MacNN

An image allegedly of the LG Optimus F3 has appeared online. The smartphone, following on from the Optimus F5 and Optimus F7 revealed at Mobile World Congress in February, is said to be heading to Sprint later this quarter, alongside the Optimus G Pro, and is expected to be a mid-range offering from the manufacturer and carrier. ...

More

Although many were expecting Google to announce a new version of Android at Google I/O, it did not materialize. Instead the major product announcement was for a stock Android version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which will only be available to US customers. Although the next version of Android is likely to be an incremental ‘Jelly Bean’ update widely thought to be Android 4.3, the rumored next major revision of Android ...

More

In the aftermath of the devastating tornado that cut a path of destruction through Oklahoma City on Monday, wireless carrier AT&T announced that overage charges would be suspended for the area until June 30 as part of an effort to assist victims, many of whom lost everything. Due to high call volumes as friends and family check on their loved ones, the company said it would add additional resources to relieve cell co...

More

Opera for Android has now exited beta, three months after it was first made available to users through the Google Play Store. The official release is free and is available for download now. Opera touts a number of features that users will prefer over other mobile browsers including an ‘Off-Road’ mode that helps to stabilize web connections when the connections become patchy, while also reducing data consumption....

More

Almost one in ten notebook computers shipped in the first quarter of 2013 have touchscreens, according to a market research firm's report. It is claimed by Displaybank that 4.57 million of the notebooks used the displays out of a total shipment figure of 46 million, a rise of 51.8 percent compared to the previous quarter. ...

More

The ‘Google Edition’ of the Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android will be a US-only model it has been revealed. The long anticipated device is set to go on sale on June 26 for $649 will only be available through the US Google Play Store with no current plans to expand its availability internationally. The news will come as a blow to users who like what the Galaxy S4 hardware offers, but don’t like Samsung’s TouchWi...

More

Romanian hardware producer Evolio has unveiled a new Android tablet for the local market. The Quadra offers a large 10.1-inch, 1280x800 Super IPS display, with the device's name stemming from its use of a quad-core Cortex A9 CPU running at 1.2GHz, which a multi-core Vivante GC1000 GPU used for graphic-intensive tasks. ...

More

Today, Google made it known to its array of merchants that it is discontinuing the Google Checkout functionality, and migrating some existing users to Google Wallet. In a blog post announcing the move, Google called the Wallet product "a platform that enables merchants to meet the demands of a multi-screen world where consumers shop in-stores, at their desks and on their mobile devices." Users have six months to find...

More

Samsung Display announced today that it is showcasing several mobile to extra-large-sized display prototypes at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week. These include a Full HD 1920×1080 mobile AMOLED 4.99-inch display with the world's broadest color gamut, a 10.1-inch 2560 x 1600 LCD for tablets, and a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800 LCD for notebooks....

More

In the wake of Apple's published testimony, US Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ) have released their own joint statement on the work of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "Apple Inc. has used a complex web of offshore entities -- including three foreign subsidiaries the company claims are not tax resident in any nation -- to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes," Le...

More

Speaking at tonight's Yahoo press event in New York City, Marissa Mayer and Yahoo's Mobile Engineering Senior Vice President and Flickr product manager Adam Cahan revealed the new Flickr and accompanying new Android app, offering users 1TB of photo storage in a "very metro" user interface. ...

More

Apple is testing 1.5-inch OLED touchscreens for use in its upcoming smartwatch, claims Taiwanese publication the Economic Daily News. Apple is in fact said to have tried 1.8-inch screens, but judged that they were too big. The 1.5-inch panels are reportedly being manufactured by Taiwan's RiTdisplay, and use one-glass-solution touch sensors, which should allow Apple to keep the watch thin....

More

AT&T has made a statement regarding the future of video chat applications on its LTE network. According to the telecom company, all "pre-loaded video chat apps" will be available for all of its wireless customers "regardless of data plan or device" by the end of the year. The move is a turnaround from previous decisions by the company to prohibit use of FaceTime and now Google Hangouts chat on mostly grandfathered un...

More

A day ahead of CEO Tim Cook's planned appearance in front of the US Senate, Apple has published its official testimony (PDF) for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the document, the company lobbies for corporate tax reform, specifically arguing that the government should be "revenue neutral, eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, lower corporate income tax rates; and implement a reasonable ta...

More

An 18-year-old student, Eesha Khare, has reportedly developed a new form of energy storage, referred to as a supercapacitor, that promises to recharge a cellphone in 20 to 30 seconds. The research project landed Khare a $50,000 scholarship and an Intel Foundation Young Scientists Award at the Intel-sponsored International Science and Engineering Fair, along with a $5,000 "best of category" award and another $3,000 pr...

More

Images reported to be of the rumored Samsung Galaxy S4 Active have surfaced, complete with a ruggedized casing. The leaked photographs come at the same time as a fresh rumor claiming Samsung is creating a Mega version of the Galaxy S4, following on from the Mega devices revealed by the company last month. ...

More

Sony has teased its upcoming game console, via a video uploaded to YouTube. The clip, which alternates between close-up shots and one zooming into what could be presumed to be the impending PlayStation 4, is released the day before Microsoft is due to reveal its future plans for its own replacement for the Xbox 360. ...

More

The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been touring Silicon Valley companies this week, on the heels of a similar tour by Turkish President Abdullah Gül last month. Both men received VIP tours of facilities at Microsoft and Google, and met privately with officials from Apple. All three companies are hoping to land a contract to supply the country with at least 10.6 million tablets for the countr...

More

Yahoo has confirmed it has bought Tumblr, in a deal noted yesterday to be in the region of $1.1 billion. The search company has already moved its company blog over to the blogging platform, and despite CEO Marissa Mayer saying "We promise not to screw it up," there is reportedly a large jump in the number of users moving from Tumblr to Wordpress. ...

More

A report in the Taiwanese trade paper DigiTimes -- which has a mixed track record of accuracy -- claims that Apple will begin large-scale production of the fifth-generation iPad in July, with a possible launch in September. The new model is said to be significantly thinner than the previous full-size model, which was unveiled last September. The report also claims the unit will be a third lighter than the current mod...

More

The Acer Iconia W3 has been leaked yet again, but this time through Acer itself, and confirming it as having an 8.1-inch 1280x768-resolution display. The company's Finnish website shows the Intel Atom-powered tablet, complete with an optional keyboard dock and Windows 8 Pro pre-installed, after previously being shown by mistake on Amazon before being pulled from view....

More

A future update for the Samsung Galaxy S III could include a number of features carried over from the Galaxy S4, according to a report. The pre-release ROM using Android 4.2.2 as a base, still undergoing testing by the manufacturer, adds new options to the lock screen, as well as a number of design cues carried over from the Samsung flagship smartphone. ...

More

Sony has announced the belated global availability of its Xperia Tablet Z. First unveiled in January, and finally made available for pre-order in the US in late April, international customers can now also place pre-orders for the device. Shipments of what Sony is calling the ‘world’s thinnest’ 10-inch tablet are expected in early June....

More

Samsung has released an updated version of its NFC tagging stickers that will work with the Galaxy S4. TecTiles 2 can be assigned individual on-device functions, like automatically updating Facebook and Twitter with a predefined status or muting all sounds, that are triggered when scanned by an NFC-enabled Samsung smartphone running Android. A pack of five updated TecTile stickers cost $15. ...

More

Jolla has revealed its first smartphone to run its Linux-based Sailfish mobile operating system. If you’re wondering how the Finnish company plans to survive in the cutthroat mobile space, things become clearer when Jolla looking at its features, which includes 100 percent app compliance with Android apps. The first handset is set to reach the market “by end of 2013” and will be simply titled “Jolla” (pronounced ‘Yo-...

More

Samsung is preparing to launch 55-inch and 65-inch models of its UHD TV sets next month. Starting off in Korea, the new models will go on sale in June, with a view to releasing it in other markets shortly afterwards, with the two differently-sized 4K-capable TVs following the 85-inch S9 the company released in the country at the beginning of this year. ...

More

Computer maker Dell is taking yet another step into the Android device segment, as it prepares to ship Project Ophelia. Ophelia is a thumb-sized USB device that contains hardware that runs Google's mobile operating system, and it plugs into a television to turn any HDTV into a smart device. It should begin shipping in July of this year for a price of $100....

More

Struggling to drum up consumer interest in its faltering Wii U console, Japanese game maker Nintendo will show off forthcoming games in Best Buy stores while this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo is going on. Nintendo revealed the partnership between the game company and the electronics retailer last week, tipping some of the games that will be shown off in Best Buy stores. ...

More

Owners of Barnes & Noble's Simple Touch eReaders will be getting a couple of new features in the near future, if a memo leaked on Sunday bears out. The bookseller turned electronics manufacturer will be adding email and web browsing features to its eReader TechCrunch has discovered. The capabilities will be added via a software update that will bring the device to version 1.5.0 of its operating system....

More

A new image has appeared online that could have been taken by an as yet announced Samsung Galaxy Note III. The image appeared on SmartFan over the weekend, showing nothing of much interest. What was notable was the image's EXIF data, which lists the device taking the picture as GT-N7200....

More

An LTE version of Samsung's Galaxy S III will be showing up on T-Mobile's network even as Samsung has moved on to the next generation of its Galaxy S series. The carrier already supported the Galaxy S III, but T Mobile's network wasn't LTE-compatible until just last month. ...

More

In the latest step of CEO Marissa Mayer's plan to turn around popular but stagnating Internet giant Yahoo, the company's board has reportedly approved a $1.1 billion acquisition of the social sharing site Tumblr. The board met on Sunday to discuss the acquisition, which appears to have been a foregone conclusion due to the fact that Yahoo had already scheduled a Monday event on Friday. The company is expected to anno...

More

Google is still working on a version of its head-mounted display for wearers of glasses, it has emerged. A number of Google employees roaming the Google I/0 developer event were said to be wearing the modified version of Google Glass, working with prescription lenses and a different frame to the headband usually provided with the device. ...

More

We have already published our full review of the Galaxy S4 for the US, which ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor. In some international markets, the Galaxy S4 ships with Samsung’s own Exynos 5 Octa, an eight-core chip that uses ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. We have been using one for the past week, putting it through its paces, although our focus here is to see whether US customers are missing o...

More

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have discovered that the US fire ant population is being pushed out by "tawny crazy ants," with an affinity to the interior of electronic devices. The ants are capable of nesting in nearly any container, and as they travel, they disrupt other ant populations. ...

More

A filing at the FCC suggests that Google is not letting go from its television plans, with the appearance of a new device. The item, described in the filing as a "media player," has been submitted for various tests, though there is little in the way of details for the device to be found inside the multiple PDF documents on the FCC website....

More

T-Mobile customers wanting to use Google Wallet are out of luck, as the carrier confirmed this week that it's blocking the mobile payment solution. Instead, T-Mobile wants its customers to use ISIS, a carrier-backed standard that is currently only available in two metropolitan areas. The confirmation marks T-Mobile as just the latest of the major carriers to block Google's standard as they prepare to roll out their o...

More

In a court motion filed earlier today, MetroPCS is dropping its net neutrality opposition lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission. The company filed a motion for voluntary dismissal, leaving Verizon to willingly fight the decree and US government on its own....

More

Mozilla is delaying plans to start blocking third-party tracking cookies in Firefox by default, according to an announcement. The company states that more work is needed for the anti-tracking feature. "The idea is that if you have not visited a site (including the one to which you are navigating currently) and it wants to put a cookie on your computer, the site is likely not one you have heard of or have any relati...

More

Yahoo is holding a "product-related" event on May 20. The New York City event will see CEO Marissa Mayer speaking on an undisclosed topic for about an hour at 5PM EST, which the company calls in an mass email "something special."...

More

Amazon has cancelled two television pilots, after poor screenings. The television version of Zombieland will not be made into a series by the internet retailer, nor will Bebe Neuwirth's musical comedy Browsers about interns at a Huffington Post-esque website. Amazon has picked up John Goodman's Washington DC satire Alpha House, and Silicon Valley sitcom Betas....

More

The Mannheim Regional Court has stayed one chapter of the ongoing Nokia versus HTC trial in Germnay. Judge Andreas Voss ordered the stay over a feature proving supervisory remote permission management to employees' Android-based phones and tablets. While HTC is infringing on the patent, the court believes the patent itself to be invalid....

More

A report by market analysts App Annie and IDC continue to show that mobile devices such as the iPhone or the Nexus 7 control a clear majority of mobile gaming interest and dollars spent on purchases, with portable handhelds fading rapidly. The first quarter of 2013 saw another milestone achieved for the Android platform, with it seeing more downloads and consumer spending on games than iOS for the first time....

More

Apple's mired negotiations with the music industry may prevent it from announcing an "iRadio" service at WWDC on June 10th, industry sources tell The Verge. The people note that Apple is having trouble not just with Sony/ATV, but also BMG. At the same time they suggest there's still a lot of "market momentum" behind iRadio, and that major players such as Universal want to see it launch as soon as possible....

More

Samsung is expecting to hit the 10 million sales milestone for its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, in the next week. If reached, Samsung co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun believes it would become the fastest selling smartphone in the company's history, beating its predecessor to the very same sales barrier by almost three weeks. ...

More

Apple's iPhones, iPads and other devices running iOS 6 or higher are officially cleared for use on the US government's secure networks, the Department of Defence announced on Friday. The final approval, which we first reported on in March, also grants Samsung Android devices that are running the Korean company's Knox security lockdown, as well as BlackBerry devices running BB10 the ability to be used on secure networ...

More

An eight-inch version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 has apparently surfaced, with rendered images accompanying a list of specifications. The alleged leaked details come after the company revealed the third generation of its popular line of tablets, though that uses a more conventional 7-inch display and smaller form factor than what has now appeared. ...

More

HTC is working on doubling the amount of HTC One devices it can produce, in order to meet what it calls "strong demand" from its customers. The company aims to manufacture twice as many of the flagship smartphone as it did last month, with a view to increasing it further as time goes on, after overcoming supply chain issues and a legal misunderstanding with Nokia over its microphones. ...

More

Nvidia has opened up pre-orders for its handheld gaming device, three days earlier than anticipated. Orders for the Nvidia Shield have commenced through the Nvidia website, with retail partners Newegg, Gamestop, and Canada Computer also accepting pre-orders from customers wanting the Tegra 4-powered Android game system. ...

More

The maker of the Gorilla Glass used in iPhones and other mobile devices has unveiled its latest fusion-made, resilient glass for high-resolution displays. Corning, which is also continuing its Gorilla Glass line with a third version this year, officially introduced a "second-generation glass substrate" called Lotus XT Glass. The new variant features many of the properties of some of Corning's other products while bei...

More