Global tablet sales will pass 381 million units in 2017, according to a new report by Forrester. Tablets will become so mainstream that one in eight humans on earth will own one, representing 29% of online consumers worldwide, according to the Global Business And Consumer Tablet Forecast Update, 2013 to 2017 report.

Florida’s new ban on internet cafes is being challenged as unconstitutional since its broad wording could be interpreted as a ban on all electronic devices, including personal computers, smartphones, and tablets. According to Miami Law firm Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine the law was essentially created in haste to amend the law to define a slot machine as “a device, system, or network is a prohibited slot machine or device if it is used to display images of games of chance and is part of a scheme involving any payment or donation of money or its equivalent and awarding anything of value.”

The law was intended to ban physical slot machines posing as internet cafes, but the vague law can also be interpreted as a ban on machines or systems that can be used to play games with rewards of any sort.

Read more

If you like to use digital recipes, you know that the kitchen is no place for an iPad – it’s not waterproof or knife-friendly. Siobhán Andrews knows about this technological dilemma. She’s the designer behind the Chop-Syc, a tablet that masquerades as a wooden board when you’re chopping, but switches to reading tablet mode for recipe retrieval. The design won the GetitDownOnPaper challenge at Sharp Laboratories – a competition between 70 international designers.

There’s not a definite plan to make the design a reality, but Andrew’s two months internship at Sharpe could help to solidify that decision.  Andrews work primarily revolves around humanitarian and medical equipment. Read more

Got messy handwriting? Someday your tablet could fix that problem automatically. Watch the video embedded above to see a new tool in action.

Microsoft researcher C. Lawrence Zitnick recently published a paper about a new “Handwriting Beautification” technique where a tablet can actually correct your handwriting–replacing a sloppy letter with the most beautiful iteration of that same letter in your handwriting. Here’s more about the project:

Recently, there has been an increase in interest in the tablet form factor for computers, which was lead by an associated interest in alternative methods for user interaction beyond a keyboard and mouse. These include the use of multi-touch and stylus input. The use of a stylus with a tablet computer closely mirrors that of pencil and paper, while providing the ability to re-imagine and improve the experience.
In this paper, we propose a novel approach to beautifying handwritten notes using a tablet and stylus.

Read more

Publicis Conseil launched its all-digital banking service, Hello Bank!, with a little help from B-Reel and 60 performers of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. The video is an actual live performance of “March of the Toreadors” from “Carmen” conducted by Libor Pesek on April 30, 2013.
Read more

Tablet sales are expected to exceed PC sales by 2015, according to a new report from IDC. The study also found that this year, one in 22 people worldwide is expected to purchase a PC, while one in 31 people are expected to buy a tablet.

Here is more from the press release: “…tablet shipments are expected to grow 58.7% year over year in 2013 reaching 229.3 million units, up from 144.5 million units last year.”

Ryan Reith, program manager for IDC’s Mobility Trackers, stated: “Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them. IDC continues to believe that PCs will have an important role in this new era of computing, especially among business users. But for many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC.”

TabTimes and the Application Developers Alliance revealed today that the Tabby Awards deadline has been extended until May 6th.

The contest will celebrate the top consumer apps in the world of tablets, exploring some of the best mobile content. The company has also launched Tablet Ecosystem, a new conference in September. Here’s more from the company:

The TABBY AWARDS competition is open to consumer applications written for the iOS, Android, and Windows 8 operating systems. The competition covers 27 categories including Entertainment, Games, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Music, News, Shopping, Social, Sports, and Video. A panel of experienced app developers, designers and publishers, as well as tech bloggers and journalists are being assembled to judge the competition.

Eurostar’s ePad Femme is as offensive as Bic’s Cristal for Her Ball Pen. To be sure, the woman in me loves being told I am special – but not with a pink tablet that comes with preloaded apps for yoga, shopping lists, recipes, and clothing size conversion.

Eurostar’s Associate Vice President Mani Nair told the Jerusalem post that “The Tablet comes preloaded with applications so you can just turn it on and log in to cooking recipes or yoga. It makes a perfect gadget for a woman who might find difficulties in terms of downloading these applications and it is a quick reference.”

Mani also doesn’t believe that there was an underlying sexist agenda with the weight-loss advice that came with the Women’s Assistant app. Read more

Wish you could write on your iPad?

We looked for advice about the Best iPad Stylus for Writers, but these choices can get costly.

YouTube is loaded with recipes for creating a homemade stylus for your tablet or smartphone. If you want to start scribbling on your device, choose a recipe from the five videos embedded in this post–what’s your favorite?

Read more

A new web comic by ponders perhaps the most disturbing thing about using tablets: the moment when you can see your face reflected in the unflattering mirror of a black screen.

Anybody else have this problem?

The comic was created by Reddit user fkcmx, who promises “I will do it more and often” if people enjoy his first web comic.