Best overall tablet: iPad Mini

Best overall tablet: iPad Mini

When it came to deciding on the best tablet of the year, the choice was simple. I love the iPad Mini. It's everything that the large iPad isn't: light, convenient, and preciously tiny. It packs in the power of the iPad 2 in the weight of your average paperback book, and it still manages to be the cheapest iPad offering yet at $329 (compared to the big iPad's standard $499 price).

Sure, it doesn't have a sharp Retina Display, and its hardware is admittedly dated, but it's one of those devices that you need to touch and feel to truly appreciate. Once you use the iPad Mini for a day, it's almost impossible to go back to anything bigger.

The Android-powered Nexus 7 is a much better deal for $199 (more on that below), as is Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire. But both of those tablets lack the iPad Mini's superior assortment of apps. Apple clearly isn't trying to compete with other smaller tablets when it comes to price.

If your budget's tight, it may be tough to justify the iPad Mini compared to its pint-sized competitors. But if you don't mind spending a bit more, the iPad Mini will undoubtedly be your best tablet choice (until the iPad Mini 2 comes out).

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/09/tablet-gift-guide-ipad-mini/#27FZVBuukHtJFoDY.99 

Sent from my iPad

Google Now coming to Chrome browser

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Google Now is fast becoming one of Android's defining features. But, if some recent additions to Chromium are anything to go by, the nifty little life-predictor could well be finding its way to Chrome browsers, too. An entry in the Chromium project code site titled "Show Google Now notifications in Chrome" along with some code revisions for "Creating a skeleton for Google Now for Chrome implementation" hints that the idea is, at least, at some level of development. This of course means that the service would leap out of its current mobile OS restraints, and become available to a much wider audience -- at least those using some portion of the Google ecosystem -- and not just its Android platform. The code was spotted by an eagle-eyed François Beaufort, who points out the reference to it working with Chrome's desktop notifications. While we wait for more official word, we guess a card to notify us of when this might be coming would be too much to ask?

Article by James Trew  |  December 8, 2012

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