With Nexus 9, HTC Could Get A Crack At Making An Android Tablet To Get People Excited

HTC is gearing up production of a Nexus 9 tablet device to showcase the Android operating system, a report from the Wall Street Journal claims. The report follows earlier rumors that this would be the case, and suggests a Nexus 9 from the Taiwanese device maker is almost a lock. But HTC is a strange bedfellow for Google in this case – the OEM swore off tablets altogether back in 2011.

A Nexus 9 from HTC would make a lot of sense from Google’s perspective: Partnering with the company would give kudos to the work it has done progressing Android device design with its HTC One range of smartphones, which remain among the best Android hardware available in terms of the quality of their build. And it would mean avoiding leaning too heavily on existing Nexus partners like Samsung and LG. It would also mean a return to the source – HTC crafted the first consumer Android device, after all.

HTC hasn’t made a tablet since its failed Flyer, however, and that means it’s been out of the game for a few years. The company ceased its tablet production plans after finding a hard time gaining any significant traction, but noted back they made the move official in 2012 that it could re-enter the market if it believes it could significantly contribute to the space. The company also said that it would be “watching [tablets] very, very closely” in the meantime.

Pairing with Google on a re-entry to the market does a couple of things for HTC: First, it gives it a bump in terms of marketing and distribution channels. Second, it alleviates a big chunk of the risk, as no one expects Nexus devices to be huge sellers, and Google shoulders at least some of the responsibility for the devices.

Whether or not a Nexus 9 can do well is another question altogether. Android tablets have been making progress over time, but there still isn’t a single model you can point to as a true competitor to Apple’s iPad. An HTC Nexus slate is also unlikely to rise to such lofty heights, but if the company can manage to pull off a tablet as well-designed as the HTC One, we should see something that can at least inject some life into a somewhat tired category

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...

Ex-Skypers Launch Virtual Whiteboard Deekit

Although seriously long in the tooth and being disrupted by a plethora of startups, for many years Skype has existed as an almost ubiquitous app in any remote team’s toolkit. So it seems apt that a new startup founded by a team of ex-Skype employees is set to tackle another aspect of online collaboration. Deekit, which exits private beta today, is a virtual and collaborative whiteboard to help remote teams work smarter. The Tallinn, Estonia-based startup is headed up by founder and CEO, Kaili Kleemeier, who was previously a Head of Operations at Skype. She and three colleagues quit the Internet calling giant in 2012 and spent a year researching ideas in the remote team space. They ended up focusing on creating a new virtual whiteboard, born out of Kleemeier’s experience collaborating with technical teams remotely, specifically helping Skype deal with incident management. “Working with remote teams has been a challenge in many ways – cultural differences, language differences, a...

Kiran Upadhyay

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