Mobility and Wireless: Features

Steve Jobs once said that Microsoft stole Windows from Apple, but there has been plenty of idea snatching on both sides over the years. Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard each contain features that originated in the other OS. Some features were stolen so long ago that they've become part of the computing landscape, and it's difficult to remember who invented what. Here we give credit to Microsoft where credit is due.

In launching the new Apple iPad this week, CEO Steve Jobs took a stand against the popular netbook category, which he dismissed as a poor fit into the space between laptops and smartphones.

During Wednesday's unveiling of the long-awaited iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs detailed that the new 9.7-inch tablet will make use of In-Plane Switching display technology. So, what excatly is In-Plane Swicthing, what does it do and why is Apple choosing to make use of this display technology for their new device?

Now that the mania of Apple's iPad (such a bad name) announcement has begun to calm and people are checking bank accounts instead of RSS feeds for more information, big-name critics are pulling out their swords and taking swings at Apple's latest creation. The overall reaction has been, in a word, underwhelming. What was hotly anticipated has mostly turned into cold soup. So what happened and what is being said?

Now that Apple has revealed all of the iPad, we can finally discard all the wishful rumors that surrounded the tablet's launch. It's time to hold the tech press -- ourselves included, of course -- accountable for all sorts of iPad hopes, dreams and miscalculations. Not that Apple shouldn't have included some of the things we heard about.

The mobile app craze, which was started by Apple's iPhone and has been perpetuated by any smartphone worth its plastic, shows no signs of slowing down, according to Gartner. The market researcher says mobile app revenue, which equaled $US4.2 billion last year, will hit $29.5 billion in 2013. For consumers, that's a good thing, because mobile apps rule. There's been some talk of Web apps eventually killing off the downloadable app market, and that may hold true in the long, long run. But, right now, mobile apps rule. Here are five reasons why.

Cisco Tuesday announced software for its Wi-Fi products to improve video performance, reliability and scaling on 802.11n wireless networks. The new code, dubbed VideoStream, compensates for Wi-Fi weaknesses that degrade video quality as the number of streams and clients grow.

A venerable New Year's tradition in the tech world entails trotting out year-old predictions by analyst shops and laughing at their off-base prognostications. But here's a surprise: The two biggest analyst firms still standing -- Gartner and IDC -- did a pretty good job a year ago forecasting the shape of IT in 2009, as did the smaller Forrester Research and 451 Group.

The mobile augmented reality market will reach US$732 million by 2014, fueled by paid application downloads, subscription services and advertising, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

How concerned should business users be about wireless security now that another group claims to have cracked the security scheme used by 80 percent of the world's cellular telephones?