Tim Hortons to offer free WiFi soon, 2000 restaurants served

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Need to check email while waiting for that double-double and an everything bagel with cream cheese? Tim Horton's has joined other popular coffee shops and will give visitors free access to wireless Internet.

Stores in Kelowna, Red Deer, Barrie and St. Catharines are currently being tested, as well as a handful of locations in Toronto and some south of the border, says David Morelli, Tim Hortons director of public affairs. Tim Hortons plans to open the service to 2,000 restaurants which will be powered by Bell's high speed WiFi.

This is great news for anyone who loves coffee and donuts (who doesn't) and who enjoys the convenience of being able access the Internet on the go. Here's hoping more restaurants get with the program.

Check the full press release after the break.

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Non-US Nexus 7 Tablets will not get the same exclusive content

Nexus 7 tablet buyers from Canada, Australia and the UK will not receive the TV shows, magazines and music that US buyers will have access to when the device ships later this month.

During the 7-inch tablet's release at Google I/O last week, it was heavily promoted that those who purchased the tablet would have access to 'thousands of movies' and the 'world's largest collection of e-books', but until international licensing agreements are ironed out, it could be a long while before these other countries can enjoy the other content offerings from Google.

This means that aside from existing apps, eBooks and the videos currently available to these countries, many of the key content pieces that make the Nexus 7 so compelling will be missing, possibly for months.

NPD: Tablets expected to surpass notebooks by 2016

Research firm NDP DisplaySearch foresees tablets surpassing notebooks in terms of sales and popularity by 2016. The report states, "Tablet PCs, such as Apple’s iPad, are expected to be the growth driver for the mobile PC market over the next few years. Tablet shipments will surpass notebook shipments in 2016, according to the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report. Overall mobile PC shipments will grow from 347M units in 2012 to over 809M units by 2017.

The report adds that , "while notebook PC shipments are expected to increase from 208M units in 2012 to 393M units by 2017, tablet PC shipments are expected to grow from 121M units to 416M units in this period, for a compound annual growth rate of 28%."

We are really nearing the post-PC era where notebooks are becoming less necessary because many of their features and functions will be available on tablets. It is no wonder that the leading technology companies all have a stakein the tablet market and that Microsoft and Google have even gone as far as making their own tablet devices to cover segments where Apple's iPad isn't openly competing.

Source: NDP DisplaySearch

iGoogle personalized home page shutting down along with less popular projects

As Google prepares to rid itself of various straggler projects in order to focus on the essentials, a number of once popular properties are being shut down. iGoogle, the personalized homepage that allowed users to pick a theme and customize their news and search feeds in one page is shutting down along with Google Video, Google’s Symbian Search App (bookmark Google.com, Google advises), Google Talk Chatback and Google Mini among others.