60pc use tablets while on vacation: Staples
More than 60 percent of tablet owners turn on their tablets during vacation to check in with the office or do work, according to a new survey from the business-to-business division of Staples Inc.

The number one motivator for owning a tablet is the convenience of portability, named by 90 percent of survey respondents. The portability of tablets is why 78 percent said they use a tablet in bed, 35 percent in the bathroom and 30 percent at a restaurant.

About 80 percent of tablet owners say they enjoy an improved work/life balance because of tablets. Survey respondents cite several business benefits of tablets, including 60 percent who said they get more work done using a tablet.

Additionally, more than 40 percent said staying connected with colleagues and clients was the primary motivator for buying a tablet. About 75 percent of tablet users check email while one-third review and edit documents on their device.

More than 60 percent of current tablet owners think tablets will someday serve as their primary computing device.

Court ruling paves the way for music locker services
A ruling in the case involving music locker service MP3tunes and music label EMI looks like good news for Apple, Google, Amazon and others who have launched cloud music services.

The ruling said that MP3tunes was protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against any potential copyright infringement by it users. MP3tunes was found to have taken the necessary steps, such as responding to take down notices and terminating the accounts of repeat infringes, to gain such protection.

The ruling paves the way for other cloud music services to continue offering cloud based music services without fear of legal repercussions if they do not gain the consent to music labels.

Android leads in Q2 smartphone sales: NPD
Google?s Android operating system accounted for 52 percent of smartphones sold in the second quarter of 2011, according to new research from NPD.

Apple?s iOS experience a slight quarterly gain rising to 29 percent in the second quarter. BlackBerry OS? share fell to 11 percent while Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile and webOS held steady at less than five percent of the market each.

The research company also found that one in five new handsets acquired in the second quarter was on a prepaid plan. In the second quarter of 2010, just 8 percent of prepaid phones were smartphones while during the same period this year the number jumped to 22 percent.

NPD also pointed to Google?s recent acquisition of Motorola and its potential to shift the balance of power in the handset patent conflict between Google and other operating system competitors.

"Android's momentum has made for a large pie that is attractive to Motorola's Android rivals, even if they must compete with their operating system developer,? said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD in a statement.

Hybris, iCongo merging for end-to-end mobile commerce services
Hybris and iCongo Inc. are merging to provide complete and modular multichannel commerce solutions through a single open platform powered by hybris technology.

The companies offer complementary multichannel commerce software and services. The combined companies will provide customers with a fully integrated end-to-end multichannel commerce infrastructure.

Customers of both companies will benefit from the platform and the integration of order and warehouse management systems and other rich commerce functionality, including mobile commerce.

Hybris has over 350 B2C and B2B customers and a presence in 11 countries. The company?s global operations will continue to be headquartered in Munich, Germany, and the senior management team will remain in place and be joined by senior management from iCongo.

News apps best for grabbing attention of iPad users: Localytics
News apps are the most effective at grabbing an iPad user?s attention while games apps are used the most often, according to a new study from mobile app analytics company Localytics.

The company reviewed data from apps subscribing to its analytics platform. Compared with the overall average session length for iPad users, apps in the ?news? category clocked in with sessions two and a half times longer, followed by music apps at 228 percent of the average, health and fitness apps at 210 percent, and reference apps at 162 percent.

The data also shows that iPad users spend shorter-than-expected periods of time playing games and interacting with their entertainment apps. This could be because iPad users appear to be playing short, more casual games, rather than in-depth time-consuming ones and the fact that iPads are conducive to deeper, more information-packed experiences, such as reference and health apps.

Other findings include that sports and entertainment apps are relatively poor at generating user engagement and reference apps are rarely used.