Hasta La Gadget!

We found out yesterday that Motorola’s Xoom would be shipping sans Flash support on Verizon Wireless, and while Big Red claimed that an update would be doled out this spring, the folks at Adobe are pointing to a far more specific time frame. In a new post over at the Flash Platform Blog, Adobe has confirmed that “Flash Player 10.2 [will be] pre-installed on some tablets and as an OTA download on others within a few weeks of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom.” We’re guessing that the company’s going public with a statement like this to fend off fears that the Xoom may be waiting an eternity for Flash, in essence removing a bit of fear from hesitant early adopters. Either way, it’s excellent news for those eying a Honeycomb tablet of any flavor, and we’re going to take the liberty of taking “a few weeks” to mean “a fortnight.” Cool, Adobe?

Adobe promises Flash Player 10.2 for Honeycomb tablets ‘in a few weeks,’ Xoom gets namechecked originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You don’t need us to tell you what you already know in your gut to be true: Redmond is working hard on its tablet strategy. How embarrassing is it for Microsoft, the company that pioneered tablets and the 7-inch UMPC, to be completely absent from the conversation in 2010 and 2011? That could change in September. Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley recently shared the slide above which she believes to be 99.99 percent genuine. The timeline shows the major milestone dates for a Windows 8 (aka, “Windows Next“) release — an OS that M. JoFo believes to be focused on tablets (aka, “Lap PCs” in Microsoft parlance) with its purpose-built touch-centric design. According to the slide, we’re looking at an M2 milestone this month followed by M3 in July or August. Foley says that would put Microsoft on track for a Windows 8 beta release right around Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) event in September followed by a second beta in 2012 before being released to manufacturing around the summer of 2012 — just like we heard early last year and just in time for Dell’s Hancock tablet. There are still many open questions including Microsoft’s ARM vs. Intel priorities and how the company plans to scale across the enterprise and the “workhorse PC” and “Family Hub PC” in the home. Hit the ZDNet link below for a deeper read or better yet, head on over to TechRepublic where Mary Jo Foley put together an excellent webcast outlining Microsoft’s tablet strategy in much more detail.

Windows 8 beta for tablets at September PDC? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Visualized: Motorola Xoom rolls into Best Buy originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, by now you’ve seen the PlayStation Certified Qriocity tablet known within Sony as the “S1.” But that’s not the only tablet the venerable Japanese company is preparing to launch in 2011. We’ve been told by a pair of highly trusted and proven sources that Sony is also working on two rather unconventional tablet form factors including a dual-screen Honeycomb clamshell and newfangled Windows 7 tablet slider.

First, let’s look at the clamshell model sporting a pair of 5.5-inch displays — a device first hinted at in a 2010 Sony patent application titled “Electronic Book with Enhanced Features.” However, unlike the patent’s blocky illustration, we’re told that Sony’s clamshell — known as the “S2” internally — more closely resembles an oval cylinder when closed as depicted in the illustration above. Spec-wise, we’re told that it will be very similar in performance to the S1 with a Tegra 2 SoC and WiFi + 3G radio on the inside and front- and rear-facing cameras on the outside. And like the S1 tablet, the S2 will be focused on delivering Qriocity media to the consumer. Sorry, no word on whether the S2 is PlayStation Certified. Obviously, the S2 won’t be running stock Honeycomb — instead, Sony is currently optimizing the Android OS to make the most of those two displays. One source reports having seen Gmail running on a demonstration prototype where the list of messages is displayed on one screen with the body of the selected message displayed on the other. Maps, we’re told, will display the map graphic on one display with the detailed turn-by-turn instructions or Streetview displayed on the other. Likewise, the S2 will display a video and picture navigation menu on one half of the clamshell with the selected content blown-up to fill the screen of the other. We’re also told that these apps will work in a variety of orientations. Sounds interesting, to say the least. Regrettably, our sources are less than enthusiastic. Click through to find out why.

Continue reading Exclusive: Sony ‘S2’ dual-screen Android clamshell and 9.4-inch Windows 7 VAIO slider due this year

Exclusive: Sony ‘S2’ dual-screen Android clamshell and 9.4-inch Windows 7 VAIO slider due this year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Competition usually giveth, but sometimes it taketh away too. All Things D is reporting today that Kno, the company that aimed to deliver a most bodacious dual-screen tablet to students, is investigating the possibility of selling off its hardware venture and focusing exclusively on its software offering. Internal sources claim the “quicker-than-expected” move into tablets by big electronics makers has made the environment tougher for Kno, which is now said to be negotiating with a pair of companies about offloading its slate-selling business. Apparently, just a few hundred pre-orders of the Kno were fulfilled before the company stopped shipping them recently, which could be an indication that a deal may be close. We can only guess what a purchaser would want to do with the Kno tablet designs, but as for the company itself, it’ll look to the iPad and Android-based tablets for its new market of opportunity — no point in wasting all those textbook distribution partnerships.

Kno looking to sell off ambitious tablet hardware business, focus on software instead originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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