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Fire TV beats out Chromecast as Amazon’s best-seller

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After just one short week on the market, Amazon’s set-top box dubbed Fire TV has overtaken Google’s Chromecast as the best-selling device on Amazon.com.

Although the actual metrics used to generate top-selling devices on Amazon are a mystery, it’s a particularly impressive feat given the extremely short time the device has been on market. Read more »

Apple to out iWatch in Q3, targets 65 million shipments in 2014

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The latest rumors out of Taiwan indicate that the anticipated Apple iWatch is headed for a Q3 2014 release, with several Asian manufacturers entering the supply chain.

LG, the company that was initially rumored to have exclusive production rights of the wearable, will instead be replaced by longtime Apple rival Samsung. The crosstown Korean manufacturer will be handling processor and outsource actual production. Read more »

Samsung rebrands its SD card lineup to match SSDs

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Samsung has seen some great success with its 840 PRO and EVO series of SSD drives, so much so that it’s decided to rebrand its microSD and SD cards to match that nomenclature.

The new Standard, EVO, and PRO cards from the Korean manufacturer will feature easy to distinguish colors which should help consumers in differentiating between the features and capabilities of the different classes. Read more »

Samsung Chromebook 2 goes up for pre-order

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Samsung’s Chromebook 2, the sequel to its first Chome OS-running netbook was announced early last month, has become officially available to pre-orders starting today.

The new model sports either an 11.6-inch or 13.3-inch display, available for either $319.99 and $399.99, respectively. Read more »

Intel announces 64-bit KitKat kernel alongside Bay Trail successor

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At the today’s IDF conference in Shenzen, China, chip giant Intel has unveiled a boatload of new processing systems and technologies.

Braswell, the next iteration of their processor family and successor to their Bay Trail lineup has been unveiled, as well as a new 64-bit Android 4.4 KitKat kernel specifically optimized for the next generation architecture. Read more »

Check out the full Samsung Galaxy S5 manual

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Although the Samsung Galaxy S5 flagship is still a ways away from release, Samsung has already provided its full manual online to give you an in-depth look at all of its features without making you buy the device.

Apart from the usual usage instructions, the manual goes into detail about maintaining water protection, using ultra power save mode, selective focus, S Health, finger scanner, and more. Read more »

Lenovo announces new A-series tablet line

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Lenovo, fresh off the double acquisition of Motorola Mobility and IBM’s low-end server division, is keen on pushing out profit-yielding devices to start off the quarter.

To this end, it has outed its new A-series tablet lineup, which will feature a wide range of competitively priced tablet models including the A7-30, A7-50, A8 and A10. Read more »

Marvell hit with $1.54 billion court verdict for willful patent infringement

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A District court in Pittsburgh has ruled today that U.S. semiconductor company Marvell has knowingly infringed on two hard disk patents held by Carnegie Mellon University.

Judge Nora Barry Fischer has ruled that the university has proven that the manufacturer has deliberately copied its patents, awarding enhanced damages to the extent of $1.54 billion. Read more »

HTC releases kernel for Google Play Edition HTC One (M8)

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The HTC One (M8) was announced last week, and alongside it the Taiwanese company announced a Google Play Edition that runs a vanilla version of Android out of box.

While the device isn’t available yet (although it is up for preorder on Google Play in the US), HTC has released the kernel source through its HTCDev developer portal. Read more »

Android apps twice as stable as iOS ones, study shows

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The latest report coming out of mobile app management company Crittercism indicates that in looking at app behavior recent versions of the two most popular mobile OSs, Android and iOS, it’s the Google OS that’s actually the more stable one.

The study is done by measuring the crash rate of app across both platforms, which Crittercism has published in its first ever Mobile Experience Benchmark. Read more »

Vox populi: HTC One (M8) vs Galaxy S5, Xperia Z2 and One (M7)

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Earlier this week, we asked you what you thought about the new HTC One (M8) flagship, which was announced by the Taiwanese company on Tuesday. First, we had it face the former HTC One flagship, to see whether the company did enough to warrant getting an upgrade. Then, we put it head-to-head against other upcoming flagships, to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Well, you have spoken! Let’s take a look at how you rated the new One against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2. Read more »

DirectX 12 will be optimized for Windows Phone

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As expected, Microsoft announced the latest version of its proprietary graphics technology, DirectX 12, at the GDC last week. One thing that wasn’t expected was that it will be launched concurrently on Windows and Windows Phone devices, with special optimizations for the latter.

This includes releasing special APIs and libraries to provide greater performance with reduced power usage. Read more »

Android 2014 all-star showdown: HTC One (M8) vs Samsung Galaxy S5 vs Sony Xperia Z2

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Today marked the unveiling of another of this year’s anticipated smartphone flagship announcements, the HTC One (M8). At today’s launch, HTC hailed the device as their best smartphone ever, and it’s truly a beauty to behold with its full metal chassis and slick design. But does it have what it takes to hold its own against the other upcoming flagship-grade competition?

The new HTC M8 sports a quad-core Snapdragon 801 chipset running at 2.3 GHz, with Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM. This is very similar to what powers the Xperia Z2, except the Sony device has an additional 1GB of RAM. The Galaxy S5 also runs on a Snapdragon 801 chip, but is clocked higher than both devices at 2.5 GHz. Read more »

A year wiser: HTC One (M8) vs HTC One (M7)

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Last year, the original HTC One (M7) caused a stir in the Android community with its stunning looks, Ultra Pixel camera, front-facing speakers and high pixel density display. Making a successor that carries the torch from such an impressive device is hard, but HTC has no other option but to try. Let’s see if the HTC One (M8) has what it takes to make the Android community go “wow” one more time.

While on the outside the devices look similar, we’ll need to take a closer look at what’s under the hood to see whether the new HTC One is worth it. Read more »

First official HTC One (M8) promo video hits on YouTube

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While HTC’s latest flagship, the HTC One (M8), is busy getting its dual unveiling event in New York and London, HTC has released the first official video of the device on YouTube.

The video highlights the all metal design and sophisticated camera design. Take a look. Read more »