Tablet

Samsung posted a picture of a Windows 8 tablet on Facebook late Sunday, teasing that it will be revealed at a trade show in Germany that starts later this week. The South Korean company posted the picture on one of its Facebook pages with a caption  "Don't worry, it's just around the corner. " The image shows a tablet running Windows 8. Behind it is what appears to be a detachable keyboard, and toward the bottom of the picture, Samsung included "IFA 2012," a consumer electronics trade show that starts Friday and goes through Sept.

If you want to get the Microsoft Surface tablet as soon as it comes out, you may be able to reserve one now by going to your nearest Microsoft Store. Online pre-orders for the cheapest version of the Surface may have sold out as shipping wait time is now three weeks. So picking up a reservation pass or buying a more expensive version of the tablet may be your best option if you plan on getting the Surface on Oct. 26, the day it comes out. You can see a picture of a reservation pass on WPCentral 's site.

Good luck getting a Nexus 7 - the Google tablet has sold out from many of the retailers carrying the device. The seven-inch screen device is Google'sfirst in-house developed tablet, and many have said it is the first true challenger to Apple's iPad. Now that sales have begun, it seems consumers might agree. The Nexus 7 has been available for pre-order from Google since it was unveiled last month, and recently other retailers have begun carrying the tablet on their sites too. But now most list the Nexus 7 as sold out, back-ordered or have a shipping wait time of a couple of weeks for the tablet.

You've seen all the specs, but how does that small tablet you're eying actually stand up? We took this holiday shopping season's top three mini tablets and put them under the microscope to figure out which is the best. Here's what we found. Books: iPad mini If you're going to buy a tablet for reading, then turn to the iPad mini. The Apple tablet isn't amazingly better than its peers - they are all great for reading - but it has one advantage over the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD: You can read books offered by all the app stores, iBooks, Kindle, and Google Play.

Samsung is set to launch the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet Thursday at a starting price of $499. The Galaxy Note 10.1 is a follow-up to the Galaxy Note phone/tablet hybrid that launched earlier this year. The update sports a 10.1-inch LCD screen and comes with the S Pen, a Samsung stylus. The new tablet will be available at $499 for a 16GB version and $549 for a 32GB version. For now, Samsung is selling only Wi-Fi versions of the Galaxy Note 10.1. The device runs on a 1.4Ghz quad-core processor, has 2GB of RAM and is powered by Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Google, looking to boost use of its Android operating system, plans to sell its own tablet computers later this year, a news report says. The search giant, which has normally stuck to producing software when it comes to the smartphone and tablet markets, will make a stronger push by selling tablets itself, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The move comes as tablets powered by Android have failed to put a dent on the market dominated by Apple's iPad. Google will sell the tablets through an online store that the tech company has yet to announce.

Microsoft doesn't like the way your phone, tablet and Xbox play right now, so it's created SmartGlass -- and it intends to bring all your devices closer. The new feature will connect all of your devices together in an effort to enhance the way you play video games or watch programming on your Xbox. In a demonstration Monday at E3, Microsoft showed how SmartGlass lets mobile devices work as companions to the Xbox when watching a show or movie. As an example, the company showed how a user could watch an episode of "Game of Thrones" on an Xbox and be presented with a map of the show's world on an enabled tablet.

Everywhere you look these days, something is jumping off a screen at you in 3-D. It's in movies new and retro. It's on YouTube . It's trying to find its way into your home entertainment setup. And there are efforts to get 3-D literally into consumers' hands. Tech Now got a first U.S. look at a tablet that offers hand-held 3-D viewing without glasses. Matt Liszt of MasterImage 3D brought over a reference tablet they had just shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Apple Inc. will host a product event on Jan. 27, giving Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs a chance to unveil a long-rumored, touch-screen tablet device for surfing the Web and playing movies and music. The company sent out invitations today to an event in San Francisco, asking reporters to "Come see our latest creation." Apple plans to unveil a tablet computer, a person familiar with the matter said earlier this month. Analysts have speculated for at least a year that Jobs is building on the iPod Touch to create a larger-screen, multimedia player.

Apple's new iPad just landed at the L.A. Times and it is sleek, slender, fast and beautiful -- not much of a surprise, really. AT&T shipped over a 4G LTE version of the third-generation iPad, which also runs on AT&T's HSPA+ network, 3G network, old 2G Edge network and, of course, Wi-Fi. As you can see in the video above, we unboxed the new iPad immediately. The packaging, what's included with the iPad and even the iPad itself are nearly indistinguishable from the iPad 2 -- at least until you turn the new iPad on. The new iPad's 2,048 x 1,536-pixel resolution (up from the iPad 2 and the first-generation iPad's 1,024 x 768-pixel displays)