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IDC has updated its tablet forecast, raising Apple's iOS share at the expense of Android, while RIM's Blackberry fades to irrelevance.

IDC now expects iOS to grab 62.5 percent of the tablet market in 2012, up from 58.2 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, Android's share will slip to 36.5 percent from 38.7 percent in 2011.

And where does that leave BlackBerry? Virtually nowhere. RIM's tablet platform fades to 1 percent of the market in 2012, down from an already-tiny 1.7 percent share in 2011.

The market researcher is not currently forecasting Windows 8 or Windows RT tablets … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple unveiled a new version of Safari today at the company's World Wide Developer's Conference here. The browser takes some visual cues from the competition but manages to maintain its unique take on browsing.

Not unlike Google's Chrome, Safari 6 ditches its search bar in favor of a unified search-and-URL location bar. As with Chrome, and optional in Firefox, the search-location bar clears up a significant chunk of the ever-dwindling browser screen real estate. You'll have more room for extension icons, basically.

During the WWDC keynote this morning, Apple's new head of … Read more

Samsung is seeking to invalidate several patents held by U.S. tech giant Apple in Australia, taking the Australian Commissioner of Patents to court.

Samsung filed its case against the commissioner at the end of May, according to documents sighted by ZDNet Australia, seeking for the Federal Court to invalidate four patents granted to Apple between 2009 and 2010.

The Korean company has alleged that the four patents were granted "ultra vires," or beyond the powers held by the commissioner of patents. Samsung alleges in its application that it is "aggrieved by the patents" because a … Read more

A number of improvements that Mozilla has built into today's new Firefox release find the browser playing catch-up, treading water, and forging ahead all at the same time.

If it sounds like a near-impossible juggling act to you, you're not alone.

Firefox 13 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) comes with feature changes and tweaks under the hood. The new features include a redesigned New Tab page that shows you thumbnails of your frequently-visited sites, often dubbed Speed Dial in honor of Opera's take on the feature. Firefox is the last of the major browsers to get some … Read more

Less than a week after Microsoft dropped its Windows 8 Release Preview, Acer used Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, to unveil a gallery of ultrabooks, desktops, and tablets running the new operating system.

Given that Windows 8 was designed for tablets from the ground up, any supported devices will be closely watched. And with its new Iconia Tab W510 and W700, it's clear that Acer is branching away from Android and back into the fold of Microsoft.

The 10-1-inch Iconia W510 is tri-mode, which gives it the ability to shift between a standard tablet mode where you're touching the … Read more

We don't like Internet Explorer, but we keep it around, because every now and then we encounter some dinosaur of a Web site that can't be viewed without it. If you find yourself doing the same thing even though Firefox is your browser of choice, try IE Tab for Firefox. This clever extension lets you open IE-only Web sites within Firefox. It's a brilliant solution to the problem of switching back and forth between two different browsers.

IE Tab for Firefox installed easily and was ready for action after we restarted the browser. In order to find … Read more

Axis, Yahoo's new standalone Web browser for iOS (and extension for desktop versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari), embodies some really neat ideas about surfing the Web, especially on the touch screen. The app keeps the bloat to a minimum, and offers tools that make searching and browsing a snap. Unfortunately, like every third-party browser, Axis suffers from Apple's restrictions in that it can't be set as the default browser.

Axis has a helpful tutorial overlay when you get started, but it doesn't take long to explore the cool and unique features of this Web … Read more

If you thought Nvidia was just a little too ambitious when it indicated that we'd have $199 Tegra 3 tablets by the second half of the year, this next bit might surprise you. Nvidia's Vice President Rob Csongor, speaking with investors last week, revealed that such an animal is already in production.

To be clear, I'm not talking about one particular tablet or piece of hardware expected to come to market. Called Kai, Nvidia's initiative should be considered more of a platform or strategy at this point.

Though product specifics haven't been fleshed out completely, Nvidia believes it can potentially deliver quad-core Tegra 3 tablets at the all-important $199 price point later this year. Fully realized, this would give consumers a variety of high-powered Android 4.0 tablets with Kindle Fire price tags. … Read more

As a warm-up for next month's Google I/O conference, the company has released an update to Chrome this morning that allows you to sync tabs across PCs and Android devices.

The option Other Devices is now available in the new Google Chrome 19 stable version for Windows (download), Mac (download), Linux (download).

The option is available at the bottom of your New Tab page, alongside the Recently Closed menu. When it synchronizes a tab, it includes that tab's browsing history. You'll be able to navigate forward and back when you open it on a new device. … Read more