Sarah Perez’s OpEd on her experience with Microsoft Surface is anything but glowing:

It’s simply an awful tablet. If you remove the keyboard and try to use in portrait mode, the thing is too long and too narrow. It feels heavy because it’s too thick, despite being about on par with the iPad in weight. But if you attach the keyboard, you then have to be sitting at a desk or table where you can prop the thing up. It’s not a lap computer, which is nutty because tablet computers are for untethering you from a desk, and laptops have the word “lap” in them for a reason. Only Microsoft could come up with a way to make a tablet/laptop combo that forces you back to your desk no matter the configuration you select.

Haiku has been selected to participate in Google Code-In 2012. From Haiku:

GCI is a contest for pre-university students (from 13 to 17 years old) with the goal to encourage young students to participate into open-source development. To achieve that goal, open-source organizations sets up various tasks and students are invited to claim them. Various prizes are awarded and, this year, each organizations are going to award two (2) grand prize winners amongst participating students.

Head over to Haiku for more information, and to register, if eligible.

Back in July, I posted “Still Not Sold On iPad Mini” where I outlined why I was skeptical of the then-rumored iPad Mini:

To say I am skeptical would be an understatement. It just isn’t adding up, and having prominent publications announcing something does not guarantee anything. Who knows, I could be wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time.

I could argue that my opinion came nearly four-months before the iPad Mini was announced, but the fact-of-the-matter is that I was wrong. Why am I writing a post declaring that I was wrong? Simple: not enough bloggers do.

Just in case you missed it: I was wrong.

Tim Hortons is starting to offer free wifi in their Canadian locations. From MobileSyrup.com:

You can now sit with your computer, tablet or smartphone and get yourself free internet. In a press release this morning Timmies states that over 2,000 locations have free Wi-Fi, and the rollout will expand to 90% of Canadian locations by September.

I live in the U.S. so this doesn’t apply to me. Even if it did, I still prefer coffee from McDonald’s, Starbucks and Panera’s—all of which offer free wifi today.

In the piece “The 7-Inch iPad’s Biggest Critic: Steve Jobs,” Ina Fried of AllThingsD discusses why Apple may very well release a 7” iPad, even if it goes against Jobs’ beliefs:

And what has changed, obviously, is the entry of some serious competitors in the smaller-screen tablet market. Amazon proved the market for a low-cost smaller tablet with the Kindle Fire last year and the market will no doubt grow with the arrival of the Galaxy 7 from Asus and Google.

Both Amazon and Google have razor-thin margins on their tablets; their strategy seems to be “give the hardware away and make money on services.” This is not how Apple rolls. They instead prefer to cater to those who prefer spending more money on a better experience.

Even more interesting is the lack of leaks we usually see before a launch. John Gruber linked to Marco Arment’s post on the lack of leaks that are more common than ever:

It’s unlikely that Apple would be able to manufacture millions of iPad Minis without someone leaking some parts a few months ahead of their release. So if we don’t see such leaks by September, I don’t think this product, if it exists, will be released this year.

To say I am skeptical would be an understatement. It just isn’t adding up, and having prominent publications announcing something does not guarantee anything. Who knows, I could be wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time.