Gartner analysts are predicting Apple's iPad will finish 2011 with nearly three quarters of all tablet sales worldwide. Last year, they say, Apple had an 83 percent share. Of course, when you consider they also predict total tablet sales in 2011 to triple last year's numbers, that's certainly good news for Apple. Android tablets are expected to account for 17 percent of the market in 2011, increasing from just 2.5 million units last year to 11 million this year. Despite major gains by Android, Gartner says the iPad will be the leading tablet through at least 2015.

One possible development which could throw off these predictions is Amazon's entry into the tablet market. Rumors suggest not only will they be selling an Android tablet soon, but it will be sold at or below cost. However, Gartner's report indicates they have taken the Amazon tablet into account, meaning they apparently don't believe it will be a particularly big threat to the iPad.

According to a new report, Motorola will soon be releasing a new flagship smartphone known as Spyder (or Droid RAZR or Droid HD) featuring, at last, a qHD 960x540 Super AMOLED touchscreen toughened with Gorilla Glass, alltogether with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. The Spyder is also supposed to have a durable Kevlar casing, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera for 1080p video recording, a front-facing HD camera, 1GB of RAM, and 4G LTE support. The device is also able to use Webtop docks.

Unfortunately, there's no info yet regarding the pricing or availability or the Spyder. We don't even know what Android version it will have installed, but there are two possibilities, Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" or the new Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich".

Samsung announced that its hit smartphone has reached 10 million units sold, without even launching in America. The Galaxy S II has seen a massive uptick in sales the last two months, after launching in April in Korea. The device has a 4.27-inch WVGA Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, Android 2.3.4, a 1.2GHz Samsung dual-core processor, an 8.5 mm thin chassis (at lowest), an 8MP camera with autofocus and 1080p recording, NFC support, 4G, a 2MP front-side camera and HSPA+, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.

Furthermore, the device runs on Samsung's updated TouchWiz UI and weighs less than 115 grams. The original Galaxy S sold 10 million units in 2010, and is one of the most popular Android devices so far.

Taiwanese chip company VIA Technologies has filed a complaint with the federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, through which it accuses US titan Apple Inc. of infringing three of its patents related to microprocessors.

VIA is asking for a jury trial and wants a US-wide sales ban to be issued on all Apple products that violate the three patents. The hardware targeted by this case includes the iPhone, the iPad and iPod, while the Mac line seems to be safe. It's highly likely that this battle may end quickly with a settlement.

Toshiba AT200 Android tablet, announced earlier this month, has started to pop up in Europe with Deutsche Telekom's t-online-shop.at listing both the 16GB and 32GB models. The two devices are up for pre-order and don't have a solid shipping date.

Priced at €479 and €584, the 16GB and 32GB AT200 tablets are just 7.7mm thin, and have a brushed aluminum back, a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) LED-backlit touchscreen, a 1.2 GHz OMAP 4430 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a microSD card slot, a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, a front-facing 2MP camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a micro USB port, a micro HDMI output, and a battery enabling up to eight hours of operation. The two listings say that the AT200 come with Android 3.1 but Toshiba announced them as being pre-loaded with the latest Honeycomb release which is versions 3.2.

Despite being announced as the first quad-core mobile chip, Nvidia's 40nm Kal-El (Tegra 3) actually has five Cortex-A9 cores, the fifth one being a low-power, low-clock (it goes up to 500 MHz) solution called the "companion core". According to Nvidia, the "Variable SMP" architecture of Kal-El requires the companion core so as to save power when the mobile device is in active standby and performs background tasks like email, social networking syncing. Basically, this fifth core will only do very light work, leaving the four performance-tuned cores to rest. As soon as the workload increases, Kal-El will turn off the companion core and kick start one, two, three, or all four performance cores.

According to Nvidia, the Variable SMP architecture is OS transparent so the software platform and the applications installed will take advantage of the fifth core without glitches (hopefully). The companion core and VSMP are supposed to enable power savings of up to 61%, depending on the task run, compared to the dual-core Tegra 2 chip. Kal-El and all its five Cortex-A9 cores (plus 12-core GPU) is expected to debut in Q4 in at least one tablet.

HTC has introduced an Android smartphone that's specifically designed to appeal to the female buyer, the Rhyme. This one comes with a plum color scheme, runs Android 2.3 with the Sense UI 3.5, and is set to go on pre-order on Verizon as soon as September 22nd. Rhyme comes with quite a beefy bundle which includes a pair of plum-colored earphones, a Bluetooth headset, a docking station, and a "charm cable" which connects to the phone and shows via a light-up cube at its other end, when a call or a message is received.

Spec wise, HTC's smartphone features a 3.7-inch 800x480 capacitive touchscreen, a 1GHz Qualcomm chip with Adreno 205 graphics, 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD slot (an 8GB card is included), a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash, a front VGA camera, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, 14.4 Mbps HSDPA support, and a 1,600 mAh battery. The Rhyme will sell for $200 with a two-year contract.

In order to give mobile devices some extra functionality, Logitech has developed the Harmony Link platform which allows people to use their iPhones, iPods, iPads or Android smartphones as universal remote controllers.

The Harmony Link box connects via Wi-Fi to tablets/phones and is paired up with the Harmony Link app, allowing you to have one remote for up to eight devices around the house. Some 5000+ brands are supported out of the box so there's shouldn't be any problems getting the setup working right away. Harmony Link is arriving in October, carrying a price tag of $100.

The Bada 2.0-running Wave 3 smartphone from Samsung, announced almost a month ago, is gearing up to its release as the first shipments are set to start in October, with various European countries being expected to get the first batches.

The Wave 3 is 9.9m thick, has an anodized aluminum body and features HSDPA 14.4 Mbps support, a 4-inch (800 x 480) Super AMOLED touchscreen, a 1.4 GHz processor, a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera, a front VGA camera, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi Direct capabilities are included), Bluetooth 3.0, and a 1,500 mAh battery. After Europe, Samsung's new Wave is confirmed to reach India in November and likely other Asian countries. Beside the Wave 3, Samsung has two more Bada 2.0 phones set for a fall arrival, the Wave M and Wave Y.

The makers of the BlackBerry line of smartphones are seeing their stock down 18 percent today, following another quarter of weak sales. Income fell to $414 million USD from $904 million last quarter and revenue fell to $4.2 billion, at the very bottom of where the company guided down to just 3 months ago. Shipments of new BlackBerrys were down to 10.6 million, well below the 12 million expected, thanks to "lower than expected demand for older models", as RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie says.

Sales of the PlayBook tablet were down to 200,000 for the quarter from a strong 500,000 in the first quarter of availability, mainly thanks to missing features promised at launch, like a native email client. RIM just released the latest BlackBerry 7 phones, the last of the line before the company moves to the better QNX platform seen on the PlayBook.