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Yet another industry giant enters tablet space-- Google reveals the Nexus 7 at the I/O Developer Conference, a 7-inch Google-branded device carrying an other fresh announcement, Android version 4.1 (aka Jelly Bean).

However, unlike the high-end Microsoft Surface, Google's take on tablets (a co-development with Asus) appears more humble. With a $199 price point, the Nexus 7 aims for the lower end of the market where the Amazon Kindle Fire currently dominates.

The 7-inch display handles 1280x800 resolutions with a 178-degree viewing angle, while the tablet carries a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 12-core Nvidia GPU and 1GB of RAM. It also supports bluetooth and NFC connections and includes a front-facing camera.

The second biggest I/O announcement is the latest Android version. Code named Jelly Bean, Android 4.1 includes a number of improvements aimed at polishing what already lies within version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Sony boosts XQD memory card speeds with the S Series-- read and write speeds reach 168MB/s, up from the 125MB/s of the first XQD generation and the maximum limit of Compact Flash cards (167MB/s).

Available in 64GB and 32GB sizes, the XQD S Series card takes advantage of the PCI-E Gen interfaces and Thunderbolt connections on PCs.

The XQD format is a SanDisk, Sony and Nikon co-development, and has the backing of the Compact Flash Association. So far only Sony sells QXD cards, and the only commercially available camera with a QXD slot is the Nikon D4.

Go XQD S Series from Sony Outpaces Limits of CF

Windows 8 marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, Gartner says-- closing the WinNT era and kicking off one where the new WinRT (Windows Runtime) dominates.

In other words, the king is dead... long live the king?

Not that Win32 will go away too soon, mind. A combination of the WinRT programming model, a new UI and legacy WinNT support should allow users to continue running Win32 programs alongside WinRT apps for at least the next 10 years.

Gartner says "Windows 8 is the start of Microsoft's effort to respond to market demands and competitors, as it provides a common interface and programming API set from phones to servers. It is also the beginning of the end of Win32 applications on the desktop." While Microsoft will continue supporting Win32, it also encourages developers to start writing WinRT applications.

Fujitsu subsidiary PFU launches the ScanSnap S1300i-- now able transfer scans directly to either mobile devices or cloud storage services.

The ScanSnap Folder application connector streamlines scanning to 3rd party applications, sending scans to wifi-connected Android and iOS devices, as well as services such as Evernote, Google Docs, Dropbox, SurgarSync and Salesforce.

The scanner features scanning speeds of up to 12 pages per minute (A4, colour, 150 dpi) or 24 images in duplex mode. It features a number of automatic functions, including "intelligent" indexing and cropping. Power consumption is also efficient, with the scanner switching to "power-off" mode after 4 hours in standby mode.

Users of previous ScanSnap models (S1500/S1500M/S1300/S1100) can also get an update on their scanner software online.

Go PFU Launches New Mobile ScanSnap