Samsung’s latest flagship device couple is set to hit stores in early April. With the initial batch going out on April 9 and April 10 in quite a few markets and preorders already piling in at a record-breaking rate, it seems users really can’t wait to get their hands on the latest and greatest Samsung tech.

And, as the old saying goes, you have to strike the iron while it’s hot, a fact the Korean tech giant knows oh too well. To further capitalize on the upcoming Galaxy S6 avalanche, Samsung has announced that the two flagship devices will launch along with a wide array of designer accessories. Read more »

Xiaomi has just started teasing its forum members about an upcoming mystery announcement about the Mi TV. The post states that news will be made public tomorrow and is described by the slogan: “You asked for something and we heard you”.

The guerrilla marketing scheme has become typical for the Chinese tech manufacturer and, as usual, it is already giving results. The forum is booming with user speculations, guesses and hunches about what the announcement might be. Read more »

At one time, or another, all of us have dealt with storage space shortage. Lacking free space can really be a hustle and as mobile tech becomes smaller and runs more advanced software and rich multimedia, storage limitations become very common. SSD drives bring enormous performance gain, but their limited capacity is definitely complicating the situation.

Modern operating systems are severely affected by storage limitations as developers are tasked with cramming increasingly sophisticated code into tiny spaces. The latest installment of Microsoft Windows is particularly vulnerable in this respect, especially, considering the company’s ambitious desire to make it run across an enormous array of devices, ranging all the way from beastly gaming PC rigs, down to budget, pocketsize smartphones. Read more »

The Xperia E4 is Sony’s latest entry in the low-end market. The budget smartphone boats a very economic price tag of about EUR 130, but it does come with a twist. The Japanese tech giant has definitely achieved a lot with the E4, considering budget restrictions, but, naturally, a lot of corners have been cut to keep the cost down.

The phone is crafted entirely out of plastic and is available in two classic colors – black and white. While the material is definitely not premium, Sony has done a relay nice job with the finish and phone feels comfy and quite nice to the touch.

Design-wise there are some rough edges, and I mean that quite literally. The E4 comes with a removable back cover which surrounds the whole back side of the phone and makes for a quite bulky appearance. Still, it lacks a replaceable battery. Read more »

You know Snapchat right? That kind of weird photo messenger that allows exchanging self-destructing shots. Well it turns out, that what started as a silly university startup has grown into one of those rare businesses that everybody wants in on.

Industry sources now hint that Alibaba, China’s online shopping giant is also taking a huge interest in the service and plans to invest $200 million in it, on a valuation of a whopping $15 billion. In fact, just last month, the Los Angeles-based chat company was in talks to raise another $500 million, independent of Alibaba’s offer. This would price the company even higher, between $16 and $19 billion. Read more »

Apple’s “Spring Forward” event, held this Monday definitely put the Cupertino company back under the spotlight. And after all the discussions around the Apple Watch and the new MacBook, people have naturally set their sights on the upcoming iOS 9 update.

The new OS version, codenamed “Monarch”, should be arriving sometime around the WWDC conference in June, so there is still some waiting to be done. There have already seen some bits and pieces of information, surrounding iOS 9 and everything seems to point towards improved performance and a lot of bug and stability fixes, instead of a barrage of new features Read more »

This year’s MWC saw a lot of action from Huawei. The Chinese tech giant announced two phones (Honor Y635 and Honor Y360) a tablet (MediaPad X2), but the real star of its show was its new Android Wear smartwatch.

Dubbed simply the Huawei Watch, the wearable is one of the most stylish Wear devices today. It offers a round display and a very thin bezel. Overall, it does look like the perfect next-gen device for your wrist, but recent speculations have been attributing a less than affordable price to the wearable – around $1000. Thankfully, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, as today a German website listed the Huawei watch along with a price, which is much more-palatable. Read more »

Yesterday we saw Android 5.1 make the rounds with a few official builds for Nexus devices. The next iteration of the popular OS brings new features and various improvements to the table and incorporated all of the patches and bug fixes from Android 5.0.1 and 5.0.2.

All and all, it is much more focused on updating Lollipop with new functionality and attending to some irritations, than the previous two builds and consequently comes with a few new APIs – API level 22 in Google talk. Read more »

MWC is a lot more than just a show floor for device announcements, it is the largest venue for mobile world tech and most-importantly – innovation. A lot of things can be learned at the show about the future plans of industry players and a possible cooperation between MediaTek and AMD is definitely among the most interesting.

Industry sources hint at a major cooperation between the two companies that has been under way for quite some time now. So, all things considered, AMD might be returning to the mobile GPU scene as a vendor for tailor-made graphics accelerators for MediaTek SoCs. This is all great news and the partnership could potentially be huge for both parties. Read more »

PhotoFast has built a solid reputation for delivering one of the first iOS flash drive solutions. Granted, it is sort of a weird niche, but they are still pretty good at what they do. The company’s latest creation is very in-tune with Apple’s new 12-inch MacBook, announced yesterday. That laptop is a pioneer in its adoption of the new USB type C standard and PhotoFast has wasted no time in offering what could well be your first accessory to go with the ultra-thin Mac.

The flash drive in question is essentially meant to be used with iOS devices, through the lightning port on one side, as well as more conventional USB hosts, like PCs, thanks to the type A connector on the other end. Upon first inspection, there is nothing really special about the device, but a closer inspection reveals, that the traditional USB houses the much smaller, reversible type C connector. It is concealed in the bottom plastic part of the type A connector and slides out when needed. Read more »

Apple’s “Spring Forward” event had a lot to offer users. A big portion of the presentation was devoted to a new Apple platform, dubbed ResearchKit. It aims to bring advanced technology to the hands of researchers, medical personnel and end users to simplify the way we track and care for our health. It also does much more, like diagnosis and even remote consultations.

ResearchKit is a new framework, which enabled developers to easily employ all of the iPhone’s sensors in a way, specifically tailored to battling diseases and delivering health services. It can aggregate data from various fitness applications and help them stay interconnected. When granted permission, the platform will use user data, like weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use, measured by the phone or third-party apps, couples that with live sensor data from accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors and creates a full picture of the user’s health status. Furthermore, the platform is entirely open source so that everybody can easily get on board and build applications for a good cause. Read more »

Apple’s “Spring Forward” event is still ongoing and it seems it will be full of announcements. The presentation kicked off with some interesting news on Apple TV and TV fans altogether. Apple’s own TV box will now retail for $69 instead of its $99 price tag.

Watching your favorite TV shows on Apple devices will also become significantly easier, well your favorite HBO shows, that is, thanks to HBO Now. The TV network’s new application will offer streaming shows exclusively on Apple devices. To use the new service you have to be in the US and on an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, with broadband connection. This will set you back $14.99 a month, which is about what an HBO GO subscription currently costs, but still nearly twice as much as paying for a Netflix account. HBO now will premiere this April. Read more »

Google PDF Viewer is the latest addition to what can definitely be considered Google’s office suite for Android. The application is, like the name suggests, nothing more than a lightweight PDF viewer. Now, you might be saying to yourself – “Why would I need that, Google Drive has one built-in”. And you would be absolutely true. But there is still a reason for the app to exist and a very good one.

You might remember, that a few days ago we reported on one of Google’s new Android endeavors – Android for Work. The project’s goal is to make your personal Android device much more organized and convenient to use both for work and outside the office. The idea is to have a separate set of applications that are dedicated to your business and are separate from your main apps. This, of course, means that Google has to begin launching a new set of productivity apps, which appear to mirror existing functionality, hence the Google PDF viewer. Read more »

As you may remember, last year Apple bought Beat and has been pushing it as its premium audio provider ever since. Beats’ own music streaming service, Beats Music, was part of that deal and there was a lot of controversy surrounding the service and its future after in came into Apple’s possession.

The app is mostly unchanged, running on both iOS and Android, but Apple has recently revealed its plans to reformat the service and make it an integral part of iOS. With the Cupertino’s upcoming “Spring Forward” set for March 9, naturally hype has been growing as to whether the new service will be showcased, alongside the eagerly-anticipated Apple Watch, which is said to be the star of the show. Read more »

One of Apple’s numerous patent applications has been granted a green light today and unlike most other vague texts, this one is quite interesting, particularly in its implications. The Cupertino tech giant now has the sole legal right to produce a “Navigation system acquisition and use of cellular coverage map data”.

What this entails is a system, which is able to model SatNav routing options, based on cell signal strength. The idea is that you cell phone is pretty aware of the signal strength at any given time and thanks to anonymous data reporting, Apple has that information at hand. This can then be aggregated on a map and used to suggest routes that avoid areas with shady cell strength or even, perhaps, too congested places. Read more »