Search engine giant Google announced the cancellation of a hotly anticipated media event in New York City, originally scheduled for Monday, Oct. 29, at 10:00 a.m. EST, as Hurricane Sandy barrels its way up the East Coast. In a short message sent to media representatives, the company explained the hurricane was the reason for the cancellation. “We are canceling our Monday morning event in New York due to Hurricane Sandy. We will let you know our plans as soon as we know more. Stay safe and dry, The Android Team,” the statement read. 
 
 On Friday afternoon, New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued a state of emergency for the entire state, while NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg has been warning residents of potential flooding in low-lying areas of the city. The Android event was scheduled to take place at Basketball City at Pier 36 on the west side of Manhattan. The specific details of the event were kept under wraps, although Google dropped a few hints that could reference Google's Play store, where Android users can download apps to smartphones and tablets. 
 
 In the run up to the event, speculation grew that Google would launch a new tablet or smartphone to compliment its Nexus 7 device or unveil the latest version of the Android mobile operating system, known as Key Lime Pie. This weekend, photos and a brief video purportedly showing a 10-inch Nexus tablet, manufactured by Samsung were posted on the Web. The tablet is expected to have a Samsung Exynos 5250 processor, a 5-megapixel camera, 16 GB of storage and a variety of connectivity options, including WiFi, Bluetooth and near field communications (NFC) technology, which allows mobile devices to establish radio communication with other smart devices by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity. 
 
 While Hurricane Sandy may have postponed Google’s big day, rival Microsoft is going ahead with its Monday media event in San Francisco, where the company will debut the latest version of its mobile operating system, Windows Phone 8. Although the event is expected to focus on the operating system and the release of the software development kit (SDK) for developers, Microsoft could also take the opportunity to unveil its own branded smartphones running Windows Phone 8. The company recently showcased a 10-inch tablet running Windows RT, the Surface, which has been generating considerable buzz. 
 
 The last major press event in the technology world also concerned tablet computers. Earlier this month Apple debuted the iPad Mini, designed to compete in the low-cost 7-inch tablet space where the Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD tablet have been finding success. The iPad Mini still costs considerably more than the sub $200 starting point for the other two tablets, but Apple is likely betting its brand, superior build quality and hundreds of thousands of applications available through their Apple App Store will prove irresitable to customers looking for a tablet device in a more compact form factor. The WiFi-only edition of the iPad Mini starts at $329, and in the pre-order period the white version sold out almost immediately. ||||| Hugo Barra, director of product management of Google, holds a Samsung Galaxy Nexus mobile phone during Google I/O 2012 Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco, California June 27, 2012. 
 
 SAN JOSE, California A U.S. judge on Friday granted Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) request for a pre-trial injunction against the sale of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's (005930.KS) Galaxy Nexus phone, handing the iPhone maker its second legal victory against Samsung in a week. 
 
 Apple and Samsung, the world's largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging legal war in several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices. 
 
 Friday's decision, by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, comes days after she also slapped a pre-trial ban on sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that runs on Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android and goes toe-to-toe with the iPad. 
 
 The back-to-back triumphs - significant because pre-trial injunctions are rarely granted - meant Apple had a better week in court than last week, when Chicago federal court judge Richard Posner ruled the iPhone maker could not pursue an injunction against Google's Motorola Mobility, effectively ending that case. 
 
 "Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling. 
 
 Koh scheduled a hearing on Monday to consider whether to put the Galaxy Nexus injunction on hold pending appeal. And she said in court that she might rule on Sunday whether or to similarly put on hold the earlier injunction on the Galaxy Tab. 
 
 Apple has waged an international patent war since 2010 as it seeks to limit the growth of Google's Android system, the world's most-used mobile operating platform. Opponents of Apple say it is using patents too aggressively in a bid to stamp out competition. 
 
 Spokeswoman Kristin Huguet reiterated her previous statement, accusing Samsung of copying the look and feel of its products. Samsung was not immediately available for comment. 
 
 As a condition of the injunction, Apple was ordered to post a bond of more than $95 million, to secure payment of damages sustained by Samsung should the injunction be deemed a wrongful decision later. The order shall become effective upon posting of the bond. 
 
 The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-00630. 
 
 (Reporting By Dan Levine and Poornima Gupta; Editing by Edwin Chan, Carol Bishopric and Richard Chang)
– Only hours after Motorola rolled out its new Razr, Samsung and Google unveiled a new Android smartphone of their own. The high-end Galaxy Nexus—which is set to retail for more than $700—would have launched more than a week ago, but the companies decided to reschedule after the death of Steve Jobs, the Wall Street Journal reports. The phone runs Android's new Ice Cream Sandwich platform, designed to run on both smartphones and tablets. "We're targeting the premium segment of the mobile handset market with this handset," says a Samsung exec. New features in the latest version of Android include facial recognition software that allows a user to use his face to unlock his phone, although when demonstrated onstage at the Galaxy Nexus launch, the phone failed to recognize its owner, PC World notes. Google says the new phone—which analysts believe will help Samsung in its quest to overtake Apple—also has tighter integration with Google+, allowing users to have video chats with as many as nine contacts.