After announcing its Oculus-powered Gear VR earlier this year, Samsung’s new virtual reality experience for its Note 4 smartphone is now available to order through its website and other retailers in the US.
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Dropbox today officially announced its Dropbox for Business API allowing corporate IT systems to integrate the cloud-syncing platform for businesses into their own solutions. Dropbox says its newly announced Business API (application programming interface) will let developers take advantage of “team-level functionality” and corporate partners to further integrate Dropbox for Business into their own systems. Specifically, the Dropbox for Business API will provide the following benefits for partners:
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure teasing the new promotion
Sprint today announced a new campaign to attract wireless customers from competitors AT&T and Verizon with aggressively priced plans and an offer to help pay switching fees. Under the new promotion, which Sprint’s recently appointed CEO Marcelo Claure previously teased, the wireless carrier will offer to match Verizon and AT&T plans at half the cost for customers switching to Sprint.
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The displays on most smartphones these days, including many popular Android handsets, are made using Gorilla Glass from Corning, Inc., which is stronger and lighter than regular glass. Just how much stronger and lighter, exactly, is a question that was put to the test by MythBusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman as part of a promotional campaign by Corning.
The video (embedded below) puts two phones through quick drop and scratch tests before moving on to other applications for the glass, such as car windshields. A previous entry in the series covered the bendability of Gorilla Glass.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13B5K_lAabw&channel=CorningIncorporated]
Our friends at 9to5Toys are busy excavating the Internet to find the latest Cyber Monday deals for any and everything and to help make things easier for you guys we’ve singled out some of the best Google deals that you’ll find on the web. Here’s a look at some of our favorite items currently on sale during this web-based holiday.
According to the latest data from IDC, Google, for the first time ever, has overtaken Apple in United States schools. The research firm claims that Google shipped 715,000 Chromebooks to schools in the third quarter, while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads to schools. Chromebooks as a whole now account for a quarter of the educational market (via FT).
A new Samsung smartphone recently made its way through the FCC with a model number of SM-A700FD. Rumored to be called the Galaxy A7, this unannounced handset is believed to be part of the Korean electronics manufacturer’s A series. The phone’s FCC documents don’t give up a large amount of information, however they confirm support for LTE and NFC connectivity.
If you own a Nexus 6 and you’re looking for some Google endorsed accessories, your options have just increased by one. The smartphone’s highly anticipated Stand Folio Case is now available from the Play Store for $40 with a warehouse departure time of one to two business days.
If picking up a new point camera is on your weekend to-do list, the relatively new HTC RE is currently on sale for $100 at several retailers. You can purchase the inhaler-esque point-and-shoot camera from Best Buy, Verizon, AT&T and HTC at this discounted price from now until 9pm PT on Monday, December 1st.
Samsung on Wednesday announced that it will be repurchasing $2 billion worth of its own common and preferred stocks to increase shareholder value through securing share price stability. Samsung investors have become increasingly worried in recent months as the South Korean electronics maker has faced declining Galaxy smartphone sales.
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If you have been aiming to get your hands on the latest Moto 360 smartwatch this holiday shopping season, look no further than Staples. Thanks to a storewide 25% off coupon, the office retailer is selling the Moto 360 in Stone Leather or Black Leather for just $187.49 online.
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Republic Wireless announced today that it will begin selling the 2014 Moto X on Wednesday, December 10th. As seen with other retail outlets, the “hybrid calling” service will support device customization via the Moto Maker. Republic Wireless will offer the 16GB variant of the second-generation Moto X for $399, which is about $100 under the handset’s regular off-contract price.
The HTC RE is one of the weirdest looking cameras that we’ve seen released this year. At a glance it looks like a tiny periscope or a colorful asthma inhaler. Odd presentation aside, this GoPro alternative has some likable qualities, however its $200 asking price is likely to be a turnoff for frugal photogs. If that last line sounds like you, then you might want to listen up, because HTC is having a sale.
Sony’s diverse product portfolio is about to lose a little weight. Despite the company’s popularity and historical success the Japanese corporation is going to be cutting down its TV and mobile lineups to cut costs. Over the past few years Sony has steadily lost its wireless momentum to rival companies like Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi. The outfit’s new focus will be for its struggling TV and mobile divisions to simply turn a profit.
A photography and multimedia company by the name of Milk Studios filed a lawsuit against Samsung earlier this week, claiming the South Korean technology firm had violated its trademark with the name of its music streaming service. Filed in the US District Court of the Southern District of New York, the company says that Samsung “intentionally, willfully and knowingly” used the Milk name for its music service called Milk Music which launched last spring for Galaxy device users.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission this week reached an agreement with T-Mobile to ensure that customers receive proper information about the speed of their wireless internet connection, even if the user has a capped data plan. The carrier has 60 days to implement the changes outlined in the agreement.
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Google’s ongoing battle with the European Union may have just taken a nasty turn. A new draft motion from the European Parliament is looking to separate the outfit’s search business from the rest of its operations. This comes after years of accusations against the company claiming that it exercises adverse practices, showcasing its own products while burying its competition.
AT&T retail stores are reportedly being told to send back their first shipments of Google’s Nexus 6 due to a software bug identified by Motorola. The noted issues with this glitch are a blacked out screen and trouble connecting to the carrier’s service. Motorola Mobility is said to be working on restocking Ma Bell’s inventory with replacement devices, however this will likely have an impact on the handset’s availability.
Just weeks after Xiaomi overtook Huawei and LG to become the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, The Guardian reports that the Chinese handset maker’s chief executive and founder Lei Jun is out with a bold prediction that his company could move past Samsung and Apple to become the world’s largest smartphone maker within the next five to ten years.
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Google is busy working on bringing Internet access to the masses through its balloon-powered Project Loon program and today the outfit shared some impressive statistics related to the project’s progress. One of the company’s biggest advancements is that its balloons can now last 10 times longer in the stratosphere than they were able to last year. The tech giant also noted that most of its floating Internet stations are lasting 100 days and some even surviving up to 130 days.
Google, according to a report out of Reuters, has agreed to settle all of its patent litigation with the Rockstar consortium, which consists of a variety of tech companies including Apple, Sony, BlackBerry and Microsoft. The Rockstar consortium paid $4.5 billion for Nortel Network Corporation’s huge patent portfolio in 2011, outbidding Google at the time. The Rockstar consortium originally sued Google and a handful of Android manufacturers in October of 2013, claiming that the companies infringed on seven Nortel patents.
Google has today launched a new platform that aims to reinvent how content creators on the Internet make money. It’s called Contributor, and it involves readers committing to a certain monthly payment of $1-3, which will in turn give visitors an ad-free browsing experience on some sites. This could potentially be a full-blown alternative to Google’s AdSense, giving publications like this one and others a new form of monetization.
Verizon announced the availability of two low-cost LG tablets today. Priced at $300, LG’s full-size 10.1-inch tablet sports an HD IPS display, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter, 16GB of internal storage, an 8,000mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. The smaller and cheaper ($250) 7-inch slate features nearly identical specifications, with the exceptions of its smaller stature and its 4,000mAh cell.
Billboard is about to add data from music streaming services to its weekly Billboard 200 charts for the first time as services like Google Play, Spotify and Apple’s Beats Music become increasingly popular. The New York Times reports that Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan plan to start incorporating both streams and downloads from music streaming services, in addition to the music sales the chart already covered, in order to more accurately reflect popular albums based on what users are listening to. The first chart including streaming services will include data for next week and arrive online Dec. 4:
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