Google has confirmed this weekend that the 2013 model of the Nexus 7 has now been discontinued, fully replaced by the newer and more powerful Nexus 9.
The original N7 was a great 7-inch tablet that was ultimately much more affordable than the iPad and was therefore popular among consumers.
While the Nexus 7 cost just $199, Google has moved to a more premium product, at $399 for its Nexus 9. The Nexus 9 packs an 8.9 inch 1536 x 2048 pixels display, a Nvidia Tegra K1 processor and upgraded cameras as well as a sleeker smaller bezel design.
If you are still in the market for a 7-inch tablet, Samsung has too many to count.
Nokia has denied recent reports that the company was preparing to reenter the phone manufacturing business.
"Nokia notes recent news reports claiming the company communicated an intention to manufacture consumer handsets out of a R&D facility in China. These reports are false," Nokia said. "Nokia reiterates it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets."
That quote is about as strong of a categorical denial as you can get, but for Nokia fans not all may be lost just yet. The company did suggest the Nokia brand could return as part of smartphone brand licensing, meaning OEMs could build devices and stick the Nokia name on it for added recognition.
Additionally, Nokia's sales agreement with Microsoft forbids them from entering the mobile phone business until 2016.
HTC has released a strange video this week, aimed at the smartphone duopoly of Apple and Samsung.
The ad, which mocks current pharmaceutical commercials, says users should move on to the new HTC One M9 if they are struggling with the fictional disease "Bi-phonal Displeasure Disorder": "SAD (Samsung Affective Disorder)", and "iOS (Irritable Operating System)."
Now, the diseases do have a cure - 'Cellami' (metalidone boomsoundide), but you don't need the medicine if you have an M9, because "your phone is the best."
In an effort to streamline their business and keep costs down, file sharing company BitTorrent Inc. has laid off around 40 of their 150 U.S.-based employees.
BitTorrent will move most of its resources to its Sync cloud storage and P2P tech that was released last year.
"We've recently realigned resources based on a regular evaluation of the business," noted BitTorrent. "Regrettably, this did include some employee departures. The business however, remains healthy, profitable and growing."
The company has seen its fair share of struggles in the last half decade as it tries to use the file sharing protocol made popular by pirates in the 1990s and 2000s for alternative, legal endeavors.
Jolla, the Finnish startup looking to break into the mobile industry, has delayed the initial shipping times for its popular Jolla Tablet.
The tablet was one of the highest funded campaigns in Indiegogo history, but just like with nearly all Indie tech items, consumers can expect some delays.
"We've been working very hard all year to get the Jolla Tablet ready. We have progressed very well in many areas, but as there are still many open items remaining, we are forced to postpone the delivery start of the Jolla Tablet,"says the company.
It appears that most of the issues are related to the display, clearly an important part of a tablet. "On the hardware side we've had some implementation challenges with the original display. Since we want to offer you the best possible hardware, we chose to switch to a new display. This display is better than the original with a more balanced color spectrum. The display change also causes a slight delay in the tablet production," noted Jolla.
New shipping date is expected at the end of July.
You can read more about the tablet and its specs here at AfterDawn.
Google has introduced their oft-rumored wireless network today, Project Fi, offering a "fast and easy wireless experience."
Project Fi aims to seamlessly connect you to the strongest connection available, whether that is a Wi-Fi connection, or 4G LTE offerings from Google's two partners: Sprint and T-Mobile US. Google says the Wi-Fi hotspots have been vetted and are fast and reliable, and Google will secure your data automatically with encryption.
Says Google: "Project Fi works to get technology out of the way so you can communicate through whichever network type and device you're using. Wherever you're connected to Wi-Fi--whether that's at home, your favorite coffee shop or your Batcave--you can talk and text like you normally do. If you leave an area of Wi-Fi coverage, your call will seamlessly transition from Wi-Fi to cell networks so your conversation doesn't skip a beat. We also want to help phone numbers adapt to a multi-screen world. With Project Fi, your phone number lives in the cloud, so you can talk and text with your number on just about any phone, tablet or laptop. So the next time you misplace your phone, you can stay connected using another screen."
There is no annual contract required and the plans start at $30 a month for unlimited text (including international), Wi-Fi tethering and talk and 1GB of data. Each additional GB of data is $10 more, which is almost prohibitively expensive although Google will refund you for any unused data. For example, 3GB is $30 but if you only use 1GB Google will refund you the $20.
A day before the latest season of the blockbuster 'Game of Thrones' launched on HBO, pirates took the wind out of the company's sails, leaking the first four episodes of the season online ripped from a review screener.
Within hours, the episodes were downloaded over a million times.
While HBO used to be relatively nonchalant about piracy and HBO Go password sharing, the company certainly took offense to this latest leak. HBO has sent out thousands of warnings to file sharers via its anti-piracy partner IP-Echelon, demanding ISPs tell their subscribers to cease their activities.
Reads the alert given to the ISP: "1. Contact the subscriber who has engaged in the conduct described above and take steps to prevent the subscriber from further downloading or uploading HBO content without authorization. 2. Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse Policy/Terms of Service Agreement."
HBO does not know the identities of the thousands of IP addresses, nor does it appear to be searching for any but it does appear that the company is looking to dissuade potential pirates for the future.
Last week, Apple began pre-orders on the Apple Watch and its hundreds of varieties before the smartwatch goes on sale officially this Friday.
Carl Howe of Think Big Analytics has been one of the biggest bulls on the launch of the device, suggesting that Apple has already sold over 3 million units at an average price of over $500, selling 1.8 million Sports (starting at $349), 1.3 million Watches (starting at $549) and 40,000 Edition (priced at $10,000 or higher).
"I've built a simple model that predicts that the initial run of watches was more than 3 million units and will yield Apple Watch revenues of over $2 billion for the first two weeks of sales," said Howe. "The model suggests that while Sport Watch will lead sales in volume, selling 1.8 million units through May 8, Apple Watch will actually lead in revenue during that period, garnering about $900 million versus Sport's $675 million. I also believe that Apple's decision to introduce the Edition will be validated by $500 million in sales on only 40,000 units." If accurate, the figure crushes all other smartwatches to date, including the popular Moto 360, and that's only with pre-order sales.
In addition, Howe believes the device will be Apple's most profitable, with gross margins over 60 percent compared to the already large 35-40 percent it sees for its iPhone line. "Why? Because the core electronics modules in the expensive models are the same ones used in the Sport models, and they just don't cost that much," noted Howe.
Tidal, the high-fidelity music streaming service recently acquired by Jay-Z, has announced a new partnership that will help rival service users to bring over their existing playlists.
The partnership is with a company called Soundiiz, which will let you connect to your Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music, iTunes and Soundcloud accounts to convert your playlists over to Tidal.
Soundiiz is currently in beta and nearly everyone who has used it says there are plenty of glitches to go around, mainly related to translation and text issues.
Overall it appears that Soundiiz, and Tidal in general are still works in progress but Jay-Z and his group of A-list musician friends are well on their way to competing with the big boys.
According to chipmaker AMD, Microsoft's heralded launch of Windows 10 will take place at the end of July.
Speaking during the company's recent earnings call, CEO Lisa Su let slip the release time frame, which has generally been acknowledged as "Q3" for the time being.
"With the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we are watching sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season, and expect that it might have a bit of a delay to the normal back-to-school season inventory build-up," said Su.
Microsoft will release Windows 10 in 190 countries and in 111 different languages over the summer but consumers willing to deal with bugs can download the Technical Preview here (you will need to sign up for the Windows Insider Program).
About a year ago, Chinese startup OnePlus launched the OnePlus One flagship smartphone and it quickly gained accolades for its smooth operation, high-end specs and rock bottom price.
There was a major catch, however, as it was nearly impossible to get the device unless you received an invite from an existing owner or through promotions being thrown by the company. Late last year, the company changed the model a bit offering the One through flash sales every few weeks for a couple of hours in addition to the invites.
Reads the company's release: "Since the early days, our company has changed quite a lot. We've grown to over 700 employees and have sold over one million OnePlus Ones worldwide. We've also learned an immeasurable amount from all of you. We pour over your comments on our forums and social media and soak in the feedback you give us at events all around the world. We try to not just listen, but also act on these lessons. Your feedback has resulted in a wider range of accessories, better logistics options and an evolution from invites to pre-orders to Tuesday Open Sales. Now, we're taking it one step further.
On Tuesday, Google will update its mobile search algorithm, a move that will likely affect millions of sites and has already been dubbed 'Mobile-geddon.'
The algorithm will soon begin favoring sites that are mobile-friendly (meaning they easily resize to all screen sizes and have larger text and are easy to navigate), and non-mobile-friendly sites will get lowered in search rankings.
Google says about 60 percent of total Internet traffic now comes from mobile devices and they want these users to have good experiences when searching. Google first noted the changes back in February giving webmasters over two months to update their sites.
The change has already been called mobile-geddon because it is expected hurt millions of small business websites that may not be tech savvy enough to have 'mobile-friendly' experiences or are just outdated after having paid for a custom site years ago.
Microsoft has decided to pull a recent build of its Windows 10 Technical Preview for a few of its cheaper, low-end Lumia smartphones after early testers reported their phones bricking after the update.
The affected models are the Lumia 520, 525 and 526, which is a shame given that the phones are some of the most popular Windows devices Microsoft/Nokia has launched to date.
"We are seeing some reports of failures on Lumia 520/525/526 devices when trying to roll back to Windows Phone 8.1 using the Windows Phone Recovery Tool. We are pausing build availability for these devices temporarily while we investigate the issue and work with customers who have reported problems," said Microsoft.
The build in question is 10051, released last week to the Windows Insider program for 'Fast Lane' users who are willing to work with buggier operating systems get quicker updates.
Microsoft should be quickly working on a fix for the build which is an important milestone for Windows 10 thanks to the addition of the Project Spartan browser.
AMD has reported another poor quarter as the company continues to restructure its core businesses.
For the quarter, the company had revenue of $1.03 billion, a large 26.4 percent decrease year-over-year and the company had a net loss of $180 million.
A good chunk of the losses came via the ongoing restructuring fees AMD is paying to get out of the dense server business, where it is winding down its Seamicro brand. For the quarter, the wind down cost $75 million.
Computing and Graphics saw a major 38 percent revenue decline year-over-year thanks to lower desktop and notebook processor sales as well as GPU channel sales. The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment fared better with a mere 7 percent YoY decline in revenue. AMD saw the declines due to lower server processor sales. The company is now banking on the upcoming Carrizo APU to offset losses.
Google has confirmed this weekend that the 2013 model of the Nexus 7 has now been discontinued, fully replaced by the newer and more powerful Nexus 9.
Nokia has denied recent reports that the company was preparing to reenter the phone manufacturing business.
HTC has released a strange video this week, aimed at the smartphone duopoly of Apple and Samsung.
