Palm’s webOS resurrected in an LG TV

Palm's last mobile operating system, webOS, will find new life in LG televisions. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal , the first new webOS television will be showcased in January during the CES 2014 trade show in Las Vegas. This is an interesting move by LG. A couple of years ago, connected televisions were largely expected to run Android. But Samsung is now seen launching Tizen-powered televisions by 2015 and LG's webOS move means that the smart TV market might become surprisingly fragmented in the coming years — particularly if Apple and Microsoft also jump in with iOS and Windows televisions.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, December 30

Christmas heats up with 12 days of deals from Apple and Microsoft

Apple’s “12 Days of Gifts” iOS app that was available in previous years only to customers in international markets including Canada, Europe, and other countries, is for the first time ever offered to U.S. iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners as well, MacRumors reports. The application has been updated in time for this year's holiday promotion and will offer users a different free download each day from December 26th to January 6th, including apps, movies, songs, books and others. However, each item will only be available for download for 24 hours, not for the entire duration of the promotion. At this time, it's not known what free downloads Apple has included in the 2013 version of the app.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, December 10

Sony says PlayStation 4 sales topped 2.1 million units in two weeks

Sony on Tuesday announced it has sold more than 2.1 million PlayStation 4 units in the two weeks since the console was first launched. The PS4 was released in North America on November 15, with Sony announcing over 1 million sales for the first 24 hours. Two weeks later, the console was launched in multiple markets in Europe and Latin America. The PS4 is now available in 32 markets around the world.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, December 03

Sprint’s customer satisfaction tanks in new survey

Things have been going poorly for Sprint for many, many years and now it appears that the company is going backward in terms of customer satisfaction. The latest Consumer Reports survey of more than 58,000 American wireless subscribers places Sprint dead last in customer satisfaction after the carrier received "dismal" ratings for pricing and network reliability. This marks a big setback for Sprint, which last year trailed only Verizon in overall customer satisfaction. There was some hope that Sprint would see a revival after being acquired by Japanese mobile company SoftBank but the carrier has remained largely rudderless as rival T-Mobile has made aggressive moves to position itself as America's value carrier. Consumer Reports' press release follows below.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 21

Game on: PlayStation 4 sales top 1 million in first 24 hours

Is the pent-up demand for next-generation video game consoles the tech media has been talking up for the past few months real? Sony's announcement from this past weekend suggests the answer is a decisive yes. The consumer electronics giant on Sunday announced that its PlayStation 4 launch was a huge success, with sales to end users having topped 1 million units during the console's first 24 hours of availability.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 18

The next-gen console war is now underway: Sony finally unleashes the PlayStation 4!

The next-generation has finally arrived. You've waited for months, read all the coverage, watched the unboxing videos, fought with fanboys in the comment sections of your favorite websites -- all for this moment. The PlayStation 4 launched at midnight with what Sony claims to be a record number of preorders, kicking off a video game console holiday showdown with the Xbox One.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 15

Windows Phone leaves BlackBerry in the dust, Android still dominates in Q3

Fresh evidence emerged Thursday that Windows Phone has steamed past BlackBerry to establish itself as the world's No. 3 smartphone OS. New data from Gartner shows that Windows Phone sales hit 8.9 million in the third quarter of 2013, more than doubling the roughly 4 million Windows Phones sold in Q3 2012. Over the same period BlackBerry sales crashed and burned, plummeting from 8.9 million in Q3 2012 to 4.4 million in Q3 2013.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 14

Kim Dotcom’s NSA-proof messaging, video chat service due in 2014

It's been months since Kim Dotcom triumphantly returned to the digital world with the launch of Mega and now the mercurial German-born Kiwi has set his sights on some even bigger ambitions for 2014. In a company blog post this week, Mega outlined its plans for new services next year that will include both encrypted messaging and encrypted video chat services aimed at helping users evade government intelligence agencies that cast a wide surveillance net across the entire Internet. Dotcom and Mega first started talking about launching encrypted email and messaging services this past summer after documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency's vast data collection practices.

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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 08

Apple to reportedly start offering in-store iPhone display repairs

Have a cracked iPhone screen? Apple feels your pain. According to 9to5Mac's sources, Apple will soon start offering to replace customers' cracked iPhone displays in Apple stores as part of the company's new on-the-spot iPhone repair program. Apparently Apple will supply its stores with machines that are designed specifically to replace broken touch screens on the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. 9to5Mac notes that although "the screen replacements cost $149 for each device... this price point is significantly more affordable than the several-hundred dollars required to completely replace a device with a damaged/cracked screen."



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, November 07

Sony gets ahead of the game, launches second smartwatch in U.S.

Technology giants such as Samsung, Microsoft, Google and maybe even Apple are just now realizing there may be a future in wearables, but other tech companies have already been dabbling in smartwatches for some time now. Sony is one example, having recently released its second-generation "SmartWatch 2" in Europe and Asia, and Sony on Tuesday announced that its new wrist-worn computer is now available in the U.S. The SmartWatch 2 is the first smartwatch on the planet to include water resistance, dust resistance and NFC, and it also features a solid build thanks to its aluminum case and silicon strap. The device works with most moderns smartphones — unlike Samsung's Galaxy Gear, which only works with one for the time being — and it costs $199.95 from Sony's online store.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, October 15

Sonos PLAY:1 becomes a less expensive Trojan Horse for just $199

The barrier to entry in the world of Sonos has normally been reasonably high. The company's products sell in the $400 plus range, with the Sonos PLAYBAR retailing for $650. On Monday, however, Sonos is introducing the PLAY:1, a portable speaker that's smaller and more compact than the PLAY:5 and PLAY:3, and less expensive as well. It sells for $199 and while it features just one speaker (instead of three and five for the other PLAY units, respectively), it really packs a punch.



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, October 14

REVIEW -- Samsung Galaxy Gear review: Samsung's smartwatch aims for the future but gets stuck in the past

Samsung's smartwatch aims for the future but gets stuck in the past

Top smartphone makers have a bit of a problem. They got so good at selling smartphones that there aren't enough people left to buy them at the amazing pace the market has enjoyed over the past few years. The smartphone market is still monstrous, of course, but growth is key and growth is slowing. So for market leaders like Apple and Samsung, it's time to look for the next big thing. According to a growing number of industry watchers, that "next big thing" is smartwatches and annual sales are already projected to explode into the hundreds of millions of units in the coming years. But are all these companies just trying to make fetch happen, or are wrist-worn devices like Samsung's new Galaxy Gear smartwatch really the future of mobile computing?



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Posted in 2013 at 01:00PM, October 01