And just like that the Pebble Time smart watch has reached over 38 thousand backers and a whopping $8 million pledged. Granted Pebble could have gone the traditional route, but it’s one of the legendary Kickstarters and there’s no denying this is great marketing.

Less than 24 hours since the campaign launched it’s closing in on the previous campaign, $10.3 million, but at this rate it should break all records. Read more »

Archos has joined The “Grand Digital for Schools Project,” which will do a trial run of equipping 50,000 middle and high school students with tablets and laptops. Next year the program will ramp things up to 1 million students.

Archos has unveiled devices – laptops and tablets with keyboard docks – in three sizes and three OSes – Windows 8.1 Professional, Android and even Chrome OS. Read more »

Samsung scooped Intel and demoed the first 10nm FinFET chip in the world. The company had previously made eMMC storage and D-RAM chips at that node, but FinFET is the first step towards a 10nm Exynos chipset.

Samsung is already at 14nm and will be making the Galaxy S6-generation Exynos chipsets at that node, along with Apple’s new chipset. Qualcomm meanwhile is building the Snapdragon 810 on the older 20nm process. Read more »

The Soy Xperia E4g tiptoed onto the stage, a 4G LTE version of the Xperia E4 that was announced just two weeks ago. Besides LTE, the new phone will have a slightly faster chipset and dual-SIM connectivity remains an option.

Sony has released no less than three videos to introduce the new phone. Read more »

Intel has been working on the 14nm node for years, but it’s now sorted out and shipping – both as the mobile Broadwell processors in laptops and the Cherry Trail chipsets for phones and tablets. The next stop will be at 10nm, but Intel has plotted the future to 7nm as well.

These nanometers reflect the size of a silicon chip’s components. The smaller they are, the smaller the chip is. Also, shrinking the process node is the leading way to improve power efficiency and reduce the amount of produced heat. Read more »

The Oppo R5 shortly held the title of the world’s thinnest smartphone that it stole from the Gionee Elife S5.1 but later lost to the Vivo X5 Max. The R5 left the ambition of being the thinnest behind and came out with a limited edition gilded Oppo R5, which will only ever be produced in 10,000 units.

The Gilded R5 has a golden hue on its exposed metallic frame that runs around the sides of the handset. There are a few gold highlights, including the hardware keys below the display, the ring around the camera module and the Oppo logo on the back. Read more »

Acer is perhaps better-known for its tablets, but the Liquid series of phones offer quality specs on a budget. The Acer Liquid Jade S is a surprisingly light 5″ mid-ranger with dual-SIM connectivity. It was released a few months after its Liquid Jade sibling and brings a number of improvements.

It adds LTE, moves to a 64-bit octa-core processor with double the RAM (2GB), doubles the storage (16GB) and tacks on a 5MP selfie camera. All in all, Liquid Jade S owners have what it takes to make non-S owners jealous. Read more »

Sometimes you have to start fresh to get it right, that’s what Samsung did with the Galaxy A series. They are all thin, with metal frames and go against Samsung’s very nature – they focus on looks and feel more than on features. Even so, the Samsung Galaxy A7 is pretty well loaded.

It’s a 5.5″ phablet that serves as a mid-range alternative to the Galaxy Note 4. Read more »

Microsoft gave OneDrive users 100GB of free cloud storage (for 2 years) yesterday, today the company is shelling out another 100GB. This time it’s aimed at Dropbox users and lasts 1 year.

You’ll need to provide OneDrive with access to your Dropbox account. Read more »

Ubuntu started off with big promises for phones – a true phone and desktop hybrid OS. Those lofty goals didn’t pan out and the first Ubuntu phone launched with a more traditional phone OS. The firmware for the BQ Aquaris E4.5 is now available for download.

The phone went on sale ten days ago and offers a 4.5″ qHD screen, quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, 8MP main camera and 5MP selfie camera. Read more »

After several materials were tried out, vinyl proved to be the best stuff to use in records. Sony would have you believe that microSD cards can produce better sound if they are made from the right materials and tuned just right to minimize electric noise coming from the card while it’s working.

So, for the best sound on the go you need a 64GB microSD card with the “for Premium Sound” label. Read more »

Samsung has created the first memory chip based on the new eMMC 5.1 standard and is getting ready to ship it to smartphone and tablet manufacturers. The new chips come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities and offer better speed and other enhancements over the older standard.

The eMMC 5.1 chips support “Secure Write Protection,” which allows only select users to access secure areas of the storage. Another extra is the command queue that promises to improve multitasking and UHD video playback. Read more »

In a roundabout way Samsung has suggested that its upcoming flagship, the Galaxy S6, will support wireless charging. Actually, the company has been working on wireless charging since 2000, making things smaller and more efficient.

“With our upcoming Galaxy smartphones, users will be able to enter a new wireless world like never before,” says Samsung. Read more »

Project Ara is an odd beast – it’s the IBM PC of the smartphone world, a common platform for which different manufacturers can build components. Toshiba unveiled several camera modules for the customizable smartphone platform and this is just Phase 1, Phase 2 includes a wider selection of modules and finally Phase 3 will bring “unique modules” (that’s still under planning).

Anyway, there are three camera modules – one selfie camera and two main cameras for the back. Read more »

HTC One (M9) is yet to be officially presented to the world, so all we have to look at are hurried photos and leaked images promoting phone cases. Luckily, Martin Hajek is a wiz at making 3D models and he used all info available on the One (M9) to create a virtual phone and put it up against the Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6.

The Galaxy S6 is also waiting for its official introduction, of course, but a few days ago Hajek modelled that one too. Read more »