Did you know that Nokia started off as a paper mill in the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire? The company got its name from the town Nokia, where the second such mill was build. Also named after the town is Finnish Rubber Works. These two, plus Finnish Cable Works combined in 1922 to make the Nokia Corporation.

The joint company increasingly moved into communication equipment, finally releasing its first mobile phone in 1987. This infographic details Nokia’s rise to the top and eventual downfall. Read more »

Bored of that little cursor that shows up on your device’s screen when you use the S Pen? That’ll no longer be the case as you’ll soon be able to customize it using Samsung’s upcoming app dubbed Penvatars.

The South Korean company has teamed up with Marvel for the first set of Penvatars. This means that you’ll be able to select from characters like Nick Fury, Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor. Read more »

Microsoft will be detailing the upcoming Windows 10 in two weeks, but the new features keep leaking on a daily basis. Recently we learnt Microsoft is working on a stand-alone web browser called Spartan, which should replace (though not put to rest) the Internet Explorer.

Today we get to see more of Spartan and the brand new and redesigned taskbar, which comes with the new looks of Windows. Read more »

Last year, Philips announced the Fidelio M2L headphones designed to work with Apple’s Lightning connector. At CES this year, Philips announced a new model, the Fidelio NC1L that also includes built-in noise cancellation.

Just like the M2L, the NC1L includes its own integrated DAC and amplifier for converting the pure digital signal from the Lightning port into audio signal for the drivers. It also includes four microphone array for the noise canceling feature to work. Read more »

Following a November deal that saw Yahoo replacing Google as the default search engine on Firefox browser in the United States, the former’s Internet search market share for the month of December jumped to 10.4% from 8.6% the previous month, and 7.4% a year ago, according to analytics firm StatCounter. That’s the highest share for Yahoo in the last five years.

On the other hand, search giant Google saw its December market share drop to 75.2% from 77.3% the previous month, and 79.3% a year ago, making it the lowest for the company since 2008, when StatCounter started tracking the data. Meanwhile, Microsoft Bing’s market share stood at 12.5%. Read more »

If you read our Top 10 Games of 2014 list, you’d have noticed the No. 3 slot was taken by a relatively unknown game called Crossy Road. Although despite its humble roots, the game had completely earned its place in the list thanks to its addictive gameplay.

Although Crossy Road has been available on Android for a while now, it was limited to the Amazon Appstore for some reason. Now, the game is finally available to download from the Play Store. Read more »

As some of you surely know China was placed under a foreign console ban for the last 14 year, preventing big international companies to sell their products on the market. This is just one of numerous government policies put into place to assure proper content filtration aligned with official policy.

A resolution was finally voted last year and Beijing officially lifted the restriction, but a lot of conditions and limitations still apply. Sony Corp has announced its firm intention to release its latest console – the PlayStation 4 to new market and the event was scheduled for January 11. Read more »

Toshiba’s got a couple of new SD cards coming, in multiple sizes each. First off, we have the FlashAir III, which is sort of like Toshiba’s answer to the Eyefi. And then there’s the first ever NFC-capable SD card.

If you’re wondering what pairing NFC with an SD card would be good for, well, apparently it’s been done so you can see up to 16 picture thumbnails from the card on your Android smartphone with just a tap. Oh, and you’ll also find out how much storage space is left on the card. Read more »

If it’s worth doing on camera, it’s worth doing in front of a live audience right? Maybe even better! HTC’s Re action camera will gain the ability to livestream footage to YouTube starting tomorrow, which will set it apart from market leader GoPro.

The new functionality is coming through an update to its companion app, Android gets it tomorrow while iOS will get it “later in Q1.” Read more »

Samsung unveiled today its new SM951 PCIe (M.2) SSD in a trio of different capacities – 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. The drive is not only quite small, but also freakishly fast with 2.15GB/s read and 1.55GB/s write speeds.

The SM951 uses a new 10-nanometer MLC flash technology, which makes it 50% less power hungry. In fact, the drive consumes just 2 miliwatts in standby mode. Read more »

Google has updated its Google app for Android to version 4.1.21.1657903, bringing several new features and improvements, including new Google Now card settings, as well as changes to OK Google settings.

The updated app now offers a new “Now cards” settings option that allows you to manage your card history, delete card preferences, manage notifications for card updates and show/hide cards. You can access this option by pulling out the slide-out navigation menu and heading to settings. Read more »

While LG probably has the most Android Wear smartwatches out of anyone out there, it has also quietly been working on a webOS based smartwatch. Made in collaboration with Audi (the kind where LG makes the watch and Audi gives it its name) this new unnamed smartwatch (model number LG-W120L) is quite an interesting design.

The design of the watch is similar to the G Watch R, wherein it has the same circular display, but with a few extra buttons on the side and a different finish for the watch. The specs are likely the same but it’s the software that’s new here. LG has created a custom version of webOS for the circular display of the watch and it looks quite a lot better than Android Wear. While the menus are still in the form of a list, the apps appear in a circular carousal that look much more at home on a circular display. Read more »

Mad Catz has announced a new gaming controller for Android devices. Called the L.Y.N.X.9, this is by far the craziest design I’ve seen for a controller and looks like something out of a Transformers movie.

The similarities to Transformers don’t end in just appearance. The L.Y.N.X.9 is capable of transforming itself into various form factors, using supplied accessories. Read more »

MediaTek has announced a new chipset specifically for the low-power needs of Android Wear devices. Called the MT2601, this new chipset is designed to be smaller and more efficient than current chipsets.

The MT2601 has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, Mali-400 MP GPU, and supports qHD resolutions, which should be plenty for something like a smartwatch. Most of the current Android Wear devices are based on the Snapdragon 400 SoC, a quad-core chipset designed for smartphones but has three of its cores disabled for lower power consumption on wearables. Read more »

Yesterday we showed you what was reported to be the first ever leaked screenshot showing an in-development build of Spartan, Microsoft’s upcoming Web browser for Windows 10 which was first rumored late last year. Today though there are a couple of new leaked images doing the rounds, and these two show us a very different design for Spartan.

That may be a good thing, given how cartoonish its interface looked in yesterday’s shot. The downside is that today’s leak is comprised of two extremely small and extremely blurry screenshots. Read more »