It’s been nearly a year since Microsoft acquired Nokia’s phone business, and rumors suggest the Finnish company may be plotting a return to selling phones. Recode reports that Nokia is planning to return to the consumer mobile market as early as next year, citing two sources briefed on Nokia’s plans. It’s not clear exactly how Nokia plans to return, but the company is currently restricted from using the Nokia brand on phones until Q4, 2016. That restriction didn’t stop Nokia from launching an iPad mini clone running Android software, but it does mean the company has to wait a little longer until it returns to phones.
Showing posts with label Verge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Verge. Show all posts
Monday, April 20
Microsoft backs Apple Watch early with OneDrive update
Microsoft was quick to support Google's Android Wear smartwatches last year, and it's ready to do the same for the Apple Watch. A new app update for Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service provides the first Apple Watch support through Microsoft's various iOS apps and services. OneDrive for Apple Watch will simply display photos on the smartwatch, allowing Apple Watch owners to view albums, delete photos, and find photos through tags all on the wrist. Viewing photos on a 1.5-inch or 1.7-inch display might not be the best experience, but it's still encouraging to see Microsoft quickly support rival platforms.
The software giant supports Android Wear with OneNote, and an experimental keyboard that lets you draw letters on a smartwatch....
Sunday, April 19
Like Google Glass for cars: I tried Mini’s Augmented Vision concept
While Google Glass may have fallen flat, companies big and small are still chasing the dream of seamless augmented reality — information delivered to your field of vision without distraction (and without making you look ridiculous). What I didn't expect was for automaker Mini, best known for its adorable compact cars, to be in that mix.
Announced today at the Shanghai auto show, I got to try the Mini Augmented Vision system at the company’s lavishly appointed downtown San Francisco dealership last week and get a guided tour of how they might work in the real world. From a fashion perspective, the glasses aren’t exactly subtle — they closely resemble ski goggles, or old-timey aviation goggles, but with a camera mounted dead-center to let...
Thursday, April 16
The P8 is smooth and oddly featureless, but Huawei likes it that way
There’s no place for subtlety in the smartphone market. Huawei proved this yesterday at the London launch of its new P8 and P8 Max handsets. The Chinese manufacturer was insistent that its new phones were the best, the biggest, the thinnest, and the fastest: the most this and the least that. They’re everything a sane and rational consumer could ask for — except, of course, they’re not. Not right now anyway.
Instagram institutes harsher rules to control harassment, porn, and nudity
Instagram revealed new community guidelines today that were designed to cut down on harassment and pornography. This is the biggest change to the guidelines since Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012, and it helps clarify rules that critics and parents complained were too lax and users complained were overreaching and enforced with double standards.
The photo-sharing app framed the changes as a tougher, less polite stance in an interview with The Wall Street Journal :
"In the old guidelines, we would say ‘don’t be mean,'" said Nicky Jackson Colaco, director of public policy for Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. "Now we’re actively saying you can’t harass people. The language is just stronger."
For example, Instagram’s...
Google's Works with Cardboard program promises 'awesome VR' for everyone
Google is getting even more serious about virtual reality and its own Cardboard platform today. In a blog post, the company announced the launch of a "Works with Google Cardboard" certification program. It aims to guarantee compatibility and the best user experience between the growing number of inexpensive VR headsets (modeled after Google's own) and virtual reality apps in Google Play. "There’s a tremendous diversity of VR viewers and apps to choose from," wrote Andrew Nartker, Cardboard's product manager. "Each viewer may have slightly different optics and dimensions, and apps actually need this info to deliver a great experience."
So to address this, Google is now offering developers a new tool that will automatically calibrate...
Here’s what happens when your Tesla is smarter than you
Dragging your feet through the parched gravel along the side of Nevada's Route 93, relentless sun burning your face, empty gas canister in hand. It's every driver's nightmare: getting stranded somewhere. On electric vehicles, that fear is amplified by the fact that you are no longer reliant on gas stations, which are just about everywhere, but on charging stations. And there just aren't as many of those — at least not yet. Electric car owners knew this was the deal when they signed up. They also knew that driving the kinds of distances they were used to with multiple tanks of gas would require a little more work on something with batteries.
Tesla had an ambitious plan to solve this problem on its cars by swapping depleted batteries from...
Wednesday, April 15
Netflix tops 60 million subscribers as international growth continues to surge
Netflix reached a new milestone today, announcing that it now has 60 million subscribers. As it has been for the last several quarters, the company's international expansion was the biggest driver of its customer growth. The Los Gatos, California-based company passed 40 million domestic subscribers and 20 million from overseas, adding over two million new customers in each category.
This terrifying video was filmed with the world's first self-powered camera
This video isn't just a little bit terrifying, it's the product of a prototype camera that can continually power itself — without using a battery.
When a camera sensor is exposed to light, the pixels use photodiodes to generate an electric current. That helps the sensor measure the intensity of the light, and those measurements are used to produce images. Solar cells, on the other hand, take the light and convert it into electric power. The processes are similar enough that a team at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science created an image sensor with diodes that can alternate between performing both of these tasks. According to them, it's the first of its kind.The camera's sensor toggles between making images...
Tuesday, April 14
Ferrari's new app lets you virtually dismantle your $300,000 sports car
It's a problem we've all faced — you're in your local Ferrari showroom, but you just can't decide which color supercar you want to buy this time. Classic red? A nice suave black? Garish yellow, to beat your Lambo-owning friends at their own game? Finally, there's an answer.
Ferrari has joined forces with developer Zspace to create the Ferrari AR showroom app, software that uses 3D tracking technology to recognize real-world cars and superimpose shapes, colors, and videos onto their real-time images. The app lets customers in Ferrari showrooms hold a tablet in front of their chosen vehicle and virtually change the rims, brakes, and paint job, building a custom specification for their new ride without the dealership needing to order it...
Monday, April 13
Sprint will now send people to your house to deliver and set up your new phone
Sprint is beginning a new program today in Kansas City that has new phone upgrades delivered to people’s homes (or anywhere else they choose), complete with a transfer of all the files and settings from their old phone. It’s called Direct 2 You, and it’s a mix of home delivery service and customer support. It’s designed in part so that people no longer have to go to a Sprint retail store or wait for a UPS or FedEx delivery, but it’s also a personal customer service experience that will walk you through setting up your new device.
Sunday, April 12
LG G4 revealed in leaked images
LG has been teasing its upcoming G4 flagship in drips and drags, but now the floodgates are open. A work-in-progress microsite for the G4 was discovered this weekend courtesy of prolific leaker Evan Blass, and contained within are dozens of official renders of the new smartphone.
Thanks to the leak, we get to see the G4 from all angles, but you'll be forgiven for thinking it looks a whole lot like the LG G3 before it. Other than some cosmetic tweaks — like an optional real leather back and a pseudo carbon-fiber weave on the front — the core of the device certainly does seem very familiar.
Friday, April 10
Amazon will stream movies and TV shows in vivid HDR later this year
Already delivering 4K movies and TV shows to its customers with Prime Instant Video, Amazon is now setting its sights on what's next: HDR video playback. The company has announced that it will begin streaming content in High Dynamic Range (HDR) at some point later this year, though it's not yet naming which titles will be given the treatment. Amazon says TV shows, movies, and its own original programming will be available in HDR, which offers more vibrant imagery compared to traditional video output. It's brighter, more colorful, and truly stunning — but you'll need a TV that supports it.
We've seen some of those at CES over the past two years, but you still can't walk into a Best Buy and leave with a set that includes HDR (or Dolby...
Thursday, April 9
Windows 10 unifies apps, movies, and music into a single store
Microsoft is finally bringing apps, movies, TV shows, and music into a single location for Windows 10. The software giant is testing out a new section of the Windows 10 store today that includes movies and TV shows, and the company plans to add music in the coming weeks. A unified store is part of Microsoft’s work for Windows 10 to ensure apps and content can roam across PCs, tablets, phones, and the Xbox One gaming console.
“The experience you will see today is unfinished and we have a lot more work to do,” explains Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc. “For example – you won’t see movie or TV details like cast and crew and you’ll only be able to stream video content right now. But don’t worry – offline download capability will be coming!”...
Google’s Snapseed photo app gets its first major update in two years
The Google-owned Snapseed photo editing app has received a major update today, which promises to deliver "the precision and control of professional photo editing software on your phone or tablet." The new version, rolling out now for Android and iOS, adds new tools including lens blur, tonal contrast, intelligent perspective transform, and spot healing.
Snapseed also now offers more precise control over edits and lets you apply effects or filters to certain parts of the image using the app's brush tool. Snapseed 2.0 also makes non-destructive editing a priority; a new "stacks" feature lets you re-edit any photo or undo changes you've made previously. You can also now copy edits over from one image to another if there's a certain...
MacBook Pro review (2015)
Apple is rolling out a major new hardware feature this year with the introduction of what it calls Force Touch. It is a catch-all term for a combination of pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback that you will find built into the Apple Watch and the trackpad of the newly redesigned MacBook. Force Touch is Apple’s hallmark of newness for 2015, but it also finds a home in one of the Cupertino company’s less adventurous machines, the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Though it was a mere footnote to Apple’s big event last month, the MacBook Pro will actually play a pioneering role for its maker. It’s going to serve as the device on which many people experience Force Touch for the first time, and it signifies Apple’s intention to make this a standard...
12-inch MacBook review
Apple's latest laptop is simply called the MacBook.
Actually, I suppose, you're going to see everybody refer to it as "the new MacBook" for a little while, but that's just temporary. The name is a signal. Apple could have called it the MacBook Air 12-inch or the MacBook Slim or any number of other things. But instead, it’s the MacBook. That has to mean something.
You are really, really going to want this laptop, even though it's relatively expensive, starting at $1,299. It’s easily the most impressive laptop I’ve seen since the original MacBook Air. It’s almost unbelievable in every regard. How did Apple make it so thin? What dark magicks make this trackpad work? Is it really going to be fast enough? Why is there only one port?...
Amazon is suing websites that profit from bogus customer reviews
At some level, we all instinctively trust and put stock in Amazon's customer reviews when researching a purchase. The average star rating matters — and the leading online retailer wants to keep it that way. This week, Amazon filed a lawsuit against several websites that it accuses of gaming the system and publishing paid-for reviews. "While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand," the suit claims. The websites, Amazon says, promise to write bogus five-star reviews for customers that pay between $19 and $22 per review.
Wednesday, April 8
Apple brings diverse emoji to the iPhone with release of iOS 8.3
After several months of beta testing, Apple has released iOS 8.3 to all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners today. The latest update includes a ton of new emoji characters; Apple has redesigned the emoji selector to accommodate all the new choices — which also include more diverse options. Aside from the big emoji bump, iOS 8.3 adds support for Siri in a handful of new languages, allowing Apple's personal assistant to operate in countries where it previously couldn't. Siri can also place calls that immediately start from the speakerphone rather than requiring users to toggle it on manually, and the update claims to improve stability, overall performance, and packs in bug fixes for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, third-party keyboards, and a host of...
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