We stick our techie hat on firmly this week as we take a look at what Computex had to say for itself. Why? Tablets are king right now, and possibly for ever more, and this show was bound to see a whole load of new introductions in that market sector. Some 50 of the latest slates turned up for the show. Publishers, printers and techies should all know the score.As per last week’s rumours, ASUS announced the Padfone – an integrated smartphone and tablet. An interesting idea that seemed to have some fans, namely TransPhone who claimed to have produced their variant before ASUS. To complete a hat-trick of phone burying tablet cases, Taiwan-based ICE Computer are working on the same idea too, claiming to have been working on the project for some time. All three had one thing in common: no real working prototype, just mock-ups. We look forward to seeing something more concrete one day!
For Viewsonic though it was about how many operating systems they could cram into one tablet device. The ViewPad 10Pro offers both Windows 7 Pro and Android 2.2 in a supposed dual-boot situation with 32Gb of on board storage. The 4.5 hours of battery life is not staggering however.Shuttle were keen to show their trio of Android-based tablets: a 10 inch, 9 inch, and an 8 inch “ruggedized” for the education sector. Meanwhile Gigabyte offered up a Windows 7 tablet with USB 3.0 and an optical drive dock.
Toshiba have made their entry into the US tablet market with the Thrive, something that would appear to be very well speced and very competitively priced. A 10.1 inch product running Android 3.1, with two camera’s, USB and HDMI ports, an SD slot, Bluetooth, and wi-fi, shipping mid-July, priced from just $429. We reckon that equates to less than £265 at current exchange rates, which would have to be a pretty good buy. If those prices stay it could be v.popular!On the subject of bargain buys, MSI showed off some inexpensive tablets, including a 10 inch product for just $299 (£182). No Android Market right now though.
Although not new-new the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer has been getting a few real life UK reviews recently, and it does sound as if this is going to become something of a true iPad competitor, once the latest Android software is smoothed out.ASUS were also in the frame at Computex with something in the ultramobile sector – the UX21 went down well. The LG P220 also stirred interest in this category; and Compal too added something good in this sector. Tough competition in a shrinking market?
No surprises to hear plenty of 3D talk at Computex. LG showcased an all-in-one PC with both 3D and multi-touch capabilities in the monitor.
One final Computex offering: Windows 8 was previewed. Take a look at how the world's most populous OS is transforming to adapt to tablet formats.Away from the wonders of Computex, publisher Bloomsbury says that its sales of e-books has soared. Pre-tax profits for 14 months to the end of February hit £4.2 million, with e-book sales taking a sizeable £1.5 million of that, up from just £79,000 the previous year. That’s one heck of a jump! We also saw details of a start-up publisher giving readers the control over what should be printed: what a radical idea!
The number of publications that have now jumped on board the iPad Subscription train continues to increase, but the idea of shared demographic info is still causing many to shy away. The Daily, the Murdoch funded e-mewspaper for the iPad, is currently losing some $10 million a month. Ouch!
Any readers of The Daily reading PIND? It is only you guys over in the US of course – we can’t buy it over this side of the pond even if we wanted too. If you do read it, tell us all: PINDeditor@gmail.com
One more link for QR code fans: this Ohio newspaper has really got the hang of using the QR concept, adding a code to main stories and features so that smartphone users can get an update throughout they day. We feel sure that all newspapers need to adopt something like this in order to compete with TV and web based news sites. No reason why the QR code couldn't link to a video of the story to marry all media together.
Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 56. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!
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