The saying that if it bleeds it leads has been around for ages, but with TV stations and various news channels competing with the internet for attention it now seems that there’s less emphasis on fact and more emphasis on first to run. Rushed stories are reported as news without taking the necessary time to check sources and ensure that, in the best interest of the audience, the information is factual. One such example occurred last night when news outlets everywhere reported that Facebook had released a new membership price grid and that to avoid paying for membership you simply needed to share a message with your friends, otherwise you would be forced to pay the next time you logged in. This was a hoax and you can read all about it on Mashable. This was very easy to decipher as false and further brings into question the credibility of news outlets to report accurate information. If this hoax was reported as actual news what else slips through?  Is every news channel going to go the way of Huffington Post: report it now and ask for forgiveness and editorial changes later? One final item to consider is that with the rush to get all these stories out as quickly as possible, it does become increasingly challenging to decipher between fact and fiction.  Something mentioned every other day in the news is Facebook privacy settings. With Facebook currently at 1 billion plus users, the quantity of information at the fingertips of Mark Zuckerburg and his board is astounding, so here are a few facts you should know. Here’s four Facebook “did you know’s”: 1. There was a report a few weeks ago claiming if you choose to make a post only visible to “friends” but one...

Ever wondered what happens after you close your browser and end yet another session online? Have you ever felt like you’re being watched – and maybe even gossiped about – by those persistent tracking cookie monsters as you blaze a trail via your browser? If you ask yourself why anyone would care about your interests and what happens to the zillions of pieces of search data generated daily, the answer is simple: information is power. Our personal data is the most valuable asset class of the 21st century. Cookies are not the only way our activities are monitored. Every online action is stored in cyberspace, regardless of the device used, be it PC, laptop, or cellphone. Every transaction is a little piece of puzzle that will generate our consumer profile. Being smart about protecting this data is our new personal challenge – and a far more complicated task than stashing physical valuables and personal paperwork in a safe deposit box. Companies have already started the race to cash in. Azigo, Mydex, The DataBanker, and Personal.com are offering a cloud-based hub that allows users to safely store and/or remove their personal digital information from everything from medical records to music and financial reports. For many users, the biggest complaint about the online environment today is privacy concerns. But we still manage to be pleasantly amazed by search engines that “read our minds,” returning suggestions extremely close to what we’re looking for after typing in just a few letters. (These “miracles” are made possible through browsing history and cache. This data is now available across all devices, so it follows you from phone to laptop to tablet, as long as you’re signed in to your Google or Apple account.) Another common complaint is the stream of...

The world is not flat. So why settle for a map without topography, ever? Bringing 3D maps to mobile has been a race between Google and Apple, with Google sprinting over the finish line with Google Earth 3D for the iOS platform last month. The Google Earth app is compatible with the latest Apple devices – iPhone 4S, iPod touch, and 2nd & 3rd generation iPads. Apple has yet to offer its own comparable feature. Users on older device models can use the maps if they’re running iOS 4.3 or later. Through the 7.0.0 version, Google reveals to iOS users what Android devotees have been seeing since June of this year. Here’s a video that demos the product for Android: 14 major regions are already converted to Google’s 3D imagery: Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area (including the Peninsula and East Bay), Boston, Boulder, Charlotte, Lawrence (Kansas), Long Beach (Calif.), Portland, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, and Rome (Italy). By the end of the year there’s a promise to add more cities worldwide. It’s a complex, high-tech process to build these maps, entailing strategic fly-overs of metropolitan areas with camera-equipped planes that flew in tight circles to get shots at 45 degree angles. Back on the ground, the high-resolution imagery and local geometry are put back together, creating 3D tiles that can be viewed from any angle. Virtual tours are no novelty these days, but Google, as always, is aiming for innovation. Over 11,000 virtual tours of popular sites in over 110 countries and regions can be revealed swiping the tab located at the bottom of the main Google Earth screen. These pre-created tours will dynamically be updated with interesting locations in thumbnail size for a broader palette to choose from in the...

While it is true that Google Fiber contains no vitamin D or riboflavin and in no way contributes to a healthy diet, it does promise some fun prizes in the bottom of the box: 1000mB/second = 100x faster that average Internet speeds Hundreds of channels, plus NetFlix, Hulu, YouTube all in one place Optimized HD clarity Record 8 programs simultaneously on 8TB storage space Here is Google’s hipster-tisement for the service, which will have you singing “Just What I Needed” for the rest of the day: Pricing is divided into three tiers. Broadband-only service is free (see below); 1Gbps  service is $70/month; 1Gbps + television is offered at $120/month. A further $300 “construction fee” for the Internet and television services is waived if you sign a contract (broadband-only customers have to pay). The television service comes with a Nexus 7 tablet that also acts as a remote control. And now for the bad news: you can’t have Google Fiber… yet. Bringing in fiber requires a hefty infrastructure upgrade so Google is rolling things out slowly and only to communities that express the highest level of interest. Kansas City is ground zero for the nation’s first “fiberhoods” and pre-registration ending Sept. 9 will determine which areas in the city are first to receive the new service. As for everyone else, well, we could be a while away but once the trial run in KC gets underway in earnest, you can expect pre-registration to open in additional cities. The big idea here is less about the technical specs – the average Internet user doesn’t need and might not even notice 100x faster service – and more about Google’s bid to dominate modern media. Google has pacted with Rovi to license its media technology to power its...

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core tablet is close to consumer release, a moment much awaited by developers interested in making apps and games for the S4 Pro platform. Early reviewers report that they are impressed by the speed,  performance  and graphic capabilities of the SoC tablet and anticipate it breaking to the front of the Android pack. Here’s a look at the features: SoC stands for System-on-Chip devices that hold the electronics for a complete, working product on a single chip. Imagine the microprocessor, the digital signal processor (DSP), RAM and ROM, and graphics processor, all on a small chip with an ancillary reduction in power. The result is tremendous speed and mobility. In August of last year, Qualcomm was introducing the Snapdragon classification of its chips and mobile solutions, ranked after the processor’s power in S1, S2, S3, and S4 classes. To simplify things, the company presented afterwards four secondary versions for the superior class S4: Prime, Pro, Plus, and Play. The top version S4 Prime is meant for smart TVs and home theater systems, but the following version, S4 Pro, is the one that made it to the tablets and ultraportable ARM, a bit more appealing to the public. It is loaded with goodies and gadgets, including: 4 Asynchronous Quad CPU cores running at up to 1.5GHz; Adreno 320 GPU; 10.1 inch display running a 1366 x 768 resolution; 13 Megapixel Camera with Flash; 1080p HD video and playback; 7 microphones; 2GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich; Android 4.0 ICS; 5200 mAh battery; Charging dock with two USB 2.0 ports, port for HDMI and Ethernet. The APQ8064 CPU, named Asynchronous Symmetric Multiprocessing or SMP, has the ability to be clocked at different...

If you have a touchscreen mobile device, Google is adding a third search feature to the usual typing-voice command combo. If you have an iOS5+ device, Android 2.3+ phone, or Android 4.0+ tablet, starting right about now you have the option to hand write search requests directly onto the screen. Here’s a peek at the new technology in action (WARNING: this video contains upbeat music & whimsical/potentially annoying search scenarios): Print and cursive writing in 27 languages is currently supported but if your cursive is messy you will probably run into a lot of mistranslated words, hopefully to comedic rather than disastrous effect. The immediate advantages seem pretty obvious: It’s faster than typing. More accurate than voice command. Great for people with big/clumsy fingers prone to double-keying. Effective workaround for disabled users who struggle with typing or voice. Writing on the screen is more fun. Activation is simple. From any mobile browser, load the Google home page. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap “Settings” (tablet users, tap the gear icon to open the Settings page). Find the “Handwrite” setting and tap the enable option; scroll to the bottom of the page and tap the blue “Save” button. Now that it is activated, reload the Google home page and the Handwrite icon (a little cursive “g”) will be displayed in the bottom right corner, just tap that to turn the handwriting feature on and off. You may now begin writing. Go ahead and write on the whole screen, don’t feel like you have to stay within the tiny search box lines. Brief experimentation reveals that drawing little pictures is not yet supported – I drew a feline shape, but was not offered anything even vaguely LOLcats related. Maybe that’s on deck...

Two majestic felines were spotted this week: a wild mountain lion on the UC Berkeley campus, and the OS X Mountain Lion, the new feline addition to the Mac family.  In the case of the first lion, authorities advise not hiking alone, and if the animal is encountered, stand your ground and try to appear large by raising your hands. In the event of an attack, be aggressive and fight back. (To be fair, mountain lion attacks on humans are extremely rare.) In the case of the OS X Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8), we are dealing with a tame and educated feline.  At $19.99, its price point is $10 less than the previous Lion version. OS X Mountain Lion doesn’t want to eat you for lunch, but to make your life easier and your compatible Mac devices more seamless and communicative.   A central octet that’s improved in this version is the Messages/Safari Browsing/Game Center/AirPlay Mirroring/Notification Center/Sharing/Power Nap/Dictation. These features are now able to unify their functionality on all of your devices. Just sign in to iCloud once and it’s all set. You can now reply to messages received on your iPhone from your Mac because iMessage has landed here also; messages will appear on all your devices, allowing you to start your conversation on your Mac and keep chatting from your iPad or iPhone, having the complete history stored on all devices (including photos and HD videos); Safari flaunts its unified Search field; the system will return the most relevant results based on bookmarks, browsing history and other data. Users will have the luxury to switch from Mac to iPad, picking up the browser where they left off. Moreover, it saves entire web pages in your Reading List (not just the URLs)...

Having sold 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads during the first three months of 2012, Apple is one of the world’s most ubiquitous technology companies.  Chances are, you own one of these devices. But do you use it to its full potential? Even a longtime iPhone user may learn a few things from these helpful tricks. Photo functionality: if you don’t like taking photos on your iPhone by pressing the virtual shutter button on the screen, you don’t have to. You can use either the increase (+) volume button on the left-hand side of the phone, or the button on the headphone cord. The latter method cuts down shaking of the phone after you’ve framed up your shot. Sending multiple photos: Trying to send more than one pic at a time by email or text message? All you have to do is open the Photos app, tap on the album you want to send your photos from, tap on the right top corner icon and choose those you wish to forward. Tap Share in the bottom left of the screen and choose Email, Message or Print. Define words: A few months ago Apple added a built-in dictionary that you can access with all apps that let you select a word within an email, iBooks, and text messages. Once you select a word, a pop up is displayed with the option to “Define” its meaning. Wet iPhone: You are not the first or the last to drop yours in a sink or – heaven forbid – the hot tub. If it happens, leave the phone turned off (to avoid short-circuiting), and gently towel it dry. Never use a hairdryer as it can push the moisture into areas that aren’t wet. If you have a...

Earlier this month, Microsoft pulled an Apple move and debuted its new Surface tablet to a hushed crowd of tech media bigwigs. It had all the hallmarks of a classic Steve Jobs production: a rented out art studio space, regal staging, and fanfare designed to shock & ahhh. This aggressive cribbing from the productions that launched the iPad was intentional: Microsoft designed the Surface to compete head-on with Apple and become the market’s first iPad killer. They just might be onto something. And they also may have launched the product that will prompt consumers to decide between a tablet-style device, like a Surface or an iPad, or an ultra lightweight laptop, like an Ultrabook. Price points for Surface are expected to be slightly higher than for the iPad, meaning that it won’t be competing in the same space as Google’s low-cost Nexus Tablet, which is now available for $199, but with the more expensive, high performance Ultrabooks. Surveying the Surface It’s the not-so-little things that stand out so far and make the Surface RT (basic model) and Surface Windows 8 Pro (all-in) look like they might make good on those David vs. Goliath aspirations: It’s got a keyboard. When the Surface keyboard was revealed, you could practically hear a chorus of angels sing and wild cheering from the balconies and the sound of a million hearts shouting forth the virtues of love, peace, and happiness. ‘Cause that’s how stoked people are to have a tablet with a real keyboard. The Touch Cover model gives solid keyboard performance, the Type Cover replicates true keyboard feel. Either way, Surface provides consumers the platform to do a lot more than just send off tweets and emails. It’s bigger. Size matters, and at 10.6 inches the Surface display...

Executives making long-term plans face an interesting juxtaposition: Significant changes lie ahead, but at the same time history is sure to repeat itself. How best to handle this? Move cautiously, but stay open minded and don’t be afraid to try new things. Never has the industry faced as many big changes simultaneously as those coming down the pike. The creation of the real estate investment trust vehicle, the advent of commercial mortgage-backed securities, the introduction of 1031 exchanges—certainly, all these and other big changes have had an impact on the market. But in the Digital Age, change is advancing ever more rapidly and is layered together with sustainability pursuits, new corporate office preferences and changing demographics. Technology by itself represents a big cog in the advancing real estate industry machine. Broadband and wireless communications capabilities and programs to track and analyze operations are only in their beginning stages—and represent only a portion of the possibilities that will impact workplace, housing and consumer venues. A new study published by CoreNet Global predicts that technology will soon be able to adjust the temperature, lighting, sound and other aspects of the workplace to the emotional state of its occupants. Elements as non-technological as the fire extinguisher may be monitored via an embedded microchip. And the U.S. General Services Administration is now mandating that its property managers receive information technology training. On the sustainability front, efforts are now focused on how to analyze all the data being collected on energy use, as well as ways to make small changes in operations that will have a big impact, according to Marc Heisterkamp, director of strategic assets for the U.S. Green Building Council. Municipalities are striving to determine methods of incentivizing greater compliance among property owners within their communities, while...

Your favorite Apple devices – the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, third-generation iPad, and the fourth-generation iPod touch – get a makeover with the new iOS 6 upgrade that will be rolled out this fall. The announcement, made during the keynote speech to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, went into some detail about what we can expect from the newest iteration of the popular operating system: 3D maps. This is a big leap forward for Apple, and a shot across Google’s bow in the increasingly bitter rivalry between the two companies. Designed completely in-house, the new iOS 6 maps function utilizes a vector-based engine to render locations – this means ultra-crisp graphics, fast and smooth panning & zooming, and ample incentive to explore. Functionality includes turn-by-turn navigation, real-time traffic information and alternative routing, fly-over mode with photo-realistic 3D views, full Siri compatibility, and a host of local search options. More Siri. You’ve probably already seen the cute commercial featuring John Malkovich chatting with Siri. iOS 6 expands Siri’s range of functions. Instantly receive sports scores, stats, and schedules. Find movie locations, showtimes, and much more. Browse restaurants with a host of sorting options and make reservations effortlessly. More languages supported than ever before. Full social networking without having to type a word. Updated phone & email. New calling features allow you to respond to declined calls with a text message or a reminder, or turn on a “Do Not Disturb” sign that only lets through your most important callers. Email interface is streamlined for ease of reading & writing. New Passbook app. Keep all of your boarding passes, retail coupons, movie tickets, loyalty cards, and more all in one place. At-a-glance organization of balances, important dates, and updates. Leave your wallet...

Is the era of magnetic storage is coming to an end? Those of a certain age will remember a time when cassette tapes were used to store data – please do not raise your hands, we see the gray hair and we know who you are. Those of a slightly less certain age will remember 5.25-inch floppies. 3.5-inch floppies live on in noble spirit as the “save” icon for a host of applications. Hard drives have ruled the consumer memory roost for over a decade… but it will soon be time to bid them a fond farewell also. Thanks to falling prices, rising capacity, and numerous other advantages, the solid-state drive (SSD) is here to stay. Solid-state drives are not new, but price has previously kept them beyond the reach of consumer electronics technology. The format originated in the ’50s and matured through use in the supercomputers of the ’70s and ’80s. SSDs use integrated circuit assemblies to store data. There are no moving parts, and they retain their data even without electrical power. Memory capacity is steadily increasing, which has made possible the format’s debut into the consumer market. Today, affordability is driving the switch for mainstream users. By the end of the year prices for SSDs in the most popular PCs could fall to around $1 per gigabyte, a level which is seen as the tipping point that pushes consumers through the door en masse – at that price, they are no longer faced with the unpalatable choice of supplementing their $800 computer with a SSD that costs almost half as much. With the price barrier removed, the advantages of SSD memory over rival formats are almost irresistible: faster transfer rates instant boot lesser power requirement much improved resistance to shock &...

Has it really already been two years since Microsoft debuted their innovative Surface tabletop computer? That’s a trick question – it’s actually been five years, a veritable eternity in the lifetime of any consumer computing product. Surface was supposed to be the first shot of a revolution in business and game computing, the vanguard of a bold new enterprise technology. How did that work out? Microsoft introduced Surface in May 2007 and the first units shipped a year later. Opportunities to view this curious creature in the wild have been vanishingly rare. Harrah’s picked one up for the bar at their Rio Casino in Las Vegas; Disneyland added one to their Tomorrowland exhibit; Sheraton put units in the lobby of five of their hotels worldwide; MSNBC used a Surface on-air during their 2008 election coverage. But they haven’t reached the mainstream business market anticipated by Bill Gates when he forecast a five year time frame for product roll out. After Surface, there were several attempts by various manufacturers to turn tabletop computing into a viable technology, including the Linux MPX, Ideum MT-50, spinTOUCH iBar, and the most recent iTable from PQ Labs. None has been able to meet even the minimal success achieved by the Surface. You’re more likely to see Bigfoot on a Segway or Nessie talking on an iPhone than a human using a tabletop computer… where did they go? Tablets bear most of blame for taking the thunder out of the tabletop computing storm. Tablets and tabletops feature quite a bit of overlap, including their basic design and the touch interface. However, tablets add the ultimate conveniences of portability and a scale that is comfortable – it’s just not easy to relate to a tabletop computer, or consider it as something...

3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing and stereo lithography) utilizes an extruder to construct objects a single layer at a time, in varying micron thicknesses, according to the specifications of a CAD program. These printers can use a wide range of materials, from various plastics and PVC, to aluminum and titanium. Watch as a rack of fold-up multi-tools is ‘grown’ in just a few hours: The advantages of 3D printing, over traditional manufacturing, are that it is better, faster and cheaper than its predecessor. The technology is in its fourth decade and applications already run the gamut. 3D printing is used for military, medical, engineering tasks of every stripe, and has also been employed to make jewelry and footwear. It has great potential as a future method for creating artificial limbs for amputees. Within the real estate world, architects and developers are familiar with the technology as it is used for 3D rendering of scale building project models that can be presented to investors, owners, approval bodies and financiers. CAD and  concept modeling applications are one of the best established consumer uses of 3D printers. So why does this technology still seem to be flying under the radar? Blame popular media coverage, which overwhelmingly focuses on the novelty aspects of the technology (“You can use it to build Legos!”), while simultaneously posturing that widespread access to such devices exists only in the far future. There seems to be an unwritten law that if you write about 3D printing you must, in the title, reference the fact that it will either shape the future or change the world. Heavy hitters like Forbes, CNET, and Technology Review have bought in. There’s even unrealistic concern that consumers with access to 3D printers could “pirate” popular toys...

Network security gets the lion’s share of the press, but an often overlooked part of data security architecture revolves around the use of USB drives. As the capacity of these devices continues to soar, more and more data is going mobile. But that convenience is a double-edged sword that also carries with it the danger of loss or theft, and the resulting potential for a disaster. Kingston, a brand already well-known for its multitude of award-winning flash storage solutions, recently introduced its latest ultra-secure USB drive, the Data Traveler 6000 (DT6000). This device offers an incredible array of safeguards: FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated No passwords stored on device or host Utilizes elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) Drive locks down, encryption key self-destructs after 10 intrusion attempts Secure channel communication Enforced complex password Tamper-proof physical security barrier If you don’t know what some of that means, take my word for it – this device provides amazingly robust protection for data. The DT6000 is also built to survive rough handling – the casing is titanium-coated stainless steel and the drive is waterproof up to a depth of four feet. But is there a need for such rigorous flash drive security standards in the business world at large? Kingston gears its sales pitch toward government organizations and financial institutions that routinely move sensitive data and customer files. As sales director Nidhi Sethi noted at a recent DT6000 launch event: “Establishing security policies and deploying USB products that prevent data loss is as important and immediate as an organization’s network security. Using non-secure USB drives makes organizations vulnerable to data loss and breaches that can affect the company’s credibility with its employees, customers, and partners. The DT6000 is the most secure USB flash drive available and will meet...

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt revealed in an interview last December that the company was hard at work on bringing a low-cost tablet to market, with a “six month window” until the debut. Since then, trying to piece together the specs for the “Nexus tablet” has been one of the industry’s favorite guessing games. Now with that six month window approaching its close, some of the details are more than mere guesswork. The biggest teaser so far is the price point: Google apparently plans to sell the tablets for just $149. That’s far below what consumers have been shelling out for the iPad, Thinkpad, Galaxy Tab, and other high-end models. It’s also less than what a Kindle Fire costs, which is currently the belle of the ball among the affordable tablet set. At that low of a price, does the Nexus tablet offer enough performance to appeal to consumers? Here’s what we think we know about the Nexus tablet: 7” size runs Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0 Snapdragon processor (instead of the previously rumored Tegra 3) Aaaaand… that’s it. Not a lot to work with there, and definitely too early to tell whether the Nexus tablet is going to have enough horses under the hood – along with bells & whistles – to appeal to upscale buyers. A lot of what we think we know is based upon a recent piece of vaporware, the ASUS MeMo 370T. This device, which was shown off in limited fashion at the 2012 CES, featured a 7” display, 1GB RAM, and an 8 megapixel camera, all running on the Ice Cream Sandwich platform, for somewhere in the neighborhood of $250. Now the MeMo 370T has apparently been scrapped, because ASUS is Google’s hardware partner on the Nexus tablet....

The primal contest between computer user security and the external threat environment will shift with next generation firewalls. Significantly upgraded over the previous state-of-the-art, next-gen firewalls offer improved visibility into the contemporary Web-based network landscape and a much-enhanced capacity to detect advanced threats. But is this truly a generational performance enhancement, or just the same ol’ technology with an added dash of marketing magic? Let’s take a closer look. Traditional firewall performance includes stateful port/protocol inspection, network address translation (NAT), and virtual private network (VPN) integration. Typical services also include directory support (via Active Directory or similar) that  authenticates and authorizes applications based on users and user groups. Also common is reputation-based filtering blocks applications that have earned a rep for naughty behavior. This helps discourage phishing attempts, virus infiltration, and additional malware sites and applications. Regardless of the vendor, next-gen firewalls include the following features: Application ID & filtering: This area is where next-gen firewalls really make a difference. Instead of the traditional all-or-nothing port opening approach, next-gen firewalls scan and filter traffic based upon the specific applications. Malicious applications that use non-standard ports to spoof countermeasures can be stopped dead in their tracks. SSL and SSH inspection: Enhanced inspection technology means next-gen firewalls can put SSL and SSH encrypted traffic under the microscope. Decrypted traffic is inspected, filtered, and then re-encrypted. Advanced malicious apps that utilize encryption as a detection countermeasure are no longer a threat. Intrusion prevention: Enhanced versatility and robust traffic inspection abilities provide all the functionality of a stand-alone intrusion prevention system. Most next-gen firewalls include full intrusion detection and prevention capability. In short, next-gen firewalls blend a full-service suite of performances – firewall, intrusion prevention, and additional security capabilities – into a single, efficient, high-performance appliance. The move...

The campaign towards the perfect device is well underway. Businesses are beginning to accept that they are, perhaps, well beyond the age of the PC. The question now is whether dusk has set on the age of laptops as well. Is the reign of tablets upon us? When it comes to business travel, tablets are the lighter, more space savvy alternative to hauling around a heavy laptop. Beyond lightweight and sleek design, tablets are favored by businesses for their numerous easy-to-use features and shortcuts that access to large quantities of data. Highly customizable apps are growing in popularity with businesses as well. Tablets, however, are currently too limited to serve most businesses adequately. There are two major components that are holding them back: memory and battery life. A Hole in the Armor For a while now, the argument has been that tablets cannot replace laptops for businesses and on-the-go business travelers simply because they do not hold enough memory. For those who need to run programs with ample data, the storage available on tablets remains woefully insufficient.  Cloud computing decreases the need for tactile storage space but many consumers have yet to fully embrace the cloud’s potential, both for personal and business applications. The issue of short battery life may soon become moot. Tablet manufacturers are toying with different battery types, overcoming common hurdles such as weight and heat transfer to keep the units compact, powerful, and efficient. At the current moment, there is no tablet that can match a laptop’s performance in a compact package, but that will soon change. The Formidable Foe Though tablet sales are soaring among business and personal consumers, it is unlikely that laptops will be replaced within the next five years. NPD DisplaySearch predicts that by 2017, tablet...