I said I would do it and I will, so here it is. I found a review, a thorough one, on Wired News of the new Google tablet and I’m passing on the link.  The reviewer is strongly positive. In fact, the writer can’t say enough good things about, especially when stacked up against some of the other seven inch tablets available now. OK, that’s one. I’ll watch for some more in the tech/geek press and see how they read.  You might start saving you coffee money in a little box or something so that by the time Christmas is here, you’ll have some cash.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/hands-on-google-asus-nexus-7-tablet-impresses/

“Can”, as in get rid of, remove, discard. SIRI is that voiced-assistant on Apple that sort of interacts with you when you ask a question, say: “Any good pizza joints around here?” One little problem with this is that your interaction with SIRI is recorded and kept on servers of Apple Inc,, for a period that you don’t need to be asking any questions about, Junior. You just go play with your phone and leave all this to Uncle Apple. There’s a good chap, Run along now. In effect, when you are blabbing to SIRI you are creating voice prints of, well, yourself. So, big deal you say. So, 1. why does Apple need to keep that information at all and 2. what happens if your voice print is somehow hacked or revealed? That longish search for direction to the nearest VD clinic might come back to annoy you someday in some form. Apple should be pressured into erasing all those prints, pronto. The post below goes into the matter more thoroughly, and covers some possible developments that would mitigate the security risk to SIRI users.   I don’t like being talked to by machines, but that’s me.  Others think it’s really cool. Yeah, maybe.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428053/wiping-away-your-siri-fingerprint/

The Google Nexus tablet was revealed at the I/O meeting. Ars Technica has a correspondent on the scene and the link below goes to the report. It’s brief. No real bench marking  or comparison of features  over plat forms. All that comes later.  Some  specs were revealed as was the price of $199. All the rest is on the knees of the gods. Maybe it will be a smasheroo and maybe it will be a turkey. Much depends on what you can actually do with the Nexus. Google also released a product that looks like a somewhat swollen softball or  maybe some kind of melon, only in black. It’s a social music sharing device and if nothing else, the design is ah, arresting.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/google-officially-reveals-7-quad-core-nexus7-tablet-with-android-4-1/

And this is an overview of another tablet, called the Matrix One, which was unveiled at a consumer electronics show in New York. This story has some more detail, possibly because the writer was talking to a honcho in the company:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/first-look-at-the-99-matrix-one-android-tablet/

OK, this is another report by a tech writer who was present at a demonstration of the Microsoft Surface, that tablet device the elves in the forest at Redmond have come up with in order to cut MS in on the money to be had in the market for flattish things. The basic specs and features are reviewed once again, but the writer has no information on two important points: when will the thing be on sale and how much will it cost? Reading the usual tea leaves, and applying a little knowledge of the American marketing scene, you can bet your paycheck that MS is shooting very hard for a release date in advance of the annual Christmas spree. This link goes to Popular Science and once you zip through it, taking a look at the comments might help you a little.  Of course, almost all of this is spec. There is some real, if guarded, excitement detectable. MS has in the past disappointed. But, if they get this one right, it could be a very big deal.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-06/microsoft-announces-its-first-real-tablet-surface

Google has joined the mob selling tablet devices of various kinds. The company will release its first offering in this field probably tomorrow at a developers’ meeting. Leaks say that the gadget will be named the Nexus-7, and that it will be a bit on the small side: Seven inch screen. Former CEO Eric Schmidt was being interviewed by a reporter from the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera some while ago when he said that the company was hatching a tablet design.  Other information has dribbled into the press, so that the picture of what the thing is and what it will do is, supposedly, quite complete.  The tablet is Android based and the specs for it can be gleaned in the item at the link below. Writers point out that very good hardware is only half the story. Aps have to be available for it, or it’s no show.  It strikes me that seven inches is rather on the small side for working on a really useful device, but we will see about that. Much depends on exactly how all the features are implemented, and on what the price is. Some comments have suggested 200-ish, others more. So, it’s obviously not being pitched as a head-to-head competitor for the Ipad. We shall see:]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/26/google-to-take-wraps-off-200-7-tablet-according-to-reports/