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Posts Tagged ‘phone’

Windows Phone has struggled to differentiate itself in the market against established rivals such as Android and iOS, but through it all Brandon Watson was the developer evangelist making sure a lack of apps was never the reason people opted for the competition. His commitment to platform has helped to inspire app development beyond Redmond’s wildest expectations, however ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley has just confirmed that Brandon is moving on, and being tasked with leading Amazon’s cross-platform Kindle efforts. 

So far Microsoft hasn’t named any successor for Watson, and did little more than confirm his departure. According to a … [Read More...]

Millennials, Generation Y, Echo Boomers — there are 40 million of us in the workforce now, and we’ve got money to spend. On our friends, our families, and our first car purchases.

Chevrolet is keenly aware of this burgeoning automotive audience, and has zeroed in on the youth of today with its latest offering, the Chevy Sonic. The latest econo-compact from Chevrolet replaces the company’s old Aveo line, and follows hot on the heels of the über-successful, top-selling Cruze. The Chevy Sonic slots in with other sub-$20K subcompacts … [Read More...]

Ah, February. The favorite month of florists the world over… at least anywhere Valentine’s Day is customarily celebrated with gifts of flowers. And of all flowers throughout history, the rose is the most enduring symbol of love. Sadly, although the symbol endures, a real fresh-cut rose doesn’t stay lovely for long. But the roses in our new Windows 7 theme will remain beautiful forever.

And of course love is not limited to humans. in the new Animal Affection theme we published today, affectionate couples of many species nuzzle, kiss, play, groom, and nap together in happy companionship.

The Lovebirds and … [Read More...]

One of these things is not like the other

Media streamers like the Western Digital WD TV Live and Netgear NeoTV make just a little less sense than they did a couple of years ago. In those days, they were the perfect alternative to stuffing a home theater PC into your entertainment center. These days, you can get nearly all the same functionality from a new Blu-ray player or a Smart TV.

On the other hand, the latest incarnations of these two products cost less than a new Blu-ray player, and they’re several orders of magnitude cheaper than a new … [Read More...]

The Obama presidential campaign is again pushing the bounds of technology in politics by using Square mobile payments in its fundraising efforts. Square’s mobile payment device is a secure magnetic stripe credit card reader that can be attached to the headphone jack of iPhones, iPads, and Android devices to accept payments.

The company is obviously thrilled to have the publicity, and has sanctioned a special app for the campaign to use for donations. Currently, only staff have access to the Obama Square app, but it will be released to the general public soon. This is similar to the way Square … [Read More...]

A deluxe board with an enthusiast price tag

Let’s be frank: If you’re even thinking about buying into Intel’s deliciously fast LGA2011 platform this early, you are an enthusiast—Enthusiast with a capital-freaking-E, since you can’t even look at LGA2011 without buying a $550 chip.

So if you’re jumping in, you might as well use both feet. Asus’s P9X79 Deluxe certainly fits that bill, delivering cool features and a stout price tag: This X79-based board will set you back a cool $400.

“Deluxe” features on board include digital VRMs, Asus’s trademark UEFI, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with a bundled smartphone … [Read More...]

Motorola’s Droid Xyboard a slick, well-performing tablet that’s easy on the eyes. Too bad it has such a stupid name.

The Android device, which runs on Verizon’s 4G network and is available now in Verizon stores, is actually Motorola’s second shot at the tablet game. The Xyboard is the company’s follow-up to its pricey, not terribly popular Xoom tablet, which was released in February of 2011.

The design has been overhauled to match Motorola’s newest mobile hardware — the tablet has clipped corners like the Droid Razr. The Xyboard comes in both … [Read More...]

This is the year millions of owners of so-called feature phones — devices which handle little beyond voice calls, texts, and photos — will finally upgrade to true smartphones.

At least, that’s the hope of Microsoft and Nokia. The two tech giants have been floundering to get a foothold in the U.S. smartphone market ever since the iPhone launched in 2007. The two companies have partnered up to make a more cohesive play in the realm of touchscreens, apps, and streaming media, and this is their most accessible U.S.-bound device so far.

The Nokia Lumia 710 runs the latest version … [Read More...]

Whether you just built or bought a new PC, it pays to optimize your setup from the start

Nothing holds more promise than a brand-new PC. The hardware is fresh and full of potential, the OS is clean and clutter-free, and you have nothing but pure, unadulterated storage space awaiting your precious data. It’s an exciting time, indeed. But before you start dumping old files onto your new rig willy-nilly, and downloading every shiny bauble of an app that catches your eye, take some time to consider a more measured approach to moving in. After all, you only have this … [Read More...]

You won’t find too many people beating down virtual or brick and mortar doors to get their hands on an Acer Iconia Tab. The demand just isn’t there, not when there are sexier, slimmer, more capable, and less expensive alternatives available (some of which are a combination of more than one of those), and the Iconia Tab line hasn’t sold particularly well as a result. Be that as it may, Acer isn’t waving the white flag.

Amid rumors that Acer would withdraw from the tablet PC and smartphone markets, company founder Stan Shih set the record straight by explaining this … [Read More...]

If you’ve been in a public space in the last year or two, you’ve probably seen a QR code—a small, square two-dimensional barcode that looks a bit like a miniature crossword puzzle. They’ve been around for more than 15 years, but they’ve recently exploded in popularity, thanks to smartphones, which are perfect QR-scanners.

Unlike traditional supermarket-style barcodes—which codify an identification number—QR codes are binary representations of numbers or letters, and can be many different sizes. A tiny QR code can represent just 30 numbers, and a giant one can represent thousands of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. With that much … [Read More...]

The jury is still out on Windows 7 tablets — and, at this point, it looks like it may never come in — but with the Series 7 Slate, Samsung at least gives this difficult niche the old college try.

Our last encounter with a Windows tablet dates back to March’s Viewsonic ViewPad 10, which disastrously attempted to combine Windows and Android in one device, dramatically failing at both. Here, Samsung is at least wise enough to pick … [Read More...]

Car nuts race their rides to see whose machine is the fastest. Fitness fanatics run marathons to test their physical limitations and endurance against that of their fellows. Geeks and gearheads? Our battles are fought and won on the basis of how capable our hardware is. While our desktops and laptops might be a thing of wonder to behold, carrying them around with us for the sake of collecting the accolades we deserve isn’t always convenient. Carrying around a smartphone or tablet, however, is. Benchmarking also provides the added benefit of telling you how well your phone manages the current … [Read More...]

Cut yourself a li’l slab o’ Honeycomb

A slew of hardware makers that didn’t start out as online bookstores—including Acer, Samsung, and Toshiba—debuted 7-inch Android Honeycomb tablets just in time for Amazon’s Kindle Fire to steal their thunder. The apparent goal: to discover if anyone is actually interested in 7-inch tablets. Acer’s Iconia Tab A100 serves as our guinea pig for this form factor.

Like most Honeycomb tablets to date, the Iconia A100 is based on Nvidia’s 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, coupled with GeForce graphics and 1GB RAM. The multitouch LCD retains the 16:9 aspect ratio that other Android … [Read More...]

Discovering that user-activity logging program Carrier IQ might be loaded on your phone is like finding out there’s a peeping tom in your neighborhood: You want to find out if your house was on the scumbag’s route or not. Well, if you have a rooted Android phone, you can do just that, thanks to a utility by Trevor Eckhart, the dev responsible for uncovering this scandal.

Eckhart posted an .APK that allows these Android users to test their devices for programs like CIQ, and it’s available as a free and paid ($1) version. (The latter allows you to not only … [Read More...]

After watching Captain Picard solving all those Victorian murder mysteries on the Enterprise’s holodeck, we have to say that staring at a basic, flat-panel monitor is sooooo 20th century. Wasn’t the future of television watching supposed to be way cooler than this by now? Yeah, it was, but don’t worry; those spiffy high-tech displays have only been delayed, not scrapped entirely. A veritable army of hard-working engineers have been laboring day and night to bring flexible phones, holograms you can feel, physical 3D interfaces, and touchscreen, well, everything to your living room, car and workplace sometime soon.  And hey, we’ve … [Read More...]

Jocelyn Lieppman is a senior at the University of Oregon who has traveled the world, wrestled for high school varsity, and will break out into camp songs on impulse. Originally from Seattle, she grew up in Houston, Texas. She currently works as a Microsoft Windows UCrew Student Representative at U of O. Adventure is in her heart, and as such it no surprise that she is an international studies major who hopes to be paid to travel one day and share her experiences with others.

Recently, I was asked in an interview, what I would consider my greatest strength. After … [Read More...]

A barely there home-theater PC

PCs make great Blu-ray players, but Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is the first Blu-ray-equipped PC we’ve seen that’s thinner and smaller than most purpose-built Blu-ray players. If it played high-definition audio discs such as SACD and DVD-Audio, it would be one of the most powerful Blu-ray players on the market, but this machine isn’t that ambitious.

It is, on the other hand, considerably less expensive than very high-end Blu-ray players that are capable of playing those high-definition audio formats. The Oppo BDP-95, for example, sells for $999 and is almost never discounted.

Acer’s Revo RL100-UR20P is … [Read More...]