The Burj Al Arab silhouette has become iconic for Dubai and the self-titled “world’s only 7 star hotel” celebrated its 15th anniversary (it opened December 1999). Instead of 15 candles on a cake, the Burj went with 15 bespoke gold iPhones.

Crafted by Gold & Co London (which had previously supplied the hotel with golden iPads), the commemorative iPhone 6 units come in Yellow and Black Gold. Read more »

In the past, Samsung has hosted its Unpacked events at Mobile World Congress (MWC) as well as in the US, but this time around, that won’t be the case, as the South Korean company has confirmed that there will be no US-based Unpacked event this year.

In a statement to Sammobile, the tech giant said, “Samsung has no plans to host an Unpacked event in the US,” adding that those who are not traveling to MWC, can watch the event via livestream at youtube.com/SamsungMobile. Read more »

Just a few hours after Uber announced that its has entered into a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to create a new tech center focused on developing autonomous driving vehicles, among other things, Bloomberg is reporting that Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, “most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project.”

That’s particularly interesting given the fact that Google Ventures, the search giant’s venture capital arm, has already invested $258 million in Uber, and just last year the Mountain View, California-based company integrated Uber functionality in its Maps application. Read more »

Telltale Games is releasing the second episode of its ‘Game of Thrones’s game on the mobile platform on February 5, two days after it releases on the desktop and consoles. Unlike the first episode, Episode 2 will launch simultaneously on iOS and Android.

Episode 2, The Lost Lords, continues from where the first one left off and is the second in the six part series. The game takes between the end of season three and the beginning of season five of the show, which itself is based on the books by George R. R. Martin. Read more »

Remember Apple’s former partner GT Advanced and its sapphire glass plant that went bust last year? Apparently, the Cupertino giant has plans to turn it into a massive data center.

The facility will serve as a command center for Apple’s “global networks.” Read more »

The CEO of Pebble Eric Migicovsky announced in an interview that the company shipped a million smartwatches. The company hit the magic number at the very end of 2014, on December 31.

Pebble more than doubled its sales since March 2014. Read more »

Xiaomi is going after the iPhone 6 Plus with its Mi Note and Mi Note Pro phablets, that’s clear. The Chinese company obviously thinks its offerings are superior to Apple’s, and it’s now put out a new video meant to drive that point home.

In it, we can see Xiaomi President and co-founder Bin Lin musing about how his company has a patented new solution which ensures there are no protruding cameras on its phones’ backs. Read more »

The latest Nokia product for Windows Phone to lose the Nokia branding is the app formerly known as Nokia Conference. From now on, it will live on as Join Conference. The name change has been made official through its latest update, which is now up for grabs in the Windows Phone app store.

The new name isn’t the only change, however. Join Conference has received support for Cortana, which means you can now simply say “join conference” and Cortana will do its magic for you. Read more »

Project Tango, Google’s ground-breaking 3D-spacial mapping project has long been under development at the company’s Advanced Technology and Projects division. The captivating new concept has always been very promising, but also strictly confined to future research and development. Now it seems this is finally changing and we might just get the chance to experience some real-world implementations of the Google’s 3D technology on the consumer market.

While no major new leap has been made today’s news from the project team was equally thrilling: Read more »

Samsung updated its fitness app, S Health, with a new Material Design UI, plus Coach by Cigna and a few bug fixes.

It’s now at version 3.5.5, available now in the Galaxy Apps store. Read more »

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo has launched a new global mobile photography contest that gives participants a chance to share their stories with photographs. Dubbed It’s Your Turn, the three-week contest centers on three themes: “Selfie Showdown”, “Our World”, and “Inspiring Moments”, and will see winners getting the company’s N3 smartphone.

To take part in the contest, you can either directly visit the contest’s official page or share your photos on social media websites like Facebook. “The Facebook accounts of OPPO’s global and country sites will share photos uploaded by participants on a regular basis,” the company said. Read more »

If you are a Google Earth user, here is some good news: the Pro version of the service, which was previously priced at $399 per year, is now available for free. This means that you can now use detailed imagery of the service as well as its advanced tools – that help you measure 3D buildings, print high-resolution images for presentations or reports, and record HD movies of your virtual flights around the world – all without paying a penny.

“Starting today, even more people will be able to access Google Earth Pro: we’re making it available for free,” Google said in a blog post. “To see what Earth Pro can do for you – or to just have fun flying around the world – grab a free key and download Earth Pro today. If you’re an existing user, your key will continue to work with no changes required.” Read more »

Information originating from China suggests that Apple hasn’t given up on a large, 12.9″ iPad and has even decided on its name. Called the iPad Plus, the upcoming 12.9″ slate is taking after the naming scheme of the iPhone 6 Plus and won’t be called Pro as previously suggested.

Furthermore, a schematic of the tablet gives us a basic idea of the bezels of the tablet. The 12.9″ is a large footprint by itself, but it will also have bezels similar to these of the iPad Air 2. Read more »

Out of the blue the new Raspberry Pi 2 is official. It’s a successor to the B+ model and features the same hardware arrangement (1x Ethernet, 4x USB 2.0), but a much upgraded CPU – a quad-core Cortex-A7 at 900MHz. The best part is that Microsoft will provide a free Windows 10 version!

All this for the same $35 price tag. Read more »

Canon is expected to announced the EOS 5DS and the EOS 5DS R full-frame DSLR cameras this week. The specifications for both models have already been leaked.

Both models have 50.6 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor, 61 point AF system with 41 points being cross-type, dual DIGIC 6 processor, ISO 100-6400 range (expandable to ISO 50 – 12800), 5fps burst mode, 1.3x and 1.6x crop modes, 100% field of view, 150,000 pixel RGB-TR metering sensor, 252 zone TTL metering, 1080p30 video, mini HDMI output, microphone input, and 3.2-inch LCD with 1.04 million dot resolution. Read more »