If you’re a U.S. customer and want to get some of the 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD versions, today might be the best time to do it. Amazon’s deal of the deal lets you save $50 if you purchase one of the two slates today.

The $250/$450 prices are valid with a promo code, which you enter at checkout . Read more »

It’s no secret that Apple’s new Maps application that debuted with iOS 6 has been an unmitigated failure. Outside of a few key locations in the US, the mapping data has been woefully inaccurate in most places around the world and although it is improving, it’s still pretty bad.

Providing further proof of its incompetency is the latest news from Mildura, Australia, where the local police are expressing concerns over Apple’s mapping data and asking users to be careful while using it. Read more »

Samsung recently released the first video demonstrating the Android 4.1.2 update for the Galaxy S III that brings with it Samsung’s Premium Suite of applications, which are basically features that were previously exclusive to the Galaxy Note II.

Now they have released the second and what seems like the last video in the series, that showcases a few more features in this rather feature packed update. Read more »

We have reported in the past that Valve, creators of the popular game distribution service Steam, is now planning on entering the hardware segment.

It wasn’t clear what this hardware would be like but in a recent interview with Kotaku, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that Valve is working on a living room PC that will offer a console like experience and will compete with the PlayStation and the Xbox. Read more »

Splice, as the developer likes to call it, is an experimental and artistic puzzler. The game has been out on the iPad, Steam and Mac App Store for a while but made its Android debut through the Humble Bundle 4 for Android.

Now it has finally hit Google Play and can be purchased separately. We decided to give it a try and see how well it fares on the small screen. Read more »

With the official announcement of the full HD display sporting, ultra slim Oppo Find 5 smartphone imminent, the Chinese manufacturer has launched a dedicated English language website. This occurrence should hardly catch anyone by surprise given Oppo’s already confirmed ambitions for international success.

The website offers an email sign-up sheet for an Oppo newsletter, as well as dedicated products, press, and forums links. Read more »

Samsung has released the new Galaxy Muse music player in the US. The device acts as a companion music player for your Galaxy S III, Note II, Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note, and is one of the most confounding devices I have seen in recent times that almost seems like an April Fool’s hoax.

Unlike all the other music players on the market, the Galaxy Muse cannot be connected to your computer to transfer music files to the device, even though it has a decent 4GB on board. In order to transfer music to the Muse, you will have to connect it to your Galaxy S III or Note II. Read more »

Chrome started on computers and moved to smartphones, so is it time for the smartphones to return the favor? An issue in the code repository for the Chromium project (on which the Chrome browser is based) suggests that Google Now cards are about to make their way to the desktop browser.

The issue is titled “Creating a skeleton for Google Now for Chrome implementation“, which suggests there’s more work to be done before Now hits Chrome. Read more »

The Whatsapp team says the Whatsapp app for Windows Phone 8 will go live very soon in the Store. It will be six times faster than before and later on it will get another update with new emoji set.

The Whatsapp messenger already made an appearance in the Windows Phone 8 Store, but was quickly pulled back as it obviously required some more polishing. It seems the team is ready with the new app and you will be getting in the next few days or weeks. Read more »

Sony has decided to extend its offer of 50GB of Box.com cloud storage for life for new Xperia owners.

Until now, the offer was set to expire at the end of this year. Read more »

The downloads in the Amazon Appstore are up 500% from last year, which makes it the fastest growing app repository around.

Of course, Amazon mostly has its aggressively priced Kindle Fire and Fire HDs to thank for that but we shouldn’t underestimate the other Android smartphones that use it daily. That free app per day promotion has certainly helped the growth, too. Read more »

The Windows Phone 8-running Ativ S is yet to be released, but Samsung is already starting to warm up for the launch.

The Ativ S should go on sale some time this month, but Samsung is yet to confirm the first countries to get its WP8 smartphone. That probably won’t take long as the company has already started its marketing campaign on the device. Two newly uploaded videos demonstrate pretty much everything the Ativ S can tempt you with. Read more »

Sony has released its own Flash tool for download. It lets you flash back to a Sony-made ROM in case you have stranded into hostile custom software territory.

Currently only the Xperia S, arc and arc S are supported and an unlocked bootloader is a must. Read more »

If you’ve visited YouTube today you might have noticed that it has a brand new design. But there’s another change that you might not notice right away – Google is trying to make it easier to follow the channels you’ve subscribed to and to find new content.

Let’s start with the new look. Read more »

HTC’s Butterfly, the droid with the 5″ 1080p screen, started off in Japan, moved to the US and has now finally gone international. It keeps the same cool specs as the country-specific versions, including the high-res S-LCD3 and the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset.

But instead of telling you about it, it’s easier to show it with this video ad for the HTC Butterfly. Read more »