Now You Can Buy a Chromebook For Just $150 (And They're Getting Better)

Now You Can Buy a Chromebook For Just $150 (And They're Getting Better):

Five years ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that laptops would become disposable. We’re nearly there. Starting today, you can buy a new Chromebook for just $150—the cheapest price ever. And this spring, there’s a $250 Chromebook coming that looks pretty incredible.

Read more...

Samsung Galaxy Blade edge is the world's first smart knife, phone capabilities included

Samsung Galaxy Blade edge is the world's first smart knife, phone capabilities included:

Samsung today introduced the Galaxy Blade edge, a smart knife (the first in the world) that offers smartphone capabilities. The Blade edge comes with all the features of the Galaxy S6 - including Android, the latest TouchWiz UI, and a great camera that's always ready to take photos of your delicious food. With its ceramic body and its razor-sharp diamond edge, the new Galaxy can be successfully used as a kitchen knife. It comes with a foldable handle that can, upon request, be made out of premium olivewood, ceramic, stainless steel, or even mammoth tusk.



Thanks to Samsung Knox, the Blade ...

Huawei posts a financial report for 2014, its mobile division scores a revenue of $12 billion

Huawei posts a financial report for 2014, its mobile division scores a revenue of $12 billion:

Huawei is not only one of the most prominent smartphone manufacturers in China, but also one of the largest in the world in terms of sold devices. From the looks of it, everything is good for the maker of devices like the Ascend Mate7 and the Ascend P7, as its most recent financial reports is quite favorable. The company has scored a neat 21% revenue increase for the last fiscal year; the increase from the year before (2013) is even bigger at 33%. The China-based giant accounted for global earnings of 288.2 billion yuan (roughly $46.4 billion) and brought home 27.9 billion yuan (roughly $4.5 ...

See how Oppo brutally tortures its smartphones before shipping them to the masses

See how Oppo brutally tortures its smartphones before shipping them to the masses:

Enjoying yourselves with those Samsung Galaxy S6 edge hack and smash videos? Sure you do! Here's one from Chinese smartphone innovator Oppo. Now, unlike the raw, exploitative footage of the Galaxy S6 edge getting smacked around, what we're seeing here is fully controlled smartphone destruction in a laboratory setting. The official video by Oppo shows how the manufacturers tests its devices as per standard procedure that's part of the production process.

For starters, Oppo puts its smartphones against 55 pounds (25 kilos) of pressure, then drops them onto marble from about ...

Motorola Moto G is the top selling smartphone in Brazil

Motorola Moto G is the top selling smartphone in Brazil:

The Motorola Moto G might not be a specs giant, but in Brazil the phone has become a runaway hit for Motorola. The Moto G has become so popular in Brazil, that it has helped the manufacturer double its Brazilian market share to 18%. With that pop, Motorola surpassed LG to become the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the country. At the same time, red hot sales of the phone have played a part in the decline of Samsung's market share in Brazil to 43% from 51%, and it has become the top selling smartphone model in Brazil. The country is the fourth largest smartphone market in the world.



According ...

Alaska Airlines makes a major upgrade with in-flight entertainment using Windows 8.1 tablets

Alaska Airlines makes a major upgrade with in-flight entertainment using Windows 8.1 tablets:

Microsoft and the Windows operating system earned a new feather in their caps from Alaska Airlines who deployed 7,000 tablets as part of an enhanced passenger entertainment feature.



The hardware underneath the airline branded case is a Toshiba Encore tablet. The Encore is an 8-inch 1280x800 resolution panel powered by an Intel Atom CPU. A spec-leader it is not, but the form-factor along with the cost, and with the environment the tablet will be used, make it ideal.



According to Alaska Airlines, within weeks of its initial rollout of the new entertainment feature, the company ...

This Drop Test Looks Too Good To Be True

This Drop Test Looks Too Good To Be True:

By the numbers, Gorilla Glass 4 is seriously tough, able to withstand a one-meter drop onto concrete. That's impressive on its own, but this video seems to show it withstanding something far more impressive.

Read more...

Smart building technology spending forecast to grow to US$17.4 billion in 2019, says IDC

Smart building technology spending forecast to grow to US$17.4 billion in 2019, says IDC: An increasing number of case studies are emerging to demonstrate the business case and benefits associated with developing smart buildings. According to a new IDC Energy Insights report, leading organizations around the world are encouraged to evaluate their current smart building status and to implement short to medium term plans to capture those benefits. IDC forecasts smart building technology spending to grow from US$6.3 billion in 2014 to US$17.4 billion in 2019, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6%. The most aggressive adoption will be in Asia/Pacific, North America, and western Europe.

These charts show just how amazing the Galaxy S6’s display is

These charts show just how amazing the Galaxy S6’s display is:

Needless to say, we're big fans of the Galaxy S6's display -- in our preview, we said that we "have never seen anything quite so impressive on a mobile phone" before. However, this was just our early impressions after using the phone for one day and didn't involve any actual testing to measure brightness or color accuracy. Thankfully for us, Anandtech has done a lot of this work and has confirmed our hunch: Namely, that the Galaxy S6's display is a thing of wonder.

Continue reading...

Original enclosures:

samsung-galaxy-s6-edge-2.jpg?w=150

5336a674178087fe17311cb340af70be?s=96&d=identicon&r=G

Lenovo separates mobile business unit by brand

Lenovo separates mobile business unit by brand: The Lenovo Group has separated its mobile business unit by brand, with its vice president Zhang Hui responsible for global sales of Lenovo brand smartphones, while vice president Collin Giles, a former executive of Nokia, will handle global sales of Motorola smartphones, according to a China-based it.sohu.com report.

Tablet vendors looking to tackle niche markets in 2015

Tablet vendors looking to tackle niche markets in 2015: Tablet vendors are looking to tackle niche markets in 2015 including the industrial, commercial and education segments as the global tablet market is expected to take further hits due to rising influence from large-size smartphones.

Sapphire makers seeing strong orders in March

Sapphire makers seeing strong orders in March: Patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) maker Rigidtech Microelectronics is seeing strong orders in March and expects continued growth into April, with 4-inch units expected to be at the forefront, according to company president Hung Wen-ching.

Global smart wearable entertainment devices and services market will top US$9.4 billion by 2019, says Technavio

Global smart wearable entertainment devices and services market will top US$9.4 billion by 2019, says Technavio: As the popularity of entertainment devices increases, the global smart wearable entertainment devices and services market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 37.09% from 2014-2019, according to Technavio.

Back in BlackBerry: Scrappy mobile underdog posts surprise profit

Back in BlackBerry: Scrappy mobile underdog posts surprise profit:

When John Chen took over as CEO, BlackBerry was hemorrhaging cash and in a major downward spiral. Over the past year-plus, however, Chen has helped the company get its financial act together and on Friday BlackBerry posted a surprise profit of $0.04 per share, or $0.08 more than the consensus estimate of a $0.04 loss.

Continue reading...

Original enclosures:

blackberry-sign-chen.jpg?w=150

5336a674178087fe17311cb340af70be?s=96&d=identicon&r=G

10 smartphones with little or no screen bezels that seem to be from the future

10 smartphones with little or no screen bezels that seem to be from the future:

It's 2015 and the way things are looking, smartphone manufacturers - especially ones hailing from China - are rampaging against the screen bezel. What used to be a niche is now a small crusade that's invading markets left and right, laughing at you for buying an expensive smartphone whose screen bezels are wider than a hair's width. From Oppo and Sharp all the way to LG & Samsung, slim screen bezels are slowly but surely becoming a characteristic of high-end smartphones. It will only be a matter of time before bezels go the way of the dinosaur and all Android flagships start looking like Sharp's ...

Study: When it comes to security, smartphone users aren’t very smart

Study: When it comes to security, smartphone users aren’t very smart:

Even though you may be familiar with how your smartphone works and the various security issues that threaten your privacy, chances are that if you’re also a millennial you also aren't doing simple things to secure your data. At least that’s what a study from security firm Lookout seen by the LA Times seems to indicate.

Continue reading...

Original enclosures:

bgr-smartphones-2014.jpg?w=150

c0ae30df5f6e0347fe49a94f992d7869?s=96&d=identicon&r=G

Every UK House of Commons member is getting an iPad

Every UK House of Commons member is getting an iPad:

When the UK's Members of Parliament get down to work following the election in May, they'll have more than just a new government on their hands -- they'll have a tablet, too. The Parliamentary tech team is handing out cellular-equipped iPad Air 2 uni...

Motorola has no plans regarding tablets, recommends Lenovo's Yoga slates

Motorola has no plans regarding tablets, recommends Lenovo's Yoga slates:

Motorola President Rick Osterloh today took to Twitter to answer some questions, one of them being about tablets. More exactly, the question was: "Will Motorola get into the tablet space this year?"



According to Osterloh, the company doesn't "have any plans" regarding tablets, so we shouldn't expect to see any Motorola-branded slate anytime soon. However, Motorola recommends customers to try the Yoga tablets made by Lenovo (which acquired Motorola Mobility last year).



As you may know, Motorola's last tablets (the Xyboard 8.2 and Xyboard 10.1) were released in late 2011 to moderate ...

Analysts brace for BlackBerry to post worst quarterly sales in 9 years

Analysts brace for BlackBerry to post worst quarterly sales in 9 years:

Referring to BlackBerry’s hardware sales as “empty calories,” Goldman Sachs is wondering if the company should be making phone at all. BlackBerry CEO John Chen is certainly pondering the idea of the enterprise becoming a software and services company.



UBS is outright saying BlackBerry should exit the hardware space. Other money-types will be listening very carefully to BlackBerry’s fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal 2015 results, and 2016 forecasts on Friday.



Estimates are floating the BlackBerry will post revenue of $790 million for the fourth quarter, which is 20% lower than the ...

Samsung to feature iris scanners on its mobile devices – and it's sooner than you may think!

Samsung to feature iris scanners on its mobile devices – and it's sooner than you may think!:

SRI (Stanford Research Institute) International is a nonprofit research institute and one of the largest ones in the world at that. Established in 1946, it is based in the US and is said to have brought regional economic development as well as many innovations to various scientific fields (from medicine to tech) through the years.



Why do we talk about it, you may ask. Well, SRI has developed a range of biometric systems it calls Iris on the Move (IOM) and, as the name suggests, they work as portable iris scanning gizmos. Today, the company has announced it has given Samsung an exclusive ...

Surprise! HTC One M9 goes on sale tonight at midnight

Surprise! HTC One M9 goes on sale tonight at midnight:

Remember when HTC America president Jason Mackenzie announced last week that the new HTC One M9 will be released on April 10th? Well, that's not entirely true anymore — but don't worry, the change in launch plans isn't due to any sort of delay. Instead, the opposite is the case: HTC announced on Thursday morning that its flagship One M9 smartphone will become available for purchase on HTC's website beginning tonight at midnight.

Surprise!

Continue reading...

Original enclosures:

bgr-htc-one-m9-1.jpg?w=150

80a3c6c6878b5a8e2f24a079830f0def?s=96&d=identicon&r=G

Rumor resurfaces: Apple to come out with 3 new iPhones in 2015, one of which a 4-incher

Rumor resurfaces: Apple to come out with 3 new iPhones in 2015, one of which a 4-incher:

After initially appearing only to be refuted a bit later by the same source, a rumor that has Apple introducing three whole iPhones in 2015, along which a 4-incher, is now back.

Citing industry sources, DigiTimes claims that the Cupertino-based giant is ready to go ahead and revitalize its one-off 'C' line of iPhones and release a 4-inch iPhone 6C alongside an iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. As most of you will remember, Apple introduced the plastic iPhone 5c in 2013, killing off the aluminum iPhone 5 in the process, much to the dismay of the general public. 

The ...

Xiaomi CEO tells suppliers to prepare well, as the company aims to ship a large amount of smartphones in 2015

Xiaomi CEO tells suppliers to prepare well, as the company aims to ship a large amount of smartphones in 2015:

Xiaomi held a global supplier conference today, where CEO Lei Jun revealed the company's target for shipped smartphones this year – and it's between 80 - 100 million! Just for reference – the official data for 2014 says that Xiaomi shipped 65 million units during that year – no doubt thanks to the huge success of the Mi 3 in India and its lovely Mi 4 successor. Does a jump from 65 million to 100 million sales sound a bit far-fetched? Maybe, but let's not forget that Xiaomi has more than once stated that its willing to push out of the Asian markets and on to global distribution (you can still buy ...

Samsung official says foldable phones possible in 2016

Samsung official says foldable phones possible in 2016:

Samsung and LG have both definitely made great advances in terms of display development – the LG G Flex pioneered the bendable smartphone display tech, while the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge was the first smartphone to have a curved glass. The companies are not done, however, as representatives of both have spoken with Business Korea and revealed possible branches of the display tech that each has been working on.



LG spoke about transparent display tech – something that currently exists for niche applications, such as heads-up displays for aircrafts and luxury vehicles. According to the company, ...

Deja Vu: Report has Samsung and Apple once again finishing 1-2 in smartphone shipments for 2015

Deja Vu: Report has Samsung and Apple once again finishing 1-2 in smartphone shipments for 2015:

A report published on Wednesday predicts that Samsung will wind up on top of the list of top smartphone manufacturers for 2015. The forecast, produced by Digitimes Research, has the company shipping 330 million units this year. With 230 million iPhones expected to be in transit during 2015, Apple is going to place second on the list. According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung and Apple were ranked numbers one and two respectively, in smartphone shipments last year. Samsung shipped 317.2 million units in 2014, while at the same time Apple sent out 192.7 million iPhones.



Lenovo is the first ...

FTC launches a research office devoted to tech issues

FTC launches a research office devoted to tech issues:

You may have noticed that a lot of the Federal Trade Commission's regulation revolves around technology, whether it's device privacy or less-than-honest phone carriers. The agency certainly has. It recently created the Office of Technology Research a...

Lenovo K3 Note with uniquely designed back revealed, expected to sell on the cheap despite great hardware

Lenovo K3 Note with uniquely designed back revealed, expected to sell on the cheap despite great hardware:

A new Lenovo device, released just today in its homeland of China, is shaping up to be quite the competitor in the ultra value segment where local rivals Xiaomi and Meizu currently reign supreme. Dubbed Lenovo K3 Note, the new phablet packs quite the punch for what is a devices costing just ¥899 (~$145).

For that kind of money, you're getting quite a bit in return. The Lenovo K3 Note sports a 5.5-inch display with a sharp resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels (401 ppi), has an octa-core MediaTek MT6752 coupled with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, a 13MP/5MP camera combo, ...

Timely rumor: Apple cuts monthly build of the Apple Watch in half to 1.25 million-1.5 million units

Timely rumor: Apple cuts monthly build of the Apple Watch in half to 1.25 million-1.5 million units:

According to a report issued out of China this morning, Apple's plan to build 2.5 million to 3 million units monthly of the Apple Watch has turned out to be too ambitious a goal. Part of the reason stems from the lower than expected yield seen on the production of the display by LG. Due to the use of plastic instead of glass, manufacturing the plastic OLED screen has been more difficult than hoped with yields approaching a range of 30%-40%.



The report adds that the monthly build target for the smartwatch has been cut in half with Apple now planning on producing 1.25 million to 1.5 million ...

As tablets slow and PCs face ongoing challenges, smartphones to grab ever-larger share of SCD market through 2019, says IDC

As tablets slow and PCs face ongoing challenges, smartphones to grab ever-larger share of SCD market through 2019, says IDC: According to a new forecast from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker, the combined market of smartphones, tablets plus 2-in-1s, and PCs is set to grow from 1.8 billion units in 2014 to 2.5 billion units in 2019. During that time, smartphones will grow to represent the overwhelming majority of total smart connected device (SCD) shipments, dwarfing both tablets and PCs in terms of shipment volumes.

Samsung expected to sell over 50 million Galaxy S6 units this year

Samsung expected to sell over 50 million Galaxy S6 units this year:

Earlier this month, a CitiBank analyst predicted that Samsung would ship 46 million Galaxy S6 smartphones before the end of the year. Now, according to new estimations, the South Korean company may actually sell over 50 million units (obviously including both the S6 and S6 edge models).



The new estimation comes from Taiwan-based market intelligence provider DRAMeXchange / TrendForce. Reportedly, Samsung is expected to sell over 22 million Galaxy S6 handsets in the second quarter of the year (April - June), over 16 million units in the third quarter (July - September), and at least 12 million ...

Digitimes Research: Global smartphone shipments in 2015 to reach 1.401 billion units

Digitimes Research: Global smartphone shipments in 2015 to reach 1.401 billion units: There will be 1.401 billion smartphones shipped globally in 2015, increasing on year by 16.4%, according to Digitimes Research.

Digitime Research: Taiwan on-cell touch panel shipments to see strong growth, yet offer little profit

Digitime Research: Taiwan on-cell touch panel shipments to see strong growth, yet offer little profit: Taiwan panel makers have been aggressively promoting their on-cell touch panels and quotes for a 5-inch HD (1,280 by 720) on-cell touch panel already dropped to about US$10-12 in early 2015, attracting orders from major handset brand vendors and white-box players in China.

Big shake-up: HTC’s Peter Chou out as CEO, replaced by founder Cher Wang

Big shake-up: HTC’s Peter Chou out as CEO, replaced by founder Cher Wang:

Peter Chou has been at the helm of HTC for years, guiding the company as it rose to briefly become the top player in the smartphone market. Unfortunately, he was also guiding the company as sales plummeted over the past few years, forcing the smartphone maker to cut costs and rethink its entire strategy.

Now, Chou's time at the top of the company is no more. HTC announced on Friday morning that Chou is stepping down as CEO, and he will be replaced by chairwoman and company co-founder Cher Wang.

Continue reading...

Original enclosures:

htc-sign-peter-chou.jpg?w=150

80a3c6c6878b5a8e2f24a079830f0def?s=96&d=identicon&r=G

China February mobile phone user base reaches 1.289 billion, says MIIT

China February mobile phone user base reaches 1.289 billion, says MIIT: There were 1.289 billion subscribers of mobile communication services in China as of the end of February 2015, slipping by 0.08% on month but growing by 4.01% on year, and 485.51 million (37.65%) of them were 3G users and 883.40 million (68.51%) were mobile Internet-access users, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

More touchscreen notebook offerings expected in 2015, as panel pricing drops

More touchscreen notebook offerings expected in 2015, as panel pricing drops: According to upstream providers of touch panels, developments in the processing of on-cell TFT LCD panels is allowing makers to reduce their costs, which has caught the attention of notebook vendors and may lead to an increased variety of touchscreen notebook offerings later this year.

Large-area TFT LCD panel shipments expected to reach 729.5 million in 2015, says DisplaySearch

Large-area TFT LCD panel shipments expected to reach 729.5 million in 2015, says DisplaySearch: Panel makers are projecting that large-size TFT LCD shipments in 2015 are expected to grow 1% on year, reaching 729.5 million units. Market penetration for Ultra HD (4K) TVs is forecast to double to over 40 million units, 15% of total TFT LCD TV shipments. This trend will drive continued strong 2015 panel revenues and panel area on-year growth of 6% and 8%, respectively, according to findings from DisplaySearch.

China handset solution market to become more volatile in 2015

China handset solution market to become more volatile in 2015: The competition in China's smartphone chipset solution market is likely to become a fierce race among three or four major players in 2015 as compared to a tug-of-war between Qualcomm and MediaTek staged in 2014, according to industry sources.

Why Don't We All Just Stop Staring At Each Other's Screens?

Why Don't We All Just Stop Staring At Each Other's Screens?:

One of the more annoying things about public transportation is that you can rarely maintain any sense of privacy when using your gadgets. It can be maddening when you have to work or communicate and someone keeps looking at your notebook's screen.

Read more...