Articles by Kris Holt

Welcome to Gadget Dreams And Nightmares, a peek at the latest products to sneak out of consumer electronics labs In this week's installment: a flip-style smartphone, a fashionable soundbar, a light bulb full of bright ideas, and a pair of gizmos that just received their U.S. debut dates....

Welcome to a weekly look at the latest gadget offerings scrabbling for our hard-earned money in Gadget Dreams and Nightmares ...

It's usually around here that I introduce the column and tease the agenda, but since absolutely nothing happened in the gadget world this week, I'm going to take it easy Oh, wait -- sorry. Apple happened....

Welcome to the latest installment of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, a weekly look at just-announced personal tech items. There's plenty on the menu this time around: Samsung's latest smartphone and tablet salvo; two pieces of smart, on-the-go tech; some curved home entertainment options; and wearable devices from an unlikely source As ever, these ar...

Welcome to my Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, a look at just-announced gizmos that caught my eye. This week, we'll take a peek at the latest example of a smartphone trend, a noisy hat, a safer e-reader, and possibly the most useful piece of wearable fitness tech yet. Please note that these are not reviews -- the ratings reflect my interest in using ...

Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, a column that takes a look at some new gadgets that are not yet released or have just hit the shelves I'll trawl through product announcements to find potential gems -- as well as gizmos that deserve to be ignored after we've poked a little fun at them.

Facebook is set for another legal battle over privacy, with a fresh class-action lawsuit fired up against the company The legal action is the brainchild of Austrian law student Max Schrems, a noted campaigner against Facebook's treatment of user privacy. Schrems called on adult Facebook users around the world to join his suit after he filed a compl...

The Internet.org collective's mission of bringing the entire planet online took a step forward Thursday with the release of an app affording limited free mobile Internet access to users in Zambia While around 85 percent of the world's people are located in areas with cellular network connectivity, only 30 percent access the Internet. In Zambia, jus...

Microsoft is preparing to debut an update to its Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, which includes expansion of its Cortana personal assistant availability to more regions The update introduces Cortana to China and the UK in beta form, and Canada, India and Australia in alpha mode....

OkCupid has admitted carrying out psychological experiments on its users Because OkCupid doesn't really know what it's doing, it needs to experiment to see what works and what doesn't, cofounder Christian Rudder wrote in a blog post.

A new way to extend battery life would allow smartphones to last three to four times longer on a single charge, Stanford University researchers have found A team led by Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering, has developed pure metal anode prototypes, which differ from the lithium-ion batteries seen in most devices. The anode is the...

Google apparently is adding another prominent streaming video service to nestle alongside YouTube in its stable. It reportedly has acquired Twitch for around US$1 billion When the deal will be announced and the official purchase price are not yet clear, VentureBeat reported, though Twitch investors are said to be pleased with the return on their eq...

Like many other tech companies, Twitter is largely made up of white, male employees, pointing to a lack of diversity in the industry The company revealed statistics about its organizational demographics, noting that almost 60 percent of Twitter's U.S. employees self-identify as white. Just under 30 percent of the workforce identifies as Asian. Comb...

Early reviews for Amazon's first foray into the smartphone market are mixed, with a general sense that the device is a good phone overlaid with some flashy features Amazon announced the Fire Phone last month, trumpeting its 3D display, which uses facial recognition and front-facing cameras to shift perspective, depending on where the user's head is...

Nvidia is expanding its Shield line of gaming products with the launch of a gaming tablet and accompanying wireless controller Designed for high performance, the tablet is powered by Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor, which includes 192 graphics processing unit cores. It will be frequently updated with software updates designed to draw stronger performan...

The Internet adoption rate in China appears to be slowing, based on a report that shows the lowest six-month increase in the number of Internet users in eight years The total number of Internet users in the country reached 632 million by the end of June. That includes the 14.4 million people who joined Internet user ranks in the first half of the y...

Facebook is testing a function that would allow users to buy products without leaving the site or app Small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. that are taking part in the trial can add the Buy button to ads displayed in users' News Feeds or in posts on their pages. Users will see the Buy button in relevant ads whether they're on the Facebook w...

A crowdfunding campaign forJibo, a little robot designed to become one of the family, kicked off Wednesday on Indiegogo, and with 29 days remaining, it already has raised more than US$577,000 -- nearly six times its $100,000 target. ...

Telecom regulators from each European Union member state, together with the Article 29 Working Party -- a group comprised of a data protection authority representative from each state, the European Data Protection Supervisor, and the European Commission -- have invited search engines to a meeting next week, according to a Thursday report in The Wall Street Journal.

Dish Network this week chalked up another victory in the courts for its Hopper digital video recording service An appeals court rejected a bid from Fox Broadcasting Company to disallow some features in the Hopper platform, namely the place-shifting capabilities of Dish Anywhere and Hopper Transfers.