5 apps to get you through a natural disaster

For those caught in a hurricane like Sandy, which promises winds of up to 85 mph and a huge storm surges as it barrels up the East Coast, mother nature’s majesty can become a dangerous threat.

Could a smartphone be your savior? Several apps for iPhones and Android-based phones offer a solution -- take a few minutes to download one or more to help yourself prepare.

American Red Cross
The Red Cross hurricane app provides help at your fingertips: It includes one-touch, “I’m safe” messaging to reassure friends and family, NOAA weather alerts and shelter locations, and checklists to help you and your family prepare.

Download the app from redcross.org, or call "**REDCROSS" (**73327677) from your smartphone to have a download link sent directly to your phone.

Disaster Readiness
An affordable app that could make a difference, Disaster Readiness is an emergency prep guide with more than 175,000 reference guides on how to respond to any disaster situation. Should the power go out, you won’t be able to rely upon the Internet for information. This handy app should have all the info you need, with sections on floods, fires, evacuation, and how to find or create shelter in an emergency.

Available for Google Android-based phones and Apple iPhones, Disater Readiness is a great way to make your smartphone even smarter.

iMapWeather Radio
NOAA radio alerts are a crucial source of information in a disaster. This $10 app can wake your phone up in case of an emergency, and provides local weather forecasts while you travel. And using the GPS in your phone, it can track you and monitor your safety.

Download it from Apple’s iTunes store.

Disaster Alert
Available for iPhones or Android phones Disaster Alert provides a list of all active natural hazards around the world. If knowledge is half the battle, this free app could make a real difference.

Red Panic Button
If you're caught in a dangerous situation, getting the word out might be a lifesaver. The Red Panic Button is essentially a one-touch beacon to do just that, broadcasting your GPS location and a Google Maps link out via e-mail, text message and Twitter to your emergency contact.

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Guatemala excavates early Mayan ruler's tomb

This photo taken on May 25, 2012, released on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 by Tak'alik Ab'aj Archaeological Project shows a jade piece in the tomb of a very early Mayan ruler at Tak'alik Ab'aj archaeological site in Retalhuleu, south of Guatemala City. (AP Photo/Tak'alik Ab'aj Archaeological Project)

GUATEMALA CITY: Archaeologists announced Thursday they have uncovered the tomb of a very early Mayan ruler, complete with rich jade jewelry and decoration.
Experts said the find at Guatemala's Tak'alik Ab'aj temple site could help shed light on the formative years of the Mayan culture.
Government archaeologist Miguel Orrego said carbon-dating indicates the tomb was built between 700 and 400 B.C., several hundred years before the Mayan culture reached its height. He said it was the oldest tomb found so far at Tak'alik Ab'aj, a site in southern Guatemala that dates back about 2,200 years.
Orrego said a necklace depicting a vulture-headed human figure appeared to identify the tomb's occupant as an "ajaw," or ruler.
"This symbol gives this burial greater importance," Orrego said. "This glyph says he ... is one of the earliest rulers of Tak'alik Ab'aj."
No bones were found during the excavation of the tomb in September, probably because they had decayed.
Experts said the rich array of jade articles in the tomb could provide clues about production and trade patterns.

Susan Gillespie, an archaeologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the excavation, said older tombs have been found from ruling circles at the Mayan site of Copan in Honduras as well as in southern Mexico, where the Olmec culture, a predecessor to the Mayas, flourished.
Olmec influences are present in the area around Tak'alik Ab'aj, indicating possible links.
Gillespie said that because it is near a jadeite production center, the find could shed light on early techniques and trade in the stone, which was considered by the Maya to have sacred properties.



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Microsoft's Fancy Touch Cover Keyboard Is A Smash Hit

When Microsoft announced the Surface tablet, the industry was amazed particularly by the keyboard cover.

The magnetic keyboard comes in two varieties.

• The Touch Cover, which is a laser etched soft keyboard. It costs $119 and comes in five different colors black, white, red, cyan, and magenta. It has a fully functioning multi-touch trackpad with two buttons.

• The Type Cover, which retails for $129 comes in one color, black, and resembles a fully functioning physical keyboard with trackpad.

How good are these keyboards? Judging by the first wave of reviews, pretty darn good.

Joshua Topolsky of The Verge remarked about the Touch Cover's functionality:

On a desk or other flat surface, the Touch Cover works reasonably well. It doesn't come close to replicating a physical, tactile keyboard, but it does do a good job of reminding you where your fingers need to be...The Type Cover is another story altogether — it's one of the best portable keyboards I've ever used.

David Pogue of The New York Times commented on the idea behind the Touch Cover:

[The Touch Cover] is an incredibly slick idea, but the keys don’t move. You’re pounding a flat surface. If you type too fast, the keyboard skips letters. (“If you type 80 words a minute on a keyboard and 20-30 on glass, you should be in the 50s on the Touch Cover,” says a Microsoft representative.)

Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD remarked about the style and usability:

These are better than any of the add-on keyboards I’ve seen for the iPad. And Microsoft has built in a standard USB port and a sturdy kickstand for typing on a desk.

There is a downside to these keyboards: They are almost useless on your lap. There is no hinge to keep the screen upright and the kickstand works poorly on your legs. Despite that, these features make the Surface better for traditional productivity tasks than any tablet I’ve tested.

Sam Biddle of Gizmodo is the only person really hating on it:

It's just a half-broken death march up the learning curve. The trackpad, sludge-like and jerky, is even worse—particularly galling compared to the super-smooth touchscreen—and unlike the keyboard, will never get better with practice.

Matt Burns of TechCrunch thought that the Touch Cover was essential:

Without a Touch Cover, the Surface RT feels incomplete in design and function. The problem here is that the Surface is basically a big laptop screen without the keyboard. The cover rights the design’s wrongs by forcing the user to use the physical keyboard rather than the on-screen keyboard. Microsoft knows this. After all, Surface is rarely advertised without a Touch Cover, but that doesn’t alleviate the sting of paying another $100+ for a keyboard.

Tim Stevens from Engadget liked the Touch Cover, but warned that there was a slight learning curve:

You wouldn't think a 3mm-thick piece of polyurethane could make for a comfy keyboard, but the pressure-sensitive Touch Cover is a compelling companion to your written missives. Just give yourself a little time to get used to it. Microsoft warns it could take four to five days to reach your peak touch-typing speed.

Peter Bright of Ars Technica wanted to hate the Touch Cover, but ended up liking it:

I expected to hate the Touch Covers. I wanted to hate the Touch Covers. As a fluent touch-typist who normally uses an extremely loud Dell clicky keyboard, the Touch Covers represent an affront to everything I stand for. But the damn things work, and work well, and I don't really know how I feel about that. They do take a little getting used to; it'll be a few days before you're really comfortable on them. 50 words per minute should be readily achievable, with an accuracy and convenience that surpasses any on-screen keyboard.

Matthew Honan of Wired backed up the learning curve notion:

It’s actually quite fantastic. On this miniature keyboard, that has no actual physical keys, keystrokes fire as fast as you can type them. There is no lag. There is, however, a learning curve.

I struggled mightily with typos and finger placement for the first 24 hours. My left wrist hurt like hell. The pinkie and ring finger on my left hand were cramped. But by day three, my hands began to relax and I was typing quickly and, for the most part, accurately. After a week, I powered along at 90 words per minute. It’s not the same speed I hit on a full size keyboard, and I still have typos galore (though far fewer) but given how much I’ve improved in a week, it’s impressive.

Oddly, it is perhaps less effective as a cover than a keyboard. It folds over nicely, but doesn’t stay closed as well as I’d like. Several times, I opened my bag to a glow, like something out of Pulp Fiction, to find the Surface had lit up as the Touch Cover came open inside.

Zach Epstein from BGR calls the Touch Cover, "brilliant":

I find it to be the perfect compromise between a traditional tablet typing experience (tapping on glass) and typing on a standard keyboard.

By supporting an ultra-thin, feather-light full keyboard accessory, the Surface instantly becomes one of the best tablets on the planet in terms of productivity without adding any bulk. Typing on a soft polyurethane keypad is not the same as typing on a regular keyboard of course, but I got pretty good with it after a few days of practice.

From what we gather, the cover is essential to the tablet. If you plan on purchasing a Surface, make sure that you pick up a Touch or Type cover because it really makes the device.

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Apple New Ipad Mini

The tech giant enters the small-tablet market with a device priced from $329, about $130 more than similar-size tablets from its competitors. Underwhelmed investors send Apple stock lower.

SAN JOSE — Apple Inc.'s new iPad is small in size but not low in price — and that's got consumers grumbling and Wall Street worried.

By launching a 7.9-inch iPad mini that is as thin as a pencil and as light as a pad of paper, Apple threw itself into the market for smaller tablets currently ruled by its rivals.

But with a higher-than-expected price for the device, the technology giant may run into difficulty stealing customers away from Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire HD or Google Inc.'s Nexus 7. The iPad mini starts at $329. Many analysts and consumers had hoped to see a starting price of $250.

Investors appeared to be disappointed, sending Apple's shares down $20.67, or 3.3%, to $613.36 on Tuesday after the company announced the new tablet at an invitation-only media event held at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. Apple's stock has now fallen 12.4% since it released theiPhone 5 on Sept. 21.

Apple, which in the past had resisted making a smaller iPad, sought to emphasize that the mini was not inferior to its 9.7-inch device, which was unveiled in 2010 and has since dominated the tablet market.

"It is every inch an iPad," Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, told the crowd moments after introducing the long-rumored device.

"The full iPad experience. There's less of it, but no less to it," the company later reiterated.

But with it comes an Apple-worthy price tag. Many people pointed out that tablets with similar specs start at $199, including the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD. Amazon has been vocal about its strategy of making essentially no money from its hardware in favor of reaping profits from the sales of content such as digital music and e-books.

Apple, however, faced a high cost for iPad mini components and wasn't willing to give up its cushy profit margins, analysts said.

That leaves "significant room" for its rivals to build competing tablets at more attractive price points, said Abhey Lamba of Mizuho Securities in a note to investors. "We believe a price point of $250 to $300 would have gone a long way in keeping competition at bay."

Some consumers, too, were displeased.

"They dropped the ball," said Ryan Michaud, 24, an assistant editor at a Los Angeles entertainment production firm. He had hoped the iPad mini would be priced closer to competing tablets or would come with the high-resolution "retina" display included on the latest 9.7-inch iPad, which would better justify the price, he said.

But Bill Choi, an analyst at Janney Capital Markets, said although some investors were let down by the iPad mini's price, he expected the device would sell well among women and consumers 16 and younger.

"We don't think Apple needs to compete aggressively on price against mini-tablets" running Google's Android operating system, Choi said in a note to investors. "We recognize that competing 7-inch tablet products are priced starting at $199, but [we] see Apple providing a premium product with a superior ecosystem."

Longtime Apple analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, also shrugged off pricing concerns for the iPad mini, which weighs 0.68-pound and is 0.28-inch thick. He said the device had at least one major advantage over many Android-powered tablets — more than 275,000 apps designed for the iPad mini — and predicted the Cupertino, Calif., company would sell 5 million to 7 million iPad minis worldwide in November and in December.

Apple already sells the world's bestselling tablet with the regular-size iPad. Apple Chief ExecutiveTim Cook said the company recently sold its 100 millionth iPad, 21/2 years after its debut, and said the iPad accounts for 91% of tablet Web traffic.

Analysts said Apple's move into the smaller-tablet market is a sign that the company doesn't want to cede ground to rivals amid a rapidly growing industry for portable touchscreen devices.

Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to total 117.1 million units this year, according to International Data Corp., which last month increased its 2012 estimate thanks to robust consumer demand. The firm also revised upward its 2013 forecast number to 165.9 million units from 142.8 million. Last year, worldwide tablet shipments totaled 70.9 million units.

"We know we are just getting started," Cook said of the iPad product line. "We're not taking our foot off the gas."

The iPad mini, which will be available for pre-order Friday, will ship Nov. 2 for Wi-Fi-only versions and two weeks later for models that come with a cellular data plan. It comes in black and in white and is equipped with a FaceTime HD camera, iSight camera with HD video recording, speedy wireless and 10 hours of battery life.

At the media event, Apple also announced a slew of updates to existing products, including the fourth generation of its 9.7-inch iPad, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display, an improved Mac mini computer and a redesigned iMac desktop computer with a 5-millimeter edge.

Cook also said more than 200 million devices are using iOS 6 since the operating system was released a month ago.

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Japan’s 10% Export Decline Is Biggest Since Post Quake Slump

Japan’s exports fell the most since the aftermath of last year’s earthquake as a global slowdown, the yen’s strength and a dispute with China increase the odds of a contraction in the world’s third-largest economy.

Shipments slid 10.3 percent in September from a year earlier, leaving a trade deficit of 558.6 billion yen ($7 billion), the Finance Ministry said in Tokyo today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of analysts was for a 9.9 percent export decline. Imports rose 4.1 percent.

Economy Minister Seiji Maehara pressed the Bank of Japan for more action yesterday, saying the nation is “falling behind” in monetary stimulus and is at risk of another credit- rating downgrade. The BOJ today cut its view of eight out of nine regional economies while Taiwanese unemployment rose to a one-year high, underscoring weakness across Asia after China’s third-quarter growth was the slowest since 2009.

“There’s a high chance that Japan’s economy will have two consecutive quarters of contraction through December,” said Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief economist at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo. “The slump in advanced nations is spreading to emerging economies.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 0.3 percent at 2:50 p.m. in Tokyo after a 2.3 percent gain last week. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average was 0.1 percent higher. The yen weakened 0.3 percent to 79.57 per dollar.

China Spat

The decline in shipments, exacerbated by a spat with China over islands in the East China Sea, was the biggest since May last year, when the country was rebuilding supply chains wrecked in the March earthquake and tsunami.

Shipments to China, the nation’s largest export market, slid 14.1 percent from a year earlier. Exports to the European Union fell 21.1 percent, while those to the U.S. rose 0.9 percent. Auto shipments to all markets dropped 14.6 percent.

In a speech in Tokyo today, BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa vowed to conduct “seamless” monetary easing as the Japanese economy is “leveling off.” In its quarterly regional economic report for October, the bank cut its assessment of eight out of nine Japanese regions, the most downgrades since 2009. Only Tohoku, the area hit hardest by last year’s earthquake, escaped a downgrade as the BOJ said its economy was supported by post- disaster reconstruction spending.

Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund’s Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara said in an interview that the BOJ has room to ease further, adding international weight to calls for more action by the central bank.

Global Easing

Paul Sheard, chief global economist at ratings company Standard & Poor’s, said this month that the BOJ’s balance sheet has increased by about 36 percent since August 2008, compared with about 209 percent for the U.S. Federal Reserve and about 329 percent for the Bank of England. JPMorgan Securities Japan Co. and UBS AG expect the central bank to add to easing at its Oct. 30 board meeting.

Taiwan’s unemployment rate increased to 4.3 percent in September, the statistics bureau said in Taipei today. In Australia, the government announced spending cuts to help deliver a budget surplus. Elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong will today report inflation data, while economic releases around the world include inflation in Poland and retail sales in Mexico.

Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Nissan Motor Co. (7201), Japan’s two largest carmakers, reported their steepest drops in China sales since at least 2008 in September, as today’s data showed that Japan’s auto exports to the country fell 44.5 percent.

Contraction Seen

The territorial dispute will knock 0.8 percentage point off Japan’s gross domestic product in the October-December period, JPMorgan said on Oct. 6. The brokerage, along with Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc., expects the economy to contract in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

The trade deficit was the first in the month of September since 1979 and compared with economists’ median estimate for a 547.9 billion yen shortfall. The rise in imports was higher than a 2.9 percent gain estimated by economists as the country bought more oil and liquefied natural gas.

“The reason behind the increase is very simple,” said Shohei Setoh, a Tokyo-based manager for a crude oil trading group at JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. “Everyone rushed to pass customs,” before a tax increase on oil imports that began Oct. 1.The government last week said it would draw up spending measures to counter a slowdown. A yen around 5 percent from last year’s postwar high of 75.35 against the dollar is hurting manufacturers such as Sony Corp (6758), making exports more expensive and reducing the value of repatriated earnings.

Assessment Downgraded

Japan’s government this month cut its economic assessment for a third straight month, the longest streak since the 2009 global recession. Data earlier this month showed falling machinery orders and shrinking factory capacity use in August. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the world economy will grow this year at its weakest pace since 2009, saying Oct. 9 there are “alarmingly high” risks of a steeper slowdown.

Economy Minister Maehara said yesterday that Japan needs more monetary easing and policy efforts to spur growth.

“There are fiscal-easing moves worldwide, but on a monetary basis Japan is falling short,” Maehara said in an interview with Fuji Television. While “easing is not a panacea,” without that and policy moves “Japan’s sovereign credit rating may face a downgrade,” he said.

Moody’s Investors Service cut Japan’s credit rating one level to Aa3 in August last year, citing a build-up in government debt since the 2009 global recession. S&P has had a negative outlook on the country’s AA- rating since April last year.

Public support for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda fell to 18 percent, the lowest level since he took office in September 2011, the Asahi Newspaper reported in Tokyo today, citing an Oct. 20-21 survey.


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Warner wins key victory in Superman battle

Superman won’t be going up, up, and away from Warner Bros.

In a crucial legal victory for the Burbank studio, a federal judge in Los Angeles on Wednesday denied an effort by the heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster to reclaim their 50% interest in the world’s most famous superhero.

Superman is one of Warner's most valuable characters, having generated more than $500 million at the domestic box office with five films and billions of dollars more from television series such as “Smallville,” toys and games, and 74 years’ worth of comic books.

Had Warner and its DC Comics subsidiary lost the case, they would have soon been unable to continue using certain key elements of the Superman mythos -- including his super strength and speed, secret identity as Clark Kent and girlfriend Lois Lane --without reaching a costly new agreement with the estates of Shuster and co-creator Jerry Siegel.

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In 2008, a judge ruled in favor of Siegel’s heirs in a similar case, allowing them to terminate half of Warner’s Superman copyright as he appeared in 1938’s Action Comics No. 1. However, under copyright law, the studio is allowed to use the character however it pleases with its 50% interest so long as it continues paying Siegel’s estate half of the relevant profits.

Warner plans to release a new big-budget Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” in June. Wednesday’s ruling will allow it to produce sequels should that picture prove successful. In addition, the studio has been eager to produce a movie featuring the DC superhero team Justice League as soon as 2015, which would have been impossible without lead character Superman.

U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright granted summary judgment in favor of Warner, ruling that a 1992 agreement between DC Comics and Shuster’s sister Jean and brother Frank was binding and prevented Shuster's estate from attempting to terminate copyrights.

Under that deal, DC paid all of the then-recently deceased Shuster’s outstanding debts and agreed to pay Jean $25,000 a year for the rest of her life (it issued additional bonuses to her over the years).

"The court finds that the 1992 agreement, which represented the Shuster heirs' opportunity to renegotiate the prior grants of Joe Shuster's copyrights, superseded and replaced all prior grants of the Superman copyrights," Wright wrote. "The 1992 agreement thus represents the parties' operative agreement and... is not subject to termination."

The Shusters' attorney, Marc Toberoff, who also represents the Siegel estate, expressed surprise after just last week having said September’s summary judgment hearing went “very badly” for DC.

“We respectfully disagree with [the order’s] factual and legal conclusions,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “It is surprising given that the judge appeared to emphatically agree with our position at the summary judgment hearing.”

The eight-year legal battle between the Superman creators’ heirs and Warner probably won’t end soon. The Shuster estate is expected to appeal Wednesday’s ruling.

At a Nov. 5 appeals court hearing, the studio will attempt to overturn the Siegels’ copyright termination and Toberoff will seek more control over the character for his clients and to deny accusations of impropriety that Warner has made against him.

The case is the latest and highest-stakes dispute between the creators of famous comic book characters and the entertainment giants making more money than ever from them as superheroes have exploded in popularity in the last decade. The heirs of Marvel Comics artist Jack Kirby, also represented by Toberoff, in 2011 lost in an attempt to reclaim rights to such famous characters as the Fantastic Four, X-Men and the Hulk.

In Wright’s ruling, he noted that DC has paid the Siegel and Shuster families more than $4 million since 1975, not counting medical benefits and bonuses.



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Microsoft becomes friend and foe to PC partners

With the launch of its Surface tablet computer, Microsoft is becoming a genuine "frenemy" - part friend, part enemy - to its longtime manufacturing partners.

Since its founding 37 years ago, the Redmond, Washington, company has had a mutual understanding with makers of computer hardware: Microsoft creates software. Companies such as Dell, HP, Acer and Lenovo pay Microsoft a licensing fee to place the Windows operating system on the desktop PCs, notebooks and other gadgets they market to users.

Now, Microsoft is complicating the cozy relationship by making and marketing its own tablet computer. The company announced Tuesday that the Surface will start at US$499 ($599 in Australia) when it goes on sale on October 26. The new tablet is set to invigorate an already hotly contested market for touch-screen computers. But for first time, Microsoft will be in head-to-head competition with partners that help generate sales for its US$14 billion-a-year Windows software business. When the news first broke in June, hardware partners were said to be shocked.

Microsoft is no stranger to manufacturing hardware, but it usually does so in businesses that are sideshows to its mainstay computer software. It has made the Xbox game console since 2001, for instance. It also made the Zune music player and Kin line of phones, although both were short-lived.

CEO Steve Ballmer insists Microsoft must move into manufacturing to bring consumers "delightful, seamless experiences" that they can enjoy "right out of the box," according to a letter he wrote to shareholders recently.

Of course, it's not just for the sake of consumers. The strategy of making both gadgets and software could pay off for Microsoft, too.

The company is coming out with a new version of Windows next week, one that is optimised for touch-screen devices and will run on tablets and PCs. Every time it sells a Surface, analysts say, Microsoft will record some revenue for the Windows 8 operating system. Manufacturers that build competing Windows 8 tablets will pay Microsoft a fee, estimated between US$30 and US$80 per device.

That's a big expense, especially considering that manufacturers are allowed to use Google.'s Android operating system for tablets and smartphones for free. The extra cost of making Windows 8 tablets could put Microsoft's partners at a disadvantage in a cut-throat tablet market.

"It's always tough when you're competing with your partners," says Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. "That's what Microsoft has decided to do."

The expense also comes at a time when tablet prices are dropping.

In the past few months, Google and Amazon.com have undermined tablet leader Apple with 7-inch-screen tablets using Android. The cheapest goes for US$159, which barely covers manufacturing costs.

Apple, too, is expected to downsize its iPads with a mini version that might also give consumers a price break ahead of the holidays.

Having a product that is priced well above these smaller offerings will give Microsoft's partners a better chance to make a profit. The downside? They may be too expensive to become a popular stocking stuffer this Christmas.

Microsoft's Surface has a 10.6-inch screen, slightly bigger than the iPad's 9.7 inches. Unlike the iPad, Surface also has the ability to run Office and other Windows applications. That, plus its optional touch keyboard cover for $100 more, may enable the devices to cross the productivity gap between tablets and PCs.

Several of Microsoft partners are trying - at least publicly - to remain upbeat about their coming competition with the Surface. At a recent event showcasing Windows 8 tablets in San Francisco, a Lenovo executive said Surface highlights the advantages of Windows 8 and encourages the development of more applications for the system.

"Surface is about Microsoft standing up and saying, 'We want to make sure the market understands the importance of Windows 8,'" said Tom Butler, director of ThinkPad marketing for Lenovo. "All the Microsoft Surface announcement does is help validate the ecosystem that we all want to see develop around the new interface."

Dell, the second largest PC seller in the US, also believes Surface will spur more interest in Windows 8, says Bill Gordon, the company's executive director for end user computing.

"We think Microsoft is trying to build the market, so we think it's great," Gordon says. "They are just trying to generate more excitement. Google did its own devices for Android, so I think it's kind of the same thing."

To warrant prices on par with the latest iPad, which also starts at US$499, Microsoft needs to prove that the Surface is a more powerful tool. Early demonstrations suggest that Surface and other Windows tablets could be of interest to large corporations, many of which have created internal software that operates on the Windows platform, says Rhoda Alexander, an analyst with market research company IHS iSuppli.

"They're looking for a secure tablet solution that will support legacy operations," she says.

IHS sees worldwide tablet sales exploding in the next few years from 19.9 million units sold in 2010 to 386 million in 2016.

This year, Apple's iPad is the dominant player, with 62 per cent of the market, compared with 34 per cent for tablets using Android and 3 per cent for tablets that run on an older Windows operating system.

But Windows' share is expected to blossom. According to IHS, by 2016, its tablets will have nearly caught Android, with a 24 per cent share compared with Android's 29 per cent. It predicts Apple will still command nearly half, or 47 per cent, of the tablet market.

Whatever the potential downsides to Microsoft, its entry into tablets is seen as crucial because the PC market is expected to decline this year for the first time since 2001.

"The worst thing that can happen is stagnation in the market," Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund says. "At least (Microsoft is) getting in the game now."

with Michael Liedtke

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