Google acquired the designer and manufacturer of home products Nest Labs. The search engine giant paid $3.2 billion in cash for the Palo Alto-based company.
Founded in 2010, Nest brings modern design and functionality to ubiquitous home products.
It’s no secret that Blackberry’s hardware isn’t exactly flying off the shelves. In the corporate world, iPhones and Droids are becoming more and more prevalent in the hands of business movers and shakers. The transition has been slowed down due to the excellent security features of Blackberry Enterprise Server, but it’s only a matter of time before Blackberry is no longer synonymous with business. Well now, it looks like Windows Phone devices will soon have the ability to sport BES, potentially keeping Blackberry in the corporate game.
CEO John Chen had this to say:
I could put a sales team on Wall Street. I know how to do this up and down Wall Street … we will go in and tell them why BES is the best thing for them, and go through the road map, the offerings, and all that good stuff. We’re going to protect their investment in iPhone, and Android, and everywhere else, even with Windows Phones.
CEO of Branch, Josh Miller, has announced that the service has been bought out by Facebook. As part of the deal, Facebook will also acquire Potluck, a similar service. If you’re not familiar with Branch or Potluck, they’re link-sharing services that allow friends to share news stories and internet articles, and have conversations about said stories. This news-centric app’s intention was to move discussions away from Facebook and email and allow users an easier, more “feed-like” way to talk about the links they’re sharing.
The news doesn’t really come as much of a surprise, considering that Facebook has been moving more towards putting real news stories in your feeds along with photo albums of your best friend’s weird night in Bangkok photo album. Facebook is bringing on CEO Josh Miller to do just this, so he’ll be working for Zuckerberg in addition to being bought out.
This weekend we set out to get your thoughts on the hottest products from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas and now that we have the results it’s time to see what you guys liked and what disappointed you.
While the overall tone remained excited there were things you guys weren’t really thrilled about. This year’s CES brought the first real non-compromises mini smartphone from the Android camp, some exciting slates from Samsung, a new take at smartwatch design by Pebble and more.
The Nokia Video Director app was unveiled alongside the Lumia 2520 Windows RT tablet. The app offers a simple way to throw together videos, with transitions and background music.
A new teaser video reminds people who bought the 2520 to download the app (and the accompanying WP8 app to more easily grab videos shot with your phone).
Acer already has several cheap Android tablets under its belt but that doesn’t mean the company is satisfied. The latest is the Acer Tab 7 reaches even lower than the Iconia B1-720 and goes for CNY 600 at Chinese retailer JD.com. That’s $100 or €73.
As you can imagine, the specs of the 7″ tablet are no match for the best tablets out there, but they sound pretty good for the price.
Samsung has already put its flexible display technology into production with the Galaxy Round, but the company is going one step further as it has showcased its first foldable screen. The demo has been conducted at CES to VIPs in the Encore, Las Vegas, where, according to the ETnews sources, the company has shown a 5.68″ prototype.
Interestingly, the display of the AMOLED variety, but unlike the flexible display of the Round, the new method used in the foldable display allows it to bend in two.
The recently announced Tegra K1 chipset relies on a potent 192 core graphics processing unit which, in Nvidia’s words, is more powerful than the GPUs inside the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles of old and three times that of the iPhone 5s GPU.
And now that we have our first benchmarking scores the claims seem realistic, and possibly even conservative. Appearing on GFXBench’s T-Rex 1080p off-screen benchmark the K1 GPU, running on a reference tablet, achieved 60 frames per second, besting the Tegra 4′s 16 fps, the Snapdragon 800-powered Galaxy Note 3′s 24 fps and the iPad Air’s 27 fps by a significant margin.
Apple has released a new iPad Air TV commercial during the NFL playoffs game between the San Francisco 49′ers and the Carolina Panthers.
The new promotional video runs for about 90 seconds and features a monologue from the popular movie ‘Dead Poets Society’.
Beats Electronics is launching its new Beats Music service in the US. The service will be available starting January 21 and will be available in single and family plans, the latter being exclusive to AT&T.
One of the highlights of the Beats Music service is the curated content tailored for your needs. The service uses algorithm and curation from its staff to suggest music to you based on what you like and listen to.
The newest Mac Pro complies with all EU laws and is available for sale in Europe.
In March of 2013, the older Mac Pro had been banned for sale in Europe due to regulation changes.
EU law stipulated that in order for an electronic device to be deemed safe, fan guards were required to cover the exposed fans of the previous Mac Pro model. The electrical ports on the popular desktop computer also required slight changes.
It’s no secret that Windows 8 hasn’t exactly been a resounding success. So what’s the best way to fix a failed OS? Start over. That’s what Paul Thurott, a Windows news maven, believes will happen in April of 2015 with the release of Windows 9.
Thurott believes that Microsoft’s Build 2014 developer conference will see the announcement of Windows 9 this April, with the release of the OS set for the following year.
Windows 8 came under a lot of fire for its wild redesign. The Start menu’s absence being the most notorious omission from Microsoft’s new OS. Well the beloved Start menu should be making a comeback in Windows 9, and it’s rumored that it may return even as early as the Windows 8.1 update.
The Sennheiser CX 275s are pair of in-ear headphones designed specifically for mobile devices. One of the key features of this product is a universal microphone and call pickup/cancel button that is designed to work with practically every smartphone and tablet out there.
Other than the headset functionality, Sennheiser also promises a ‘bass driven stereo sound’ so you can definitely expect some bass-heavy sound. Let’s see how well it does in that department and in other frequency ranges.
The WhatsApp client for Windows Phone 8 devices suffered from a minor problem with broadcast message reception.
The latest update, v2.11.356, for the popular messaging application, however, fixes this issue.
The newest update doesn’t offer any additional features, such as allowing users to send music files, but many believe that this will be available soon.
Alongside the trio of Zenfone devices, ASUS released a new PadFone mini. Unlike the dual-SIM, Qualcomm-powered device with the same name which broke cover in December last year, the newcomer features Intel Atom SoC.
The new ASUS PadFone mini consists of a compact smartphone with 4” WVGA IPS+ display and a docking station with a 7” screen of the same type.
Benchmarking Asus ZenFone 2 ZE551ML with Intel Atom Z3580 SoC and 4GB of RAM
HTC One E9+ performance benchmarks
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Your verdict on Android M, iOS 9 and Watch OS 2.0