March 2 is Apple day

*Picture from NY Times

Next Wednesday, the media will gather in San Francisco at the invitation of Apple in what is expected to be the launch of the new i-pad. Consumer will watch with much anticipation as what changes have been made to the new model and what upgrades have been included. There is rife speculation that new member to the family will have front and back facing cameras an weigh less than its predecessor.

Meanwhile Motorola have fired shot across the bow of Apple by lauching their Xoom tablet. Available to buy in the U.S at a very steep $799, it hopes to make a serious play for the hearts and minds of tablet lovers everywhere. You can knock $200 of this if you are willing to sign a two year contract with Verizon. For that you pay $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data.The xoom has a 5 megapixel camera on the back which records high definition video. The Xoom  uses android 3.0. Google’s software specifically designed for tablets. You can read all about it here. One interesting aspect is the ability to play flash videos online. You just have to wait for Motorola to release the download in order to do so. Xoom has one over on the i-pad as it doesn’t have this capability just yet