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LG sends out invites for its Mobile World Congress event on February 21st

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Mobile World Congress is still more than a month away, but that’s not keeping LG from sending out invitations to its upcoming press event in Barcelona. The company’s keynote is scheduled for February 21st, according to the invite, at 14:00 local time. Beyond that, though, there’s not much to learn here. The invite shows what looks to be a jack-in-the-box along with the slogan “Play begins.”…
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Google reportedly planning a ‘watershed’ quantum computing announcement for December 8

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According to Steve Jurvetson, venture capitalist and board member at pioneer quantum computing company D-WAVE (as well as others, such as Tesla and SpaceX), Google has what may be a “watershed” quantum computing announcement scheduled for early next month. This comes as D-WAVE, which notably also holds the Mountain View company as a customer, has just sold a 1000+ Qubit 2X quantum computer to national security research institution Los Alamos…
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Verizon & Motorola announce DROID Turbo 2 and DROID Maxx 2

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Verizon and Motorola have today announced both the Droid Turbo 2 and the Droid Maxx 2, a pair of smartphones that give Verizon customers some really great flagship and sub-flagship options. The big announcement here is the shatterproof screen coming exclusively to the higher-end Droid Turbo 2, but that reveal is coupled with the announcement of a mid-range, all-around good phone, the Maxx 2. Here’s everything we know…
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Watch Google’s Chromecast 2, Nexus 5X/6P event right here [Livestream]

Google’s planning to introduce new Chromecasts, new Nexus devices, and plenty of other goodies at its September 29th event today, and thankfully, the company is livestreaming it for those who won’t be there in the flesh. If you’ve got a chance to watch along (although there probably isn’t much we don’t already know), head below the break…
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BlackBerry finally makes its security-focused & Android-powered Priv handset official

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After many months of leaks, BlackBerry has finally made the Android-powered “Venice” slider smartphone official. The phone is officially coming to market as the Priv (as was leaked yesterday), a suitable name considering its privacy and security focus, and it’s going to be available later this year…
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PSA: Popular iOS game Alto’s Adventure is coming to Android

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Alto’s Adventure is one of those fad games that may or may not stick around in the long term, but it has been featured in the App Store a couple of times for good reason. It’s a tranquil and calm pick-up-and-play snowboarding game not all too different than the likes of Tiny Wings, but — just like Tiny Wings — it’s very addicting. Now, thanks to an announcement from NoodleCake (the game’s maker), we know that Alto’s Adventure is coming to Android.

We don’t yet know exactly when the game is making its way to Google’s mobile platform. “We are hoping to have the game out soon enough but we don’t have an exact launch date just yet,” the developers said in a blog post. Assumably, NoodleCake will also be pushing the device to the Amazon Appstore, as the company says that it is coming to Kindle Fire as well. We’ll keep you in the loop. As a fan of the game myself, I’m excited.

Motorola says the new Moto X Pure Edition will be available September 3rd

The 3rd generation Moto X, also known as Moto X Style, also known as (officially, in the United States) Moto X Pure Edition, is set to become available for purchase in the US on September 3rd.

The phone, announced a couple of weeks ago alongside the Moto X Play, packs a 5.7-inch Quad HD display, a Snapdragon 808, 3 GB of RAM, 4G LTE, a beastly 21-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel front cam, and a 3,000 mAh battery.

Moto X Style, known as the “Pure Edition” stateside, will cost $399 for the base model. The Moto X Play will be available in 55 countries starting August (but, unfortunately, this doesn’t include the United States).

Google introduces News Lab, wants to use its tech to ‘help build the future of media’

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Google has this morning announced a new effort called News Lab, which is the company’s attempt at using its many resources and technologies to help usher in a new age of innovation in journalism. There are three basic tentpoles to what the company is doing here to empower journalists: tools, data, and programs.
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Google shares updated diversity data, says it still has ‘a long way to go’

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More than a year ago, Google became one of the first tech companies to share data on the diversity of its workforce, and now it has released an updated version of the data. In a post on Google+, the company revealed some of the changes that it has made to improve diversity and the results of those changes. Last month, Google revealed plans to spend more than $150 million on diversity initiatives over the next year.


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Sony officially announces its new Xperia C4 and C4 Dual selfie smartphones

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Sony has today announced a refresh of its Xperia C line with the introduction of the Xperia C4, featuring a Full HD display and a “best in class” 5-megapixel front camera. I’m not the target audience for a selfie phone, but there’s definitely some kind of target audience out there somewhere that buys these things…


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Huawei announces its P8 and P8max flagships w/ steel construction, spec bumps all-around

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Ditching the Ascend name, Huawei has today announced its P8 flagship smartphone, most notably packing a steel metal construction and some nifty new camera features built around a 13-megapixel main shooter with optical image stabilization. Of course the software on the device got a bump into 2015 as well, bringing on board Google’s Android Lollipop (or at least Huawei’s version of it).
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Acer announces Chromebase w/ touch screen, sends invites to April 23 event

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Acer has today announced the latest addition to Google’s Chrome OS lineup with a new Chromebase all-in-one desktop with a touch screen. The announcement comes following the company’s introduction of the very first 15-inch Chromebook earlier this year, which like this device, was first of its kind.

The company has also sent invites to an event taking place at the World Trade Center on April 23rd…
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HTC reveals One M9 to be available in the US from April 10, more details

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HTC has announced today during its Uh Oh protection plan livestream that the HTC One M9 will be available at retail from early April in the United States. The answer came in reference to when the Uh Oh plan itself will be launching, which will be the same day that the HTC One M9 hits stores. Notably, this date will likely vary by carrier, but the first availability of the device will be April 10th.

The company also answered several other questions via viewers on Twitter:

The Uh Oh protection plan was “born out of a conference room in the US offices,” and HTC Americas president Jason Mackenzie says that it will indeed be limited to the United States for the time being. The Uh Oh plan will likely make it to other countries with time, however, after the company makes sure to “get it right.”

When asked about the Lollipop update for the HTC One M8 and M7, Mackenzie said that the update is “in certification” now, and that approval should be happening sometime around the end of this month or the beginning of next month.

Finally, HTC confirmed today, unsurprisingly, that there will not be a Google Play Edition for the HTC One M9. When asked about a Windows Phone version, Mackenzie left things open ended saying to “stay tuned.”

You can watch the stream in full if you’re interested.

‘Big’ HTC One M9 announcement coming on Wednesday

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Jason Mackenzie, the President of HTC America, has come out this morning on Twitter to say that the Taiwanese company has a “BIG announcement for US customers on Wednesday.”

It’s going to be aimed specifically at “US customers,” which makes me think the announcement will likely be stateside availability of the HTC One M9. I’m not sure if that would qualify as a “BIG” announcement in my mind, but we’ve definitely been waiting a while to find out when the device is going to be available.

Another plausible announcement could be an “HTC One M9 for Windows” device, a successor to the Microsoft-approved device that HTC launched in August of last year. That would be closer to something “BIG”, but I think HTC has an Android HTC One M9 that it needs to convince the world to buy before it can sell another variant of it.

OnePlus teases ‘Back to Basics’ announcement following removal of Cyanogen branding from the One

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OnePlus is today teasing an announcement for tomorrow with the tagline “Back to Basics,” but no one really has any idea what the company plans to tell us about. Interestingly, the teaser image that OnePlus posted across its social media profiles (seen above) definitely makes reference to the Breaking Bad title screen, but it’s not clear yet what it might mean.

Also, updated models of the OnePlus One without Cyanogen branding on their back covers have begun shipping…


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New leaked photos show purported ‘Hima’ HTC One (M9), moved hardware buttons

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The upcoming HTC flagship is probably one of the most exciting smartphone launches scheduled for the next couple of months, and today Phandroid has shared photos that claim to show the rumored “Hima” device in the flesh. There’s nothing crazy or exciting to see here, but we do now have a bit of corroboration of things we knew previously.


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LG posts official G3 teaser video, shows off sleek brushed metal design

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LG has just published a new teaser video for its upcoming G3 smartphone. The video doesn’t reveal much, but it definitely proves that most of the leaks we’ve seen recently were accurate.

According to this epic new video, the LG G3 looks incredibly thin and appears to have a brushed metal design (also leaked in gold), but we won’t know for sure until LG’s announcement. The video teases the G3’s optical image stabilization, referenced only by a moving camera sensor, and concludes with a tag line that reads, “Simple is the new smart” and the official announcement date of May 27th, 2014. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to see here, but the video does provide a look at the smartphone’s thin profile.


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Moto G specs appear on retailer site w/ £149 ($235) price tag ahead of Nov. 13 launch

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Moto-GThere has been much talk of Motorola’s upcoming Moto G smartphone in recent weeks, the rumored “mini” follow up to its Moto X flagship launched earlier this year. After making a brief appearance on Motorola’s website, the company started teasing a November 13th live online announcement for the device, and now we get what look to be official specs from a German retailer already listing the Moto G. 

The Phone House, a german retailer, today quickly posted and then removed a listing for the Moto G that was caught by The Unwired. On top of listing what we assume are official specs (below), it also quoted a price of £149 (approximately $235 US). That seems a little pricey to be the on-contract price for what many assume will be a budget version of the Moto X, so it could very well be the off-contract price, which compares to the $499 Motorola and carriers charge for the Moto X without a two-year contract. The Moto X currently sells for $99 on contract.

Head below for the full list of Moto G specs:


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Rovio teases July 15th announcement for brand new Angry Birds Star Wars game

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Last November, Rovio introduced a new Angry Birds Star Wars game that brought iconic Star Wars locations and characters from the movies into the Angry Birds gameplay universe. Today the developer is teasing what looks to be an entirely new Star Wars themed Angry Birds game. While Rovio’s initial tweet only mentioned a “Big new game announcement” coming this Monday, it later confirmed on its blog that the announcement will be for “a brand new game” with “the biggest character line-up ever, awesome new powers, and maybe even a few surprises!”

On top of the teaser, Rovio is also making Angry Birds Star Wars available for free today for a limited time.

We don’t get any other details, but Rovio did include the image above hinting the game might be inspired by Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace:

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Samsung officially announces the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3, rolling out globally starting next month

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Samsung has finally made things official for the Galaxy Tab 3 today, announcing in a press release on its website that the 7-inch tablet will become available globally starting next month. Samsung didn’t confirm pricing on the new tab, but did reveal specs including a 1.2GHz dual for process, 7 inch WSVGA (1024 x 600, 169 PPI) TFT display, 1GB of RAM, and 8 and 16GB variants expandable to 64GB via microSD.

The new Galaxy Tab 3 will be running Android 4.1 out of the box, but Samsung will only be shipping the Wi-Fi version of the device when it begins selling next month.

Other specs include a 4,000 mAh Li-ion battery, 3-megapixel main camera, 1.3 -megapixel front facing cam, A-GPS + GLONASS, WiFi Direct, and Bluetooth 3.0. Rather underwhelming specs, so we assume pricing will be on the low end of things when Samsung finally decides to fill us in.

As for those waiting out for a WiFi + 3G variant, the company currently plans on beginning sales of that model in June with rollouts happening gradually and availability varying by market.

Android tablets as a second controller for PS4 announced (Update)

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As the PS4 keynote event unfolds, a new great feature has just been announced: Android tablets as game controllers. The specific reveal came along with the game Drive Club. It’s a first-person team-based racing game exclusive to the new PS4. EvolutionStudios, the brains behind the new game, are allowing users to create a game and challenge their friends with Android tablets while on the go. More information as to whether this feature is exclusive to this game or a new PS4 feature has yet to be announced, but we’ll be sure to update you as we get word.

Update: Well that’s all folks! The PS4 “reveal” event is over now (with no hardware sighting), and Drive Club is the only game with Android tablets as confirmed second controllers. As more games are announced and eventually released, we’ll probably see this feature included. But, for now, Drive Club is the only known game.