give a ride to HP’s site, Barnes & Noble or Best Buy, and you are less likely to stake out a claim.

However, news is that HP will slide a truck full of fresh TouchPads to the stores next week. So, for those who can wait, just hang in there for a couple more days.

And for those interested, the web is jam-packed with HP news, and to find a site that lists the stores and TouchPad availability is not that easy. However, the members at SlickDeals have taken the initiative by investing hours of research in listing the retail and online stores and their availability of TouchPad.

Sam’s Club – Off and on stock today (Mon)

Sears – one lucky guy got price match by chat for 16gb – mrkk – I bought one on Saturday full price. Called on Sunday since I saw the price reduced to $149.99 on their website. Got the email with the credit given yesterday – waiting for my tablet in the mail

Staples – Never had stock when price dropped, the people that got it for $49 bought it before Friday and got it price adjusted. – Will not have any more shipments

Target – No TouchPad available.

TigerDirect – Shipping notifications have been sent out to those who were able to buy one. Check order status to confirm.

Walmart – Mostly B&M purchases

Zones.com – None available.

Office Depot – Some have called Customer Service and have been told that their order has either been shipped or is going to be shipped the following day and have been told to call back later for tracking number.

Office Max – at least one shipping confirmation. – Two shipping confirmations now. Shipping from Tukwila, WA, United States wherever the heck that is.

And much more can be found on SlickDeals. Keep a close eye on this site.

Did you buy the HP TouchPad?

$99, that’s cheap for a tablet, especially when we take the hardware — not to forget the aesthetic WebOS — into consideration. But now you’ve got to figure out how to get the tablet, not what to do when you get it.

Really, for this price, HP TouchPad is a trendsetting tablet. A device that could easily replace our laptops, if only was it available in abundance.

As of this writing, though the price of HP TouchPad 16GB model is $99, the device is nowhere available in the online stores for international users. Amazon sellers, in the hopes of profiting, have tripled the price of the tablet.

Link to the Amazon Store.

Last night the product was “Out of Stock” but now it’s back at $299. Yes, $299.

You can read the original blog post here Availability of HP TouchPad Tablet?.