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HP EliteBook Folio 1020 duo debuts as world’s thinnest and lightest business laptops

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Today HP put out a press release detailing its future EliteBook Folio lineup and primarily EliteBook Folio 1020, which looks pretty amazing. The laptop family is said to be the industry’s thinnest and lightest business-grade lineup ever.

Initially the California based giant is planning to offer two units in the new family – 1020 and 1020 Special Edition (SE). Both will feature a razor thin 15.7 mm body, made from magnesium-lithium alloy and reusable carbon fiber and will weigh just over 1kg (1.2 kg for the Folio 1020 and probably a little bit more for the Special edition). Read more »

Google tracks Santa once again, introduces kids to coding

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Google has had a long history of offering tailored holiday experiences and contributing to festivities, especially around this time of the year. Google’s Santa tracker will again allow kids and holiday spirited parents to keep tabs on jolly old saint Nick as he goes about his Christmas activities.

The experience is now more interactive that ever, with users getting a chance to not only follow Santa on his trip around the world on Christmas eve, but to visit a fully interactive, animated HTML5 version of his famous North Pole village. The small snowy community is complete with everything from reindeer to elves and decorations, all created in a very slick and whimsical art style that, as one would expect, is very much in tune with current Google design language. Read more »

Early Windows 10 for Phones build shows up in Chinese server logs

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The release of Windows 10 for Phones is likely a long way off and most likely won’t be officially rolled out until late next year. The Chinese website ITHome.com does however report an interesting new OS version popping up in their logs.

These builds all share a common base version of 8.15, which rumors state are an early internal builds of the new Windows 10. Read more »

Windows 8.1 continues to steal market share away from Windows XP

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According to the latest statistical data on netmarketshare.com the last Windows release – 8.1 is steadily increasing its user base. The opposite trend can be observed in Windows XP market share, which has been steadily declining. The numbers are pretty close with 13.57% for Windows XP and 12.1% for 8.1 and this year may be the first to finally shift the balance. This is great news for Microsoft as it may finally manage to sway users away from the very aging OS, riddled with security issues and gear them towards current and future company projects, like windows 10, which is set to debut on the general market late next year.

Windows XP has long been a thorn in Microsoft`s usage statistics. It is still held as one of the most successful iterations of the OS ever, permeating almost every possible corner and niche of the technology world, including vital systems, such as ticket reservation and event most current ATMs. Read more »

Samsung TouchWiz Themes show up in video

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Earlier today, we saw another glimpse of the new theme engine in the TouchWiz Launcher and now a tipster has provided us with a video that showcases the new addition to Samsung’s flavor of Android.

The video is a hands on review of a Galaxy A3 unit that runs the new TouchWiz. Among other things it does seem to show working themeing options, just like the photos from earlier implied. Read more »

Samsung patent for ring-operated smartwatch surfaces

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Smartwatches are this year’s hot trend and with the round form factor, already a summit firmly conquered, designer are now focusing on reimagining other traditional watch components. Apple has already pioneered this tendency with the inclusion of a digital crown on the Apple Watch that serves some secondary functions, such as zooming in and out. Other than that, however, most smartwatches today, regardless of the form factor, share one common input method – touch.

Samsung in taking steps to address that, as it would appear by the recently issued patent. The technology at hand focuses on employing a turning ring mechanism, much like the one seen on traditional sports watches, for different software control functions. Read more »

Xiaomishop offers $50 off the Mi 4 in Black Friday price reductions

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Xiaomishop, one of the more popular resellers for Xiaomi devices is currently offering customers special offers on many popular devices, including Xiaomi Mi 4 and Redmi Note 4G.

The promotion began yesterday, on thanksgiving and will span all the way through the weekend and Cyber Monday. Read more »

Google offers LG G Watch for $99 plus $50 store credit

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Today Google threw another surprise in the Black Friday pool of deals. If you happen to live in the US, you will be able to pick up the original LG G Watch for a total of just $99, which is about $130 off its regular price. The 5-month old device might already be outshined by the new flavor of rounder and slicker smartwatches, but arguably it still is one of the best Android Wear launch devices. Both the black and white/gold versions are available in the promotion.

American buyers can also enjoy another cherry on that amazing cake. The purchase of a LG G watch, or for that matter, any other android wear device from the Google Play Store will receive an additional $50 of credit for buying apps, books, movies, magazines or music. This brings the total savings up to a whopping $180, which is more than a good deal. Read more »

Amazon.de is giving away over 100 euro worth of apps

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Amazon.de has posted a deal offering 41 premium paid apps for free up until November 29. The collective value of the applications is over 100€ and can only be downloaded from the Amazon App Store for Android.

Some highlights form the list include MyBackup Prom MAPS.ME Pro Angry Birds and 38 more exclusive free offerings. Read more »

New E-Label act might dispose of ugly FCC mark on back of Apple devices

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President Obama signed the E-Label act today, proposed back in July. The new regulation allows manufacturers to remove the physical FCC markings from certain electronic devices and display them inside the software instead.

Currently American companies are required by law to place certain regulatory texts and stamps on their devices and the FCC stamp is arguably the ugliest of the bunch. Read more »

Opera Subscription Mobile Store lets operators set up branded subscription-based stores

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Opera is now offering mobile operators an easy way to set up their own, customized and branded mobile application store. The service builds upon Opera`s already existing extensive library of applications across multiple mobile platforms, including Android, Java, Symbian and BlackBerry.

Besides access to one of the three largest app stores in the world, Opera also offer mobile operator a very specifically tailored market model. Read more »

HP Slate 6 Voice Tab II launches in India for $260

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The HP Slate 6 Voice Tab II has just launched in the Indian market from the official HP Online store. It is priced at $260 (INR 15,990) and will soon be officially launched.

The device bears a lot of resemblance to the previous version of the tablet (HP Slate 6 Voice Tab) with the same 6″ 1280 x 720 pixel IPS display and a Marvell PXA1088 chipset with a CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz. Read more »

Windows 10 to include native free FLAC playback support

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This September saw the announcement of Microsoft’s next big version of Windows, Windows 10. It is set to be the biggest redesign of the OS to come along in years and it promises a whole lot more than the just design changes. This next iteration is set to be such a formidable step forward for Microsoft technology, that it actually manages to skip a version number and needless to say drove up a huge hype. What Microsoft 10 is set to accomplish is hopefully unify the OS experience as well as, to a large extent, functionality across different hardware platforms.

Now another exciting piece of inside news has been posted from Gabriel Aul from the Windows development team via his Twitter account. Apparently Windows 10 will feature native free support for FLAC audio playback, a much requested addition. The screenshot clearly shows Windows Media Player with a playlist full of lossless audio. Read more »

Samsung sued by Milk Studios for name misuse

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Milk Studios, an advertising agency based in New York, has filed a lawsuit against Samsung over the use of their name.

The Korean giant has, according to an official statement “internationally, willingly and knowingly” been using the Milk brand mane in its services. Read more »

Upgrade your old tablet to a Nexus 9 at Best Buy and save $100

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Google’s latest tablet device, with its amazing performance and great user experience has been nothing short of a great deal from its very launch. But now up until November 29, Best Buy is giving you a price reduction that makes it almost too good to pass on.

You can now trade in any old working tablet and get a minimum of $100 of value in return ($50 gift card plus a $50 coupon for the Nexus 9). Read more »