Samsung Galaxy Tab

Once you've browsed beyond the iPad, the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, you get to a category of tablets that might reasonably be called "the others. " This is a long list of devices both from well-known electronics makers (Motorola, Samsung, Sony) and from a few you've probably never heard of (Asus, Kobo, Huawei, Lenovo). Although the iPad is on the high end of the pricing ladder and the Kindle Fire is on the lower end, the two have something in common that separates them from the others: They're both connected to large, well-known online entertainment empires.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Wednesday. Alec Baldwin wants to be mayor of New York City, but only after he goes back to school first. ( Huffington Post ) Have you ever wanted to see Levi Johnston's sister naked? Well, brother, today is your day! ( Los Angeles Times ) Cirque du Soleil is setting a ticket-pricing high in L.A. ( Los Angeles Times ) Anderson Cooper is not a fan of Chris Brown's plans to star in a film adaptation of Steve Harvey's book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. " ( Los Angeles Times )

A U.S. District Court has handed Apple a victory against one of its biggest competitors in the smartphone market by blocking U.S. sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus phone, which went on sale in the United States in mid-December. This is the second Samsung Galaxy product blocked by Koh this week: On Tuesday, she granted Apple a preliminary injunction against U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer.

Apple reportedly is working on a revamped version of iTunes that it plans to unveil before the year ends. Among the biggest changes coming to iTunes, which hasn't received a major overhaul since its launch in 2003, will be closer integration with iCloud and more features to improve the discoverability of the available content in Apple's digital store. After Apple launched iCloud last summer, it's been working the cloud computing service more closely into many of its services.

Samsung won a court ruling against Apple on Monday, but the reason was less than stellar for the company. A U.K. judge Monday ruled in favor of Samsung in a case involving its Galaxy Tablets and the iPad, saying the South Korean company's products are not "cool" enough to be confused with Apple's tablet. Samsung's Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Judge Colin Birss said, according to Bloomberg . “They are not as cool.” Birss said three Galaxy tablets don't infringe on Apple's registered design because consumers are not likely to mix them up with the iPad, according to the report.

An email discussed during the Apple-Samsung trial last week revealed that Steve Jobs was not entirely opposed to the idea of a 7-inch tablet, which could be more evidence that an iPad mini is on its way. The email was sent from Eddie Cue, Apple senior vice president of Internet software and services, to several others in the Cupertino company's leadership, including current Chief Executive Tim Cook. In it, Cue said that after trying a 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, he believed there was a market for tablets of that size, and that Apple should go after it. Cue then wrote, "I expressed this to Steve several times since Thanksgiving and he seemed very receptive the last time," according to a copy of the email, which you can see on CNET . Cue's January 2011 email shows just how much Jobs' stance on how large tablets should be changed before the Apple co-founder passed away in October.

Samsung surprisingly announced a new 7-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 2 , on Monday, that will be the company's first to run on Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. But, while the device is new in name, the hardware specs aren't much of a leap forward, but rather a variation of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus with less powerful hardware. The Galaxy Tab 2 is powered by a 1-gigahertz processor and packs a 4,000  mAh (milliampere-hour) battery.  The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus runs on a 1.2-gigahertz processor and a 4,100 mAh battery.

Samsung Electronics said it is disappointed with a court's ruling that prevents the company from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the U.S. while its patent infringement lawsuit with Apple plays out. The South Korean company said in a statement to The Times on Wednesday that it believed the preliminary injunction "will ultimately reduce the availability of superior technological features to consumers in the United States. " Samsung said it does not expect the ruling to have a significant impact on its business operations.

It seems we can chill out a bit about the hot topic of whether the new  iPad   has a   heat issue . Next to a couple of Android tablets, they're not so hot. Our friends over at PC World actually whipped out an infrared thermometer and measured the heat output of the iPad 2 against popular Android tablets Asus   Eee Pad Transformer Prime   and  Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE . They took readings of...

The nation's largest retailer has cut out the nation's largest e-tailer. Wal-Mart has announced it will stop selling Kindles and other Amazon.com-branded products after it sells out of its existing stock. Here's the entirety of Wal-Mart's statement on the change: "Recently, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. made a business decision to not carry current Amazon products beyond our purchase commitments and existing inventory. Our customers trust us to provide a broad assortment of products at everyday low prices, and we approach each merchandising decision through this lens.