Mobile Tech

To read some reports in the tech press lately, one might think there's an electronics-hungry menace from South America on a march of conquest through the Southeastern United States and Texas, leaving a trail of destroyed smartphones and other precious devices in its wake. It's known as the "crazy an...

Regardless of how this turns out, at least they nailed the name. Google is launching about 30 superpressure balloons that will beam Internet access back to the ground. With equal parts brevity and self-deprecation, the effort has been dubbed "Project Loon." Taking flight from New Zealand, the balloo...

A coalition of United States officials, institutional investors and consumer advocates on Thursday launched the Save Our Smartphones Initiative nationwide. With smartphone-related crimes, some of which are shockingly brutal, on the rise in the U.S., law enforcement officials have cranked up the pres...

Samsung on Wednesday announced the Galaxy S4 Zoom, a smartphone whose camera offers 10x optical zoom. It is the ultimate smartphone and camera experience in one, Samsung contends, but opinions are divided on that. "Given how popular smartphone cameras have been, this would appear to offer photograph...

WHICH APPS DO I NEED?

All Things Appy: 5 Best iOS Car Apps

Cars -- we love them. We're hooked on their looks, their shine, the freedom they represent. The insurance, the payments, and the smog checks, maybe less so -- but in any case, cars are a good example of a genre of app that fits well with the smartphone. This week, All Things Appy takes a look at key...

The European Commission is concerned that U.S. data collection practices such as PRISM may pose a threat to Europeans' privacy rights. Commission Vice President Viviane Reding, who is in charge of justice, plans to raise the issue at an EU-U.S. meeting later this week in Dublin. That announcement co...

Sprint this week released the $99 ZTE Vital, a high mid-range Android smartphone that could rock the market. The device, which has been pegged as a competitor to Samsung's highly regarded Galaxy S4, has a host of power-packed features and has already divided analysts. "The price is the key," said Ri...

Google appears to have supplanted Facebook -- which had supplanted Apple -- as the likely candidate to acquire Israeli start-up Waze. Google is reportedly prepared to pony up $1.3 billion for the company. Last month, reports surfaced that Facebook was working on a $1 billion deal for Waze. And that ...

OPINION

Microsoft's Uncanny Transformation

For much of the last decade, Microsoft has set an example more of doing things wrong than right, but at TechEd last week, Microsoft suddenly was showcasing a number of really smart decisions and best practices. It almost felt like an event from a different company -- or the company I remember from t...

More than half of the adults in the United States now own a smartphone, constituting a new milestone in the history of the device, according to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Specifically, smartphone adoption has grown to 56 percent of American adults. That's the lar...

At this week's Computex trade show in Taiwan, Microsoft applied some polish to its beleaguered Windows platform. That included announcing that its widely used Outlook email software will finally arrive on Windows RT as well as making the first public demonstration of its forthcoming Windows 8.1 upda...

We all know by now that using a cellphone while driving can be a dangerous practice, but talking on a hands-free phone may not be much better. That's because people talk on the phone so regularly that they have developed learned habits that take over their awareness, according to Robert Rosenberger,...

After considerable delay and a significant redesign, Wikipad announced that it will release its gaming tablet on June 11 at a price of $249. A global launch is planned for this summer. Featuring a capacitive, multitouch 7-inch screen, the new tablet runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and slips into a cradl...

WHICH APPS DO I NEED?

All Things Appy: Top 5 Android Fashion and Beauty Apps

The fashion and beauty industry is fast-moving, and apps are a good way to keep track of developments, because app content lead time can be significantly shorter than for print magazines. This week's All Things Appy takes a look at the must-have apps in this genre for the Android platform, including...

Samsung on Monday announced two additions to its Galaxy Tab 3 line: 8-inch and 10.1-inch models. Both run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. There's some talk that the 8-inch tablet might cannibalize Samsung's previously announced 7-inch device. However, Samsung's strategy is hypersegmentation -- that is, iden...

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