New images of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Alpha indicate it will be even thinner than Apple’s iPhone 5s. The handset’s rear-facing camera protrudes out of its back somewhat — just like the Galaxy S5’s — but overall, the device could well be the slimmest Samsung smartphone to date.
Up until the present, the various paintjobs of our phones have existed primarily as a means of personalization. In the near future, they could well be the way that our phones are charged.
A new study by the UK’s University of Sheffield is investigating the possibility of spray-painted solar cells which could be used to power anything from smartphones to electric cars.
While the energy generating effectiveness of paint-on solar cells was just one percent a couple of years ago, Sheffield University currently gets about 11 percent efficiency versus 19 percent at optimal performance.
Although Samsung’s commercials often mock Apple and its devices, the South Korean company has been known to use Apple products as its inspiration. In fact, it has been so inspired by iOS devices in the past that it was recently found guilty of ripping them off and forced to cough up $119 million in damages.
That doesn’t appear to have deterred Samsung from copying again, though. Leaked images of its upcoming Galaxy Alpha smartphone suggest the device could be the company’s biggest iPhone knockoff to date.
While most of Square-Enix’s games for mobile tend to be ports of the developer’s past hits, it also occasionally releases original games too — often with spectacularly great results.
The latest of these games is set to Chaos Rings III, a sequel to 2012’s Chaos Rings II — coming to Android, iOS and PlayStation Vita this winter. Announced over the weekend on Famitsu, the game is set to arrive in Japan on October 16.
One of the world’s top tech companies is suing Samsung for patent violations, only this time its not Apple.
Microsoft announced this afternoon that it filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York, for not paying up on cross-licensed intellectual property from Microsoft that its been using in smartphones since 2011.
Dong Nguyen’s runaway viral hit mobile game, Flappy Bird, is back in a new form, but this time it’s only on Fire TV, Amazon’s answer to the Roku and Apple TV devices.
The new game, titled Flappy Birds: Family, is available now on the Amazon App Store, and seems to only work on the Fire TV as of this moment.
The game seems to have the same basic gameplay as the original (tap or click a button to flap the bird’s wings and avoid pipes), but adds ghosts as a new obstacle and a new multi-player feature.
“Flappy Birds now are on Amazon Fire TV,” says the app description, “with incredible new features: Person vs Person mode, more obstacles, more fun and still very hard. Enjoy playing the game at home (not breaking your TV) with your family and friends.”
HP is probably the last company you’d expect to make a genuinely good-looking smartwatch, but it appears to have done that with a little help from Gilt and fashion designed Michael Bastian. The company’s upcoming wearable, which it teased for the first time today, will deliver a custom operating system that’s compatible with both Android and iOS.
Snapchat is currently in talks with investors over a round of funding that could value the company at a mind-blowing $10 billion, according to sources for Bloomberg. That’s a little over half the $19 billion Facebook paid for WhatsApp, but double the $5 billion market cap currently held by BlackBerry.
BlackBerry finally gave in and brought its famous BBM messaging service to Android and iOS last year, but it wanted to remind us that it still had a smartphone platform of its own by giving its apps a nasty BlackBerry 10 style user interface. Upcoming BBM updates will change that, however, with a new makeover that brings a more native user experience.
If you haven’t already paid to upgrade to TuneIn Radio Pro, then chances are you won’t be doing so anytime soon. The popular internet radio app just got a massive price increase from $3.99 to $9.99 for no apparent reason, making its free, ad-supported counterpart look like an even more attractive option.
The U.K. is set to allow self-driving cars to use public roads as of January 2015. Currently they are allowed on private roads only.
The Department for Transport had previously claimed that driverless cars would be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013, while the country’s Treasury announced a plan to create a £10 million ($16.9m) prize to fund a city to test autonomous vehicles.
Apple filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday, dropping its cross-appeal of Judge Lucy Koh’s verdict in its lawsuit against Samsung, and officially ending Apple’s pursuit of a product ban for the rival company.
Popular torrent sharing network The Pirate Bay is finally easier to access on your smartphone thanks to a new mobile site. It’s almost identical to the desktop version and offers all the same features, but it is optimized for smaller displays.
Oyster, the all-you-can-read e-book subscription service that finally made its debut on Android earlier this month, is now even more accessible. From today, Oyster users can enjoy titles in a web browser on almost any device — including your Mac or PC.
BlackBerry users have been warned that calling the emergency services will not charge their phone battery after some were fooled by bogus information that was circulated online. British Police have reminded users that unnecessary calls waste resources and could put lives in danger.
Samsung gets a lot of stick for its commercials — mostly because they almost always make cheap stabs at Apple and other rivals. But the South Korean company does have the ability to produce great ads every so often, and its latest, featuring pro surfer (and iPhone user) Kelly Slater, is downright awesome.
If you’re a fan of Marvel Comics (and, frankly, who isn’t?) you’ll likely be pleased as punch to hear of the publisher’s latest offer.
To celebrate Comic-Con International, Marvel is opening up its online archive — consisting of more than 15,000 books that date back as far as the Golden and Silver ages — for the princely sum of one dollar.
When Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced the Mi 4 on Tuesday, we — and pretty much every other site that covered the news — were quick to point out that it bears a slight resemblance to the iPhone. This isn’t the first time Xiaomi has been influenced by Apple, either. In fact, the company is often referred to as the “Chinese Apple.”
And yet, despite all that, Xiaomi global vice president Hugo Barra, who used to be in charge of Google’s Android division, has dismissed any likeness to the Cupertino company, and says he’s “sick and tired” of the Xiaomi being labeled an Apple copycat.
Based on the evidence, I have to say I disagree.
Jeff Bezos may be ready to roast the Galaxy and iPhone with his much-discussed Amazon Fire Phone, but judging from the first round of reviews, the handset is more of a damp squib than a firestarter.
Ahead of the smartphone’s launch tomorrow, and with the embargo lifted on the early review unit handsets, we’ve finally got an idea of how Bezos’ intriguing pet project has panned out.
And, unfortunately, “panned” seems to be the right word to describe it.
Apple’s Siri virtual assistant is getting better all the time, but Google Now still takes the biscuit, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
Munster ran both virtual assistants through a battery of tests, and shared the results in a new research note, published Tuesday. He concluded that Android’s voice search correctly answers questions asked 84 percent of the time, while Apple’s Siri follows up behind with a still impressive 82 percent correct rate.
Almost five years after the original Angry Birds game made its debut, Rovio is keeping things fresh with a new update that adds 15 brand new levels. All are based on fan-favorite episodes, and they’re available now on both Android and iOS.
To celebrate the upcoming release of Modern Combat 5: Blackout, Gameloft has rolled out an awesome new challenge inside one of its other hugely successful titles, Asphalt 8: Airborne. It features a new track inspired by the hit FPS series that’s full of explosions and crumbling buildings — and there’s a nice prize for the best racers.
Google Now users can now use Google Search to create new reminders from their desktop. It’s as simple as visiting Google.com in your browser, and typing things like “remind me to call mom when I get home” into the search box.
While Android has a significantly larger user base, iOS has always been the more profitable platform for app developers. That’s expected to change over the next three years, however. One analyst believes that by 2018, Google Play will bring in more revenue than the App Store for the first time ever.
The European Commission has issued some words to Google and Apple about both companies’ steps to ensure children don’t rack up huge amounts of money on in-app purchases without their parents’ permission.
In a statement released by the Commission on Friday, Google is praised for a series of changes that will be put in effect by the end of September — while Apple finds itself on the receiving end of some harsh criticism.