The above mockup was spotted in China and seems to match closely what we have been hearing about the iPad 2. It has a slimmer profile, an almost entirely flat back, larger speaker, and rear- and front-facing cameras. The model number is one for the original Apple TV while the FCC ID is for a WiFi-only iPad, but those could be placeholders since this is a mockup and not a real working tablet.

It looks like the SIM card slot has been repositioned to a slot that was once expected to house an SD card reader. There is also the 3G antenna and the sloped power button and headphone jack.

It’s been over a month since the tablet was introduced at CES, and now the Android tablet from Motorola is finally here. The Motorola Xoom is Google’s Honeycomb (Android 3.0) device and will ship with stock Honeycomb and no fancy overlay, UI or Blur from Motorola.

Some features include a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, a 10.1″ display, dual cameras, and a battery life of 10 hours. This one may just be the Apple competitor we have been waiting for. The Motorola Xoom will cost $599 with a 2 year contract on Verizon and is available right now.

You’ve probably been jealous of all of those iPad users reading The Daily on their iPads, right? Well, you won’t have to be jealous for long since it looks like News Corp’s tablet-only magazine could be heading to Android, maybe as soon as this spring.

The team has gotten a lot of help from Apple on the development side and as you know they were the first to use Apple’s new subscription service, so why wouldn’t they be ready for some Android? Hopefully this rumor has some truth to it.

Amazon took another opportunity to hit the iPad where it hurts, namely it’s readability, in a new TV commercial for the Kindle. The 30-second ad points to the Apple tablet’s glossy LCD as a weakness, whihe e-paper on the Kindle reader has “no glare” to interfere with reading and can even be read in bright sunlight.

The ad also paints the Kindle as the savior of books, saying that “the book lives on:” the Kindle Store has over 800,000 titles. And they also focus on battery life is a quick focus, as the Kindle will last on a charge for a month.

We now have official word on the Xoom’s pricing thanks to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha. Reuters is reporting a price of $799 for the 32GB Honeycomb tablet when bought with 3G (which will be upgraded to 4G) from Verizon without subsidies, while a WiFi-only version will cost only $600.

That price is in line with the 32GB iPad, but the 3G Xoom is $70 more expensive than the Apple alternative. We don’t know when those models will be available, but rumor is that pre-orders or reservations could begin as early as tomorrow, with the tablet launching in full next Thursday.

With the release of a new version of the iPhone, we always hear rumors that Apple is working on a smaller version of the iPhone, and right on schedule we have more of these rumors. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple will be releasing an iPhone Mini this year.

Normally, we would laugh, but what Bloomberg is saying makes a lot of sense, since a smaller iPhone would open up a new market for Apple, which they will need with all of the tablet competition. The new iPhone Mini could retail for $200 without a contract, which would open up the iPhone to a budget market. It is supposedly one third smaller than the existing iPhone with no home button.

Apple claimed 87.4 percent of the tablet market before the Galaxy Tab hit the scene, according to an IDC study of tablet share. Apple had a near-monopoly of the tablet market last summer. Analysts also expected 17 million tablets to have shipped by the end of the year, almost all of which would still have been iPads.

Of course Android would have cut into Apple’s share in the fall with 1.5 million Galaxy Tabs estimated sold and will likely cut into it even deeper in 2011 with the Motorola Xoom for one. RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook could play a part as well.

Apple’s iPad is a popular device, and so it is popular with thieves as well. Sadly the iPad doesn’t have any built-in security, but MacLocks is here to help with the iPadLock. It’s a clear case that will protect your iPad with a security slot, giving your tablet some extra protection.

The case is available for pre-order right now for $40 without the cable lock and for $65 for the version that comes with the lock.

OnLive has expanded its scope beyond gaming with plans to stream regular apps and websites to other devices. The company is targeting it at mobile users and showed apps and features running through the OnLive Viewer iPad client (free in the App Store) that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Users could Internet Explorer with Flash on Apple’s tablet, or even a high-end professional rendering app like Autodesk’s Maya.

The support would also extend to Android through a beta for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and on all platforms it would support spectating on someone else’s session. However, collaborative editing isn’t possible with the current version, even though it hasn’t been ruled out.

Google has now officially announced its electronic book store called the Google ebookstore, instead of Google Editions which was the rumored name. Google eBooks are available from the Google ebookstore in the US, and the company has announced that they have over three million titles available in the store.

The big G says that their eBooks are compatible with a wide range of devices, including most smartphones, tablets, e-readers and netbooks. In addition they are also launching free applications for Android and Apple iOS devices, and the apps are already available in the Android marketplace and the Apple App Store.

The new Haleron Windows 7 Tablet looks almost exactly like Apples iPad. The Haleron is a little lighter. But that’s where the similarities end. The Windows 7 tablet packs some serious power of it’s own, with an Intel Z550 Dual Threading 2GHZ processor in a US15W chipset together with a 16GB solid state disk.

The Haleron Windows 7 Tablet also supports 3D and hi-def hardware video acceleration and is equipped with VGA, DVI, HDMI out, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and four USB ports. It is also fitted with an accelerometer and a 0.3 mega pixel web camera. Not bad at all.

RIM’s Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie has revealed a few more details about the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. According to CrackBerry, the device will have a 5,300mAh, non-removable battery, which will help it deliver more life than competing products. The similarly-sized Galaxy Tab packs only a 4,000mAh battery and a claimed seven-plus hour battery life when watching movies.

The PlayBook should last longer, obviously and maybe it will even match or surpass Apple’s 10-hour rating for its larger iPad. RIM’s smartphones are already very efficient and known for their long operation on a single charge. We hope some of this efficiency rubs off on the PlayBook as well.

Looks like Apple will dominate the tablet market for at least the next year, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley. He estimates that Apple will ship 13.4 million iPads in 2010 and 25.5 million in 2011. The closest to Apple is Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which will reach 1.5 million by the end of the year and move another six million in 2011.

The combined Android platform fares a bit better, with Dell and Motorola contributing two million and three million tablets of their own next year, but Apple will still have most of the sales. This is due its headstart and its positive UI experience.

Apple’s iPad can seemingly do anything and go anywhere. Now we have seen the tablet attached to a bike, along with speakers in front. We don’t have many details, but we do know that this guy will want to easily remove both iPad and speakers everytime he parks that bike.

That iPad cradle looks well made, but I still cringe about bumps and accidents killing the device. Anyway, it’s a cool setup. We like it.

We’ve been hearing rumors of a BlackBerry tablet for some time now. We know it’s coming. The company has even registered the domain www.blackpad.com.

Now the rumor is that the BlackPad will be announced in late November and should be arriving late in the holiday season. The pricing is said to be $499 which puts it in the ballpark with Apple’s low-end iPad. But can a Blackberry tablet compete with the iPad? RIMs phones haven’t fared so well lately.