Last week, Steve Jobs and APPLE unveiled their latest product, the iPad.  It's a thin, tablet shaped device with a ten-inch touch screen that will go on sale in March for $499-$829.  "It's so much more intimate and so much more capable than a smart phone," said Jobs in the presentation.

In 1984 Apple launched the Macinstosh, 2001 brought out the iPod and in 2007 the iPhone was introduced.  Each product excels at using existing ideas and taking them to new level.  The iPad tablet is expected to transform not just one industry, but three; computing, telecoms and media.

The iPad is, in essence, a giant iPhone on steroids.  Its large screen will make it an attractive e-reader and video player, and it will also inherit a vast array of games and other software from iPhone. The iPad will probably accelerate the shift away from printed matter towards digital content.  Mr. Jobs has struck deals with leading publishers such as Penguin and Simon & Shuster.  According to the Economist, newspaper and magazine publishers are also thrilled by the tablets' potential.  They hope that the device will allow them to generate revenues from readers and advertisers.  The iPad, with its color screen and integration with Apple's online stores, could make downloading books, newspapers, and magazines as easy and popular as downloading music.

Apple hopes that the iPad will also become a popular gaming machine and designed the machine so that many of the games among the 140,000 apps available for other Apple products will run on it right away.  While this presents a great opportunity for the developers of apps, there are some constraints.  The iPad, like the iPhone, doesn't allow applications to run in the background so users can't perform several activities at once-as they're accustomed to on a laptop. Even so, the Apple App Store Economy is a huge business, where developers typically pay Apple 30% of the revenue they earn on their apps.  Now that Apple is dominating the digital downloading business with its iTunes and earning $75 million each year from its apps, it seems very likely that it might soon be dominating the media download business as well.

One primary source for this article was the Economist  magazine,  click here:

The United States economy in the fourth quarter 2009 grew at 5.7%, its fastest pace in more than six years.  Most of the increase was due to an increase in inventories and that is a very good thing.

However, there is concern about this increase continuing for the following reasons:

·         Inventory growth will only continue if sales grow.

·         Imports fell in the 4^th quarter, statistically increasing the GDP number.

·         Stimulus spending  still had a large impact on the increase.

·         The final GDP number may be revised downward as 3^rd quarter was.

·         Unemployment rose by 300,000 to 500,000 in the 4^th quarter.

Even so, any bit of good news-no matter how minor- is warmly welcomed.

One primary source for this article was the New York Times, click here.