Nokia has filed claims in the U.S. and Germany saying that products from HTC, Research In Motion (RIM) and ViewSonic infringe a number of the company's patents, it said on Wednesday.

Inexpensive tablets with screen sizes up to 10 inches and Google's new Android 4.0 OS will soon become available at prices ranging from US$100 to $250. The prices are a breakthrough for users looking to get Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, on tablets.

We’ve always had a category covering the world of computers in our Cool Yule Tools holiday gift guide. But then computers gave way to notebooks (so we combined the category), and then tablets have entered the scene. With the arrival and success of the iPad and other tablets, many have said that “the PC is dead”, and we’ll admit, our choices of cool computers are fewer than in years past. But there are still some nice systems out there, here are a bunch of desktops, notebooks, and yes, tablets, that we think would make for some good gifts:

Tech lovers have been flocking to the iPad 2 and other tablets in order to watch movies, read books, surf the Web and make video calls on the latest, greatest, thinnest, lightest, coolest devices. But where do tablets fit within the enterprise?

The demand for low-priced tablets has gone up in recent months, as witnessed by the mad rush to buy Hewlett-Packard's $US99 TouchPad tablet. However, at such low prices, these devices lack the speed and graphics found in Apple's iPad or Samsung's Galaxy Tab, which have the latest processors and graphics hardware. But at that price, the tablets are decent entry-level devices for first-time users.

Only a few weeks ago Dell was taking a beating over its tweener device, the Streak. But now ViewSonic is unveiling a similar mini tablet, the ViewPad 7, which is a phone with a 7-inch screen and 2.2 Android OS, or Froyo, cameras for front and back and 3G data transmission. Could this signal a larger demand for a bigger phone or a smaller iPad?