Google's 7-inch Android tablet is real — it's even being passed around inside the Googleplex.<p>

That's what I'm hearing from Googlers who have seen the device. Backing up what's been rumored for months on CNET, Digitimes and other sites, I'm hearing that this device is aimed squarely at Amazon's Kindle Fire (which runs Amazon's tailored version of Android). It's likely to start in the $200 to $250 range, have a higher resolution screen, and perhaps a camera.

Thailand reportedly also looked at some of China’s largest tablet manufacturers, such as Lenovo and Huawei, but the pricing per unit was too high for its budget. Conversely, a lower bid from another company was offered but rejected by the government, perhaps due to less specs for the value.</p><p>

The select device model, priced at $81 per unit, is the Scopad SP0712: An 7-inch Android device running the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. It’s also got 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, 1.5 GHz single core CPU, and comes in four color options: Red, blue, silver, and gold. Shenzhen Scope will also set 30 help centers around the Southeast Asian country to provide user support specifically for tablets received from the campaign. Not too shabby of specs for tablets for elementary school students.

After a small pilot of BlackBerry Torch devices in the third quarter of last, where clinicians reported the devices being too small for dealing with the scheduling information, the trust began to take a second look for tablets with a larger, 7in screen.</p><p>

While a range of devices had entered the market in the intervening time, only one – the Samsung Galaxy Tab – had the necessary level of 256-bit AES encryption.</p><p>

The trust is using Vodafone for the roll out, which will see the mobile operator's Secure Device Manager software deployed on the devices.

In the year or so since the [Motorola] deal was announced, it has become more and more clear that Larry does, in fact, want to make gadgets.

In the latest evidence of this, Google is now planning to open an online tablet store in which it will push Android-based tablets, Amir Efrati of the Wall Street Journal reports.

In this store, Google will initially sell tablets that are manufactured by its tablet hardware partners like Asus and Samsung. But the tablets may be co-branded as Google tablets.

You need not fear heat blisters when handling the new iPad. Apple's new tablet is neither a burn risk, nor even particularly hot in the grand scheme of competing devices.

We know because we tested the iPad against five other tablets.

Sure, the new iPad, like all electronics hardware, heats up when pushed to its limits. This is just a matter of physics. Processors, batteries and back-lit displays generate heat under load.

Consumer Reports proved this when it <a href="http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2012/03/our-test-finds-new-ipad-hits-116-degrees-while-running-games.html">recorded a temperature of 116 degrees</a> Fahrenheit on the back of the new iPad – this after plugging the tablet into a wall socket and playing a demanding 3-D game, <em>Infinity Blade 2</em>, for 45 minutes. This little stunt spurred a lot of online chatter, but it didn't explain whether the new iPad's heat generation is above and beyond that of other tablets on the market.

So Wired decided to investigate.

The <a href="http://androidandme.com/2012/01/devices/asus-memo-370t-could-be-a-kindle-killer-tegra-3-for-250/">ASUS MeMo 370T</a> that was revealed at CES has been scrapped after Google contracted with ASUS to produce their "Nexus tablet". Earlier reports said the device would retail for $249-199, but we are now told the target price is $149-199. The quad-core Tegra 3 version that was previously leaked is no more. Other than the 7in display, no additional information has been provided on the specs.

A recent ChangeWave Research survey of 1,604 business IT buyers shows the new iPad is already having a powerful impact on the corporate tablet market.   

Going forward, better than one-in-five companies (22%) say they’ll be purchasing tablets for their employees during 2nd Quarter 2012, and the percentage reporting they’ll buy Apple iPads has jumped to the highest level of corporate iPad demand ever seen in a ChangeWave survey.

A total of 84% of companies planning to buy tablets next quarter now say they’ll purchase iPads – a 7-pt leap since the previous survey.

Wondering when Google is going to jump into the tablet fray? It may happen later this year, a DisplaySearch analyst told CNET.

The Google-branded tablet will have a 1280x800 resolution 7-inch display, according to Richard Shim, an analyst with DisplaySearch. Production is slated for April. The initial production run is between 1.5m to 2m units, according to Shim.

As a mobile phone, the Galaxy Note is positively gargantuan. It’s almost 6 inches long and over 3 inches wide. When you hold it up to your ear, it pretty much covers the entire side of your face. You look like you’re talking into a piece of toast.
The Note is so big, an iPhone can almost fit within its display. And it dwarfs even the more-bloated crop of recent Android phones, like Samsung’s own Galaxy S II series, whose screen can be as large as 4.5 inches. And while it can fit into a large pocket or handbag, the Note isn’t going to slip unobtrusively into your jeans or a small purse. It weighs 6.28 ounces, nearly 30% more than the iPhone and nearly 50% more than some Galaxy S II models.

Most people (and reviewers) seem to believe that the 10.1in screens (measured diagonally) on the Android Tablets are larger than the 9.7in iPad screen – but they are actually 5% smaller than the iPad in terms of the image area of the screen, which is what really counts. This is due to both Aspect Ratio geometry (the screen area decreases as the Aspect Ratio increases) and the Android system bar, which reduces the image area.

"Something must have gone horribly horribly wrong over at Deutsche Bank because I just don’t see THAT much of an effect. I don’t know what Chris Whitmore did but there’s just something wrong with his math. Global PC sales were 92 Million in Q3/2011 including 5 million Macs sold by Apple. They also sold 11 Million iPads which brings the total number up to 103 million “PCs”. If you look at the Deutsche Bank numbers HP has a market share of 17% (Gartner gives it as 17.7%). To make them drop off to under 15% as the Deutsche Bank graphs shows Apple would have had to sell over 18 million iPads which they simply didn’t."