Even though they are still a month from release, the new Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon have set the record for most pre-ordered game in Nintendo history.
In addition, the demo of the game is the most downloaded 3DS demo, ever, as well.
The games are set for launch on November 18th in NA and November 23rd in the EU.
Sony has announced three new PS4 bundles for the EU market, each including Uncharted 4 and a 1TB HDD.
The first bundle includes the critically acclaimed titles Driveclub and The Last of Us: Remastered. The second is aimed more at kids and family and includes a 1TB PS4, Uncharted 4, Driveclub and Ratchet & Clank.
Finally, and what I assume will be the most popular of the bundles, "combines adventure, gothic horror and sci-fi exploration with our bundle that offers a 1TB PlayStation, Uncharted 4, Bloodborne Game of the Year Edition and No Man's Sky." That bundle also comes with an in-ear headset.
Apple has announced it will begin selling LG displays for their power users, including 4K and 5K models.
The company discontinued its Thunderbolt Display earlier this year, effectively leaving the external monitor business. Apple will now partner with LG and co-market the displays, giving it a stamp of approval for use with Mac products.
Apple will have retail exclusivity for the two UltraFine displays, at least to start. The 21.5-inch 4K model is available for $700, and the 27-inch 5K model will go on sale in December for $1,300. Both will work with the newly announced MacBook Pros, using a single USB-C cable for power, data and video.
Just a few months after bookseller Barnes & Noble shut down their own Nook App Store, the company appears to be readying a new device that has access to the Google Play Store.
The new Nook has just passed through the FCC and is codename "Nook Tablet 7," and the FCC posting makes it clear that the new tab will run Android including access to the Google Play Store, allowing for the download of a billion apps.
Apple has raised the price of their entire Mac line in the UK, citing the falling value of the pound following the surprise Brexit vote this summer.
For example, the 2015 edition 13-inch Macbook Air is now Ł949, up from Ł849 last week, despite not being updated. More significantly, the older model MacBook Pros w/ Retina all saw increases of Ł300, despite Apple launching new models to replace them and the Mac Pro, which was last updated in 2013, saw a price increase of Ł500, from Ł2,499 to Ł2,999, an outrageous figure for the old computer.
Says Apple: "Apple suggests product prices internationally on the basis of several factors, including currency exchange rates, local import laws, business practices, taxes, and the cost of doing business. These factors vary from region to region and over time, such that international prices are not always comparable to US suggested retail prices."
A London employment tribunal has ruled that Uber drivers will be classified as employees rather than self-employed in England and Wales, thus entitling them to holiday pay, a national minimum wage, and paid breaks.
Uber says it will appeal the decision that could affect 40,000 drivers. In all nations where it operates, Uber considers its drivers as self-employed contractors rather than employees.
The GMB Union brought the case claiming that "the notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common 'platform' is to our mind faintly ridiculous."
For now, the decision only affects two drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, who successfully argued that Uber controlled their actions, and they should have basic workers' rights.
Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox browser, has announced the start of "Project Quantum," an effort to accelerate browsing speeds using Firefox.
"We are striving for performance gains from Quantum that will be so noticeable that your entire web experience will feel different," said David Bryant, Mozilla's head of platform engineering. "Pages will load faster, and scrolling will be silky smooth. Animations and interactive apps will respond instantly, and be able to handle more intensive content while holding consistent frame rates. And the content most important to you will automatically get the highest priority, focusing processing power where you need it the most."
Quantum will use Firefox's current Gecko engine as its base, but will also take features of the company's experimental Servo browser engine. The first updates will launch in the first half of 2017, adds Bryant, who also says Android devices will see better performance and lower power consumption, a win-win for battery-life-conscious consumers. "We do think Project Quantum will be especially significant on mobile, as for example best use of available hardware can have considerable potential benefits for battery life," Bryant added.
Thanks to sluggish sales of the flagship G5 smartphone, LG Mobile had its worse loss ever, a loss so bad it destroyed the company's overall profits.
The division took a loss of $389.4 million for the Q3 2016, its worst quarter since the Great Recession. The division has not been profitable since the Q4 2014.
Overall profits for LG fell 61 percent due to the mobile division, to $252.7 million.
Is it time for LG to step out of the mobile business? Motorola, HTC, Sony and BlackBerry all learned that hard way that there are really just a few players that can compete.
Apple unveiled this week the next generation MacBook Pro. As you might imagine it is more smaller, thinner, lighter and more powerful than ever before. It also has one completely new feature, the Touch Bar.
Apple celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first notebook by releasing a new MacBook. The new MacBook Pro comes in 13-inch and 15-inch variants with lots of customizability as expected. One thing that separates the cheapest 13-inch version from the other is that there is no Touch Bar in it.
But what is Touch Bar? The Apple's new groundbreaking feature is a touch screen above the updated keyboard with new flatter butterfly mechanism keys. The Touch Bar replaces the old function keys – which are still available on the Touch Bar by pressing the function button – and shows different functionality depending on the application and even inside the applications.
For example, in Safari the Touch Bar can show bookmarks, open tabs or quick links to most used features. In Mail app the Touch Bar shows for example CC suggestions or autocomplete depending what you are doing. The software developers can obviously use Touch Bar in their own way to make the application more intuitive.
Sony streaming IPTV service, PlayStation Vue, is now available on Android TV.
The service will be available on all devices that use the Android TV platform, including smart TVs and set-top boxes.
PlayStation Vue offers 55 to 100 channels for $30 to $75 per month.
With the new announcement, PlayStation Vue is now available on the PlayStation 3 and 4, iOS, Android, Android TV, Roku, Fire TV and Chromecast.
Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima has teased that there is a lot more to come with the Switch console, suggesting that the tablet and Joy-Con controllers are part of something much larger.
"By no means was that everything," Kimishima said about their unveiling event from last week. "It may be appropriate to call them accessories. Or it might be better to call them add-on hardware. It's probably more correct to call them accessories. You can assume that there will be a wider array."
It will be interesting to see what the company has in store, and we should know everything on January 13th during their special event. "What we haven't shown you yet is the software lineup," added Kimishima. "When we make new hardware, how it works with our software is critical. This is what we weren't able to show. We want people to touch the device in January and experience the software for themselves."
Sony has announced two officially licensed pro controllers coming for the PS4 this year; the Razer Raiju and Nacon Revolution.
Says Sony: "To give our competitive and pro players more choice, we invited Razer and Nacon to use their knowledge and expertise in developing eSports peripherals to design two unique pro controllers for PS4.
Through close collaboration we've been able to help optimize each controller for PS4 – incorporating innovative Dualshock 4 controls and ensuring gamers can enjoy a plug & play experience with any model of PS4."
The Raiju:
Twitter has pulled the chord on Vine today, shutting down the popular video clip sharing service.
Reads the company's press release:
"Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we'll be discontinuing the mobile app.
Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You'll be able to access and download your Vines. We'll be keeping the website online because we think it's important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.
Thank you. Thank you. To all the creators out there -- thank you for taking a chance on this app back in the day. To the many team members over the years who made this what it was -- thank you for your contributions. And of course, thank you to all of those who came to watch and laugh every day.
What's next? We'll be working closely with creators to make sure your questions are answered and will work hard to do this the right way. We'll be sharing more details on this blog and our Twitter account, and will notify you through the app when we start to change things."
Samsung has announced that operating profit fell 30 percent in the most recent quarter to 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion), its lowest profit since 2014.
The dip is thanks to the recall and subsequent discontinuation of the Galaxy Note7 after hundreds of the devices literally exploded thanks to faulty batteries.
Samsung said the company would now focus on "expanding sales of new flagship products... as well as regaining consumers' confidence," before the launch of the Galaxy S8 early next year.
Over 7 million of the Note7 have been recalled, with millions more still out there.
Thanks to new component analysis from IHS, we can now estimate what it costs Google to build their new Pixel XL smartphone.
The firm says the XL with 32GB of internal storage has a total materials and manufacturing build of $285.75. The phone has a retail price of $769, suggesting a gross margin of $483.25 per unit.
Of course, IHS does not take into account R&D and other costs but no matter what, Google is making significant numbers for every Pixel sold. Indeed, according to teardowns of the latest Apple products, the gross margins by Google are even higher.
"Google is getting the same pricing for the same components as other tier one manufacturers of phones," said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking for IHS Markit. "They have as much pull as any of the big guys." That may be true in certain respects, but it is highly unlikely that Google can get the same pricing as Apple, a company that sells over 120 million units per year. Google has never released Nexus data, but it has been suggested that they have sold less than 50 million total Nexus devices since launch in 2009.
Most of Google's XL costs come from the 5.5-inch AMOLED QHD display at $58 per unit and the Snapdragon SoC at $50.
Daily deals site Groupon has acquired its one-time rival LivingSocial for an amount it called "not material," suggesting the company paid very little for the company that was once worth a billion.
Investors were not happy with the move, however, as the company's stock fell 19 percent following the news.
"We are happy to have them join us on our mission to build a daily habit in local commerce," Groupon CEO Rich Williams said. The company will take on LivingSocial's 200 employees.
In 2010, at its peak, LivingSocial had a valuation of somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion and Amazon even invested $175 million in the company. However, by 2012, Amazon had written down its entire investment and stopped marketing for the company.
Groupon says the deal will bring 1 million customers over and could bring $15 million in additional revenue per quarter.
Alongside the new Surface Studio, Microsoft also unveiled an updated Surface Book notebook yesterday, one that offers incredible battery life and graphics performance.
The Surface Book, when it was first released last year, reflected one of the most innovative pieces of hardware we've seen out of the Windows camp in quite some time, but the price was and remains out of the realm of those looking for a casual laptop.
In the 2016 "Performance Base" model, Microsoft has used the same 13.5"PixelSense Display (3000 x 2000 (267 PPI) resolution), upgraded the Intel Core i7 processor to the latest generation and pumped up the GPU to a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M with 2GB GDDR5 memory.
Best of all, Microsoft now promises 16 hours of battery life, an unheard of figure, compared to the 12 hours of its predecessor.
Starting with 256GB of internal storage, the new Surface Book is priced at $2399 and goes up from there. Pre-orders start now for shipment on November 10th.
According to a new report, Snapchat will seek to raise up to $4 billion in its 2017 initial public offering (IPO), giving the company a value as high as $35 billion.
The company currently has revenue of less than $1 billion but has hundreds of millions of active users. The company had a private market value of $18 billion as of earlier this year.
Snapchat, now known as Snap Inc., has ramped up its revenue in the past year, aiming for $350 million in ad revenue for 2016 up from $59 million last year. The company also allows partners to create mini mobile magazines, which can sell products.
Microsoft unveiled a new ergonomic keyboard yesterday at their special event, a wireless device for Surface fans.
The company says a pair of AAA will power the keyboard for a year and part of the ergonomics includes a double-cushioned Alcantara palm rest for comfort on your hands and wrists.
In addition to the ergo keyboard, the company also released a backlit, minimalist "Surface Keyboard" that takes up less space. You can even get a version of the Surface Keyboard with a fingerprint reader.
All of the items ship November 10th, with pre-orders starting today. The base Surface model is $100 and the ergonomic is $130.
Microsoft used their special event yesterday to unveil a handful of new products and features, with the most promising being the Surface Studio all-in-one PC.
The PC has a 28-inch PixelSense display (4500 x 3000 (192 DPI)), a 3:2 display ratio, 6th gen Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, up to a 2TB HD/SSD combo, up to 32GB RAM and up to a 4GB GeForce GPU. The AIO also has integrated 2.1 speakers, a flexible hinge that allows you to draw and video edit more easily, and has a haptic feedback controller device.
For ports, the Studio has four USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, Audio, SD, Mini DisplayPort. Microsoft also promises the display is the thinnest ever in an AIO.
With its incredible specs and form factor comes an astronomical price -$2999 for the base model and up to $4200 for the top model.
BlackBerry has unveiled their latest "secure" Android phone, the DTEK60, following up on this year's mid-range DTEK50.
The phone is available unlocked for $499 and is built by China's TCL with a very basic but nice metal-framed, dual-glass panel design.
At launch, the DTEK60 will have Android 6.0, a BlackBerry-secured bootloader, Hardware Root of Trust, a DTEK app and the promise of lightning fast security patches. BlackBerry has also included their HUB, Calendar and Keyboard productivity apps.
The smartphone has a QuadHD resolution, 5.5-inch display, is powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor, a 3000mAh battery with QuickCharge 3.0, a 21MP rear camera, a backside fingerprint scanner and a new USB-C port.
Earlier this year BlackBerry got out of the hardware business and now licenses its brand and apps to other manufacturers. The company also said it is not looking to the average consumer but rather to corporate and government buyers.
Nintendo shocked the gaming community earlier this month when they unveiled the Switch, a console/tablet hybrid that has AAA publisher support.
The gaming company has now announced a new "Nintendo Switch Presentation" in Tokyo on January 12th, where the company will unveil price, release date and launch games.
We know for sure that the system will launch in March but there has been little other info revealed to date.
Struggling social media company Twitter is preparing to fire hundreds of more employees after they failed to sell themselves in the past few weeks.
Twitter could lay off about 300 employees, equivalent to 8 percent of their total workforce
The layoffs are likely to be officially announced during Twitter's earnings report tomorrow and it will be interesting to see from what divisions the layoffs are coming.
Twitter is actively trying to sell itself but the price appears to be too expensive as Disney, Salesforce, Google and Apple have all inquired but then stepped away.
AT&T has announced a streaming TV package, DirecTV Now, for just $35 per month.
The service will have over 100 channels and includes unlimited mobile data on AT&T when using the service. DirecTV Now significantly undercuts rival services and is certainly cheaper than similar cable or satellite alternatives. For example, Sony's Vue service is $55 for 100 channels and Dish's Sling TV has just 50 channels for $40.
It is unclear what the channel catalog will look like, but AT&T said there will be channels from Time Warner, NBCUniversal, Fox and Disney.
AT&T recently bid $85 billion for Time Warner Inc., looking to create a massive ecosystem of wireless, broadband, satellite and media properties.
Pokemon Go fans will be getting a treat this year from developer Niantic, with extra Candies and more sightings of ghost Pokes.
Reads the press release: "Halloween is here, and Pokémon GO has its own treats to give out! Starting October 26 and lasting through November 1, you can receive way more Candies than usual. Every Pokémon you catch will award six Candies--twice the normal amount. The Professor will give you two Candies instead of one for every Pokémon you transfer to him. And your Buddy Pokémon will award Candy four times faster than they usually do. Plus, you'll get twice the Candy you'd normally get when you hatch Eggs. Walk and catch all the Pokémon you can to get your fill of Candy during this special event!"
Some spooky Pokémon will also be much more common leading up to Halloween. Be on the lookout for more of the following Pokémon on your trick-or-treat route:
Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi has unveiled their new Mi Mix smartphone, quite easily the best-looking device released in 2016.
The phone, developed with product design genius Phillippe Starck, has a 6.4-inch edgeless body, meaning no bezels on three sides. Additionally, the body is made entirely of ceramic, giving it a premium feel unlike other devices on the market.
Because of its bezel-less design, the Mi Mix has a screen-to-body ratio of 91.3 percent, crushing the iPhone 7 at 67.7 percent and even the Pixel XL at 71.2 percent. To get such a high level, Xiaomi got rid of the physical earpiece speaker and sensors that most smartphones employ, going with a piezoelectric ceramic driver for the speaker instead and an ultrasonic proximity sensor, both of which are behind the glass.
Of course, such a screen comes with a caveat; the selfie camera. The module has been moved to the bottom half of the device, meaning it will take a little getting used to.
Google has announced new strategic partnerships with Visa and Mastercard, bringing Android Pay to thousands of stores that accepted Masterpass or Visa Checkout.
Says the search giant: "Android Pay users will soon be able to pay on hundreds of thousands of new sites where Visa Checkout or Masterpass are accepted using their preferred device authentication method - like fingerprint recognition. No longer will users have to remember multiple usernames and passwords in order to checkout, saving them time and hassle."
Users of either wallet can link their accounts to Android Pay starting early next year and merchants that have enabled Visa Checkout or Masterpass will not have to do any maintenance as the payment buttons will update automatically.
The popular Facebook Messenger service will be adding PayPal payment support in the coming weeks, an expansion to the current debit card payment option.
Facebook Messenger has 1 billion users, so PayPal has huge potential in working with the tech giant. The company recently signed partnerships with MasterCard, Visa, Vodafone, and Alibaba, as well.
For now, the PayPal functionality is only available to some users in the U.S., but that will expand over time.
"This collaboration continues to showcase our march to be a customer champion," says Bill Ready, EVP and chief operating officer at PayPal. "We will continue to execute on our vision of offering PayPal in more places where people shop online, in app and in store by partnering with companies who share our desire to create meaningful products that benefit both consumers and merchants."
WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app across various platforms, is rolling out video call support although it is unclear how long it will be until everyone gets the option.
For the time being, Android users are receiving the new feature if you have the latest update or if you have any of the latest betas.
If the person you are calling doesn't yet have the feature, the call will be converted to a voice call on their end.
For those that are desperate to get the update before their time, it appears that if you wipe the app data and log in again fresh, it helps with getting the video calling working.
According to the most recent IDC report, smartwatch sales hit significant "growing pains" during the Q3 2016, showing a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 51 percent.
Total smartwatch volumes fell to 2.7 million units, including a massive drop from 3.9m to 1.1m units for the market leading Apple Watch. Garmin was the only company in the industry to show any type of growth, shipping 600,000 units for the quarter, up 324 percent YoY.
The five-year-old online consumer guide The Wirecutter is being acquired by The New York Times for $30 million.
Wirecutter was founded by Brian Lam, formerly of Gizmodo, and Lam has funded the company and its growth ever since.
The site has a simple premise; provide "Best of" lists that have been meticulously researched by editors that actually have experience using the products. For example, the homepage of the site today has a feature on "The Best Standing Desks." The company makes money off affiliate links.
Samsung has announced an upgrade program for South Korean customers who purchased a Galaxy Note7 and traded it in for a Galaxy S7.
If you traded in your exploding Note7 you can trade up to a Galaxy S8 or Note8 next year through a special upgrade program. You will only have to pay half the price of the S7 to upgrade to the S8 or Note8, marking a pretty significant discount.
For now, the program is only in Korea but could be extended to other markets, added the company.
Samsung has been offering pretty extensive incentives to keep customers happy although it is expected that 7 million will leave the Samsung ecosystem following the debacle.
Chinese tech company Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology has confirmed that its products were involved in the massive DDoS attack that took down major sites in the U.S. on Friday.
The company sells DVRs and IoT cameras and admits that security vulnerabilities in the devices, including weak default passwords, led to many of the devices becoming part of the massive botnet.
"Mirai is a huge disaster for the Internet of Things," Xiongmai said. "(We) have to admit that our products also suffered from hacker's break-in and illegal use." Mirai, of course, is the infamous malware that attacks IoT devices like cameras, DVRs, smart TVs and even refrigerators, which normally have little to no security.
Mirai has been found in over 500,000 devices, but that appears to be just a small portion of the attack on DNS service provider Dyn, who said they observed millions of discrete IP addresses. Surely, the attack on Friday was the largest in history, surpassing the 665 Gbps of traffic that was used to take down the site of cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs last month.
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on CNBC yesterday reminiscing about the time the company bid for Facebook in 2010.
Ballmer says the company offered $24 billion to buy Facebook in 2010, about two years before it went public at a valuation of $100 billion.
Quite obviously, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined the offer outright, even though he would have netted $7 billion or so from the deal. Facebook's growth and ambitions were too large for the company to be taken over at the time, and Ballmer says he respected the decision.
As of writing, Facebook is one of the largest companies on the planet with a market valuation of $380 billion.
AT&T, fresh off their massive $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV, has now offered $85 billion to purchase Time Warner Inc.
The deal, which would be one of the largest in history, would give the massive telecom company the movie studio Warner Bros, TV channels like HBO and TNT and a plethora of other media assets like a stake in Hulu.
AT&T offers wireless and broadband services, as well as satellite TV services now thanks to DirecTV.
It is unclear how the company will pay for the acquisition. AT&T currently has $7.2 billion in cash and $120 billion in debt so it will likely have to line up expensive financing to pay for this deal. There are also regulatory questions given AT&T's size and the chance for monopoly.
Time Warner's board would also have to approve the acquisiton which is not a given since the company rejected an $80 billion bid from rival Fox in 2014.
Major chip producer Qualcomm has agreed to purchase NXP Semiconductors for $110 per share, or $35 billion.
The acquisition would be the largest in the history of the industry and shows the desperate need in the industry to merge to stay relevant and create growth.
Qualcomm is the largest smartphone chipmaker but smartphone sales growth has stalled in many developed nations. NXP is the largest semi for other devices, including chips required for cars. NXP also manufactures themselves, unlike Qualcomm, which could bring manufacturing expertise in-house.
Because NXP is based in the Netherlands, Qualcomm can likely use a good portion of their $30 billion cash hoard (most of which is kept overseas for better tax rates) to make the purchase.
Didi Chuxing, the popular Chinese ride-hailing company, is looking to expand outside of its home country.
"We're definitely going global," said Jean Liu, Didi's president. "We're a big sponsor and a big believer in local players. If there are no existing local players, we'll go there by ourselves. We will play a global game."
The company services 20 million rides per day in China. "If you look at this industry globally, it's in the infancy stage," added Liu.
Didi recently acquired Uber's China operations and is also an investor in rival Lyft.
Earlier this week, Nintendo unveiled the Switch console (codenamed NX), an interesting tablet/console hybrid that includes a new type of controller called the Joy-Con.
We now have a little more information about the console's guts, which include a custom Tegra processor from NVIDIA.
The Tegra is notable because it is an extremely powerful mobile SoC that combines both the CPU and GPU in one and the SoC has been used to great success in the NVIDIA Shield tablet.
NVIDIA also confirmed that developers will use ARM this time around (standard compared to previous Wii and Wii U) but the company says there will be custom software, APIs, tools, and a new Nintendo OS so it does not appear cross-platform options are in the cards just yet.
Hardcore gamers will likely stick to the PS4 and Xbox One and their powerful, custom AMD processors but Nintendo seems to be aiming for those who want to take their consoles on-the-go.
According to a new Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) report, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus accounted for 43 percent of all iPhone sales for the Q3 2016, despite only being available for two weeks before the quarter ended.
The company's research showed that 31 percent of all sales were the iPhone 7 and 12 percent were the dual-camera-packing iPhone 7 Plus.
CIRP says the percentages are high enough to describe the situation as 'a positive reception for the new 7 and 7 Plus models.'
Unsurprisingly, 36 percent of all sales came from iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners but more surprisingly a large 17 percent came from last year's iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.
Apple is slated to report earnings this week and it will be interesting to see how popular the devices truly are.
LeEco, "the Netflix of China," has announced a new U.S. streaming video service this week, marking the latest entrance into a crowded industry.
The company also unveiled an impressive number of partners including MGM, Lionsgate, Vice, Showtime, Sling, Machima, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Food Network and more.
Unfortunately, the company did not unveil too much about the service itself (or how it will manifest) but it is expected to at least be available via Vizio smart TVs (LeEco bought Vizio last year).
Although it is unclear what content will make it to the service, there is a good chance they will have one exclusive; the Matt Damon-powered The Great Wall which was produced by LeEco.
Google's previously announced pop-up shop in lower New York City is now open, giving consumers a chance to check out new Google hardware before buying.
The search giant is prominently demoing the new Pixel smartphones, the Daydream VR headset and the Google Home voice-assisted smart home companion.
Strangely, the shop will not have any inventory for sale, so after you test out the products (or just learn more) you will still have to buy them online or at other retailers.
What's cool about the shop is how Google set up different areas to truly test out the devices. The company re-created a living room so you can test out the Google Home, for example, and an interesting lighting installation that allows to test out low-light photos with the Pixel.
For those in the area, the pop-up shop is open Monday–Sunday from 10AM to 8PM at 96 Spring Street.
According to Microsoft's latest earnings report, the company's Surface business is booming, with growth that far outpaces other tablet and computer makers.
Revenue for the company's Surface products jumped 38 percent year-over-year, with revenue at $926 million for the quarter.
The boost for the quarter came via the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4, two products that are critically well received and have been given a large marketing budget. Microsoft is expected to launch a new Surface all-in-one next week at a special event, with perhaps a glimpse at future Surface tablets.
Source:
Microsoft
Kodak has revealed their second smartphone, a device that is more camera than it is phone.
Dubbed "The Ektra," the phone has inspiration from the company's classic 1940s Ektra camera and has a powerful and feature-rich 21MP shooter.
The phone has a steel-rimmed f/2.0 aperture 26.5mm lens for the 21MP camera, including 4K video capture and a powerful Sony IMX230 image sensor. From a design standpoint, the Ektra has a curved bottom, a leather back for easier grip and a dedicated camera shutter button.
Kodak used Bullitt to build the device, which runs on a mostly stock Android 6.0 and runs on a Helio X-20 deca-core processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and a 3000mAh battery. The device also has a 1080p 5-inch screen, a 13MP selfie camera and can take microSD cards. The specs are certainly above mid-range but are nothing to write home about.
It will be interesting to see the kind of buyers that Kodak lines up for this type of device, especially at 500 euro when it launches in December.
LinkedIn has said this week that a Russian hacker recently arrested in the Czech Republic took part in the 2012 data breach of the professional social network that led to the theft of over 115 million passwords.
"Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI's case to pursue those responsible," company officials said. "We are thankful for the hard work and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity."
The man was arrested in Prague on Tuesday and accused of unspecified cyber attacks on U.S. companies.
Here is a video of the raid:
Nintendo has finally pulled back the curtain on the mysterious "NX" console, known officially as the Nintendo Switch.
The gaming company unveiled a "Preview Trailer" today showing off the console/tablet hybrid that has two detachable, one-handed controllers (Joy-Cons) that "can be employed by numerous people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily click back into place or be slipped into a Joy-Con Grip accessory, mirroring a more traditional controller."
If you aren't a fan of the Joy-Con you can use a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller that looks similar to a traditional Xbox or other dual-analog controller.
The tablet connects to a TV via a dock, and can slide out easily when you want to take gaming on the go. "In addition to providing single and multiplayer thrills at home, the Nintendo Switch system also enables gamers to play the same title wherever, whenever and with whomever they choose," Nintendo added. "The mobility of a handheld is now added to the power of a home gaming system to enable unprecedented new video game play styles."
Perhaps most importantly, Nintendo announced major third-party support, includingSquare Enix, Sega, Konami, Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Take-Two, Warner Bros. and EA. This is a stark contrast to the Wii U which died after game publishers stopped supporting the console.
Tesla has been sneaking in autonomous driving feature to its cars for a while now. Depending on the model and what options you choose a Tesla car might already have a capability for fully autonomous driving.
In addition, Tesla has recently announced that all upcoming cars will be given the new autopilot mode that will enable fully automatic driving from start to finish. Now Elon Musk and the Tesla team has released a video showcasing what to expect from future autopilot.
In this impressive video the car drives completely without any aid from the passenger from the garage it starts to the parking spot it ends up picking at Tesla HQ. It even drops off the passenger before continuing the search for a free spot and doesn't choose the vacant spot meant for the handicapped.
It seems clear that this is what the future of transportation will be – at least when it comes to personal transportation. Soon you don't even have to pay the very premium price of the car in question (Model X starting at $74,000 and going as high as $150,000). Even the more affordable Model 3 (starting at $35,000) launching next year will have this feature.
The mobile industry's own trade show in Barcelona packs the most influential manufacturer's and developers every year but there's always at least one major name missing every year – Apple. The Cupertino giant has never attended the show, at least not with their own booth, but this is about to change, reports suggest.
According to a leak published by MacRumors Apple is listed as an exhibitor for he next years Mobile World Congress. Held in Feb 27 through March 2, the MWC 2017 seems to be the first trade show Apple is willing to give a pass in a long while.
After the information came public Apple's name was removed from the exhibitors list. It is unlikely however that this was a mistake or that Apple cancelled after the information was leaked to the public. It probably was intended as a surprise that unfortunately for the company didn't last because of a human (or computer) error.
The listing has it that Apple would be located in the App Planet in Hall 8.1 which suggests that we might hear more about the Planet of Apps television series and/or App Store updates. It's unlikely that we'll see any major product launches (or maybe an iPad?), as even most of the other manufacturers have decreased the number of significant launches at MWC.
Netflix has been steadily increasing their investment in original content, often dubbed Netflix Originals, and other exclusive programming. This year the company expects over 600 hours of original programming but even that is nothing compared to what's planned for 2017.
The streaming giant's execs have previously said that they aim to have original programming count for half of the new content. Next year they are going to get close to the goal by featuring more than a thousand hours of exclusive content.
In just two years Netflix would have increased the amount of said content from 450 hours to over 1000 hours. That is over 40 straight days worth of shows, documentaries, animations, and movies. Pretty much anyone that has seen the likes of Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, as well as the newest critically-acclaimed show Stranger Things would agree that new original content is a good thing – maybe even if the price increases a dollar or two.
Samsung's fiasco with the Note7 reached new heights when couple days ago US Department of Transportation banned all Note7s from all flights. Now it is illegal to carry a Samsung Galaxy Note7 to an airplane whether it is on or off.
The smartphone has a battery problem which can result in a fire which is obviously a huge hazard in a plane. Washington Post reports that Samsung is now setting up booths at airports to get more defect phones off the market and make sure people won't be fined for taking a prohibited item on board.
Samsung will be helping customers that still haven't returned their Galaxy Note7 even after two recalls and tons of media coverage. Samsung had to cancel the smartphone model's production and sales altogether after failing to relaunch late last month.
The booth are located before the TSA security screening and offer to copy your data to a new phone. Unfortunately Samsung probably won't be offer replacements from other manufacturers so you might have to choose a Galaxy S7 to enter your flight. Then again there are far worse options than the S7.
According to longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, the Cupertino giant will be a huge beneficiary of the Galaxy Note7 explosion-gate, gaining as many as 7 million switchers.
For those who haven't been following, Samsung's new Galaxy Note7 had faulty wiring and batteries that caused the phone to literally explode, and the company has issued a recall for over 12 million devices and frozen production for the time being. All carriers have also offered full refunds and free exchanges for any consumer with the device.
Kuo estimates that up to 7 million Note7 buyers will eventually convert to iPhone 7 sales, with the majority moving to the iPHone 7 Plus due to its size and dual cameras.
Of course, it is impossible to predict the future and Google's new Pixel devices could take some of switchers, but we won't know for sure until each of the companies report earnings next quarter.
THX, the AV quality assurance company founded as part of Lucasfilm, has been acquired by gaming hardware company Razer.
According to Razer, the brand THX will be "spun out as a startup" (despite being 33-years-old) and run independently under its current management team but with capitalization from Razer.
THX was founded in 1983 and has been sold multiple times including a purchase in 2002 by Creative Technology at a valuation of $13 million directly from Lucasfilm. The company currently has 50 employees including a few top audio and graphics engineers and scientists in their fields.
"We've been fans of THX for a long time, from the time of the Star Wars legacy and how George Lucas created it," added Razer. "THX has one of the biggest brands when it comes to movies or music. Audio files, films, we think of the THX brand in audio as akin to what Razer is in gaming." Additionally, the company has a large library of patents and IP in the AV space, which Razer hopes to implement. "There is a lot of potential to extend it into newer areas that interest us, like virtual reality and live streaming," they concluded.
After nearly a year of mediocre earnings, Netflix is back to massive growth and it's stock price is flying.
The company's shares jumped 20 percent today following earnings in which the company revealed strong subscriber growth.
Netflix added 3.2 million international subscribers, and 370,000 domestic subscribers with a total base now up to 86.7 million. The expectation had been for 2 million international additions and 304,000 domestic.
"Our over-performance against forecast was driven primarily by stronger than expected acquisition due to excitement around Netflix original content," the company added.
Netflix has been spending billions to bring original content to the service, and it appears to be paying off.
Google's flight search service Google Flights just got a little better, adding predictive pricing allowing you to see if you should wait to buy those tickets.
The service now tells you when prices are expected to increase (based on historical patterns), tracks price changes to flights you are tracking and lets you search for cheap destinations based on your criteria.
Hopper, a small but popular startup available on Android and iOS, has been offering similar predictive pricing since launch last year. Google Flights may prove to be more popular given that it works on mobile and desktop.
In addition, Google says it is updating its Hotels service, as well.
Following in the footsteps of their new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, reports claim that Google is set to release two homemade smartwatches in the Q1 of next year.
Codenamed "Swordfish" and "Angelfish," the devices will be special due to being Google Assistant-enabled.
Evan Blass aka Evleaks has a couple of renders of the devices, which look pretty plain, but the features are expected to be robust (at least for the Angelfish). Rumored specs include LTE connectivity, GPS, heart rate sensor, Google Assistant and Android Wear 2.0 which is expected to support standalone apps.
Check out the renders:
Facebook's Oculus VR has acquired low-powered LED maker InfiniLED with the ultimate goal of using the tech in their virtual reality headsets.
The Irish company was founded in 2010 and is known for their ILED Display technology that "outperforms widely available standard display technologies, resulting in significant reductions in power use."
According to the company, InfiniLED displays use 20x less power than a standard OLED and 40x less than the average LCD, with the ability to produce more light with better contrast and better colors.
"It is exciting to see that Oculus, a vibrant and leading-edge company, appreciates both the technology and the strength of the ecosystem that the InfiniLED team sits in," said Tyndall National Institute chief executive Dr. Kieran Drain. "A key impact of this acquisition will be to increase global awareness that Ireland has technology and research of this calibre, and we anticipate further interactions with companies looking to merge hardware and software in efficient solutions, particularly for new devices that advance consumer electronics and the industrial internet."
In a span of just two weeks, Twitter went from the hottest commodity in the tech space to a company that nobody wants to buy.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was the most recent executive to drop his company out of the Twitter acquisition pool, leaving nobody left. Other suitors, including Google, Apple and Disney all declined to move past the due diligence stage in the last week.
"In this case we've walked away. It wasn't the right fit for us," said Benioff.
Twitter's board and advisors are still looking for potential bidders, but investors don't appear to see anything on the horizon; Twitter's stock has fallen 34 percent in the last week.
The Oscar-winning Coen brothers have been tasked with writing a new movie called "Dark Web" based on Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.
Ulbricht, operating under the handle "Dread Pirate Roberts," created the Silk Road darknet marketplace in 2010 and it became the premier destination for drug dealers (or worse) looking to break the law online anonymously. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in the marketplace and Ulbricht became a millionaire, as well.
After his arrest, millions in Bitcoins were seized and eventually Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking, money laundering and even for paying assassins (although nobody got killed).
No doubt, with the Coens writing a screenplay based on a story that has so much intrigue, we could have a great movie coming next year.
Samsung has announced this week that they expect a $3 billion loss due to the Galaxy Note7 recall, a huge monetary damage in addition to the company's ongoing reputational damage.
In the past month, the company has been mired in the scandal of the exploding Note7's, and the devices have even been banned on planes by the US Department of Transportation.
Here is the Samsung statement:
Valve has confirmed that you will soon be able to use DualShock 4 controllers to play games on Steam.
An upcoming Steam update will "add full configurability to controllers other than the Steam controller," starting with the popular PlayStation controller.
Using the controller is "exactly the same as a Steam Controller. You make the exact same API calls, you only get actions, not inputs, and the Steam API takes care of everything."
"It's also got a gyro and a touchpad, so it's got a lot of overlapping functionality with the Steam Controller," adds Jeff Bellinghausen of Valve "Also, existing native support for the PS4 controller on the PC is a bit weak; in this case Steam itself is communicating directly with the device so everything [is] nice and reliable."
Support for other controllers is on the way, as well, adds the company.
Following a high-profile report published last week detailing a struggling BitTorrent, the company has come out swinging to deny some of the tales.
In their report, Variety claimed that the company's BitTorrent Now streaming project was dead in the water and the company's co-CEOs had been fired.
BitTorrent has corrected much of the report this weekend, saying that just CEO Robert Delamar has left the company, leaving Jeremy Johnson alone as CEO for the time being. The company also denied that BitTorrent Now was shutting down, saying instead that they "remain focused on the media space."
"There have been no changes to our platforms" at this time, added the company. The company also confirmed that their music initiatives have been bleeding money for some time.
The picture certainly isn't rosy over at BitTorrent, but it does not appear to be as bad as last week's report suggests.
Almost a month after Yahoo disclosed a massive breach of their email data, it appears that the company's would-be buyer Verizon is now on the fence about the acquisition.
The company agreed to buy Yahoo's core assets for $4.8 billion earlier this year, a hefty price for the declining business. Yahoo disclosed the data breach, which took place in 2014, last month and announced that over 500 million accounts were affected.
"I think we have a reasonable basis to believe right now that the impact is material," said Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman of the breach. "Material impact" suggests that Verizon believes the breach has affected Yahoo's financial value.
This is the first time Verizon has publicly shown doubt about the acquisition and those that have seen the agreement believe the scandal could trigger an escape clause and allow Verizon to walk away. If the telecom giant is allowed to walk away, there is literally zero chance Yahoo gets anywhere near $4.8 billion from another buyer.
Windows 10 has definitely been one of the more successful OS launches for Microsoft and even the growth after the initial launch has been decent thanks to free upgrade for a full year. Development however continues, and some clues have been found that we might see a major update in early 2017.
A twitter user has found clues of upcoming major update in a test version of Windows 10. The update is called Windows 10 Version 1703 which would suggest March 2017 launch as Microsoft names the version after year and month of targeted launch (Anniversary Update this July was 1607).
What can we expect to see in March? Well, at this point it is unknown what kind of features Microsoft is bringing to Windows in the so called Redstone 2 (RS2) update but according to The Verge we might see HomeHub software which enables remote control over smart home technology. We will keep you posted of any reliable sounding rumors which we'll most probably get during the upcoming months.
As a fan of the Star Wars saga, this writer is excited to see the latest in the series and the first spin-off related to the main story.
Per Disney: "Watch the official second trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which Jyn Erso leads a group of unlikely heroes to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrives in theaters December 16, 2016."
According to new regulatory documents, Bed Bath and Beyond paid just $11.78 million for the once popular online retailer One Kings Lane, just a fraction of what the company was previously valued.
The retailer was launched in 2009 and was one of the popular "flash sale" sites of the time. The company raised over $200 million in venture capital and was valued as high as $800 million in 2014.
After the fall of the flash sale culture, One King Lane's sales collapsed and it appears that Bed Bath and Beyond used a few days of profit to swoop up the site and its employees, likely in an effort to bolster their own website.
Samsung's battery catastrophe with the Galaxy Note7 smartphone is going to cost billions of dollars. The company has not only had to issue recall two times but had to stop the production and the selling of the model altogether. Now it seems that even this is not the entire extent of the damage.
Recently a survey asked current Samsung customers about their feelings towards Galaxy phones after the battery issues. Majority were still willing to stick with Samsung but a huge portion, nearly 40 percent, are going to look into competitors' devices when the time comes to replace their phone. Not surprisingly there's been an increase as a survey found after the first recall 34 percent were looking to change their smartphone brand.
Of these 40 percent nearly a third were thinking of switching to Apple's iPhones and the rest were going to look at other Android manufacturers.
Clearly this is not a good sign for Samsung which is trying to do some damage control with $100 vouchers for the people that stick with them. Hopefully, for Samsung, the people will see the problems as a one off and move on. As time goes by people will surely forget.
Internet radio giant Pandora has unveiled a new logo and a new paid tier, Pandora Plus.
Pandora Plus allows listeners to pay $5 per month and go ad-free, in addition to adding offline listening, the ability to replay more tracks, and significantly more skips. Plus will also replace Pandora One, which removed ads but did not add the other features.
The company is also expected to announce a $10 tier later this year that will offer unlimited streaming similar to that of Apple, Google, Spotify and now Amazon.
Pandora has 78.1 million users, the most of any online music service, but nearly all were on the company's free ad-supported tier. Spotify, on the other hand, has 40 million paid subscribers at $5 or $10 per month and Apple is up to 17 million users in less than 18 months.
After Google launched their Pixel smartphone last week exclusively to Verizon (for U.S. carriers) there were worries that the carrier would not update the Pixel to the latest version of Android in a timely matter, but it appears that is not the case.
Said Verizon: "First and foremost, all operating system and security updates to the Pixel devices will happen in partnership with Google. In other words, when Google releases an update, Verizon phones will receive the same update at the same time (much like iOS updates). Verizon will not stand in the way of any major updates and users will get all updates at the same time as Google."
Google seconded the notion: "OS updates and monthly security patches will be updated on all Pixel devices (Verizon and non-Verizon versions) simultaneously."
Pixel fans can relax now.
Amazon's oft-rumored Music Unlimited service has gone live, available to Prime members for $79 per year, or $7.99 per month if you choose that route.
The on-demand streaming service will rival Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music and others, including tens of millions of tracks from the majors and "hundreds of indies." The service also has curated playlists, recommendation engines, lyric integration, offline downloading and apps for iOS, Amazon, Android, PC and Sonos.
As an all-in for their ecosystem, if you own the voice-powered Echo, you can get the service for $3.99 a month, a steal compared to rivals.
In addition, owners of one of Amazon's voice-controlled Echo devices will be able to get the service for just $3.99 per month.
Samsung has frozen all sales of their much-maligned Galaxy Note7 smartphone as reports of the device exploding continue despite a recall and replacements.
U.S. carriers had begun allowing immediate no-questions-asked exchanges for any phone, and airlines had banned the device while on passenger planes. All of this happened after Samsung had already recalled earlier versions of the phone but the fires kept on coming.
"Consumers with either an original Galaxy Note7 or replacement Galaxy Note7 device should power down and stop using the device," said Samsung, effectively closing the books on the handset. Samsung had already recalled 2.5 million faulty Note7 devices.
Google has said that its popular Chrome browser will be less memory-intensive following a new update in early December.
The search giant has been actively working on reducing Chrome's severe need for all your RAM, but as fans know, it still takes a significant amount. The upcoming Chrome 55 update will include a new, upgraded JavaScript engine that will reduce memory, at least on JavaScript-heavy sites.
Google says in testing, popular sites like NYT, Reddit and YouTube all used 50 percent less RAM on average than the current Chrome 53.
If the test results have similar real-world results starting on December 6th, Google will have at least one happy web user: me.
Spotify and Apple Music have signed new deals with music rights management service Dubset, bringing unofficial remixes to the two most popular streaming services.
For the time being, it seems that short-form mixes are available but long-form mixed content is still unavailable as of writing. Spotify confirmed it was coming but did not give a time frame.
Additionally, full DJ sets are coming at some point too, with Dubset CEO Stephen White excitedly saying "Mixes are coming next!"
Dubset works by using Gracenote's audio fingerprinting database, thus providing rights holders with royalties even if their song is only sampled for a small piece of the mix.
"Content owners have been very supportive. The publishing and label deals we have under license provides a large catalog to work with," White added. This "allows some of the content that until now has only been on YouTube and SoundCloud to come to these great paid services where content owners will get paid!"
Google has updated their Google Suite package (formerly GAPPS), making the "Hangouts" app now optional for OEMs.
Reads Google's email to devs: "Today, we are announcing that Google Duo will replace Hangouts within the suite of core GMS apps, and Hangouts will become GMS Optional for telephony products. This change will take effect on December 1, 2016."
Duo is Google's cross-platform FaceTime competitor.
Now, the headline may be a bit alarmist, but there will be little incentive for OEMs to include Hangouts when there are plenty of rivals that may pay better to have their messaging app pre-installed. Google does say Hangouts will be supported for business and personal, at least for now.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said this week that entry to China is very unlikely in the near future.
When asked why the company is not in China yet (the world's largest Internet market), Reed noted that regulators recently shut down movie stores from Disney and Apple and that it is still very tough to break through in the censored nation.
"It doesn't look good. We're figuring our way out (in China), but we're really focused on the rest of the world. There is so much opportunity for us in India, Poland, Turkey and Latin America and Vietnam," added Hastings.
Google has announced a "pop-up shop" in NYC to showcase their new "Made By Google" hardware.
The store will be set up at 96 Spring St. starting on October 20th, marketing their Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, the Google Home and Google WiFi home accessories and their new VR headset - the Daydream View.
There is evidence that other pop-ups are on the way, and visiting popup.withgoogle.com has a new "Visit Us" tab that it currently empty but will likely not be in the near future.
With the start of their retail experience, Google appears to be taking a page out of Apple's book.
Kodak quickly posted and then deleted a tweet teasing an upcoming smartphone.
The one-time film giant teased the launch for October 20th, showing off the side of a brushed steel frame and a power button with the Kodak logo.
Kodak released their IM5 phone last year and as expected nobody bought it. This phone appears to be higher end, but there is also zero chance it will sell.
According to a new report, the spy tool that Yahoo installed last year to scan hundreds of millions of emails on behalf of the NSA and FBI was a "poorly designed" malware that engineers actually flagged as a rootkit.
The bombshell report dropped last week and even though it is unclear why Yahoo was served with the confidential order, it has been reported that the government was "looking for a specific digital signature of a communications method used by a state-sponsored, foreign terrorist organization."
Sources claim that the malware was flagged by Yahoo's internal security during a routine checkup. "They assumed it was a rootkit installed by hackers," said the anonymous ex-employee source. "If it was just a slight modification to the spam and child pornography filters, the security team wouldn't have noticed and freaked out. It definitely contained something that did not look like anything Yahoo mail would have installed. This backdoor was installed in a way that endangered all of Yahoo users."
A high-severity security alert was issued within Yahoo's internal tracking system and it got to CIO Alex Stamos who at that point was told that it was installed on purpose. The alert was then "covered up" and "closed...fast enough that most of the [security] team didn't find out."
Microsoft has sent press invites to an event on October 26th where the Redmond giant will unveil new Surface hardware.
Additionally, the company will show off some Windows 10 updates and is also expected to announce some Xbox-related news, as well.
Many in the industry expect a Surface all-in-one PC, and there are also likely to be Surface branded wireless keyboards and mice unveiled. There are not expected to be any updates to the Surface Pro tablet line or Surface Book notebook.
The future of Windows 10 will be on full display no matter what, so expect to hear a lot about what is coming next year.
The major US carriers will allow any Samsung Galaxy Note7 owner to replace their devices for free, even if the phone was already a replacement.
If you bring the phones to retail stores, you can replace the Note7 with another device including iPhones and other Android phones.
Says Sprint: "Sprint is working collaboratively with Samsung to better understand the most recent concerns regarding replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is also investigating the Note 7 replacement device. At this time, CPSC has not specifically said if customers should or should not use the replacement model. If a Sprint customer with a replacement Note 7 has any concerns regarding their device, we will exchange it for any other device at any Sprint retail store during the investigation window. We will provide additional information when the investigation has concluded."
Verizon: "Samsung is in the process of investigating the incident and is working with the authorities. When there is an update, we will make it available. Any Verizon customer concerned about the safety of their replacement Note7 smartphone may take it back to the original point of purchase to exchange it for another smartphone beginning Saturday, October 8. Verizon online customers may also exchange their replacement Note7 smartphones at Verizon stores beginning Saturday, October 8."
Facebook has introduced "Events from Facebook" today, a new app "designed for event seekers who are passionate about keeping up with nearby events and finding things to do with their friends."
The social media giant explained how the new service works: "When you open Events, you can quickly catch up on new events your friends are interested in, recently-announced events by the Pages you like, and updates from events you're already connected to.
If you're looking for something to do this weekend or even right now, you can easily browse event recommendations based on time, location and your interests. Explore events happening where you are or in places you like to go using the interactive map. You can also search for events in any city if you're planning ahead for a trip."
Finally, the service will track all your events in a calendar letting you easily know when you're busy. You can even add your Google and other calendar events to the service.
For now, Events is available for iOS users with Android users getting the app next month.
Comcast has announced today that most of their ISP customers now have a data cap beginning on November 1st - 1TB per month.
Thanks to their "Xfinity Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan," you are now capped at 1TB of bandwidth per month, regardless of the speed of your connection. If you absolutely need more than that, $50 per month extra gets you true unlimited.
Now, it appears that Comcast understands that a few people will go over their limits. "If you choose to use more than 1 TB in a month, we will automatically add blocks of 50 GB to your account for an additional fee of $10 each," reads the FAQ. Comcast also says it will give you two free grace period months in the first year to get accustomed to 1TB.
Comcast says 99 percent of its subscribers do not use 1TB but that is sure to change in the future with the advent of 4K streaming.
Speaking during their Oculus Connect keynote, the VR pioneer has announced that the Oculus Touch controller will launch on December 6th for $199.
The controller will come bundled with VR Sports Challenge and The Unspoken, as well as a secondary camera that gamers can place in their play area.
In addition, if you would like a third sensor that allows the Touch controller to room scale, Oculus is selling it separately for $79 starting on the same date.
If you are interested, check out the Rift and the Touch here: Oculus
Over the summer, Verizon agreed to acquire struggling web pioneer Yahoo for $4.8 billion but a new report claims that Verizon wants a hefty discount following Yahoo's most recent hacking scandal.
According to the NYPost, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong could be "getting cold feet" and is "pretty upset about the lack of disclosure and he's saying can we get out of this or can we reduce the price?" Armstrong runs the Verizon division that would control Yahoo.
Yahoo is currently under attack by consumers and U.S. officials following two scandals. The company recently announced that hackers accessed over 500 million accounts, stealing passwords and personal information and the SEC is likely to open an investigation into the company's lack of disclosures. In addition, there have been reports that Yahoo allowed the NSA and FBI to scan hundreds of millions of emails secretly, causing an outrage for consumers.
It is unclear if Verizon has any recourse to drop the price or cancel the deal, but if Yahoo did not disclose these scandals to Verizon, it is hard to imagine the acquirer is happy.
Google completed their assault on Amazon yesterday, launching the Echo-rivaling Google Home.
The device was first teased at I/O earlier this year and the voice-activated personal assistant is now available for pre-order.
Shipping November 4th, Home is $129 and comes with a six-month trial to YouTube Red (normally $10 per month). The Home is a wireless speaker with microphones that allow for voice commands such as "Google, what is the weather today," or "Google, please read my calendar for today." Google Home also works with existing Nest, Phillips, Samsung and IFTTT smart home devices.
Because Google really wants their devices to blend in with your home, there are multiple "fabric" and "metal" options in different colors so that the Home can match your home's aesthetics.
Check out the device here: Google Home
Google has launched the new 4K-supporting Chromecast Ultra at $69.
The HDMI streaming "puck" is an upgrade to the existing Chromecast 2 that sells for $35, although both items will sell concurrently depending on your needs.
Google notes: "Stream up to 4K Ultra HD & HDR picture quality over your WiFi network with Chromecast Ultra, a streaming device that plugs into your TV's HDMI port. Chromecast Ultra provides fast, reliable performance with minimal buffering and smoother streaming."
Most notably, the devices will support HDR for clearer picture and Dolby Vision, as well.
Get yours here: Chromecast Ultra
Google has continued their efforts to take over your home, announcing the Google WiFi home router.
The device will start shipping in December and cost $129 - in-line with other mid-to-high range routers, or you can buy a three-pack for $299 if you would like to create a "mesh network."
"It's modular, so you can get the right fit for your home's shape and sizes. Simply add wifi points to expand coverage," said Mario Queiroz, lead of the product management group within Google's hardware division.
Google promises managing your bandwidth is easy using their app, and also promises that keeping your Internet connection fast is a top priority. Says Google: "Network Assist is intelligent software built into Google Wifi to provide you with the fastest possible speed. Behind the scenes, Network Assist automatically helps you avoid Wi-Fi congestion, and transitions you to the closest Wi-Fi point for the best signal. Network Assist will offer suggestions on how to optimize performance, like where to move a Google Wifi point for faster speeds or providing data so you can adjust your ISP plan."
Check out the router here: Google WiFi
Following yesterday's announcement of the Pixel and Pixel XL, Google has officially killed off the 'Nexus' line of products that has encompassed a handful of phones and a handful of tablets.
The Nexus devices, which started with the Nexus One in 2010, have always been marketed as developer devices, but the Pixels are primed for mass appeal. Many of the Nexus devices were built to showcase the latest version of Android and have never been huge sellers (despite low prices) but that changed with the launch of last year's Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P.
As of writing, all Nexus phones and tablets have been removed from the Google hardware Play store, replaced by Pixel and other Pixel-related hardware.
900 million Facebook Messenger users can now opt-in to end-to-end encryption for their conversations, with the tech giant dubbing the program "Secret Conversations."
Adds Facebook: "Your messages are already secure, but Secret Conversations are encrypted from one device to another," meaning nobody can read them except the people talking, not even Facebook.
To use, when you select "New Message" you will see a "Secret" option on the top right-hand side. In addition to the encryption, you can also set expiration times for the messages (from 5 seconds to one day) if you want to send more sensitive information than usual.
Secret Conversations uses Signal for encryption, the highly-regarded system that is also used in Google's Allo messenger.
During their Pixel launch yesterday, Google also announced that each Pixel phone owner would get 24/7 live support, either via phone call or live chat.
Today, we have some more information on the service, which even includes screen share, allowing Google support reps to see exactly what the issue is on your device as you do in real-time. This is very similar to Amazon's Fire support and is great news for consumers that may not be as tech-savvy.
To access the support, go down go directly to the MadeByGoogle website and toggle the support tab: Here
A bombshell Reuters report today claims that Yahoo was secretly scanning your emails to provide information for U.S. intelligence officials.
The report claims that Yahoo scanned hundreds of millions of emails at the behest of the NSA or the FBI, the first known time that a U.S. Internet company has agreed to a demand to search all incoming messages. In the past, other companies, such as Google and Apple, have agreed to examine stored messages following a crime (for example), but it appears that Yahoo gave the U.S. government carte blanche access.
For now, it is unknown what the officials were looking for "only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters." it is also unclear what data may have been found or handed over.
According to ex-employees, the decision to follow the classified demand led to the resignation of CIO Alex Stamos, who believed that the directive would lead to massive privacy issues.
Google and Microsoft were quick to deny that they had also been asked by US officials for the same access. "We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'No way'," added Google.
Samsung has proudly announced that the Galaxy Note7 is available worldwide, again, after the company was forced to recall millions of headsets that were at risk of exploding.
"Along with the several other experience zones showcasing Samsung's latest product, guests have crowded our Galaxy Note7 experience zone since this morning," said Junghyun Kim, Manager of the Seoul-based Samsung D'light shop. "We found that many people are excited to check out the iris scanner, the new S Pen features, such as S Translator, and the camera. Many existing Galaxy Note7 users have already visited and exchanged their phones for a new Galaxy Note7 or other Galaxy devices, and more and more people are inquiring about purchasing the Galaxy Note7."
So far, the Note7 has relaunched in Korea and a few other nations, but is rolling out in earnest in the coming weeks.
The company also "strongly encouraged" consumers who own a recalled Note7 to exchange theirs immediately.
Motorola (now part of Lenovo), has confirmed that 15 of their Android devices will be upgraded to Android 7.0 Nougat at some point.
While most of the phones on the list make sense given their recent releases, there are a couple of 2015-edition devices that did not make the list including the Moto G and Moto e3 Power, although it is unclear why.
Motorola says the rollout will begin this month and continue throughout the quarter.
Full list:
Yesterday, Google launched their Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, the latest in their annual reference devices created to show off the best of Android.
Today, DXOMark has already crowned the phone with having the best smartphone camera of all-time.
After completing a full review, including different lighting sources, environments, and hardware tests, the company concluded that "Simply put, the Pixel raises the bar for what is possible with a smartphone camera. Image quality continues to improve, and the increased use of HDR+ to render scenes that have previously been difficult for small sensors such as those in smartphones broadens what is possible with these ubiquitous devices. While we have reviewed other smartphone cameras that matched the Pixel's numbers in a few categories, the Pixel is uniquely capable of capturing outstanding images under a wide variety of conditions, and is also among the best we have tested for video capture."
Check the full review here: DXOM
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has noted that there will be an uphill battle in Japan for the streaming service, a nation where CDs remain king.
The company has just expanded to the world's second-largest music market - bringing 40 million streamable tracks, but in Japan 84 percent of sales are of physical discs (CDs and vinyl) compared to just 39 percent globally.
Record labels in Japan have been slow to offer their music through streaming services, and most industry watchers believe that Spotify will only be able to launch with half (or less) of the songs that currently populate Japan's Oricon Top 100. Shockingly, digital sales in Japan are actually half of their peak, which was seen in 2008 and is now less than $500 million annually.
In an effort to attract Japanese consumers, Spotify has integrated the service into Facebook (hoping for word of mouth posts) and has also added lyrics to tracks for Spotify Japan, hoping to get fans of karaoke more involved.
Google unveiled the new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones in an event in San Francisco today.
The Pixel smartphones are thought to be the first in a line of Google products to replace the popular Nexus series, and start at $649.
They both pack a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, a 12.3 MP camera and 8 MP front camera, Bluetooth 4.2 support, a USB-C connector and a fingerprint sensor.
The Pixel features a 5-inch 1080p HD AMOLED display and comes with 32GB storage, and a 2,770 mAh battery. The more expensive option, the Pixel XP, upgrades the screen to a 5.5-inch Quad HD display, comes with 128GB of storage and packs a 3,450mAh battery.
These will be the first phones to feature Google's new Assistant and support rapid charging. Google estimates that 15 minutes of charging is enough for 7 hours.
Oh and for the record, they both have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack!
Mozilla has initiated what is called Project Mortar and aims to replace the current plugins with a new solution. It hopes to decrease the cost of development and maintenance of Firefox.
One of the ways is using other browsers' solutions and the company is already experimenting by porting a couple popular ones. It has ported already the PDF viewer PDFium and the Flash player Pepper Flash.
In order to enable stronger focus on advancing the Web and to reduce the complexity and long term maintenance cost of Firefox, and as part of our strategy to remove generic plugin support, we are launching Project Mortar.
Project Mortar seeks to reduce the time Mozilla spends on technologies that are required to provide a complete web browsing experience, but are not a core piece of the Web platform. We will be looking for opportunities to replace such technologies with other existing alternatives, including implementations by other browser vendors.Senior director of engineering at Mozilla, Johnny Stenback to Betanews
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved the new Ethernet standard proposed by the NBASE-T Alliance lead by Cisco and other industry leaders. The new standard improves the speed with current cables.
The standard IEEE 802.3bz allows up to 2.5 and 5 gigabit traffic in what are now one gigabit networks using Cat 5e and Cat 6 cables. According to Cisco, in the past 15 years, Cat5e and Cat6 cables have been installed in excess of an estimated 70 billion meters – that's more than 40 million miles.
The new standard allows networks to be upgraded without massive rewiring which brings obviously costs. As wireless connections have evolved to challenge the wired connections it is important to get wired connection a speed boost if they want to survive.
Even though the new standard doesn't require new cables, the networking equipment has to replaced with a new one that supports 802.3bz.
| Newer entries (2016 / 11) | Older entries (2016 / 09) |
