World's biggest high-tech fair

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The CeBIT, held in Hanover, Germany, runs until Mar. 10. The fair welcomes around 4,200 exhibitors showcasing the inventions of the future, from tech behemoths such as Microsoft and Google to one-man-bands with a quirky gadget.

1. A pole dancing robot is pictured during preparations at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover. The biggest fair of its kind open its doors to the public on March 6 and will run to March 10,

2. A Fujitsu waterproof tablet PC is immersed in water in a fish tank at the booth of Fujitsu at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

3.German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacts as she listens to ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers during a live transmission to the International Space Station seen on a screen at the opening ceremony of the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover.

4.A member of staff poses with a CAT B25 waterproof outdoor mobile phone during its world premier at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

5.A Nokia staff member poses with a Nokia mobile phone to present a cloud computing software application at the booth of German company Deutsche Telekom at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

6.Visitors inspect Blackberry mobile phones at their booth at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

7.A visitor uses a touch screen to check out cloud computing software applications at the booth of German company Deutsche Telekom at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

8.Ulrike Hoessl, employee of German company Desko, poses beside a 'Gold to go' machine during preparations at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

9. A member of staff checks mobile phones at the booth of German company Deutsche Telekom during preparations at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

10.Staff members touch screens on cloud computing software to operate airlines, at the booth of Microsoft during preparations at the CeBit computer fair in Hanover.

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NASA Scientist Explains Why The World Won't End In 2012

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has put together an excellent video featuring scientist Don Yeomans explaining why most of the doomsday scenarios simply won’t come to pass.

It starts, of course, by debunking the myth that the Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012. It doesn’t. It then goes on to cover some of the common apocalyptic scenarios being dangled about, including the Earth being struck by a rogue planet, a solar flare destroying Earth, or a magnetic polar shift.

If you’ve been paying attention to some of the work that NASA and others have been doing to counter some of the 2012 weirdness, there’s not a lot new here. But it’s comprehensive, easy to follow, and concise at just over three minutes. So it’s a good link to have bookmarked on your phone in case you meet someone concerned about 2012 in your travels.

You can check out the video below.

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Amazon's Kindle Fire Threatens Google More than Apple

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Bezos with the Kindle Fire

Ever since Amazon launched its tablet Kindle Fire on September 28 and announced that it would be selling it for a mere $199, the tablet has drummed up a lot of interest from both developers and consumers alike, so much so that a recent study by Retrevo.com seems to suggest that more people are interested in purchasing Amazon’s upcoming tablet thanApple’s tried and true iPad this holiday season. 

We believe this enthusiasm for the Kindle Fire poses a bigger threat to tablet rivals from Motorola, HTC and other carriers using Google’s Android.                                                              

Among developers surveyed by Appcelerator and IDC in North America, 49 percent said they considered the Kindle Fire their primary target, on par with interest for the iPad prior to its launch in April 2010. ^[2] Pre-orders for Amazon’s tablet have remained strong and the company seems to have recently increased its orders to more than five million units before the end of 2011. ^[3] Amazon is shipping out its Kindle Fire, starting Tuesday.

Early signs do indicate that the iPad’s first true competitor may well have arrived on the scene. Lending more fuel to speculation that the tablet will suffer at the hands of its latest rival are rumors that the company has asked its suppliers to reduce shipments of supplies for its iPad and iPhone, which has weighed on the stock during the past week.

However, we maintain our price estimate of $502 for the Apple stock, which is about 30% above market price. Our estimate for Amazon of $233 is about 10% ahead of the market price.

See our complete analysis for Apple | Amazon here

Kindle Fire more than just another Android tablet

The Kindle Fire has managed to captivate the consumer electronics industry with its $199 price point, significantly undercutting other tablets. The lower price point coupled with Amazon’s well-known brand and large media library are poised to turn the Fire into the second hit tablet after the iPad.

There is no doubt that Amazon will shake up the market for tablets, possibly rendering the $500 tablet obsolete gradually. However, we feel that the most immediate impact will be felt not by Apple but by its competitors such as RIM’s Playbook and the pricey Android rivals such as Motorola’s Xoom and HTC’s Flyer. Why spend $600 for an Android tablet from present Google partners if you can find most of what you need in a $199 Kindle Fire?

Apple’s rivals in the tablet market are sizable but they haven’t been able to significantly dent iPad’s demand so far and hence don’t individually matter much. However, most of these tablets, including Kindle Fire, run on Google’s Android which makes Google Apple’s major competitor.

On the surface, Kindle Fire should be good news for Android as it runs on Android. The reality is that Kindle Fire is not a pure Android product. Amazon has taken some of the basic code of Android and built its own operating system on top of Android, thereby differentiating itself from the Android pack. 

As Google continues to develop Android in one direction while Amazon continues to take the Kindle Fire down its own unique path, the two platforms will be less and less alike, forcing developers to choose between Android and Kindle’s OS. At some point in the future, Kindle Fire might pose a threat to other tablets running the very operating system it had once drawn its identity from.

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Amazon is also not using Google Android Market. Appstore 2.0 from Amazon is fully integrated in Kindle and appears to be a much more user friendly implementation compared to Android Market from Google.

While Google and Android-based tablets face the biggest threat from Kindle Fire, Apple will eventually start to feel the effects of a much lower-priced competitor. We do not see a 7-inch tablet providing an iPad-like user experience but as tablets see mass adoption and the market matures to include customers who are far more price sensitive than the early-adopter crowd, Apple may well need to do a rethink on the iPad price beyond the usual lowering of the iPad’s older versions.

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New iPad Isn't Revolutionary, But Apple Just Widened Its Moat

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Tech journalists checking out Apple's new gadget -  Getty Images via @daylife

The widely anticipated release of Apple’s new iPad apparently disappointed investors, leading to an initial sell-off of the stock.  While the latest tablet isn’t groundbreaking, it consolidates Apple’s dominant position atop the tablet market and closes off most potential loose-ends on the hardware side competitors could use to gain competitive advantage.  Even though we all knew what was coming, the new iPad is definitely a win for Apple.

Shaving $100 off the iPad2’s price tag will further catalyze the market, helping Apple target more “price sensitive consumers,” according to RBC.  While Amazon’s Kindle Fire is still significantly cheaper ($200), analysts at Enders Analysis suggest it shouldn’t have much of an effect on iPad sales; the Kindle provides “a different proposition to different customers.”iPad shipments will surge 52% in 2012 to 62 million, according to estimates by RBC Capital Markets, further extending Apple’s lead in the tablet world.  With 74% of the market, competitors like Android and Windows-powered devices are light years away, with 21% and 4% of the market respectively.  Research in Motion, in definite decline, holds about 1% of the market.

Going into the specifics of the product, Apple’s new iPad has “closed off all of the spec bullet points in which [competitors sought to gain competitive advantage].”  The new dual-core A5X processor delivers four times the performance of NVIDIA’s Tegra 3, “while the 4G LTE eliminates one of the iPad’s biggest missing features.”  Apple also added a 5 mega pixel camera and, more importantly, top of the line “retina” display, “the highest resolution screen on a tablet,” according to RBC.

All of these features feed into Apple’s strategy of building a powerful ecosystem: iTunes, iCloud, iOS, App Store, all of these working together to keep consumers stuck to Apple products.  Add the refreshed AppleTV, which allows users to stream internet content on their TVs while giving them an extra display for their Macs, iPads, and iPods, and you have a 360 degree strategy.  Apple is now targeting consumers on all four screens: laptop, cell phone, tablet, and TV.

Speculation that Apple was set to release a Television set of their own appears overblown, according to Enders.  From their note:

We think it very unlikely that Apple would try to bid against local broadcasters for premium TV content around the world. Yet without its own content, an ‘Apple Television’ would mainly be used as a dumb panel connected to a Sky+ box or equivalent, and hardly worth Apple’s name.

The company now headed by Tim Cook has pushed the envelope over the last couple of years, revolutionizing the way we listen to and consume music, search the web, and use mobile devices.  After having blown expectations out of the water consistently, users and critics have gotten used to surprises and as a consequence have become inoculated from them, at least for the time being.  That doesn’t mean Apple has stopped testing the limits
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