Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. You can find his current work at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google 9to5Toys, Electrek, and more. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.
A couple weeks ago, Evan Blass came out to unveil pretty much all of the upcoming HTC One M10’s specs, saying that — among other details — the phone is going to ship with a 5.1-inch display. Now, famed Android leaker LlabTooFeR has come out on Twitter to challenge Evan’s great track record. Apparently, the M10 is going to ship with a display not 5.1-inches in size, but 5.2-inches.
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HTC is today offering 40% off all variants of the Nexus 9 tablet, bringing its price down to $239.40 shipped (Reg. $399) for the lowest-end 16GB WiFi model. The Taiwanese company is also offering the highest-end 32GB LTE model for $359.40 shipped (Reg. $599), while also throwing in a free Logitech keyboard for the first 200 buyers…
Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is set to be announced later this month, but it looks like by the time that happens there won’t be anything new to learn about the phone. We just saw actual photos of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge yesterday, and thanks to several previous leaks, we know a lot about the phones’ specs. Now, via a forum poster over at SamMobile, we have our hands on the official set of wallpapers for the unannounced phone…
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Update: Another image has popped up, this time of the front.
Samsug is preparing to show off its newest generation of smartphones at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain later this month, but now it appears we might have our first picture of what might be the Galaxy S7 in the flesh (via ReviewDao.vn). We’ve seen several leaked renders (most notably some very official-looking ones that popped up last week via Evan Blass), and today’s image seems to line up perfectly with what the phone is likely going to look like…
T-Mobile’s Super Bowl ads last night were definitely aimed at millennials. One involved Steve Harvey and referenced Verizon’s “Colorful Balls” ad once again (as well as Harvey’s forgetful stumble on Miss Universe), and the other brought in Drake to show how ridiculous the other carriers could be on the set of “Hotline Bling”…
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According to some FCC documents recently unearthed, Alphabet’s X division (formerly Google[x]) has its sights set on disconnecting the cute fully-electric self-driving car prototypes from their wall chargers. Yes, we’re talking wireless charging, the kind that could beam up energy through the bottom of the car using a technology called resonant magnetic induction…
Huawei recently announced the Mate 8 for intenernational markets and brought its low-end Honor 5X to the United States, but the company apparently isn’t stopping there. Today, the Chinese company began selling another smartphone in the United States. As per its Amazon listing the US version of the Huawei GX8 is available for $350…
Voxer is a relatively popular messaging app for Android and iOS, and has long been considered one of the best solutions available for those looking for a great PPT (push-to-talk) experience on mobile. It received a ton of funding a few years ago, and while it never really took off in the mainstream, it’s still being updated even today with new fixes and features for its dedicated group of users. It has somewhere between 10 and 50 million Play Store installs.
George Kola, a software engineer that was most recently Chief Technology Officer of the company for more than a year, has now joined Google according to his LinkedIn profile. While it’s of course possible that Kola could have joined Google on his engineering merit alone and could be working in just about any department within the Mountain View company, it’s still worth asking: Could Google possibly have its eyes on bringing some walkie talkie features to Hangouts?..
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Google has today launched the latest update to the Android Wear OS, bumping it from version 1.3 to 1.4 (the companion app got an update in November, which tipped us off that this firmware update was on the way). Among other features, this version of the OS enables support for the speaker hardware that was previously discovered on the Huawei Watch and the ASUS ZenWatch 2…
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Last week we told you that four more mysterious cities are set to get Alphabet’s self-driving cars in the relatively near future, and now the California company has said (via Reuters) that the next city on the list—following Mountain View, CA and Austin, TX— is Kirkland, Washington…
Update 2: People familiar with the matter have said that this isn’t an internal codename for a future project, but rather just referencing the concept of iterative “++” in programming.
Update: Taylor’s LinkedIn profile has been updated to redact mentions of Cardboard++: “In January I began working with the Cardboard team.” Previous version can be seen in a screenshot below.
We know that VR has become much more central to Google’s ambitions lately, but what exactly might the company be working on? According to some evidence scattered across the web, one project in the works might be called “Cardboard++,” a collaboration between the Project Tango augmented reality team and the Cardboard virtual reality team…
Over the weekend, press renders of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge leaked via Evan Blass, leaving not much to the imagination for the Korean company’s upcoming Mobile World Congress press conference. Now, the S7 Edge has been outed even more, with references to the unannounced device appearing on one page of Samsung’s own website…
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It wasn’t until just recently that the ZenFone Zoom, which ASUS showed off at CES more than a year ago, finally went up for pre-order. Now, you can buy the phone outright in all its leather-backed glory over at B&H for $399 shipped. The main feature that sets this phone apart is its camera with optical zoom, allowing the lenses within to actually move forward and backward physically to offer up to 3x zoom without losing any image quality.
In Alphabet’s earnings call today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned that Gmail has joined a list of 6 other Google services that now have more than 1 billion active monthly users. The other services include Search, Android, Maps, Chrome, YouTube, and Google Play.
To go along with the announcement, Google posted a really creepy video on Twitter:
Thanks a billion for helping us make Gmail better and better!https://t.co/Rd82YqwGjl
— Gmail (@gmail) February 1, 2016
WhatsApp also announced on its blog today that the service has passed the same milestone.
As of today, one billion people are using WhatsApp.
That’s nearly one in seven people on Earth who use WhatsApp each month to stay in touch with their loved ones, their friends and their family.
While Gmail and WhatsApp may now have more than 1 billion active monthly users, both apps have long since passed the 1 billion stall mark on the Google Play Store. Speaking of that—it’s been a while since we’ve seen a new 1 billion+ install app. It’s probably time.
Alphabet’s just-released Q4 earnings has seen its stock price rise in after hours trading, resulting in the Mountain View-based company passing Apple to become the most valuable company in the world. The company’s market capitalization was $517.6 billion at close, and while the price is still fluctuating after hours, Alphabet’s market cap will be over $540 billion tomorrow if these prices hold…
Alphabet has today posted its Q4 2015 earnings and fiscal year 2015 results. The company reports revenue of $21.3 billion, which is up 18%. Net income for Q4 2015 was $3.97 billion. Meanwhile, both Alphabet Class A stock and Class C stock is soaring in after-hours trading, briefly giving Alphabet the top spot as most valuable company in the world.
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Update: SamMobile has uncovered some source code on Samsung’s event page which seems to hint at the presence of 360-degree video, although in reality, that could mean anything. It’s definitely vague, but worth noting nonetheless.
Google unveiled its Jump camera rig for 360 degree video at Google I/O 2015, and now it appears Samsung has something related up its sleeve for Mobile World Congress later this month. According to a report this morning from SamMobile, the previously-rumored Gear 360 camera rig is real, and it’s coming at Mobile World Congress alongside the new lineup of Galaxy phones…
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