ipad

Remember when Sony was the innovator?

Despite finally breaking a year's streak of quarterly losses, Sony's press conference Thursday will likely be remembered mostly for a quote that's already being mocked by tech blogs.

During a press conference to announce its earnings, Sony Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda expressed his company's interest in competing in the touch-screen tablet market with Apple. According to ComputerWorld, he said:

"That is a market we are also very interested in. We are confident we have the skills to create a product...Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it's a space we would like to be an active player in."

Seems reasonable enough, right? Lots of companies would--and will--follow Apple's lead. It's just the nature of business, and we expect it. But it's important to point out why Sony is being mildly ridiculed for this quote: because in most observers' eyes, this is exactly what's wrong with the company. The gadget maker that used to be at the forefront of innovation is rarely first at anything anymore--with the exception, it should be noted, of the Sony Reader, the first modern e-book reader. But over the past decade they've gotten beat at their own game in several major categories: music players (Apple), televisions (Samsung), and video games consoles (Microsoft and Nintendo). … Read more

Possible proof surfaces that iPad supports a camera

Clues are being discovered in hardware and software that are leading to more speculation that the iPad can support a front-facing iSight camera.

According to Mission:Repair's blog, the site received a shipment of parts used to repair the iPad. Inside that shipment, they found a metal internal iPad frame with what appeared to be a "spot" for a camera.

Mission:Repair's curiosity led it to grab a Unibody Macbook, disassemble it, and pull the iSight camera--a standard unit--from its frame.

The site staff discovered that the camera fit perfectly inside the hole within the iPad … Read more

Why some people are so angry about the iPad

Some people get angry about anything to do with Apple. It's not for me to suggest they should get a life, because I am sure they feel they already have one, thank you very much.

However, the launch of the iPad seems to have revealed a rather more base and extreme level of emotional outpouring, last seen, perhaps, when Sports Illustrated created its first swimsuit edition.

Engadget, for example, decided to shut down its comments for a while in order to let the bile float off down the Nile.

For those outside the Fanboy Funhouse, it all seems rather odd. Which is why I was moved to pay attention to an e-mail I received from Sandee Cohen, self-confessed angry person. Cohen is no ordinary angry person. For a start, she is running a two-day seminar at next week's MacWorld Expo. How many angry people could do that?

Cohen is a mistress of the Adobe Creative Suite, but, as an intelligent angry person she has some theories as to why she and others are experiencing their negative emotions.

"Mac users feel they have some sort of investment in Apple. The older ones kept with the Mac platform when it was in danger of dying out. They may feel that since they supported the Mac, they have a right to tell Apple how to make products, operating system, etc.," she told me.

And you more junior, unwashed enthusiasts, well, you have some issues too, apparently.… Read more

Textbook publishers heading to iPad

Publishers aren't wasting any time getting their books onto the new iPad.

Publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kaplan Publishing, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson have signed deals to be among the first to port their textbooks over to Apple's new tablet. Heading to the iPad as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch will be their textbooks, study guides, and test prep manuals.

Announced on Wednesday, the agreements were made with ScrollMotion, a company that develops the iPhone e-reader app Iceberg Reader and works with publishers to digitize their books for the mobile market.

The digital textbooks promise a slew … Read more

Analyst: Apple will sell 8 million iPads by 2012

If analyst predictions are any indication of what the iPad will see in actual sales, it's going to be a good run for Apple.

In a research note to clients on Wednesday, Needham & Company's Charlie Wolf predicted Apple would sell two million iPads in fiscal 2010 and an additional six million devices in 2011, according to a report on AppleInsider.

What's interesting is that Wolf says more than half of the iPad sales would be drawn from the iPod Touch. Many have said that the iPad looks like a larger version of Apple's iPod Touch. … Read more

The 404 Podcast 511: Where the more you ignore us, the closer we get

All the recent frenzy over the Apple iPad might be too much for the tech nerds of the world to handle. Tuesday, Josh Topolsky of Engadget reported on a disturbingly high volume of "ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening" comments on the Web site and took action by indefinitely closing all comments on the blog. We appreciate Josh's wake-up call, although vocalizing one's opinion through anonymous blog comments is just another extension of the Internet.

We definitely empathize with the site's moderators, however, who must be tearing their hair out trying to protect Engadget visitors from trolls, predators, idiots, and all the other lobos on the Web. Good luck with that, guys!

In other tech news, TechCrunch gives us a first look at Google's interpretation of a modern tablet device, as imagined by Glen Murphy, Google Chrome's designer. The video you see on the site is just a mock-up, however, so don't get your hopes up! At this point, we'll take just about any tablet that doesn't have an Apple on it.

We can't thank our buddy Props Guy Jim enough for making the awesome "The 404 Bunch" poster you see to the left. Jim is the same gentleman who came through with 3k temporary tattoos, so thanks again! Look for a full-size poster coming to a 404 studio near you.

EPISODE 511 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Lumberjacks beware; owners love their e-readers

Tree huggers rejoice.

E-readers are a hit, or rather 93 percent of owners surveyed by research company, The NPD Group, say they are "very satisfied" with their device. Only 2 percent of buyers reported being dissatisfied, according to the research firm.

What this means is that technology appears to be improving upon an information-distribution system nearly 4,000 years old. It also means that book publishers better get on the ball.

Most of those surveyed owned either an Amazon Kindle or a Sony Reader, the leaders in the e-reader space, Ross Rubin, NPD's executive director of analysis, … Read more

Is this how gamers will use Apple's iPad?

I would rather eat someone else's rain gear than play video games for 10 hours a day. But I will defend the right of everyone to play, as long as they aren't getting on my nerves on an airplane.

So while I know that many have focused their enthusiasm for Apple's new iPad on drooling over its potential as a device for consuming books and movies, below is some footage that might make gamers feel somewhat tingly, too.

I was directed to this Warcraft III video by Cody Brown, an NYU Social Entrepreneurship undergraduate and founder of Kommons.com.… Read more

Citrix to help users run Windows 7 on the iPad

Citrix Systems claims that it can help users run a virtual installation of Windows 7 on the Apple iPad, when the tablet device is released later this year.

Writing in a blog post on the company's site, Chris Fleck, the company's vice president of Community and Solutions Development, said those companies that use either of the company's desktop virtualization platforms, XenDesktop or XenApp, will be able to use Windows 7 from the iPad.

"It turns out [that] the 9.7-inch display on the iPad, with a 1024x768[-pixel] screen resolution, works great for a full [virtual … Read more

Does Google wish the iPad didn't exist?

How has Apple's launch of the iPad made other companies feel? Has it brought sneaking admiration or steaming ire?

I fear that Google might not be leaping for joy like leprechauns.

You see, one of the strange world figures I have arbitrarily come to follow on Twitter, 15-year-old Irish blogger, Tommy Collison, decided he would use Google unparalleled search engine to see how much disk space there was on the iPad.

Being a manboy of strong left brain, he entered "disk space on iPad". What he received was apparently innocent incomprehension. "Did you mean 'disk space … Read more