IPAD IN THE KITCHEN:HOW TO KEEP IT DRY?

The tablet computer, with those wonderful apps that display recipes and color pictures, is one of the best new kitchen tools. But if you cook like Julia Child did -- splashing the bouillabaisse and tossing the flour all over the counter -- there is no way you'd bring it into the kitchen. An iPad, after all, doesn't rinse off like a cutting board. Moisture is its chief enemy.

The solution is obvious: Wrap it in plastic. Trendy Digital sells clear water-proof cases for iPads for $23.49 and $27.49 as well as for other tablets and e-readers. But the cases have straps that can get messy and awkward.

You could also use a zippered plastic food storage bag, at a cost of about $22 for 150 or so double-zippered bags. The tablet will slide around inside the bag, but it works.

A Chef Sleeve, a clear plastic envelope that nearly fits snugly over a 9.7-inch screen tablet like the iPad also protects it from nearly any kitchen mishap short of a dip in the sink. The sleeves, which are available for $20 for a box of 25 on the company's website, can be reused, depending on how messy a cook you are. But the best part is that even if your fingers are dripping with gooey pastry creme, the touch screen still works through the thin-film sleeve.

The movie rental and streaming company Netflix announced last week that it had a streaming app for Android. Its iOS app for Apple devices was released in 2010, but now users of Google's mobile operating system can watch the thousands of movies and TV shows that are available for instant online viewing.

Well, not all Android users. As MobileCrunch reported, compatible smartphones at this point are HTC's Incredible, Nexus One, Evo 4G and G2. The Samsung Nexus S is also compatible.

For those who track Android news, staggered releases of the operating system are old news. But consumers do not want to parse this stuff; they just want their Android phones to be able to do everything that Android is capable of. Clearly, Google is aware of this. At its recent developer's conference, Google I/O, the company announced the creation of a working group of hardware partners to better coordinate Android releases.