tablet

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zItInA2ruMk”]

The above video is reportedly Chrome OS running on a tablet, looking very unfinished, but hey, at least it’s something. This isn’t an official video by any means, but put together by web developer Francois Beaufort. You’ll notice that icons look much different, being bigger and more tablet optimized. The QWERTY keyboard looks very familiar, almost Honeycomb-like as well.

We don’t expect this to be close to even the final build of the Chrome OS that will ship on a tablet — if it ever does. It’s cool nonetheless. Check out a few shots after the break. (via Lilputing)

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A new report from Digitimes says non-Apple tablet sales are expected to rise a solid 134% in 2012, higher than Apple’s projected growth rate for the same period.  For 2011, the sale of Android tablets are expected to top 19-20 million units and the iPad’s expected to hit 35-36 million units. With the 134% rise this mean there could be 44-45 million Android units sold in 2012 and 54-55 million iPad units sold in 2012 — perhaps marginalizing Apple’s lead.

To help push Android (and others) to parity, many manufacturers will be releasing new hardware in the upcoming months, like Nvidia’s Kal-El quadcore processor slated for later this fall. On the software front, Google is expected to release Ice Cream Sandwich(Android 4.0) late fall or early 2012.  With competition heating up, prices are already beginning to fall.

Who said 2011 was the year of the tablet? Just wait for 2012.
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A report from Fusible shows Motorola has been acquiring domains names, five in total, each related to the “Kore” moniker.  The domain names listed include MotorolaKore.com, KoreMotorola.com,  Moto-Kore.com, MotoKore.com and Motorola-Kore.com

Of course speculation that Kore may be the successor to the Xoom, which recently received a price cut, at this point is just that.We told you about a leaked Verizon document that suggests Motorola is still planning on launching the LTE Xoom in early September despite less than spectacular sales, so we aren’t holding our breath for a new tablet before then.

Rumor has it the Kore device will have a 4:3 aspect ratio, but that is pretty much a given if it plans to take on its competition. There is still always the possibility the Kore could be a new smartphone, rather than a tablet.

If it is a tablet it could be the first running Nvidia’s Kal-El Quad core processor (demo below).

We’ll keep you posted as more becomes available.

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If you have ever used Gmail on a tablet, you’ve probably appreciated the improvements made to the mobile UI and missed them when forced to use Gmail from your desktop browser. Luckily, Google just introduced a new preview pane feature for Gmail that allows you to quickly view snippets of messages, much like the mobile interface currently accessible on tablets (which, yes, dates from Outlook 2003 – thanks commenters).

You can enable the feature by turning it on from the Labs tab in your Gmail settings and switching between views via a new toggle button in the upper right corner of your inbox.

You can also move the preview pane below your message list if you have limited screen real
estate.

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