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LG G Pad X may arrive at Verizon by the end of the month

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Verizon is readying a replacement for the LG G Pad 8.3 tablet, which may be dubbed the LG G Pad X.

Little is known about the tablet, but there’s an image to look at – everything’s better with pictures. Read more »

Happy 150th birthday, Nokia!

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You may know Nokia for its phones, but the company is much older than many realize – today it’s celebrating its 150th birthday! And while it no longer makes phones, Nokia has done many things over the years, and “change is a part of its nature”.

This six minute video says “Happy birthday, Nokia” with a quick look at the company’s past and a glance towards the future. Read more »

YuFit smartband counts your steps, tracks your sleep on an INR 999 budget

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Yu is growing its business with a new phone and an entry into the health gadget field. The YuFit smartband aims for availability with an INR 999 price tag ($16/€14) and pays special attention to the Indian market with the first calorie counter for Indian food.

The company is adding a human touch with real life personal trainers, the first 1,000 users get access to the service for free. Read more »

Microsoft Lumia 640 hands-on

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Windows Phone has found its niche in the lower end of the market, so now it’s Microsoft’s job to translate that into demand for the more advanced offerings. The Microsoft Lumia 640 tries to coax users with its modest model number, but behind that is a capable mid-ranger.

The early 6-series led their similarly-priced Android counterparts with better screens, cameras and chipsets. Market pressure has brought Androids up to par, but now the Lumia 640 makes a bid to regain the lead. Read more »

TAG Heuer smartwatch to launch in October/November at $1,400

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TAG Heuer has been promising a smartwatch for months now, but the watchmaker’s CEO Jean-Claude Biver, said that the watch will launch in October and November and will offer 40 hours of battery life, compared to the Apple Watch’s 18 hours.

Biver is not bitter about competition from Cupertino, in fact he welcomes it: “I hope they sell millions and millions and millions of them,” he says. “The more they sell the more a few people will want something different and come to TAG Heuer.” Read more »

Tencent announces OS for smartwatches, VR headsets, game consoles and TVs

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A fashionable trend among multi-billion tech companies is to launch their own OS. The latest to join the fray is Tencent, the company best known for QQ and WeChat, which updated its TencentOS with a version to run on smartwatches, TV sets, VR headsets, game consoles and other Internet-connected devices.

Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and Qualcomm have partnered with Tencent to work on TOS+ devices. Read more »

Oculus Rift retail launch may slip into 2016

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The launch of the retail version of the Oculus Rift has always been a nebulous “soon” and it may be undergoing another revision. Until recently the target was by the end of 2015, but the launch may slip into next year.

HTC and Valve are hoping to bring their Vive VR headset for the holidays this year and may be cheering at the delay. Read more »

Instead of an Apple Watch review

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Each ring of the doorbell sends our editorial staff running to the door with screams “The Apple Watch is here!” I don’t have the heart to tell them the shipping estimate is for mid-May even though we hit the buy button mere seconds after pre-order started.

While the two unladen swallows fly the Apple Watch to our office all the way from Cupertino, we got our resident Jony Ive impersonator to help us relive the thrill of the unveiling event. Read more »

Hugo Barra disassembles the Xiaomi Mi 4i on video

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Hugo Barra helped present the Xiaomi Mi 4i on stage, but his duties expand beyond a product spokesman, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and take the phone apart.

In doing so, he also tells the engineering story of making the Mi 4i. Read more »

The Apple Watch charger works with Qi-enabled devices

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The Apple Watch and its charging cradle were taken apart, but a secret still remains inside. The charging cradle uses an inductive charging coil to send electricity to the Watch without wires.

Apple normally avoids common standards so everyone just assumed this charging solution is a custom job, but it turns out this may not be the case. Read more »

Quick benchmark comparison of the Xiaomi Mi 4i

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The Xiaomi Mi 4i was just unveiled in India and while on stage gave a quick glimpse at its performance. The phone drops the Snapdragon 801 chipset of the Mi 4 and goes for Snapdragon 615. Hugo Barra said it’s the second generation 615 chipset where the processor works at higher frequencies – there are eight Cortex-A53 cores in total, four of which work at 1.7GHz (up from 1.5GHz) and the other four at 1.1GHz (up from 1GHz). There’s also 2GB of RAM and Adreno 405 GPU.

The slide above revealed some benchmark scores so we can try and compare the Xiaomi Mi 4i’s performance before we even get a hands-on. Read more »

LG Watch Urbane promo video brings us back to Barcelona

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The LG Watch Urbane was announced at Barcelona a couple months ago, but the latest promo video brings us straight back to the picturesque city.

The tagline reminds us that “Time flies and never returns” to reinforce the time-lapse footage in the video. Read more »

Devs can now sign up for a free HTC Vive VR headset from Steam

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Valve and HTC developed the first VR headset for the upcoming Steam VR platform. The new platform will need games and devs can now sign up for a free HTC Vive Developer Edition headset.

Batches of headsets will be distributed every couple of weeks, but supplies will be limited. Read more »

Samsung SSDs led the market last year, doubled Intel SSD sales

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Samsung’s semiconductor business is having a ball – first there’s talk of Qualcomm switching to Samsung foundries, now the SSD division has something to brag about. Last year Samsung SSDs had double the market share of arch rival Intel.

The info comes from market research firm IHS. Read more »

Infographic details upcoming uses of mobile GPUs

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Imagination, the company behind the PowerVR GPUs found in iPhones and iPads among other smartphones and tablets, is excited about the future of mobile GPUs and has prepared an infographic for a crash course on how they will be used.

The company introduced its Series7 family of GPUs and they will soon reach consumers, coming first on the MediaTek MT8173 chipset (which might also be the first one with Cortex-A72 cores). Read more »