We all know that the iPad is still the tablet to beat, but the kind of dominance it enjoys in the tablet market doesn’t cease to amaze us. According to the latest estimates, provided by the market analyst from Canaccord Genuity, the Apple iPad and iPad2 will account for 65% of all slates shipped in 2011.

Despite the increased competition, the iPad managed to stand its ground and Apple will complete the year as the largest tablet manufacturer by selling north of 39 million units. According to the estimates, Samsung will come in second, shipping just 5 million slates, whereas Asus will somewhat surprisingly catch third place with 3 million tablets shipped. Read more »

Apple has their iTunes, Microsoft has Zune, Google has Music Beta. What does RIM have? Well, so far the answer was ‘nothing’. But RIM has now launched their BBM Music service to the masses and the beta version can be downloaded right now.

In case you don’t know about it, this is how it works. As a new user, you get a limited time premium subscription. After that you can choose to continue using the service as a premium user by paying $4.99 per month ($4.99 CDN, $5.99 AUD) or you can choose to go with the free subscription service. The difference between the two is that with the former you can stream entire tracks whereas with the latter you can only listen to 30 second song previews. Read more »

It seems like the future is happening today, as RIM has announced that the Blackberry Bold 9900 and the Blackberry Curve 9360 are the first ever SIM-totting NFC smartphones to be certified as MasterCard PayPass approved devices.

This means that both Blackberries have met the various security, interoperability and functionality requirements set by MasterCard and can now be used to pay at various NFC enabled stores around the world. The way any MasterCard PayPass-issuing bank globally will be able to connect your MasterCard to your SIM card in either the Bold 9900 or the Curve 9360.

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