Recently in Gadgets Category

by Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor
Telegraph

The instant messaging and video calling application was to have been built in to windows Phone by the end of the year, Windows Phone boss Joe Belfiore had said. Now, however, vice-president of the Skype division at Microsoft Rick Osterloh says it will be available "soon".

When classes resumed last week, Mayor Bloomberg greeted the kids at Public School 172 in Brooklyn. The youngsters must have envied the mayor's now indispensable sidekick - his iPad. You see, that day those students were assigned their textbooks. Soon they would walk home or climb on the bus with backpacks filled with bulky, out-of-date and expensive books.

Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs is scheduled to return to the stage Wednesday for what has become a late-summer classic: Apple's annual music-themed September special event -- its sixth since 2005.

Apple's iPad will stay number one in tablet personal computer market until 2012, as iSuppli's recent report predicts.

You needn't look far to find criticism of Apple's iPad as a device for consumption, not creation.

Amazon's new Kindle is the first ebook reader that has a credible chance of cracking the mass market. Smaller, cheaper, faster and better connected than its predecessor, the new Kindle is to the old what the paperback is to the hardback, and on Friday it's finally officially available in the UK. Prices start at an affordable £109.

Who will give the iPad a run for its money? I would bet my bottom dollar on Motorola, or better yet, the dynamic duo of Motorola and Verizon.

The iPad has energized the market for tablet computers, paving the way for an expected onslaught of slate-type devices.

Dish subscribers will soon be able to watch live satellite TV on their mobile devices at no extra cost. Dish Network Corp. is planning to offer the feature on the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and BlackBerry devices in September and on phones using Google Inc.'s Android system in October.

BlackBerrys still fly off the shelves. They still convey the message that their owners mean business - that they're people who are important enough to need e-mail access all the time.

Barnes & Noble customers are about to see a lot more of the Nook.

Jeff Bezos isn't just confident you'll want a Kindle e-book reader. The CEO of Amazon.com is bracing for a future in which you'll also want ones for your kid heading to college, your spouse in a book club and perhaps even Grandpa.

Corroborating a rumor from The Wall Street Journal earlier this summer, a new Bloomberg report cited "two people familiar with the company's plans" to build an iPad-like touchscreen device and release it this fall. Dubbed the "Blackpad," the device will ostensibly run the as-yet-unreleased BlackBerry OS 6, and help RIM deflect further encroachment from Apple into its declining mobile market share.

A perfect iPhone? There's no app for that. Apple Inc. will give free protective cases to buyers of its latest iPhone to prevent reception problems that occur when people cover a certain spot on the phone with a bare hand.

Got an idea for a smartphone app? If you've got an Android phone you might be able to build it yourself, thanks to App Inventor for Android, a new Google Labs program for Windows, OS X, and Linux that's designed to make building Android programs as easy as piecing blocks together.

Not to be left out of the fast-growing e-reader and e-book arenas, Borders now has its own e-reader, the $150 Kobo eReader. With it, you can read e-books purchased from Borders' online store, which is powered by Kobo Inc.