Latest stories · Page 148

Square is set to bring its payment card reader for mobile devices in line with modern tech used most places in the world outside of the U.S. – today it revealed its upcoming EMV and chip-compatible dongle, which will be available soon for pre-order with an estimated ship date of sometime in 2015. Th

FreedomPop, the carrier offering free and cheap data plans on Sprint’s network, today announced that it’s bringing its free voice, data, and text plans to tablet users starting with the iPad mini and Samsung Tab 3. Since LTE iPads only support data over their cellular connection, the carrier provide

It’s not news anymore that Nintendo isn’t doing well. The Wii U hasn’t sold as expected, and while a list of great games to play on the console there are few titles on that list which justify the cost of a console to play them on. While the company admits to an operating loss of […]

When Google first announced its Project Tango initiative for 3D-sensing smartphones and tablets, one of the key components was Movidius’ Myriad 1 vision processing chip. Building on its accomplishments, Movidius today announced a next-generation Myriad 2 chip that offers as much as a 20x boost in ef

Virgin Mobile’s new build-your-own smartphone plans may be seen as convenient by many consumers, but they also represent the most glaring net neutrality foul we’ve seen come from a US carrier. The Sprint-owned company likely suspects that most people won’t care about the latter poi

Three former Zynga developers have raised $2.5 million to build out their new gaming studio, JuiceBox Games, on the back of the release of their first gaming title HonorBound. With 3 million downloads and counting, JuiceBox’s first game is already generating revenue for the company. The game is rank

BlackBerry has purchased a German security firm that counts Angela Merkel as one of its customers in a bid to reinvigorate its enterprise mobility management portfolio. Secusmart was snapped up for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition comes as the Canadian company is aiming to reinvent itself as the

Smartwatches are cool pieces of tech, but the likes of the Samsung Gear Live, LG G Watch and Sony Smartwatch 2 haven’t exactly pushed the boundaries of wearable design and elegance. The Motorola Moto 360 on the other hand – is the smartwatch everyone is talking about. That’s mainly

San Diego-based Qualcomm is expanding its efforts in the education sector today, saying that it has acquired EmpoweredU, a developer of mobile learning technology for the K-20 market. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. EmpoweredU was headed by Steve Poizner, who has been very active in C

The UK government today announced that driverless cars will be able to get on the country’s roads as early as January 2015, less than half a year from now. It’s the latest push to attract research and development over to British shores—something the UK has been trying to lay a claim on since at leas

And so the saga continues … In the short time since the EU ruled that individuals have the right to be forgotten when sensitive information found in search results is considered “outdated or irrelevant,” we’ve seen what is probably best described as the makings of a damn good sitcom. We first had th

Internet users spend a lot of their day staring at a screen, so it’s no surprise that nearly all of us are blind without glasses or contact lenses. But wouldn’t it be great if we could give our eyes a break and just stare at the screen without the aid of corrective lenses? That’s t

UK police have started replacing ads on websites that provide access to pirated or copyright infringing material with warnings to web users that the site is on a watch list — and a call for them to close the browser page in question. The initiative, called Operation Creative, is being carried out by

Here we are with yet another rumor, which would concern the successor to the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 tablet. Apparently, this particular device has already been put through the paces in an AnTuTu benchmark, where it does come with two obvious differences – a processor as well as a different versi

Kurbo Health today announced the launch of Kurbo, the first safe and effective program to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic using mobile tools. For the first time, children, teens and their parents have access to a safe, effective and proven mobile platform for losing weight. Incorporating smart

You may remember LG showed off a 105-inch curved TV at CES back in January. Well, today it became an actual product you can buy if you have $117,000 lying around. Most TVs on the market today, regardless of screen size, use a 1080p resolution for crisp HD viewing. There’s a growing number of 4K [&he

Researchers at Stanford University have made progress toward designing a battery with a lithium anode, a development that could increase battery power in electronics. Reporting in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers described how they designed a lithium-metal anode in order to boost t

BlackBerry Ltd. Chief Executive Officer John Chen, who is working to remake the company, said he’s unsure if it can regain iconic status. “I am comfortable with where the company is today, how we managed our technology, our businesses, the margins, the distribution channel or the new pro

Voyat, a social CRM tool aimed at the hotel industry, came out of stealth today and announced $1.8M in seed funding from Metamorphic Ventures, Eniac Ventures,BoxGroup and several angel investors, including Brett Crosby, who was co-founder of Google Analytics. Metamorpic Ventures is led by David Hirs

There’s money in them loops, apparently. Coub, the Russian startup that lets you create and embed looped, 10-second video clips, has raised a new round of funding. Now seeing 50 million unique viewers per month (up from 8 million a year ago), the company has added $2.5 million to its coffers, courte

Energy management vendor Schneider Electric is to build two eco-friendly M1 containerized data centers for Chinese web service giant Baidu. As the world’s biggest Chinese search engine and website provider, Baidu invited tenders for a fast build, low input high capacity system, which Schneider said

Easy Taxi, Rocket Internet‘s mobile-based on demand taxi hailing company, has raised $40 million in Series D funding led by Phenomen Ventures, with participation from Tengelmann Ventures. The Brazil-based company will use this new capital to expand its service in existing markets, improve its techno

There’s something wonderful about listening to radio soaked in that soothing NPR gravy. The public radio powerhouse’s new NPR One app keeps a personalized stream of lovely stories pumping into your ears at all times. NPR One is a curated stream of local, and national news mixed in with o

Cab-hailing service Uber has patched a hole which allowed passengers to find out their average score based on reviews from Uber drivers. A Javascript hack which surfaced over the weekend polled Uber servers for the passenger score, giving a response between 1.0 and 5.0, though Uber has been quick to

If for some reason Amazon’s vast selection of products from every imaginable category wasn’t quite cutting it for you, we have some good news – on Monday, Amazon opened a 3D printing store on its website, offering customizable goods to its customers for the very first time. Amazon notes that more th

Samsung Electronics said Monday that it would postpone the release of its first smartphone running the Tizen OS, the Samsung Z, which was set to launch first in Russia. The delay does not bode well for the company’s attempt to move away from its heavy reliance on Google’s Android OS. Tizen is an ope

It looks as if the judges who operate the gateway between the NSA and the cable companies may not be as impartial as their job description requires them to. An investigation by Vice has revealed that several judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are also Verizon shareholders.

While Mars gets all the press, a group of NASA scientists are laying the groundwork for a more exotic destination: the ice-covered moon of Europa, locked in orbit above Jupiter. The oceans beneath the ice are thought to be fertile grounds for alien life, so scientists are eager to explore it if they

Lenovo offers two kinds of products under the Yoga brand. There are Yoga-branded Android tablets that have built-in kickstands and then there are full-fledged Windows notebooks that can also be used as tablets because the screen can be pushed back a full 360 degrees. If an FCC listing is to be belie

Android Wear smartwatches are the new kids on the block that are getting a lot of attention these days. At I/O 2014 Google officially confirmed that the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live are the first two wearable devices based on its new platform. The devices are now out and developers have take

The LG G Vista has been a regular in the rumor mill for the past couple of months. Initially it was believed that this smartphone would be exclusive to Verizon but now that doesn’t appear to be the case. The user manual of LG G Vista for AT&T has leaked online, urging us to believe […]

Earlier this year at CES, Samsung showed off a 105-inch 4K TV, but didn’t reveal the price. We weren’t all that eager to hear the price anyway—something this massive and insane was always going to be expensive. But Samsung revealed the final damage on Tuesday, and it comes down to either purchasing

A 13-year old girl in Texas had a rude awakening in the middle of the night not because the alarm on her smartphone went off or she received an unexpected call, it was actually because her smartphone caught fire underneath her pillow. Ariel Tolfree placed her Samsung Galaxy S4 under her pillow befor

We’ve heard rumor and counter-rumor about whether Google’s Nexus program has a future, but some digging by Android Police has uncovered a Motorola handset that could be the Nexus 6. According to the information obtained by Android Police, the device has a 5.9-inch display, sports a fingerprint senso

A baseball team in South Korea has come up with a new way for fans who can’t make it to a game to still be able to enjoy it: robots. Fans of the Hanwha Eagles can now show their support from home by having a robot stand in for them, according to BBC News. They […]

Solar power cells need to stay relatively cool for the sake of both efficiency and longevity, but active cooling isn’t practical; it’s expensive, and may block the very rays the cells are supposed to collect. To tackle this problem, Stanford University researchers have created a new form

Piracy is a big no-no, but it seems that despite the best attempts by law enforcement agencies, movie studios, record labels, and etc., websites like The Pirate Bay continue to operate. In fact The Pirate Bay has even seen an increase in traffic recently, suggesting that piracy is not going away any

There are many headphone companies around, although when it comes to “luxury” headphones, brands like Bose and Beats probably comes to mind. Both companies, in the audiophile world, are typically viewed as companies who price their headphones for more than they are worth. We guess this is subjective

There are lots of things that review sites should rank hotels on, but don’t. Is it known for bed bugs? Is the “heated pool” only heated during summer when the sun is out? How many ghosts live there? How fast is the WiFi? This site won’t help you with all of those, but it will […]

In an emergency, a mobile phone can be the device that saves you, even if you aren’t able to make a call. A drone developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne can pinpoint the location of a mobile phone by picking up its Wi-Fi signal. The drone, which was first reported by [&he