Google tablet targets iPad Mini

With the addition of the -iPad mini, Apple offers touchscreen devices in three sizes. Now rival Google is doing the same, introducing a 10-inch tablet, an upgraded 7-inch tablet, and a new smartphone.Introduced Monday, the Nexus 10, which Google developed with Samsung, is the company's first tablet that competes directly with Apple's 9.7-inch iPad. Most significantly, it undercuts the iPad's price: A Nexus 10 with Wi-Fi and 16 gigabytes of storage costs $400, compared with $500 for an equivalent iPad. Google did not say whether a model with cellular data would be available.Google's Nexus 4 smartphone, which it developed with LG, has a 4.7-inch iphone4 protective cases and wireless charging capability.Google also upgraded its Nexus 7 tablet, which was introduced this year, to include a cellular data connection which is the predecessor to the newest cell technology, 4G LTE. The model with the newest technology has 32 gigabytes of storage costs $300.
 Now that Windows 8 is finally available the genuine discussions are beginning, and back on Earth Microsoft faces major challenges with Windows 8 tablets and PCs, including a mostly indifferent public.However, Windows 8 also has the potential to streamline the tablet, PC and smartphone experience in the enterprise like no other company can.To push the mobile envelope even further, Microsoft on Monday announced Windows Phone 8, an updated version of Microsoft's struggling smartphone OS that will share compatibility with Windows 8. If anything, Windows 8, Windows RT and Surface just made the increasingly competitive tablet market even more exciting, along with Apple's iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad announcements last week.
Consumers and businesses now have more tablets of various shapes and sizes at their disposal from Apple, Wholesale Tablet Keyboard, Google and, at long last, Microsoft. All this choice is great for you and me.Microsoft now needs to beef up the Windows Store, a sparsely populated area within Windows 8 and Microsoft's Achilles' heel. Yet industry analysts say that the 9,000 apps now in the Windows Store is a sufficient amount for a launch and something to build on.
Last Friday, I was a guest on NECN (New England Cable News) to discuss these subjects and more with NECN Business host Mike Nikitas. Check it out below.The average person now has available to him or her gadgets that 18 years ago would have been considered magical, if not impossible. With only one week's worth of minimum wages in California ($8/hr), you can buy yourself an iPad mini: a device that connects you to all information in the world; that holds and displays and edits and takes thousands of videos and photos; that holds your entire music library; that lets you read millions of books; that holds and displays maps of the entire world; that lets you explore the cosmos by simply pointing at the stars at night; that lets you read hundreds of newspapers; that lets you plan and reserve flights and hotels all over the world for free.