The Google I/O three-day annual developer event in San Francisco today kicked off with a slew of product news.

Google is expanding its Nexus sub-brand of smart products from an Android phone (with Samsung, unveiled in October) to a streaming media player and the product that garnered the most buzz today: its first tablet, Nexus 7, a 7-inch device co-developed with Asus.

Nexus 7 is a bigger challenge to Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire than it is to Apple's iPad. The tablet costs $199 (8GB) or $249 (16GB) and is available to purchase now, with shipping starting in July.Continue reading...

A U.S. District Judge has halted U.S. sales against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, approving Apple's request for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. against the device's sale based on Apple's claim it infringles on an iPad-related patent. As Mashable notes, "this ruling only affects Samsung's older 10-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It does not affect the updated Tab 10.1 II, which was unveiled in May 2012."

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch campaign a year ago took a swipe at the iPad for shunning Flash (see below). According to IDC figures, the iPad had a 54.7% market share in Q4 2011 vs. Samsung's 5.8% share for its tablet range.Continue reading...

The images may make it look like a notebook, but Microsoft's new Surface line is all about tablets. As the center of the computing industry continues to shift from PC to mobile, Microsoft, maker of keyboards and mice for three decades, is directly challenging Apple’s iPhone and iPad dominance with the Surface sub-brand.

"Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen made a big bet — a bet on software — but it was always clear that we had to push hardware in ways that sometimes manufacturers hadn't envisioned," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at Monday's unveiling. "We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when all aspects, hardware and software, are working together."Continue reading...

Apple has found an unexpected, underserved cohort of consumers who can't get enough of the iPad — animals.

According to the Associated Press, six orangutans at Miami's Jungle Island are using iPads as part of an experiment in communication and mental stimulus. Their adoption habits pattern that of humans.

"Our young ones pick up on it. They understand it. It's like,`Oh I get this,'" said Linda Jacobs, who oversees the program. "Our two older ones, they just are not interested. I think they just figure, `I've gotten along just fine in this world without this communication-skill here and the iPad, and I don't need a computer.'"Continue reading...

“Alohomora!” J.K. Rowling's Pottermore website to keep the world of Harry Potter alive on digital has finally opened its e-bookstore.

While Rowling's books have sold an estimated 450 million physical copies and been translated into more than 70 languages, the author had retained the digital rights as part of her book publishing contracts, so the e-book editions weren't immediately available — until the Pottermore (think "Potter" plus "ever more") digital brand extension plan was announced last June. Already, Slate is calling it a game-changer for publishing.Continue reading...

According to the latest 2012 State of the News Media report from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011 truly marked the tipping point for a new era of digital media consumption and sharing.

In the new "new media" landscape, Pew's landmark annual consumer research underscores the widening gap between the news and technology industries as a small, powerful group of digital behemoths increasingly consolidate and control our digital lives and become media titans in their own right.

“Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and a few others are maneuvering to make the hardware people use, the operating systems that run those devices, the browsers on which people navigate, the e-mail services on which they communicate, the social networks on which they share and the web platforms on which they shop and play,” says the study.Continue reading...

“Huffington.” is the latest mobile app from AOL, highlighting the best of the Huffington Post – and yes, the period is part of the name, just as AOL rebranded to "Aol." with a period. At the helm of the iPad magazine is Tim O’Brien, Huffpo’s executive editor, lured from the New York Times two years ago to manage the brand’s original journalism.

The news app will be free, at least for now, published weekly, largely based on HuffPo’s blend of original journalism and aggregated news, with some specifically commissioned stories — and, of course, leverage the personal brand of Arianna Huffington and the flagship Huffington Post website she sold to AOL last year.Continue reading...

Apple introduced the new iPad today, which starts at $499. Described by Apple as "brilliant from the outside in," the third generation tablet boasts sharper-than-an-HDTV graphics thanks to its "stunning Retina display," ultrafast 4G LTE, a 5-megapixel iSight camera and 3D capability.

Check out the "don't call it the iPad 3" below and tell us: enough to merit trading up — or finally taking the iPlunge if you've been iPadverse until now?Continue reading...