Mozilla ditched Google for Yahoo as the default search engine in the popular web browser Firefox. The change will first affect Firefox users in the United States beginning in December as part of a five-year agreement between the tech giants.
Users outside the US will get the Yahoo treatment early next year. Read more »
With the holiday shopping season set to kick into high gear, Sony decided to sweeten up the Z3 family of Android devices even further. Going forward the company will bundle three free movies with Sony Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact, and Z3 Tablet Compact.
The trio of free movies will include “Ghostbusters,” “Captain Phillips,” and “The Amazing Spider Man 2.” Read more »
Motorola took the wraps off the Keylink phone and key finder. As its name suggests, the little gadget will help users fund their phone or keys with a press of a button within up to 100 feet.
The Keylink attaches to user’s keychain. Read more »
People seem to really be loving the idea of a Jolla Tablet. That is, if we judge based on how much money they’ve already pledged for the device on Indiegogo. The tablet’s makers have already been promised 184% of their funding goal.
The Jolla Tablet was announced earlier today, and it’s already raised over $700,000, the goal having been $380,000. And the campaign has 21 days left. Read more »
Flash storage for mobile devices is typically described by just its capacity, but if you’ve looked at a computer SSD you may have noticed initialisms like MLC and TLC. TLC is cheaper per gigabyte since it stores three bits per cell compared to the two of MLC, so Apple used TLC storage for some 64GB and 128GB iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units.
And it’s been nothing but headaches. First the controller in the TLC storage went haywire causing crashes, boot loops and slow speeds, now benchmarks have surfaced showing that MLC easily outperforms TLC. Read more »
Opera’s Max mobile data saving app for Android is capable of compressing precious data traffic by up to 50% and it’s been available in North and South America, Europe Union countries and Russia. Today, Opera announced the service is available in 16 additional countries.
Now, users in Albania, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan can enjoy Opera Max. Read more »
The case stems from a lawsuit brought by Mobile Telecommunications Technologies, which sued Apple last year claiming that several of the its Wi-Fi-enabled products, including smartphones, tablets, and more, offering services like iMessage, emojis, and calendar invitations, violated a total of six patents issued to the company in mid-to-late 1990’s.
An eight-member jury in District Court for the Eastern District of Texas concluded that Apple did infringe on five of the six patents in question, while agreeing with the Cupertino-based company’s argument that emojis do not infringe on the Texas-based company’s patents. Read more »
The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is largely based on the Note 4, save for the unique curved screen. This reduced the internal volume, which in turn made the battery smaller – 3,000mAh instead of 3,220mAh in the Galaxy Note 4.
The screen is different too as is some of the software, which have a much bigger impact on battery life than those lost 220mAh. Read more »
PayPal released an official app for the Pebble smartwatch lineup. The application is now available to install on the original Pebble and the Pebble Steel.
PayPal for Pebble allows users to check-in to pay or settle through a payment code with all merchants that accept the payment method. Read more »
HP took the wraps off the Envy x2 of family of convertible PCs. With a multi-angle kickstand, fabric keyboard cover, and available stylus, the device is a cheaper, slightly less capable clone to the heavily marketed Microsoft Surface 3.
HP Envy x2 is available in configurations with 13” or 15” IPS display. Read more »
WhatsApp’s Android iteration can now boast end-to-end encryption for your messages, according to a new report. The functionality has been baked into the latest update for the app, and the encryption is turned on by default.
The “end-to-end” part means WhatsApp (or Facebook, its owner) won’t be able to decrypt your messages, even if it is compelled to do so by law enforcement agencies. Read more »
The makers of the popular instant messaging app Viber announced Public Chats. Dubbed social entertainment channel by its makers, the feature allows users to share conversations and content on mobile devices.
Public Chats will include live discussions with personalities and various celebrities. Read more »
This year Facebook has pushed its Messenger app for mobile more than ever, even forcing people to use only that for messaging one another. And now the social network has announced a new standalone mobile app that focuses on one single aspect of your Facebook experience. In this case, we’re talking about Groups.
Rightware, maker of the popular Basemark and Browsermark benchmarking products, today released the Basemark ES 3.0 test suite. It’s specialized in assessing the smartphones and tablets ability of running OpenGL ES 3.0 based graphics.
OpenGL ES 3.0 was introduced in Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, iOS 7 and BlackBerry OS 10.2. The new graphics API is used by developers to create stunning games and rich navigation software. Read more »
The Moto X 2013 Developer Edition is currently on sale ат eBay. The unlocked phone can now be yours for $230. While the offer is available worldwide, US-based customers are the ones who benefit from free shipping, making the deal even more irresistible.
The phone doesn’t work on CDMA-based carriers, so no Sprint or Verizon customers should buy it. It features 32GB of storage, but no microSD card slot and is dressed in Woven White. Read more »