HTC’s current flagship smartphone is the One M9, as you may know, but last year’s One (M8) is no slouch either. And now Best Buy is offering quite a huge deal on the One from 2014.

You can get either the model for AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint, for just $299.99 – sans contract, that is. This basically enables you to save up to $390. Read more »

Today Microsoft is officially telling us what all the different editions of the upcoming Windows 10 release will be called. On this occasion, the software giant has also revealed the naming for the Windows 10 version for phones. This will be Windows 10 Mobile, and the branding will be the same for smartphones as well as small tablets.

The fact that this variation will run on said small tablets is probably what contributed to it losing the word “Phone” from its name, though with the new moniker many people could remember the old Windows Mobile, which may not be the best thing for Microsoft. Read more »

As it promised last month, Samsung has now made the software development kit (SDK) available for its next smartwatch. This will allow developers to have apps ready for when the watch will hit the streets, but it also means we get to discover some of the features of the device.

Samsung’s next wearable will be a round smartwatch, as the company itself has already confirmed. According to past rumors, it will be sold as the Gear A, though its maker is for now referring to it only as “The Next Gear”. Its codename is Orbis. Read more »

Motorola is clearly working on a successor to the Moto 360, its first ever smartwatch. And now it looks like this upcoming wearable has been certified by the Bluetooth SIG.

As you can see, a “Motorola Android Device” bearing the model number BTMW03 has been listed by the authority that handles Bluetooth certifications. Considering that the Moto 360 has the model number BTMW01, this is in all likelihood its successor. Read more »

Skype Translator has been available as a closed preview since December of last year, but starting today everyone can use it. You just download it from the Windows Store, and start using it. You will however need to have either Windows 8.1 or the Windows 10 preview on your PC or tablet.

Skype Translator is the Sci-Fi-like bit of software that translates what you say into another language in near real-time. For spoken languages, it currently works with English, Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. So you could be talking to someone in English, while that person would hear a Spanish translation of what you’ve just said – alongside a collapsible transcript window. Read more »

Emails can be dull, but Giphy for Gmail is now here to change all that. In what is probably the greatest innovation to hit email since signatures were invented, Giphy for Gmail brings animated GIFs straight into your emails.

Giphy for Gmail is a Chrome extension. Once you install it, you’ll see a new rainbow button inside Gmail’s Compose screen, alongside the text formatting options. If you click it, you’ll be able to quickly search for and discover many animated GIFs just begging to be put inside your email. Read more »

HTC hasn’t been doing so well in the past few years, if you look at smartphone sales numbers as well as profits. But it looks like the company will soon try to make some money off its software too, and not just hardware. A leaked document purportedly originating at HTC shows us plans for introducing ads into Blinkfeed.

As you may know, Blinkfeed is the home screen newsfeed that’s built into HTC’s Sense UI that sits atop Android in all the devices it ships. Blinkfeed has been released into the Google Play Store a while back, allowing for faster updates. And now it looks like one such future update could bring with it ads. Read more »

AT&T is releasing a new Android tablet tomorrow, but it’s the first one to actually bear the carrier’s brand. The AT&T Trek HD is going to become available online on May 12, and in stores nationwide on May 15.

It’s an 8-incher with “HD” screen resolution (we’re guessing that means 1,280×800), a 5 MP rear camera, a 2 MP selfie shooter, and 16GB of expandable internal storage. Read more »

Just as previously announced, the Samsung Gear VR headset for the company’s Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones is now available to buy in the US. Not only that, but it can also be found in stock, both at Best Buy and at Samsung’s own online store.

This version of the Gear VR, dubbed Innovator Edition, will only work with the Galaxy S6 or S6 edge – unlike the original Gear VR which was tailor-made for the Galaxy Note 4. Read more »

Now that it’s finally getting updated to the latest version of Android, perhaps the HTC Nexus 9 tablet might be an interesting purchase for you. If so, and if you live in the UK, you’re in luck – for there’s just been a price drop for the Nexus 9 over there.

You can now buy the entry-level 16GB Wi-Fi-only model for only £199.99. That’s a great drop from the £319 level it launched at around six months ago. The downside to this is that there’s no telling how long this offer will last, so it might be gone tomorrow. Read more »

The Fire OS developed by Amazon and which runs on the company’s Fire Phone is based on Android, as you may know. Up until today, though, it was based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. But with a new update, it’s jumped to Android 4.4 KitKat. So while we’re still a long way from a Lollipop base, this is a big step forward.

That detail however isn’t the only new thing that’s in this update – and, by the way, Fire OS still doesn’t come with any of Google’s services, so for most people the underlying Android version may not be that relevant. Read more »

Samsung has been working on its next smartwatch for quite a while now, even confirming itself that the device will come with a round screen. The Korean company has said it wants to take its time with this one, hoping to get it just right, but now it seems the wearable has seen a delay of sorts.

While Samsung hasn’t announced an unveiling date for the Gear A yet, it was expected to come pretty soon. That’s not the case anymore, according to a new rumor claiming that it’s been delayed until the second half of the year. Read more »

Both the Wi-Fi-only as well as LTE-capable versions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 are now in the process of receiving the update to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop. This comes after the much higher-end Galaxy Tab S line has been running Lollipop for a while now.

It therefore seems that it’s finally time for such updates to trickle down to Samsung’s midrange tablets, starting with the Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 as you can see. Read more »

On Android, Google’s Chrome Web browser has long had a Beta version in the Play Store for eager people to try. Yet until today the Dev channel releases that Chrome regularly gets on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux did not have a correspondent for Android.

If you love living on the bleeding edge of browser development, then you’ll be happy to know that starting today you can try Chrome Dev for Android too. This is already up for grabs in the Play Store, but it seems geo-restricted for now, so you may not be able to download it depending on your location. Read more »

In the future, Microsoft’s Office apps will get their own third party apps – running inside them across platforms, so on Windows but also on iOS and in the Web versions of the Office suite. This has been revealed today during Microsoft’s Build conference.

An Uber app running inside Outlook was demoed, as evidenced by the shot above. The Uber app or add-in doesn’t seem to intrude very much into the main Outlook workspace, but it will allow you to easily schedule rides from your calendar appointments. Read more »