Between the release of the Moto X, Droid Turbo and taking on a new taskmaster, Motorola Mobility has been extremely busy. With no signs of slowing down, the former Google company just announced the availability of the Keylink, a Bluetooth-powered fob that helps you find your misplaced keys or smartphone.
Whether you’re one of the cool kids who got their Nexus 6 shipment from Motorola or you inked a deal with Sprint, you’ll probably want to protect your new investment. While the web is already loaded with accessories to compliment Google’s new flagship smartphone, the company is only marketing two at the Play Store and one of them is now available to purchase.
Google’s collection of user information is often used as propaganda, but there’s no denying that the company monitors its subscribers closely. Do you regularly use products like Gmail, Maps, Chrome, Android, YouTube, and search? If so, there’s a good chance that Google has a detailed log of your habits assigned to your user profile. Don’t believe us? Check out this list of links to see what type of information Google has about you.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note Edge
Samsung continues to be the world’s largest smartphone maker by a sizeable margin, but the South Korean electronics maker recently reported a massive 74% drop in mobile profits in the third quarter due to declining Galaxy sales and increasing competition from Apple and Chinese rivals Xiaomi and Lenovo.
In an effort to cut costs and combat declining profits, it was reported last night that Samsung will sell up to 30% fewer smartphone models next year. But that doesn’t appear to be the only move up Samsung’s sleeve, as ZDNet reports that the tech giant is also gearing up to launch a smartphone with a flexible and foldable display by the end of the year.
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Remember that spooky feeling you got when you first tried Google Goggles and it actually worked? Well, prepare to be creeped out yet again by the search giant’s new photo recognition tech. Google has developed a new machine-learning system that automatically assigns captions that accurately describes items displayed in a photo.
The Wall Street Journal reports this evening that Samsung will sell fewer smartphone models next year as part of a cost-cutting measure to fight declining profits. Samsung head of investor relations Robert Yi confirmed during a presentation in New York that the South Korean electronics maker will cut the number of smartphone models it sells by between 25% to 30% in 2015.
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AT&T recently ran a promo that offered double data on a select number of its Mobile Share Value plans. As a follow up, the carrier will soon start extending an extra 5GB of data to customers with 10GB plans at no additional charge. The offer starts tomorrow and runs for a “limited time.”
Sony announced a new imaging sensor today that the company says will improve smartphones cameras. The Exmor RS IMX230 is a stacked CMOS sensor that packs 21-megapixels into a small 1/2.4-inch design. One of the key talking points of Sony’s new chip is its 192 point phase detection autofocus, which makes it easier to shoot photos or video of a fast moving subject with your smartphone.
Verizon Wireless has updated its customer agreement with new conditions related to early termination fees. Effective today, new customers that purchase a device on contract will be required to pay a full $350 early termination fee during the first seven months of the contract if it is broken. The fee is reduced by $10 per month between months 8-18, $20 per month between months 19-23 and $60 in the final month of the contract term…
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Samsung’s smartphone sales are in a bit of a slump and the company’s executives are starting to feel the burn. According to a recent regulatory filing, the company’s mobile boss, J.K Shin took home 689 million Korean won (around $630,000) in the third quarter of the year. This is less than half of the 1.7 billion won (about $1.5 million) that he banked during the previous quarter.
The Association for Computing Machinery’s A.M. Turing Award is one of the most prestigious honors that can be won by a computer scientist or engineer and it’s about to get a lot more valuable thanks to a cash infusion from Mountain View. Today, the ACM announced that funding for its award has been raised to $1 million provided by Google, making the prize’s value four times its previous sum.
Earlier this year at its Unpacked event, Samsung previewed its Galaxy Note Edge phablet with a special, curved part of the display that wraps around the right side. We’ve already given you our early hands-on and first impressions of the latest Samsung Galaxy Note variant, and today the reviews are starting to surface. So what’s the verdict on this unique take on a phablet? Check out our roundup below:
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Today, Samsung announced a new set of SDKs for its Digital Health and Smart Home platforms during its ongoing Developer Conference in San Francisco. Similar to offerings from Google and Apple, the Korean company’s fitness-focused initiative uses wearable and mobile devices to track a person’s exercise and diet habits by syncing their information with its cloud servers.
From 9to5Toys.com:
It doesn’t get much bigger than Best Buy on Black Friday for a tech lover. And with a little over 2 weeks to go before Black Friday 2014, we’ve got the holy grail in our hands. Just like Target, Best Buy has beat the Black Friday ad leakers to the punch by releasing its biggest deals of the holiday season right on the front page of its website.
The deals will kick-off in-store Thursday, November 24th at 5pm and Friday, November 25th at 8am, but the ad specifically notes that you’ll be able to shop all-day long online both days.
So without further delay, here are our top Google picks for Black Friday 2014 at Best Buy as well as a sneak peak at the early sale beginning November 20th:
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Info regarding special early sale:
H/T: Best Black Friday
AT&T is scrapping its plans to offer in-flight 4G LTE connectivity services to airlines and passengers in business and general aviation. The company originally planned to build an air-to-ground network across the US to take advantage of spectrum that it already owned.
According to a new report from Reuters, Samsung plans to invest as much as $3 billion toward opening its second Vietnam-based smartphone factory in an effort to produce hardware at a lower cost. An unnamed government official confirmed that the project is ongoing, and a Samsung spokesperson shared that the company is in talks with the government over the investment.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) has applied for a license to invest $3 billion in building a second smartphone factory in northern Vietnam, a government official said on Monday.
Uber has already disrupted taxi service in metropolitan areas like San Francisco, New York and Chicago with its affordable and convenient ride-sharing service, and now the multibillion dollar startup could be planning to use its massive fleet of vehicles and drivers to take on delivery services like Amazon Prime, Google Express, FedEx and UPS.
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From modular phones to cancer detecting nanoparticles, Google sure has a lot in its pipeline. But lurking behind those high-profile projects is Google Genomics, a project that will store complete copies of genomes. The search giant started working on this particular moonshot about a year and a half ago, partnering with scientists and developing an API that allows them to move DNA data into its servers.
While only a small but growing number of users have even upgraded their desktop computer with a 4K monitor, a new report from PhoneArena claims that Samsung will start mass-producing a 5.9-inch 4K Ultra HD Super AMOLED display in August. Conveniently, that is around the time Samsung might begin manufacturing its Galaxy Note 5.
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Motorola and Google may have officially split up, however the search giant has retained the interactive short film brand known as Spotlight Stories that was featured on the Moto X and Moto G smartphones. This newer filmmaking technology pushes stories from the big screens of the theater to a person’s mobile device and features engaging cues that impact the way the story told and heard. For example, if a helicopter were to follow a vehicle as part of a car chase, a viewer would be able to lift their phone upward to get a closer look at the iron bird in hot pursuit.
OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei confirmed to Forbes that OnePlus One smartphone sales have eclipsed the 500,000 mark to date, adding that the Chinese company has a lofty goal of selling 1 million units by the end of the year. “It’s going to be hard,” said Pei, speaking at the Dublin Web Summit taking place this week. “But I think it’s possible.”
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Samsung on Wednesday announced that the Gear Circle is now available in the United States at select T-Mobile stores nationwide, with an expanded rollout of the device at AT&T, Amazon and Samsung’s online store to take place later this month. Samsung’s Gear Circle will also be available in white exclusively from Best Buy locations in the future.
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Google has been locked in a nasty battle with a group of German publishers for several years, with the troop complaining that the tech company’s web search results were making their online articles available to the public. But after two weeks of restricted access to Google News results, major news publisher Axel Springer has changed its mind.