LAS VEGAS, CES 2014 – LG clearly got the memo that 2014 is set to be the year of wearable electronics — since the South Korean manufacturer has taken advantage of CES 2014 to unveil its new Life Band Touch fitness wristband.
The device — which lets users track physical activity including steps taken, distance covered, and calories output — can be synced with both Android and iOS devices, using Bluetooth 4.0.
Your smartphone and tablet will soon offer noticeably better performance than a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, thanks to NVIDIA’s new Tegra K1 processor, the successor to last year’s Tegra 4. The 192-core “Super Chip” will come in two versions, one of which is built upon a next-generation 64-bit Denver architecture and boasts clock speeds up to 2.5GHz.
This is the year that Android busts out — out of phones and tablets and into all kinds of devices.
Android is coming this year to your home, car, desktop, wrist, face, camera and other locations near you.
Of course, Android has been used by a huge number of non-phone, non-tablet devices. But these have almost always been niche products that didn’t go anywhere.
What’s likely to happen this year is a kind of “mainstreaming” of Android as the OS that powers random devices that you normally wouldn’t think of as mobile computers.
Looking to swap your T-Mobile plan for an AT&T one? Maybe $450 per line will convince you. Starting today, that’s how much AT&T is offering T-Mobile customers to make the switch when they trade in an eligible smartphone.
Acer has today announced two new Android-powered tablets that it will introduce at CES in Las Vegas next week, one of which is a $180 iPad mini clone. It’s called the Iconia A1-830 and it sports a “premium aluminum” chassis that houses a 7.9-inch display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, and 1GB of RAM.
Acer also announced the Iconia B1-720, an entry-level device with a $129 price tag that looks a lot like the 2012 Nexus 7, and has a 7-inch display and a 1.3GHz dual-core processor.
The creators of the incredibly popular Pebble smartwatch, which came alive in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign last year, said yesterday that they will be bringing “something special” to this year’s International CES in Las Vegas.
DreamWorks, the animation studio behind movies like Madagascar and Shrek, is preparing to launch its own Android-powered “DreamTab” tablet. The 8-inch device will be aimed at kids, The New York Times reports, and it’ll cost under $300 when it launches this spring.
While adding physical controls instantly improves almost any mobile game, no one wants to carry around a big, bulky control pad all day. But it’s unlikely you’ll have any complaints about taking the iMpulse with you everywhere you go, because it’s so small it fits on your keyring — and it’s compatible with both Android and iOS devices.
Smartwatches today are a little bit like PDAs in the early 1990s: that technology that everyone seems sure is the future, but which no one has really got right yet.
Well, add Archos’ name to the list of companies willing to try and rectify that situation.
A promising prototype stand called the Plinth fits in a pocket but quickly deploys to support a large tablet, a smartphone or even an old-fashioned book.
Developed by U.K. product designer John Bull, the super-portable Plinth would make it easier for him to use his beloved iPad by holding it rock-steady at three different angles.
Having taken the holidays off (in Samsung’s case to nurse its wounds), Apple and Samsung are back to patent negotiations.
According to an article which appeared Sunday in The Korea Times, the two companies have resumed their patent battle — with officials at the Fair Trade Commission saying the companies are looking to hash out issues related to royalties.
Google and Audi plan to announce a partnership to build in-car dashboard systems based on Android, according to a new report.
The deal will be rolled out Jan. 7 at the big International CES trade show in Las Vegas, says The Wall Street Journal, with the companies also set to reveal others involved in the collaboration, including Nvidia.
There’s good news and bad news for Apple. The good news is that the Cupertino-based company sells more tablets in America than anyone. The bad news is that Apple is selling less iPads proportionate to the total share of tablet sales than a year ago… and Mac sales are also going down.
One of the big problems with focusing on a broad metric like mobile platform market share is that it ignores some of the more important (and complex) questions about how these platforms are actually used.
For example, which customers are most valuable in terms of spending money?
Ever wonder why it takes most Android phones ages to get the latest version of the OS?
Well, a recent infographic from HTC sheds some light on the anatomy of an Android update — detailing all the steps involved from the pre-announcement PDF through the finished version arriving on your phone.
A new book called Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein revealed the mechanism by which Apple influenced the direction of Android — shock and awe.
Yes, the introduction of the iPhone changed the direction of smartphones. But I don’t think it’s going to happen again in the wearables market. Here’s why.
Kanto’s YU2s seem to come from a time when speakers were solid, simple structures; proud temples to sound that said of their owners, Hey, I’m serious about music, and I know what I’m doing. Aesthetics were important, of course, but unquestioningly took a backseat to sound. Sound was king.
If you haven’t heard of Kanto before, that’s OK — the Canadian outfit just sprouted up in the Vancouver suburbs around five years ago. The YU2s are Kanto’s latest speakers, the smallest of their lineup of a half-dozen or so, and they’re designed to fit unobtrusively on a bookshelf or desk and play music from your computer or mobile device.
The YU2’s performance during our review, however, was nothing short of astonishing — and they could very capably substitute for larger speakers in a variety of roles. For those looking to elevate their desktop setup even further, pairing these speakers with a NuPhy Air75 V2 could create a seamless and high-quality workspace.
Helped along by a sci-fi-style concept video, a new Google Glass competitor called the Atheer One shot halfway to its $100,000 crowd-funding goal in just a day.
“In a few years, the digital world with all its rich information will be completely merged with the real one,” says Atheer Labs in its Indiegogo campaign for the Atheer One, which has already raised more than $54,000. “Let’s get the future started today!”
What does that future look like, according to Atheer? Take a look at the video below and see for yourself.
Surprise: These cans aren’t quite the flashy, youthful boombasts their outward appearance suggest (yes, that’s a good thing). And, surprise: There’s much more here than simply a nod at the term “active noise cancellation.”
SMS, which is helmed by Rapper 50 Cent, jumped into the headphone game just shy of three years ago. At that time the lion’s share of attention was directed toward their wireless Sync cans, which stream music via the somewhat uncommon Kleer technology. But that doesn’t mean the rest of SMS’s broad, diverse lineup should be ignored, and that assertion is well-supported by the performance — and, yes, dash of flash – of the wired, active noise-canceling Street by 50 ANC headphones.
When your smartphone’s biggest selling point is its customization options, you need to get a little creative with your print ads. And that’s exactly what Motorola has done for the Moto X. In the January edition of Wired magazine, the company has a full-page ad with built-in LED lights that allows you to change the color of the Moto X printed on the page.
Check out the demonstration video below.
BBM has been a huge success on Android and iOS, and so although they may be rival platforms, that won’t stop BlackBerry from porting over its biggest and best BBM features to keep its messaging service alive.
In 2014, the Canadian company will rollout major updates that add BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and new sharing features — and you can see them in action in the video below.
Australian-based developer Halfbrick is at it again, with free-to-play Colossatron: Massive World Threat, now available around the globe.
You’ll take on the role of the humungous mechanical robot Colossatron on your quest to utterly destroy city after city, using various colored robotic modules to give your wanton destruction just a little extra oomph.
Yeah, color-matching doesn’t sound that fun, but this one? It really is.
No matter how you feel about Apple and the iPhone, it’s impossible to deny that the device completely revolutionized the mobile industry when it was launched in 2007. Without it, the smartphones of today may have been completely different.
Take Android, for example. It’s the biggest competitor to the iOS operating system that powers the iPhone, and it’s now the world’s largest mobile platform — but the iPhone is the reason Android is what it is today. Google started work on the software way back in 2005, but it scrapped everything and started again the day after iPhone was revealed to the world.
Question: When is an iPhone not an iPhone?
Answer: When it’s an ioPhone. And when it runs Android.
Seizing on the massive following the iPhone enjoys in Japan, Japanese manufacturer Iosys will reportedly start marketing its cheap knockoff iPhone 5c-inspired ioPhone5 this Friday.
Is nothing sacred in the Samsung vs. Apple clash, we ask you?
It might have recently been ordered to pay Apple $930 million in damages (with a possible side order of Apple legal fees), but Samsung still scored a personal victory this month by hiring away Apple’s senior store designer, Tim Grudgel.
