Reports of Windows Phone being pulled from Verizon are partially erroneous
In the past few hours reports have surfaced that all Windows Phone devices had been pulled from the Verizon site. It's a lovely conspiracy theory and certainly something to fire up the fanboys, nothing spells fan better than Microsoft or Apple. Unfortunately, rumors of the handset's demise have been greatly exaggerated, if I may paraphrase Mark Twain.
Journalists may wish to pay a quick visit to the Verizon site, as devices such as the Samsung Ativ SE, for instance, are still available. Nokia Lumia, or Microsoft, as the case may be, aren't listed. That is odd, but not end-of-the-world.
Ultimate Ears pairs more than 10 BOOM and MEGABOOM Bluetooth speakers to one device
Sometimes people do crazy things, without any good reason. Case in point, skydivers. Now, I can understand jumping out of a plane to serve your country in the military, but doing it for fun? Insanity. I once asked a guy why he jumps from planes, and he paused for a moment and said, "because I can". While an answer like that can be frustrating in a discussion or argument, it isn't silly. Actually, doing something for no reason other than the freedom to do so is actually kind of beautiful.
With that said, Ultimate Ears is doing something pretty crazy, and the reason seems to be nothing other than because it can. No, the company is not throwing its awesome speakers out of a plane (that would be dangerous to people below). Actually, the audio company is wirelessly pairing more than 10 of its UE BOOM and MEGABOOM Bluetooth speakers to a single device for simultaneous music playback. Heck, the company claims it is a world record. Before you write it off as a publicity stunt, this functionality is actually being delivered to the two aforementioned BOOM speakers. Yes, consumers will be able to do this eventually too. How cool is that?
Samson announces Meteorite and GoMic Direct USB microphones
Samson is not a company that everyone is familiar with, but it makes cool audio tech. I became aware of it when I was in the market for a high quality, yet low-cost, USB microphone. You see, the integrated microphones on a lot of computers are horrible, so I felt an investment in a quality model would pay off. Ultimately, I bought Samson's Meteor mic, which not only offers great performance, but is inexpensive and looks really sexy on my desk too.
Today, Samson is announcing two new USB microphones; the Meteorite and GoMic Direct. Continuing in the tradition of the original Meteor mic, these are both beautiful and affordable (each $39.99) .
AT&T: Oi, BlackBerry! Redesign the Passport for us. BlackBerry: yeah, OK!
A few months ago BlackBerry announced the Passport, and the keyword was square. A square screen in a decidedly square body, not to forget the physical keyboard, was a sure-fire way to stand out from the crowd; it's hip to be square after all. But for AT&T, the Passport was just a bit too square.
In fact such was the carrier's dislike of the squareness of the Passport that it asked BlackBerry to redesign the handset. And BlackBerry obliged, producing an AT&T exclusive version of the Passport complete with rounded corners that is more in keeping with the look of the BlackBerry Classic, it was revealed at CES 2015 today.
Intel's Compute Stick is a Windows 8.1 PC on an HDMI dongle
The Enterprise edition of Windows 8.1 has a feature called Windows To Go, which lets you build a portable version of the operating system that you can run directly from a USB flash drive. It works well enough but you need a super-fast (and therefore expensive) USB 3.0 stick to get decent performance.
Intel has come up with an alternative solution that can turn any HDMI display into a fully functioning computer running Windows 8.1 with Bing, or Ubuntu Linux.
Mophie Juice Packs power your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus for longer
Power -- or running out of it -- is a perennial problem for mobile phone users. As handset screens grow and processors become more powerful, the demand placed on batteries is constantly increasing. It's quite common to hear people complaining that their phone won't last the day without needing a recharge.
Something of a cottage industry has sprung up in third party batteries and charging cases. One name that has been around for some time is Mophie, and at CES 2015 the company took the wraps off three new power cases; two for iPhone 6 and one for iPhone 6 Plus.
Toshiba unveils first-ever 2.5 inch 3TB HDD -- Laptop and PS4 users, rejoice!
Laptops are incredibly convenient, but not as upgradeable as a traditional desktop. Sure, for some notebook computers, you can change the RAM, storage drive and maybe the Wi-Fi card, but that is pretty much it.
Hard drives in particular are an important upgrade choice, as more storage is often needed for photos and videos. Unfortunately, the 2.5 inch variants for laptops have always trailed the 3.5 inch desktop drives. This is not surprising, as the drives are physically smaller. Today however, Toshiba unveils the world's first 2.5 inch 3TB HDD, delivering breathing room to laptop users. Hell, this should also fit in Sony's PlayStation 4, although a firmware update may be needed to utilize it.
FORCEdraft: a text editor which won’t let you quit…
Twitter, Facebook, emails, eBay -- any web-enabled PC has a pile of distractions to prevent you doing real work.
FORCEdraft is a free text editor which offers an unusually strict solution: it just won’t let you access any other programs until you’ve finished the job.
Poor mobile customer service harms engagement
No matter how effective a business is at selling products or services it's the quality of customer service that often determines how consumers feel about it.
A new report from research company Gartner looks at the importance of mobile customer service and how it will need to adapt in the future.
The battle of the translators: man vs machine
Once, machine translation was only possible in a galaxy far, far away -- from Star Trek’s Universal Translator to Hitchhiker's Babel Fish. But now that Microsoft’s Skype Translator enables callers speaking different languages to converse in real-time via machine translation, that science fiction fantasy has become a non-fiction reality. But in the battle of the translators, who wins -- man or machine?
Skype’s new translator is an impressive technological feat that is able to take spoken words, convert them into text, translate the text, and then synthesize it back into spoken words in the language of the person on the other end of the call, all in a fraction of a second. All-in-all a platform that will be enormously helpful for breaking down barriers and enabling business and social conversations across the planet -- If you haven’t tried it, find a Spanish-speaking friend and check it out. You will be muy soprendido.
Anvi AD Blocker Ultimate now free
Anvisoft has released Anvi AD Blocker Ultimate 3.2, the latest edition of its web adblocker, and announced that the product is now free.
It didn’t look that way when we installed the program, unfortunately, as a web page opened post-setup inviting us to buy it.
Motorola returns to China in full swing, with rebranded Nexus 6 in tow
With Lenovo holding the reins, it is no surprise that Motorola has announced its return to China, the biggest smartphone market worldwide. The venerable maker will start selling its best-known smartphones in the country starting early this year.
Consumers in China will be able to get their hands on the second-generation Moto X and Moto G -- the latter with 4G LTE connectivity -- as well as Moto X Pro. For someone who knows Motorola's lineup, Moto X Pro looks like a new smartphone. However, it is a rebranded Nexus 6.
Yahoo takes a big bite out of Google's search share, catching up to Bing
When Mozilla announced that Yahoo would be replacing Google as the default search choice in Firefox in the US, there were raised eyebrows everywhere. After all, Google has been baked into Firefox for the past decade, and Yahoo’s days as a top search engine are long gone. Or were long gone at least.
Yahoo’s inclusion in Firefox has given the ailing search engine a major boost, helping it achieve its highest US search share since 2009. Unsurprisingly, this share increase came at the expense of Google.
Time to get Intel outside as the company targets wearables
Chip maker Intel is using the 2015 CES to announce its plans for moving into the wearable technology sector.
These include the Curie, a button-sized hardware module, and a collaboration with sports sunglasses brand Oakley.
Sony unveils SmartEyeglass Attach and Smart B-Trainer headset
Sony has announced a couple of new products over at CES which are exploring new concepts in wearables -- though it hasn’t got a huge deal to say about them at this stage.
Specifically, Sony has been talking about its SmartEyeglass Attach, a new concept that further builds on the prototype SmartEyeglass Developer Edition. The Attach is basically a single lens display which can be attached to a normal pair of glasses to provide a small heads-up display for the user, which will work with various sport apps (a number of apps are underway).
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