Ipad

NEW YORK - If shoppers don't show up in stores soon, more 70 percent off sale signs will. After a promising start to the holiday shopping season over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, sales have slowed as worries about weak U.S. job growth and other concerns have Americans spending less. That puts pressure on J.C. Penney, Macy's, and other stores, which had been offering fewer discounts this season than they did last year, to step up promotions to lure shoppers such as Ron Antonette of Long Beach, Calif.

NEW YORK - Apple spoiled the stock market's party on Friday. Stocks shot higher in the early morning, after the government reported that the United States added jobs in November. But Apple Inc., which has been flailing in recent weeks as investors wonder how long its momentum can continue, dragged down certain indexes. The Dow Jones industrial average, which doesn't include Apple, rose 81.09, or 0.6 percent, to close at 13,155.13. The Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq, which do, were less impressive.

Can a trip planner work overtime as a travel journal and protect confidential documents too? Maybe. Name: Tripini Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android What it does: This app keeps all of your pertinent travel information - medical, passport, visa, flight, hotel, car rental information, photos, and more - locked in a password-protected area on your Apple or Android device. Cost: Free, for an introductory period. What's hot: The password system worked for me, and I would feel safe leaving my information on the app. I hesitated only when I came to filling out my debit and credit card info.

After months of speculation and rumor, Apple jumped into the small-tablet market Tuesday with the iPad Mini, a downsized addition to its line of iPads that in less than three years has spawned an entirely new consumer niche. Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage at San Jose's restored California Theatre, where Steve Jobs once shared the spotlight with Bono to unveil new iPods. Although Cook led off with other impressive advances in Apple's product lineup, the iPad Mini was clearly the star of the show: a 7.9-inch iPad small enough and light enough to fit into a hand.

Le Bec Fin may have maintained the 20th-century salon atmosphere in its new incarnation, but it is bringing 21st-century technology into the dining room. Starting Friday, waiters will pass leather-bound iPads to each patron. Several Philly-area restaurants, including Osteria , Tashan , and Caffe Aldo Lamberti , offer wine lists on iPads, but Le Bec Fin is believed to be the first white-tablecloth restaurant in the region to go entirely paperless. (The downstairs lounge, Chez Georges , eventually will go to iPads, too.)

The new Kindle Fire HD may not stir you to pass along your old iPad as a hand-me-down. But if you own an earlier small tablet running on Android or another operating system, or even last year's original Kindle Fire, you'll want to take a close look. The Fire HD isn't for everyone. Like its predecessor, it still draws potshots for seeming, as one critic put it, "like a shop window onto the world's biggest content department store. " Yet Amazon has refined an already impressive $199 device, while foreshadowing what it promises before Thanksgiving: an 8.9-inch Fire HD, including a 4G wireless version, that will compete more directly with Apple's 9.7-inch iPad.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Amazon.com Inc. unveiled four new Kindle Fire models on Thursday, including ones with larger screens, as the online retailer steps up competition with Apple Inc. ahead of the holiday shopping season. Amazon unveiled the larger Kindle Fire amid expectations of a smaller iPad from Apple. The larger Fires will have screens that measure 8.6 inches diagonally, compared with 9.7 inches for the iPad. The original Fire had 7-inch screens. The speculation on the mini iPad is that it'll have a 7.85-inch screen.

THESE kids today! All they want to do is play with your iPhone or iPad. So why stop them? If you're smart about it, you can safely start educating the little ones in their strollers with one of those smarty devices or a dedicated children's tablet. M-Edge Supershell cases for the iPhone 4 & 4S, iPod Touch and iPad 2 (and newer) tablets offer an ultraprotective foam surround that absorbs shocks. "Go ahead drop it on the concrete, repeatedly," dared a demonstrator. Priced from $25 to $35, Supershells come in lots of bright colors.

Apple Inc. set a U.S. record for market value, surpassing the high mark reached by Microsoft Corp. during the Internet heyday, on optimism that the next version of the iPhone will meet high demand. The shares of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple rose 2.6 percent to $665.15 at the close in New York, for a market value of $623.5 billion. That overtook Microsoft's $616.3 billion closing market capitalization on Dec. 27, 1999, according to data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices. Apple is preparing to introduce the next version of the iPhone on Sept.

PALO ALTO, CALIF. - An iPad stolen from the home of the late Steve Jobs ended up in the hands of a professional clown who said Friday that he had no idea it was pilfered from the Apple co-founder's house. Kenneth Kahn, also known as Kenny the Clown, said he unwittingly received the stolen tablet from a friend who was later arrested for breaking into the Jobs residence in Palo Alto, the San Jose Mercury News reported Friday. "It would be like getting a football from Joe Montana that was stolen out of his house," Kahn said.