Rsponse to rumors of Apple, others going with sapphire instead | 05/23, 9:00am
A new test video, along with explanation and question period, shows Corning firing back at rumors that Apple and other clients may switch to using a sapphire glass cover in future products. In addition to showing that Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 is stronger and more resistant to damage, the US-based glass company says that their product is more eco-friendly, cheaper to make, and more flexible for designing products.
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HTC One fairing well, but Samsung maintains strong lead | 05/23, 6:45am
HTC says it has sold nearly five million units of its HTC One smartphone. Although only around half of the 10 million Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones sold, the figure is still a strong result. The news will be a morale boost for the Taiwanese company amid reports that it has lost several senior executives following a disastrous first quarter that saw the company return just $2.8 million profit on over just $2 billion is revenue.
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HP Envy Rove, 20-inch portable touchscreen desktop with Win 8 | 05/23, 4:46am
HP has taken a stab at the fledging mobile desktop market with its new Envy Rove. Like the Sony Vaio Tap 20 and the Dell XPS 18 , the Envy Rove does double duty as an all-in-one touchscreen Windows 8 desktop computer, while it also incorporates an in-built battery for mobile use around the house. The Envy Rove is one of three new all-in-ones HP announced today, which also offer a choice of the latest Intel ‘Haswell’ silicon scheduled for widespread availability in July.
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Lumia form gets aluminum frame | 05/23, 1:39am
Following a formal unveiling last week at a press event in London, Nokia has brought its new Lumia 925 handset to Las Vegas for CTIA's spring expo. Electronista had a chance to try out the T-Mobile edition, which pairs the company's traditional Lumia form and premium camera features with a new aluminum frame.
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New processors deliver low TDP, increased graphical performance | 05/23, 12:05am
AMD has provided solid details on its new processor lines for the future. The "Temash" APU chipset for "performance tablets" has been detailed, alongside mainstream computing line "Kabini" and elite performance level "Richland" processors, boasting up to 71 percent better graphics performance than the Intel Core i5, according to the manufacturer.
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Large tech companies hide funds in Cayman Islands, Switzerland | 05/22, 11:31am
Large tech firms are coming under scrutiny over their tax avoidance measures, following the testimony of Apple executives to a US Senate Permanent Subcommittee. Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and others have been found to be using an assortment of tax loopholes and off-shoring in order to avoid paying governments in the US and Europe at least $100 billion.
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HTC losing executives as it struggles to turn its fortunes around | 05/22, 7:12am
HTC’s woes seem to have cut into its staff morale with a several senior executives said to be leaving the company , reports The Verge . HTC’s Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera left the Taiwanese smartphone maker last week, joining an exodus that has taken place over the past three months. Other senior execs to leave the embattled company include Jason Gordon (VP Global Communications), Rebecca Rowland (Global Retail Marketing Manager), John Starkweather (Director of Digital Marketing) and Eric Lin (Product Strategy Manager).
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New rugged budget smartphone | 05/22, 1:36am
Kyocera is one of several companies to bring new phones to CTIA's spring show in Las Vegas, introducing the Hydro Xtrm . Like most of the company's other handsets the Xtrm is a budget device, however it offers a higher level of ruggedness compared to its predecessor. Electronista had a chance to handle the new phone at a special event following the first show day.
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Possibly compatible with previous models, facilitating third-party upgrades | 05/21, 1:00pm
A new Broadcom chipset spotted on a Chinese website may be a component of future Mac updates, bringing 802.11ac (known as "Gigabit Wi-Fi") and Bluetooth 4.0 to new models on a single chipset. Not only will the chip handle all wireless communication for future Mac models, but the new chip appears -- at first glance -- to be backward compatible with similar parts in recent models, opening up the possibility of aftermarket upgrades.
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Google teases Android fans with Key Lime Pie references at I/O | 05/21, 8:23am
Although many were expecting Google to announce a new version of Android at Google I/O, it did not materialize. Instead the major product announcement was for a stock Android version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which will only be available to US customers. Although the next version of Android is likely to be an incremental ‘Jelly Bean’ update widely thought to be Android 4.3, the rumored next major revision of Android dubbed ‘Key Lime Pie’ may have been given a subtle ‘hat tip’ during its developer conference.
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International customers to miss out on stock Android Galaxy S4 | 05/21, 6:26am
The ‘Google Edition’ of the Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android will be a US-only model it has been revealed. The long anticipated device is set to go on sale on June 26 for $649 will only be available through the US Google Play Store with no current plans to expand its availability internationally. The news will come as a blow to users who like what the Galaxy S4 hardware offers, but don’t like Samsung’s TouchWiz version of Google’s Android operating system.
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Capacity revealed at NYC presser | 05/20, 5:26pm
Speaking at tonight's Yahoo press event in New York City, Marissa Mayer and Yahoo's Mobile Engineering Senior Vice President and Flickr product manager Adam Cahan revealed the new Flickr and accompanying new Android app, offering users 1TB of photo storage in a "very metro" user interface.
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Number of blog transfers to Wordpress spikes after Board approval | 05/20, 11:23am
Yahoo has confirmed it has bought Tumblr , in a deal noted yesterday to be in the region of $1.1 billion. The search company has already moved its company blog over to the blogging platform, and despite CEO Marissa Mayer saying "We promise not to screw it up," there is reportedly a large jump in the number of users moving from Tumblr to Wordpress.
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Jolla smartphone with Sailfish OS set for release in late 2013 | 05/20, 6:48am
Jolla has revealed its first smartphone to run its Linux-based Sailfish mobile operating system. If you’re wondering how the Finnish company plans to survive in the cutthroat mobile space, things become clearer when Jolla looking at its features, which includes 100 percent app compliance with Android apps. The first handset is set to reach the market “by end of 2013” and will be simply titled “Jolla” (pronounced ‘Yo-la’) and will retail for 399€.
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How do the US and international versions of the Galaxy S4 stack up? | 05/19, 5:17am
We have already published our full review of the Galaxy S4 for the US, which ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor. In some international markets, the Galaxy S4 ships with Samsung’s own Exynos 5 Octa, an eight-core chip that uses ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. We have been using one for the past week, putting it through its paces, although our focus here is to see whether US customers are missing out on any performance.
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Step could affect web advertising | 05/17, 8:48pm
Mozilla is delaying plans to start blocking third-party tracking cookies in Firefox by default, according to an announcement. The company states that more work is needed for the anti-tracking feature. "The idea is that if you have not visited a site (including the one to which you are navigating currently) and it wants to put a cookie on your computer, the site is likely not one you have heard of or have any relationship with," explains Mozilla's Brendan Eich. "But this is only likely, not always true."
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Suspected topics Tumblr acquisition, Flickr update | 05/17, 7:52pm
Yahoo is holding a "product-related" event on May 20. The New York City event will see CEO Marissa Mayer speaking on an undisclosed topic for about an hour at 5PM EST, which the company calls in an mass email "something special."
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BMG said to be among industry holdouts | 05/17, 4:03pm
Apple's mired negotiations with the music industry may prevent it from announcing an "iRadio" service at WWDC on June 10th, industry sources tell The Verge . The people note that Apple is having trouble not just with Sony/ATV, but also BMG. At the same time they suggest there's still a lot of "market momentum" behind iRadio, and that major players such as Universal want to see it launch as soon as possible.
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The HTC One could be the most enticing Android smartphone yet | 05/17, 7:14am
The HTC One may be the ultimate iPhone switch-inducing Android device yet, even if the Samsung Galaxy S4 juggernaut remains unstoppable for the time being. There are a few of key aspects of the HTC’s Android flagship device for 2013 that makes it the most likely to interest Apple iPhone 4, 4S and 5 users itching for a change of scenery, but who can’t wait as long as September when Jony Ive’s design-influenced version of iOS could be released. Many iPhone users also love the beautiful industrial designs that Jony Ive has cooked up for the iPhone over the past few years. For many, however, even if they have contemplated switching to an Android device, most were simply not made to Apple’s high standards of design and finish -- until now.
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Various other parts photos in high-res leaking onto net | 05/16, 1:00pm
A long-standing rumor that the next iPhone -- presumably called the 5S -- will be available in colors beyond just black and white received a boost with the publication of photos featuring differently-colored SIM trays, along with high-rez pictures of various other small parts said to be from the forthcoming iPhone model, expected to be released sometime this summer. Though the SIM tray images would be easy to fake, Apple has been making the iPod touch and iPod nano in a set of colors and may have decided to follow suit with the iPhone 5S -- and perhaps a future iPad.
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HTC not planning stock Android version of HTC One | 05/16, 8:16am
HTC has said that it isn’t planning to issue a version of the HTC One running stock Android. The company issued a statement on the matter following the surprise, but long awaited, announcement at Google I/O that it will be selling a version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android . “HTC is not currently planning a ‘Nexus Edition’ of the HTC One,” said an HTC company spokesperson.
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Samsung rumored supplying 7.9-inch displays for smaller Surface | 05/16, 7:33am
Samsung has reportedly been tapped by Microsoft to supply 7.9-inch panels for a smaller version of its Surface, according to Digitimes . The purported smaller tablet could be released as soon as the end of June, however, no Taiwanese suppliers have yet been included on the supplier list. Microsoft has not revealed its plans for future versions of its Surface tablet, but it recently changed the specifications of Windows 8 to accommodate displays that could be used on smaller tablets.
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Invitations opened for new Maps service, no firm release date given | 05/15, 4:12pm
At today's Google I/O keynote , Google has demonstrated a revamped Maps app for iOS and Android. In the coming months, Android users will see an upgrade, bringing the Maps for iOS user interface and features. Additionally, a long-awaited iPad version of the utility will be made available for the iPad.
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Hangouts conversations to carry between iOS, Android, Web | 05/15, 2:30pm
Google has shown a significant number of changes to Google+ at its Google I/O developer event, as part of its attempts to attract users. The redesign of the social network is accompanied by the rumored unified messaging system, branded Hangouts, and the automatic enhancement, editing and highlighting of photographs uploaded onto its service.
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Device will be unlocked, use unlocked bootloader, receive timely updates | 05/15, 1:40pm
Google has unveiled that a version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 with a stock installation of Android will be available to purchase, confirming an earlier rumor . The smartphone will be fully unlocked from purchase, will use an unlocked bootloader, and will apparently receive quicker software updates compared to the version of Android provided by Samsung.
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Paid-for service provides track recommendations, instant playlists | 05/15, 1:14pm
Google has announced its music service at its Google I/O developer conference. As leaked yesterday in a report, Google Play Music All Access is the search giant's take on Spotify and other similar music streaming services, with users able to stream from the large catalog of tracks already available to download from the Google Play Music store.
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Samsung said prepping stock Android version of Galaxy S4 | 05/15, 7:21am
A surprise rumor is circulating ahead of Google I/O suggesting that Samsung and Google will reveal a new version of the Galaxy S4 that runs stock Android instead of Samsung’s own version of Android, TouchWiz. According to reports, the device will be known as the Samsung Galaxy S4 ‘Google Edition.’ However, it is not expected to form part of Google’s Nexus line as it the hardware was not-co-developed with Google as is typically the case for Nexus-branded devices.
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Full Windows 8 experience on portable 18-inch multitouch display | 05/14, 11:58pm
After nearly a year following announcement , Dell has begun shipping its hybrid desktop PC and Windows 8 tablet -- the XPS 18 . This 18-inch full Windows device has been in Electronista's hands for a few days now, and we've taken some time off to put it through its paces.
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Q5 mimics general design of Q10, heads to emerging markets | 05/14, 10:59am
BlackBerry has revealed a BB10 smartphone aimed at emerging markets, at the same time as announcing the BB10.1 update's availability for the flagship Z10 device. The Q5 , a remarkably similar device to the Q10 and leaked last week , provides the same QWERTY keyboard and 3.1-inch touchscreen as its more-expensive stablemate, but in a cheaper package.
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Aluminum case uses metal band design, adds snap-on plastic covers | 05/14, 5:52am
Nokia has formally revealed the Lumia 925 at its London press event this morning. Previously rumored under the project name of Catwalk and leaked yesterday , the aluminum-clad smartphone with a "unique metal band design" is being promoted with its 8.7-megapixel PureView smart camera with IOS and Carl Zeiss optics and flash as its main focal point.
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