The market of tablets has grown very impressively over the last two years since the inception of the first generation iPad. With the passage of time the importance of tablets in everyday life is constantly increasing, even though they were initially criticized for their limitations. These days, you can use them to watch video content, stream music, interact with other on social networking forums and perform a variety of other tasks. This has given rise to the idea of ‘smart homes’ where the technical products would be completely integrated with each other. For example, you can use your iPad to control the Apple TV and with the passage of time, the penetration of tablet technology into over lives would certainly increase.

With the increasing influence of technology on our lives and the cloud technology, tablet can be used as the control center of the entire technically equipped house. For example, the security systems, television, lights and fans, alarms and even curtains could be controlled with the tablet in your hand sitting on the sofa. With the passage of time, it is possible that you would be able to perform all these tasks while being away from your home. Already we have manufacturers who have been developing apps for home automation system. Control4 is one such company that also has a iPad app and also owns a platform for which developers can create their apps. The company creates its own hardware for home automation and security systems. Besides, with this system you can also control the lights, temperature and operate electronics. A special iPad like product with the name of Comcast’s Xfinity Home Security product has been created by the company that can be used for these purposes. This device has its own iOS app and also comes with cellular data backup connection that can be used in case the broadband connection gets disconnected for some reason. Such systems are also being increasingly used for web-connected home security system, which are a cheaper and reliable alternative to rather expensive home surveillance systems. The Web Cam Technology used in these devices relies on the cloud based technology to maintain the footages recorded for security purposes. The footages recorded from these devices can be viewed from any tablet as long as you have the proper app installed.

So basically the increasing influence of tablets would enhance our everyday comfort with the help of smart phones where everything would be connected and automated and would certainly see the realization of all this in near future.

We have the latest version of the Apple iPad while Samsung has also announced the next version of its famous tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 during the Mobile World Congress. Among the Android tablets, Samsung’s tablet is the most popular tablet in the market while Apple’s iPad is, as we already know, the most popular tablet of all time. A brief comparison of these two giant devices is in order.

A noteworthy aspect with regard to both these tablets is that you won’t find many hardware changes in both of them, even though there are several software enhancements, among them being 4G LTE capability for both.  With respect to the physical structure of these devices, even though Galaxy Tab is a bit thicker compared to iPad, its weight is slightly lower. The weight of iPad happens to be 662g while the corresponding weight of the Samsung tablet is 588g. With respect to the screen resolution, the new iPad has clear edge with its Retina Display, having a resolution of 2048 x1536 and a pixel density of 224 ppi. The resolution of Galaxy Tab 2, on the other hand, is 800 x 1280 pixels along with a pixel density of 149 ppi. When we compare the processing power of these devices, once again, Apple seems to have an edge. Surprisingly, Samsung didn’t upgrade its device to the anticipated quad core processor and instead decided to retain the 1 GHz dual core processor along with 1 GB or RAM memory. The new iPad, in comparison, runs on efficient dual core Apple A5X processor, with its widely acclaimed architecture.

From the software side, the battle between iOS and Android continues. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 would come with Ice Cream Sandwich which has an extremely well designed user interface while Apple tablet would run the latest version of iOS, that is, iOS 5.1.

There was no update in the camera feature of the Samsung tablet as well and it remains to be the same 3.15 mega pixel camera with a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels and HD video recording in 720p format. Apple’s new iPad, on the other hand, contains a 5 mega pixel rare and camera with 1080p video recording along with video stabilization. So basically the bottom line is that the new iPad has a clear edge over the latest Samsung tablet and its pretty evident that some fine hardware and software enhancements have been made by Apple while Samsung, although contrary to the expectations, didn’t really impress the tech buffs.

Apple introduced some fine software enhancements, including various shortcuts, in the latest version of iOS. But unfortunately, some of these were not available for the people who were using jailbroken devices. Probably the most important of these features was the lock screen short cut for the native camera app introduced in iOS 5.1. According to this app, you can take snaps with your camera by tapping on the camera icon even though the screen of the device is locked. This can be done on iPhone as well as iPad. But finally a jailbreak tweak has been introduced by which the jailbreakers would also be able to enjoy this useful feature. For all the jailbroken devices that are running iOS 5.0.1, an app with the name of ‘Camera Grabber for iOS 5’ has been made available which would make the use of the above feature possible. What’s even more exciting, this app is available for free and you can download it and enjoy the resulting benefits right away, since you don’t need to change anything in the camera configuration after the installation of this app.

The developers of this app have also taken the fact into consideration that the devices that don’t have any pass code would provide complete access to the camera roll once the camera icon is tapped from the locked screen. This has made the use of the feature simpler and you just need to pull up from the icon to use the camera app. You can also view the recently taken photos in the similar way. You might feel a slight difference in the appearance of the new short cut and the one that exists on the devices that are not jailbroken, but there isn’t much of a difference. Although previously, utilities and apps that facilitate this kind of features on the Apple devices have been made available, Camera Graber seems to be the best one among them all. Other than having close resemblance with the standard look, Camera Grabber is also the easiest to use since you don’t need to play around with the configuration. So for all those who were missing out on this important feature, here’s your chance to enjoy the full potential of your jailbroken device. Download the utility for free and start enjoying the benefits.

Finally we have some update, no matter how vague it is, on the upcoming model of ASUS Transformer Prime. A short teaser about the upcoming version of the ASUS tablet was released on the Facebook page of ASUS which, however, did not give out any details regarding the technical specifications of the device. The only thing that was actually said is that the upcoming version would be equipped with the “awesome new features”. So we are not sure what to expect on the device. There are various areas in which enhancements and improvements can be expected, such as GPS, operating system update and apps etc. but anything said right now would be nothing more than a guess. However, good news is that we can expect the device to be released soon and the firmware 9.4.2.21 is set to be released on 30^th of March. Release date of the device itself is also unknown. A few expected updates, derived from the Swedish Facebook site of the company are in order.

Among the new features, we can expect Press-able notification in Lock screen and the facility of checking the unread emails and notifications under the locked screen. There would also be updates in MyLibrary and MyCloud technologies and we would have an improved user interface along with enhanced media content. Some important functions would also be added in this version of the device. For example, it would have support for USB to LAN cable of UX series and there would also be certain improvements in the camera such as the automatic installment of the Camera FW upgrade with the image upgrade. This would remove the need of resorting to camera upgrade icon in the notification area. Besides, the device would also have support for the Ad Hoc mode. Among the software improvements, the users would have choice about the type of browser they would want to use. For example, you would be able to select among the tablet or the desktop version of the browser, although it seems quite unlikely that anyone would choose the desktop version on a tablet. As for the big software updates and hardware enhancements, we are not aware of that since there is no official word on that. We can, however, expect to have another Ice Cream Sandwich tablet in the market pretty soon. For rest of the details, you would have to wait for a while.