Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering for Google, explained at Google I/O last May that Google intend to deliver a whole lot more than just applications on the Android Market by demonstrating a Android music download service. It seems Google don’t plan on stopping with just music downloads as a recent report in The Wall Street Journal explains that Google are trying to lure publishers into supporting a “digital newsstand” service for Android.

Sources say that Google’s newsstand service will provide apps from publishers that allow Android users to view newspapers and magazines on phone and tablet devices. With Android now activating over 300,000 Google branded devices per day it seems only inevitable that publishers will eventually jump on-board.

Google are supposedly in contact with Timer Warner, Condé Nast and Hearst, three large publishers, regarding the service however “details of the newsstand venture and its timing remain vague”. Apple already provide publishers with the ability to sell periodicals through their iTunes service so expect competition to intensify if Google can get their newsstand product off the ground.

Amazon also made a big announcement today with their Kindle service as they intend to launch Kindle applications for both Android and Windows tablets. Amazon previously announced that they have a Windows Phone 7 Kindle app in development and already have a Android app that is designed for smartphones but the applications announced today specifically target tablet devices.

Sources: WSJ, Downloadsquad

Days before CES officially kicks off Toshiba have announced their Honeycomb tablet offering, or at least demonstrated the hardware. Similar to Toshiba’s previous Android tablet, the Folio, it’s powered by the Tegra 2 platform however it has been given a much needed makeover with a higher resolution 1280 x 800 10.1 inch display, 5 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front facing camera which will be able to take advantage of the many Android video calling services and hopefully a Google GTalk video calling service by the time the tablet launches.

Like the Folio it also has full size HDMI and USB interfaces and a SD card slot. The tablet is also equipped with a mini-USB for all your charging needs however it’s a shame Toshiba didn’t opt to use a micro-USB connector to try and comply with the new European mobile charging standard.

The new Toshiba device also offers an interesting removable rubberized rear cover which will provide customers with the options of a replaceable battery and also the option to replace it with a different coloured rear panel. Android is well known to be a heavily customizable operating system, by both manufactures and users, therefore customers may see this sort of hardware customization as an attractive option.

Unfortunately Engadget were not given permission to turn on the device but were told that it will run “the next version of Android designed for tablets inch when it launches in the first half of 2011. Hopefully after the firmware issues that Folio users were initially plagued with Toshiba will scrap their custom user interface and go for a stock Google Android Honeycomb experience.

If Toshiba can maintain the competitive pricing that was demonstrated with the Folio this new device could mark the start of a new wave of affordable and quality Android tablets that have access to all the Google goodies, including the Android Market and along with this a large influx of tablet compatible ‘HD’ applications and games which will start to come when Google officially announce their tablet friendly version of Android.

Source: Engadget

Days before CES officially kicks off Toshiba have announced their Honeycomb tablet offering, or at least demonstrated the hardware. Similar to Toshiba’s previous Android tablet, the Folio, it’s powered by the Tegra 2 platform however it has been given a much needed makeover with a higher resolution 1280 x 800 10.1” display, 5 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front facing camera which will be able to take advantage of the many Android video calling services and hopefully a Google GTalk video calling service by the time the tablet launches.

Like the Folio it also has full size HDMI and USB interfaces and a SD card slot. The tablet is also equipped with a mini-USB for all your charging needs however it’s a shame Toshiba didn’t opt to use a micro-USB connector to try and comply with the new European mobile charging standard.

The new Toshiba device also offers an interesting removable rubberized rear cover which will provide customers with the options of a replaceable battery and also the option to replace it with a different coloured rear panel. Android is well known to be a heavily customizable operating system, by both manufactures and users, therefore customers may see this sort of hardware customization as an attractive option.

Unfortunately Engadget were not given permission to turn on the device but were told that it will run “the next version of Android designed for tablets” when it launches in the first half of 2011. Hopefully after the firmware issues that Folio users were initially plagued with Toshiba will scrap their custom user interface and go for a stock Google Android Honeycomb experience.

If Toshiba can maintain the competitive pricing that was demonstrated with the Folio this new device could mark the start of a new wave of affordable and quality Android tablets that have access to all the Google goodies, including the Android Market and along with this a large influx of tablet compatible ‘HD’ applications and games which will start to come when Google officially announce their tablet friendly version of Android.

Source: Engadget

You have to love this time of the year, CES is starting and companies are providing all sorts of sneak peaks into what they have been working on to keep our gadget appetites suitably moistened.

Opera haven’t disappointed with quick preview of a new version of their popular mobile browser designed specifically for tablets. Announced on the Opera blog, this new version appears to be tailored for the larger screens of tablets.

Opera used the Samsung Galaxy Tab to preview the browser meaning an Android version is certain although I also suspect an iOS version for the iPad will be announced, especially with the rumored iPad2 looming for sometime this year.

As you can see the browser uses Operas visual bookmarks layout called Speed Dial and appears to run smoothly on the Galaxy Tab although its hardly surprising given the hardware.

As far as I am aware this will be the first browser customised specifically for tablets so it should be interesting to see what other features Opera can pack into this new edition to differentiate it from the vanilla mobile version.

Via jkOnTheRun

Just arrived in the Samsung Apps market today is Need For Speed Shift Full version – Free. This is the second racing game to appear in the last week. Previously we had Asphalt 5 HD, again, full and free. If you’ve got a Galaxy Tab these apps might not be appearing in your Samsung Apps catalogue due to country restrictions. My Tab was bought and is operating in Germany although it is set to English language. Need For Speed Shift does not appear in the standard  Android Market here so I’m not sure if there’s an alternative route for it. Let me know if it’s available where you are (and if it’s also free indicating that the Samsung App catalogue is largely a marketing channel!) Oh, and before you ask, no, I’m not putting up the .apk , Sorry!

I am putting up a video though. You can see Need For Speed Shift demonstrated in the video below. Watch in HQ/480p  for best version.

It works well! Smooth, responsive, enjoyable! If you’ve got a Tab, look for it in the Samsung Apps application.

Just arrived in the Samsung Apps market today is Need For Speed Shift – Full version – Free. This is the second racing game to appear in the last week. Previously we had Asphalt 5 HD, again, full and free. If you’ve got a Galaxy Tab these apps might not be appearing in your Samsung Apps catalogue due to country restrictions. My Tab was bought and is operating in Germany although it is set to English language. Need For Speed Shift does not appear in the standard  Android Market here so I’m not sure if there’s an alternative route for it. Let me know if it’s available where you are (and if it’s also free – indicating that the Samsung App catalogue is largely a marketing channel!) Oh, and before you ask, no, I’m not putting up the .apk , Sorry!

I am putting up a video though. You can see Need For Speed Shift demonstrated in the video below. Watch in HQ/480p  for best version.

It works well! Smooth, responsive, enjoyable! If you’ve got a Tab, look for it in the Samsung Apps application.

There are Tablet PCs and there are tablet PCs and one’s that are getting the most traction today aren’t the ones that were in the market first. Microsoft’s Tablet PC ecosystem has been around for years but was focused at pen input, productivity and built on an extended (not a cut-down) desktop operating system. The tablets that are getting the attention today are lightweight, finger-focused for consumers and include fun user interfaces, a monetised developer ecosystem and unique features such as ‘always on’ , high quality cameras and social sharing that you don’t get so much on the ‘desktop’ Tablet PC. With the market for tablet PCs growing (estimates run to 20 million iPads, 10 million Galaxy Tabs and, probably millions of new devices from companies like Blackberry and HP) there’s an opportunity for Microsoft to take advantage of their history and re-build a new version for consumers in 2011. Some people are predicting it will launch at CES and be called Windows 8. I find that unlikely.

While the full and flexible desktop OS has advantages for some categories of mobile computing, there are major problems inherent with the ‘PC’ OS build when thinking about consumer products. Think about the PC cruft. BIOS, X86, PCI bus, USB devices, ACPI. A lot of this isn’t desired in a consumer tablet and yet almost every X86 mobile computing hardware platform out there will offer it, regardless of a what a new version of Windows looks like. Even the most recently available ultra-mobile focused Menlow platform from Intel supports all the old PC architecture and as a result, battery life is nothing compared to ARM-based devices. Tellingly, Intels new platform for 2011, Moorestown, doesn’t include many of the elements I mentioned and therefore it doesn’t support Windows either! Intel chose to invest in their own OS for that and that makes complete sense.

A consumer tablet needs always-on, quick boot, small disk and memory footprint, clean core, optimised kernel, slim device driver library, app store, developer ecosystem, touch-focused UI and API’s, sensor support and more. Can you get an idea of the effort required to build a new desktop OS that was able to include all this and still move away from traditional PC architecture support, just because there’s one Intel CPU out there that looks attractive? Nope, neither can I.

Alternatively, Microsoft could skin Windows 7 and hope for the best on existing X86 platforms.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Covering up the cracks won’t help and won’t provide Microsoft a platform for future products. They tried it with a silly Origami Experience skin in 2006 and 2007 and it didn’t impress anyone. Fans still whirred, battery life still suffered and you needed a minimum 16GB disk and 1GB of RAM to support it. Today, that base requirement is up to 32GB and 2GB and those fans are still making a noise.

There is an alternative.

Windows 7 Compact could be the platform on which to build these consumer devices. It is the next generation of Windows CE (embedded) and supports X86 and even ARM Cortex processors which would be a retaliatory poke in the eye to Intel! Windows 7 Compact  is not available yet but we’ve seen a preview and there are some promotional videos available. The tablet features heavily.

There are questions about the locked-down nature of the platform and whether it would create developer interest for yet another unique application build process. It certainly doesn’t support Windows 7 binaries but that would be a good thing in the long-run right?. Silverlight runtime is included with Windows Compact 7 though; Could that be the platform for developers?

With H.264 support, a new media player, BT, 3G and Wifi support, Office and PDF document readers, multitouch and gesture support, Open GL2.0 support and Flash 10.1 support, Windows 7 Compact is not lacking in consumer-focused capability. License costs are down in the $2-$20 category too so adding it all together, there’s a lot to be said for the operating system.

Moving away from Windows 7 would be exactly the right thing to do for this category. A Windows 8 Tablet Edition would be the wrong thing to use for this category. If Microsoft positioned themselves well with developers, we could see more than just tablets appearing. Cameras, HiFi equipment, Ebook readers, smart-books and more. If they show some sexy products at CES, they have an even better chance.

Could Windows 7 Compact and related products launch at CES? I think so.

More images in the Gallery

I’m surprised that Intel have been allowed to announce partner names but in a presentation at the Barclays Capital 2010 Global Technology Conference, Paul Otellini has done just that and highlighted that Windows, MeeGo and Android will be on Atom next year.

The report comes via CNet who tracked the live audio from the conference and picked up that the Android builds will be both Froyo and Gingerbread. He also highlighted that Oaktrail is the Windows-compatible version of the new platform and Moorestown optimised even further and supporting only MeeGo and Android. That much we knew already. We also know from previous information that smartphones on Moorestown are taking longer than planned. Behind the scenes, I’m getting the feeling that Moorestown won’t be used for phones and that the focus is now on Medfield, due in late 2011. Note also that the Android build is behind MeeGo. That’s information that we were given at IDF in Sept 2010 and it means that those devices could be planned for the second half.

Slightly disappointing is that the slide shows only Tablets and that the bulk of these are Windows. Some of those won’t even be on the mobile platform because the netbook platform is going to feature. Focus should really be on unique designs such as smart-books, social netbooks and how about a bit of keyboard love? Continuing use of Windows with its lack of ‘always-on’ and business focus is just going to end up with devices that get bad reviews.

Highlight for me is Dell using Android. This will be on Moorestown and could be their 10 inch offering. If so, that’s a great win for Intel.

The good news here is that Moorestown is ready. I heard only last week that it’s been in production for months now. It only needs the OS to be completed and we’re away with a new always-on option and the first X86 platform that doesn’t support a Microsoft OS! I just hope that those MeeGo devices are going to be ground-breaking otherwise Nokia will NOT be happy!

Via Netbook News