Microsoft and Apple already have their own physical retail stores, but thus far Google has managed to resist that particular temptation
If a recent report from 9to5Google is to be believed though, that may not be the case much longer. According to a single “extremely reliable source,” Google will erect its own standalone stores by the holidays in an effort to more effectively push its… → Read More
Last May, Incident Tech launched the gTar, a guitar with real strings that connected to a smartphone for some amazing sound processing. In the last few months, the founder, Idan Beck and his team have been busy preparing the 800 guitars he pre-sold on Kickstarter for shipment. Theirs is a story of creativity, cool, and the next generation in music technology. I spoke with Idan briefly about his… → Read More
Apple is a unique company in that even if you break down its individual lines of business and view them as distinct from the whole, it can still be regarded as immensely successful in a number of different areas. As a hardware company, it’s a success; as a software and services provider, it’s a success; and as a retail chain, it’s a success. And Apple’s physical retail presence shows such steady… → Read More
Last week’s hot app, Mailbox, is currently down. In a very RIM-esque fashion, the startup’s servers are not forwarding mail, resulting in a very quiet Valentines Day. I’m pretty stoked about it. I think this should be a feature.
According to Mailbox’s twitter page, the company is busy fixing the problem. They quickly issued a couple of official response but one is not very helpful. This one… → Read More
Once upon a time I thought I would be very short of charging solutions for my iPhone 5 thanks to the switch to Lightning. Now, for various reasons, I have an abundance of Lightning cables, one might even say an overabundance. But they do lack variety, and that’s what a new line of charging accessories from Scosche aims to address. → Read More
I love the idea of the Surface: compelling hardware, striking form factor, and, in the case of the Pro, smart compromises to offer a good value. But the products fail to live up to their promise. They have first generation bugs. But maybe a low-priced Surface with a smaller screen could finally help bring the Surface promise to life. It just better run Windows Phone 8 and not Windows RT. → Read More
Nintendo just announced that Google Maps with Street View is now available for Wii U systems in North America. So you now have the ability to wander around Martha’s Vineyard if you don’t have access to your tablet, computer, or phone — or pretty much any other Internet-connected device. → Read More
A new patent filing uncovered by AppleInsider today shows that the company is still thinking about ways to upgrade the smartphone camera experience and deliver the best possible pictures you can get on a mobile phone. The invention would make it so that as soon as you open up the camera app on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, the device starts grabbing full-resolution pics and storing them to a… → Read More
With just a few quick steps, it’s easy to open the phone app on any locked iPhone running iOS 6.1. From there a person has full access to the photo library, can edit contacts, send emails, text messages or even make a FaceTime call. It’s so easy that it’s downright silly.
As shown in the video here, the process involves holding down the power button and aborting an emergency call. It… → Read More
Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk definitely isn’t the best guy to try to pull a fast one on. The visionary entrepreneur set Twitter a titter when he claimed earlier this week that New York Times writer John Broder had fudged details about the Tesla Models S car’s range in cold weather, resulting in what he termed a “fake” article. Musk promised evidence, and now he has delivered, via the… → Read More
HP is looking into getting back into the mobile hardware game, according to a new report from ReadWrite which the Verge says is being confirmed from their own sources. HP famously bought webOS and then brought a tablet to market based on that Palm-developed platform, the TouchPad, which ended up being a dismal failure that the company shut down very quickly. → Read More
German luxury brand Loewe experienced a roller coaster day. A trader commented that “Apple supposedly wants to bid 4 euros a share for Loewe,” which sent Loewe shares up as much as 44.5 percent to 3.93 compared to yesterday’s closing price of 2.72. The German stock exchange closed today with Loewe shares trading at 3.35, representing a one-day increase of 23.16 percent. → Read More
As a fan of monsters and 3D printing, in that order, I was intrigued by Autodesk’s new iOS app, 123D Creature. Aimed at beginning 3D modelers, the app allows you to build cute (or scary) monsters right on your screen by pinching, grabbing, and rotating a lump of virtual clay hanging on a skeleton. → Read More
The Apple TV could finally be getting a developer SDK that would allow third-party apps to appear on the platform, according to an analyst note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek today. The note cites channel checks as the source of the info that Apple will hold an Apple TV-related event in March, at which time it may introduce an SDK for “iTV” development. → Read More
Apple has officially lost exclusive rights over the use of the iPhone trademark in Brazil, according to the BBC. The news was telegraphed earlier via a leak that said Brazil’s regulatory body was planning to side with IGB Electronics S.A. in the case and revoke Apple’s exclusive ownership of the term “iPhone” as it relates to electronic devices. → Read More
Smartphones may be invading pockets and purses across the world, but AOptix may soon bring those mobile devices to some far-flung warzones. The Campbell, Calif.-based company announced earlier today that it (along with government-centric IT partner CACI) nabbed a $3 million research contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to bring its “Smart Mobile Identity” concept to fruition. → Read More
The Microsoft Surface Pro is just getting into its first week of consumer availability, and gadget repair blog iFixit has already cracked the case for a closer look at what makes the tablet/PC hybrid thing tick. The teardown reveals that Microsoft has essentially glued down anything that could be glued, making it incredibly difficult for a user to repair on their own – more difficult than… → Read More
AOL (owners of TechCrunch) today is taking one more step to build out its content empire: it has officially confirmed the acquisition of technology reviews site gdgt — first reported by TechCrunch nearly two weeks ago. Gdgt itself is announcing the news on its own site, and a spokesperson from AOL has also confirmed the news to TechCrunch directly. → Read More
The MacBook Pro with Retina and 13-inch MacBook Air got some mid-cycle improvements under the hood today, with a new 2.6GHz processor for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, new 2.4 and 2.7GHz processors for the 15-inch version, and 16GB of memory as a top-end spec on the larger Retina model. The MacBook’s 256GB version has a new lower price of $1399, and the 13-inch Retina now starts at $1499 and… → Read More
If I was a betting man, I’d bet that HTC was carefully trying to engineer some buzz around its new flagship Android smartphone for the U.S. market, the HTC One we’ve seen leaked plenty of times before. And now, the company has put together a promo page with a countdown timer for its February 19 event in NYC, which all but gives up the goose ahead of an official unveiling. → Read More
Microsoft launched its curious Surface Pro hybrid earlier this week, but it turns out that actually trying to buy one was a bit more problematic than people had hoped. Folks looking to get their respective hands on one of the 128GB models had it especially rough — the $999 device sold out in Microsoft’s online store and some of the company’s retail outlets, not to mention some Best Buy and… → Read More
Nike may not be planning to release an Android companion app for its activity-tracking FuelBand, but rival Fitbit is eager to make sure that health-conscious Droid owners are well taken care of. To that end, the company pushed out a new version of its Fitbit Android app that finally brings Bluetooth 4.0 sync support to Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II. → Read More
Being based in Canada means that I’m often traveling for work, and that means fiddling with SIM cards. A new Kickstarter project from the same people who brought you the X-Wing joke campaign proposes to make keeping track of those SIMs and navigating international border-crossing much easier, with a simple design that adds a couple simple twists to a basic low-profile iPhone case design. → Read More
Vertu, the formerly-owned-by-Nokia maker of eye-wateringly expensive, leather-clad, gem-encrusted, handmade-in-the-U.K. ‘luxury’ smartphones, has launched its first Android-powered device: the Vertu Ti. After leaving the Nokia fold, back in October, it was rumoured that Vertu planned to do what many a Nokia fan still wishes that company would do: ditch Symbian and adopt Android. → Read More
A new patent granted to Apple today by the USPTO (via AppleInsider) describes an invention called “microslot antennas,” which would integrate cellular and wireless radio antennas directly into case materials, which could both reduce the size requirements of internal elements of a device, and also make it so that there’s no evidence on a gadget’s external case of the antenna’s presence, to the… → Read More
Ready to have your brain blasted to bits? U-Tsu-Shi-O-Mi is a “virtual assistant” that is actually a green-clad humanoid robot. Users look at her using virtual reality goggles and instead of seeing a mildly creepy, ninja-like blog they see an actual face and body. You can reach out, touch the body, and even shake hands with your robotic pal. → Read More
The war for your living room rages on, and Microsoft has no intention of yielding any hard-fought ground to its gaming rivals. Rumors of a new Xbox have been flying around for months now, but Kotaku has put together the mother of all next-gen Xbox (a.k.a. Xbox 720, a.k.a. Durango) posts thanks to a secretive-but-chatty source known as SuperDaE — if the moniker sounds familiar, he’s the guy who… → Read More
Apple has just issued iOS 6.1.1, a bug-fixing update aimed at the iPhone 4S specifically to address issues around cellular issues on 3G connections for some European carriers, per the release notes. The update had been in beta for only five days, which is a much shorter cycle than Apple usually goes through for new iOS updates. The new release is a different one from that already in testing… → Read More
Google’s Nexus 4 wireless charger has been a creature only of legend up until today, even though the phone itself shipped months ago, late in 2012. Now, though, American buyers can get their orb orders in for $59.99 for the Qi-based inductive charger for Google’s latest Android reference smartphone. → Read More
Today on the Mojang blog, the developer announced general availability of Minecraft: Pi Edition, a version of Minecraft designed specifically to run on the open source Raspberry Pi computer. The version is completely free and was originally announced late last year as an effort to get kids more interested in the kind of exploratory programming the Pi can offer. → Read More
New York City
