iSlate

Yes We Can: Have the Jesus Tablet Soon! But What's in the Package?

Kara Swisher in News on January 12, 2010 at 5:18 am PT

The noisy kerfuffle that broke out yesterday over whether a France Telecom exec did or did not confirm in an interview whether there is or is not an Apple tablet computer coming soon would be comical if it were not so–how shall I put it delicately?–inane. Dear Geek Squad: It is coming, according to all credible reports for months now, so perhaps it would be better to concentrate on what exactly it is in the remaining weeks before the iWhatever is unveiled.

Microsoft's Ballmer Will Not Be Showing "Courier" Slate PC at CES Opening Tonight

Kara Swisher in News on January 6, 2010 at 10:55 am PT

As much as BoomTown likes a good computer tablet faceoff, sources with knowledge of the situation said that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will not be whipping out the secret slate PC called “Courier,” which the company has been noodling on, in his keynote speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show tonight. Last night, the New York Times reported, in a blog post titled “Microsoft and H.P. to Reveal Slate PC Ahead of Apple,” that the software giant’s boss would do so. Except he will not.

BoomTown Headed to Vegas for the Umpteenth Time–And I Am Not Even Tiger Woods!

Kara Swisher in News on January 6, 2010 at 5:15 am PT

BoomTown will be Southwesting to Las Vegas today for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, being held there over the next several days. CES has certainly lost some of its immediacy over the last several years, but it is still the place to see a lot of different kinds of tech treats in one spot and try to discern the tech tea leaves. This year, Walt Mossberg and I are trying to up the ante a bit by throwing a substantive interview event with top tech execs, which All Things Digital will be live-streaming on Friday. So, what happens in Vegas, stays right here.

Yahoo Can Relax a Little (But Just a Little)–This Year's BoomTown Obsession Might Have to Be AT&T

Kara Swisher in News on January 4, 2010 at 7:03 am PT

Of all the major issues to think about in the digital sector over the next year, perhaps the most important to focus on will be the mobile space. That’s why the swirl of controversy around the inability of AT&T to maintain a reliable network for users of the Apple iPhone is perhaps the flashpoint story of the coming year. In other words, dropped calls and glitchy apps are more than just annoying–see my video after the jump–they’re holding back a key spark of future innovation for computing.

BoomTown Is Once Again 100 Percent Prediction-Free for 2010–on CES, Apple's iSlate and Whatever Tech-tonic Shift Looms Ahead

Kara Swisher in News on January 4, 2010 at 5:16 am PT

One good thing about taking a break between Christmas and New Year’s is getting to miss all the 2010 prediction stories out there about the tech world. Oh, BoomTown will admit that I used to do them years ago. But they were mostly off-base in some significant way or, if by some chance I got one right, it was definitely a very lucky guess. So, last year, I made a resolution I am keeping this year: No predictions. That doesn’t mean I will not make some promises.

The End is Nigh.

Nitrozac and Snaggy in News on December 30, 2009 at 5:09 pm PT

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

50 Percent Chance Apple Will Announce Tablet Next Month. 100 Percent Chance We’ll Keep Talking About Tablet, Whether It Appears or Not.

John Paczkowski in Mobile on December 28, 2009 at 2:15 pm PT

Is Apple planning a special event for January? If so, what are the chances it will feature this mythical tablet/slate device everyone’s jawing about? In a research note this morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster hazards a guess, putting the odds of the company hosting a special event at 75 percent and the odds that Apple will use the event to debut a tablet-like device at 50 percent.

MSFT, GOOG and AAPL: The Stock Market Three-Step

Kara Swisher in News on November 2, 2009 at 2:43 pm PT

Of all the tech stocks to watch, perhaps none have been more interesting to follow than those of Microsoft, Google and Apple in recent days. With so much news emanating from the trio, their shares have been gyrating and twisting on each and every piece of information, so here are some numbers to take a gander at.

Here Are Some Tasty Reader Submissions for the BoomTown Apple Tablet-Naming Contest

Kara Swisher in News on August 10, 2009 at 9:50 am PT

BoomTown has already gotten some very good submissions from readers for a contest to come up with a good moniker for the tablet device Apple is allegedly working on. In a post earlier today, some of my ideas included: iTablet, iPad, iAmnotanetbook and iAmakindlekiller. And here are some of the user-generated ideas, via Twitter mostly, and my Paula Abdul-inspired comments in reaction to them.