Huwaei just announced two new wearable devices – the TalkBand B2 and the TalkBand N1, and an Android Wear smartwatch, dubbed simply Huawei Watch.

Huawei is not particularly big on the wearable market. The company does, however have a history with experimenting in the field, particularly with the TalkBand B1 – a wearable Bluetooth handset. The interesting device saw the light of day last year and was definitely met with mixed response. Today it’s releasing a follow-up on that along withn Android Wear smartwatch. Read more »

Acer’s MWC press event is already under way in Barcelona and a few new phones have been announced. Among these are two entry-level Android phones which are meant to extend the Liquid line, as well as a Windows Phone handset. The manufacturer has already released promotional videos for the pair of phones, which can be found on YouTube.

Despite their modest appearance Acer markets the devices as “all-rounder” phones and accents on the full-featured Android experience they deliver. All three phones spout a rather small, by today’s standards 4-inch 233ppi WVGA screen. The two Android models are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC, clocked at 1.2 GHz with only 1 GB of RAM. The Z220 spouts a 5MP main shooter, while its bigger brother, the Z520 has an 8MP camera and a small 2MP camera sits on the front of both devices. Read more »

It there is one thing Google knows how to do its advertisement. It is one of the main reasons the tech giant is such a formidable force nowadays. Google’s Play store has become an incredibly popular content hub, not only for apps, but movies and music as well. It was only natural that the company’s unique ad-supported suggestion system find its way to the store sooner or later.

The ads in question will only be present within the search results in much the same way you see results being pushed to Google’s web search. So you might start seeing suggested apps pop-up in you Play Store searches. These will look almost identical to other results but will be marked with a little “Ad” label. Read more »

Chromebooks have definitely been on the rise lately and frankly we can see their appeal. They are ideal for a pure-online mobile experience on a budget and frankly nowadays you can get most of what you need through the abundance of online Google services, which you are most likely already relying on anyway. The point being that Chromebook definitely have their own place on the market, but currently they offer little hardware variety.

Of course, you can rightfully argue that most users of the budget machines don’t really care what is pushing the numbers inside the case, but the fact is that currently it seems only Intel is supplying processing power for the various portables. This is in no way mere chance and AMD really seems to have little interest or actual benefit from powering Chromebooks. Read more »

Samsung has definitely been on a row lately, especially in terms of new tech innovations as well as stable supply contracts and improved market positions. In today’s dynamic economy, however, this does not necessarily translate into immediate profit.

A few days ago the Korean giant released its earnings report for Q4 2014 and things were not as bright as Samsung would want. It’s not surprising then that in order to counter the negative tendency and regain former profit margins as soon as possible the tech giant will be freezing wages on its home turf in Korea, a report by Reuters suggests. Read more »

With MWC right around the corner the One (M9) is definitely on everybody’s minds, but this definitely does not mean that HTC doesn’t have other agenda to attend to. You might remember that last September the company put out a limited edition version of its flagship device to honor the Champions League.

Apparently the experiment was fruitful as today another UEFA commemorative version of the same handset saw the light of day. The phone in question is, of course, the HTC One (M8), but this time around it is not getting a render of the tournament’s and cup. Instead the smartphone is engraved with the names of every past CL winner, since the first installment in 1992. Read more »

Samsung has definitely been on a streak lately. And this does not refer only to the ever-growing mobile market or the TV segment with the new UHD niche. The Korean tech giant is hitting big in terms of technology innovations. Recent developments in 14nm production methods as well as improving market positions and stable supply contracts have turned the Koreans in a key industry manufacturer.

Amidst all of this success Samsung Electronics president Kinam Kim sounded naturally excited about the company’s future at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). In his speech he went into detail about the relatively new concept of Internet of Things (IoT). According to Cisco Systems estimates there are currently about 14.4 billion devices connected to the internet, which is quite a lot considering that there are half as much people worldwide. He believes that by 2020 this number will grow to the whopping 50 billion. Read more »

Smartwatches are definitely not a novice concept, but it seems that now they are finally starting to pick up. The debate is still on whether the new class of devices is really useful and is meant to serve any actual purpose other than market expansion, but from the looks of things the wrist companions are here to stay.

With all this hype in the tech world Apple is yet to capitalize on the new device niche, but the long-anticipated Apple Watch is inching ever closer to its release date. According a recent statement the Apple Watch should start shipping in April, so the wait is almost over. In the meantime various predictionsare being made about the upcoming device. One such comes from Analyst Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities Research and his opinion on the future of the wearable is favorable to say the least. Read more »

Samsung is on top of the food chain when it comes to a lot of tech markets. If there is one thing the Korean giant is extremely good at it has to be display panels. Samsung has built a formidable reputation as a major innovator in this area as well as a top supplier both to third-party manufacturers and consumer markets.

According to DisplaySearch, a leader in global market research, Samsung Electronics has been holding the first place in annual TV sales worldwide for the last 9 years straight. In 2014 the Korean manufacturer accounted for 29.2% of the sales, a huge leap from 11.9% in 2013. The number is even more impressive for North America, where Samsung dwarfs competition with a 35.3% TV market share. Read more »

OnePlus has a history of close engagement with fans for all sorts of feedback and guerrilla marketing tactics really seem to be working so far. The relatively small Chinese team has really managed to ramp up popularity and is now offering fans yet another interesting competition with a creative twist.

OnePlus is now starting what they call “possibly our coolest contest yet” and from the looks of it they are not over-exaggerating. The team has joined forces with the 3D-printing gurus at Ultimaker and YouMagine and is now challenging fans to unleash their creativity and design accessories for the OnePlus One. And when they say design they seriously mean it as in order for submissions to be taken under considerations they have to be made precisely using CAD software and ready for 3D printing. Read more »

Samsung held a grand press conference at this year’s CES, but most of you surely remember the rather disappointing void of smartphones at the venue. Amidst the sea of home appliances and multimedia service announcements there was still something that captured our interest. The Korean giant unveiled a brand new TV technology, called SUHD and promised it will be available in upcoming models.

There has been little information about these TV sets, except for various size and price speculations and what Samsung already made clear about the technology. Today, however a new leak claims to disclose information about the full SUHD lineup with model numbers and prices. It is reported that the TVs will range from about $2500 all the way to $23,000 which is in no way budget friendly even in the premium segment. They will also be powered by the company’s own OS – Tizen, which is also exciting as the platform is growing at a phenomenal rate. Read more »

Cloud storage has become so widely spread and popular that most users rarely think about what service they are using and who is giving them all of the free online space. This of course is the desired effect with major players like Google Drive and Dropbox integrating their platforms so seamlessly with other applications that using them is as natural as your own hard drive. Microsoft is also big on the cloud storage scene, but oddly enough is generating far less hype, yet if you are on a recent Windows PC or a Lumia device, chances are that you already have a OneDrive account.

Just like the aforementioned Google service, Microsoft also offers 15GB of free storage out of the box. And while you may be thinking that you really don’t need another service to do the same the fact of the matter is that its client is already integrated in Windows 8 and newer version and puts you one click away from synching your files to the cloud. Microsoft has a limited time promotion through the Bing Awards program that can significantly sweeten the storage deal with 100 GB of free storage for two years. Read more »

We all know those digital picture frames that ushered traditional photo stands into the digital realm a few years back. The concept of having a whole album of photos on a dedicated and very straight-forward device is definitely a good one, but the nice concept seems to have stopped in its development.

Pigeon is a now re-imagining of the digital photo frame, making it even more user friendly and convenient to use. What creator Keith Beckley has done is create a connected wireless frame that can seamlessly sync photos with a cloud service. While the concept isn’t new in any way the suggested use cases sure are. Read more »

Vanessa Wittman has officially joined the ranks of Dropbox as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Prior to the new occupation she was a high ranking executive, SVP and CFO at Motorola Mobility, after it was acquired by Google in 2011 and during the first year of Lenovo’s ownership as well. Wittman has also worked as the CFO of Marsh & McLennan so quite an impressive CV there.

Motorola’s shifting fate is the sort of battle-hardening turmoil that distinguishes a professional so Dropbox could have scored big by roping Vanessa in their ranks. She will be taking the place of longstanding Dropbox CFO Sujay Jaswa, who has set the bar pretty high. Read more »

Cortana is just one of the many new features that Windows 10 will bring to eager users. But among the overwhelming sea of new performance and experience improvements, cross-device support and advanced features it is easy to overlook the seemingly plain assistant ant its place in the new OS.

The truth is that Cortana is aiming to be a truly inspired and innovative take on assistant software which has gone far beyond the clever voice search tool it started out as on Windows Phone devices. The team behind the software has taken the time to walk interested users through the steps it took to create the assistant and explain how clever and personal it can actually be. This was done through a rather lengthy blog post on Microsoft’s website and a short video that can be seen below. Read more »