Technology, Tablet Computer | featured news

Amazon says buyers of its new Kindle Fire HD tablet will get the option to turn off the advertisements that appear on its standby screen for $15. The online retailer showed off the tablet last week, and said there would be no option to turn off the ads. That was a departure from Amazon's previous policies. It has shipped Kindle e-readers with "Special Offers" ads on the standby screen, but users could pay to have them turned off.

Amazon.com Inc. is expected to unveil a new Kindle Fire on Thursday as it seeks to take a bigger bite of the tablet computer market and boost sales of digital goods like e-books and movies.

The Apple v. Samsung patent war that will seemingly never end has taken another turn today, as Apple is asking the court to add newer Samsung Galaxy hardware, including the Galaxy S III, Verizon Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 10.1 to its complaint against the Galaxy Nexus and other related devices. If you thought updated software and designs would keep these newer smartphones and tablets out of the fight -- you were wrong. Just to help you keep things straight, remember this is a separate case from the one that ended exactly a week ago with a decision in Apple's favor to the tune of more than $1 billion in damages.

Amazon.com quenched the Kindle Fire on Thursday, saying its first tablet computer is now "sold out." The Internet retailer has a major press conference scheduled for next Thursday in Santa Monica, California. It's widely expected to reveal a new model of the Fire there, so the announcement that the first model is "sold out" suggests that Amazon halted production a while ago to retool for a new model.

Fans of the first Note, then, may be heartened to hear that Samsung is said to be planning to bump the screen up to 5.5 inches, according to a SlashGear report citing a Korean newspaper. The newspaper also reported that the phone being introduced Wednesday will have a 1.4 Ghz quadcore processor and may be running the very latest version of Android — Jelly Bean. The phone is also expected to have an 8 MP camera and 16GB or 32GB of storage.

Rumor is that Apple will hold a very special event on Sept. 12. The general assumption is that Apple will announce the next-generation iPhone and a smaller iPad, but now some are suggesting that the Cupertino-based company will wait until October to talk about what's being dubbed the "iPad Mini" or "iPad Air."

Apple Inc. scored a sweeping legal victory over Samsung on Friday as a U.S. jury found the Korean company had copied critical features of the hugely popular iPhone and iPad and awarded the U.S. company $1.051 billion in damages.

A nugget from the trial is Samsung’s tablet roadmap. The roadmap shows a tablet code named P10. P10 apparently is an 11.8 inch tablet that outdoes Apple’s retina display. The P10 supposedly has a pixel density of 256 ppi and a resolution of 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA). The tablet also seems to provide LTE connectivity.

A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd expert witness testified on Tuesday that Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad violate three of Samsung's patents, as the South Korean electronics company went on offense in the third week of a high stakes trial.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) hints at Windows RT tablet prices and their release dates. Another one of Redmond's mammoth blog posts is getting the reading-between-the-lines-analysis treatment today, as the company announces more details of Windows 8-on-ARM PCs.