The 2012 Olympic Games are set to kick off tonight in the newly-built Olympic Stadium in Stratford London. And over the next two weeks, this stadium will play host to the top athletes from around the world.
Whether you're a basketball fan, football fan, or just a fan of sports in general, these next 16 days are going to be packed full of action. And here's how to catch all of that action when you're not near a TV set...
The news that Apple bought AuthenTec for $356 million is making rounds today, leading many to speculate that AuthenTec's technology will help turn into reality Apple's patented and yet unreleased iWallet and iTravel mobile apps that rely on NFC technology.
One analyst has a different take, saying Apple simply snapped up the NFC and smart sensors maker to keep it from falling into Samsung's hands, potentially making Galaxy tablets and smartphones more appealing to enterprise customers who above anything demand strong security...
A new set of court documents filed ahead of the July 30 mega-trial between Apple and Samsung reveals that retailers like Best Buy informed Samsung that an unknown portion of buyers were returning Samsung's tablets because they thought they were getting iPads. Furthermore, court documents also show that several Samsung employees did discuss the similarities between Galaxy products and Apple's iPhone and iPad themselves...
In a surprising reversal of its position on competition related to the Surface tablet, Microsoft admits in an annual report its tablet competes with PC makers after all, going as far to note that the Surface might even hurt Windows 8 sales. Redmond has been criticized a lot for entering the hardware game to compete with vendors who make various Windows devices.
PC makers are unable to compete with Microsoft on level ground because their already thin margins are stretched even thinner as they must pay license fees to Microsoft to use Windows 8 on tablets, an added cost that makes their gadgets more expensive...
When it comes to security, Apple has gone to great lengths to make its iOS platform much less prone to exploits and has engineered measures such as sandboxed environment, protected app space and even encrypting every single file created on the iPhone with its own encryption key wrapped in the user’s passcode.
But developers have become increasingly reliant on Apple for app security and as a result security has now become an afterthought for many app developers. That's why security experts attending the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas think developers should take matters in their own hands and add more security above Apple's baked-in protections...
If you've used Siri in the past, you know how reliable, or how unreliable it can be. For someone like me who speaks with a strong French accent, Siri gets it wrong more often than not, which led me to use Siri for very basic tasks instead of trying to push her limits.
If there is one time where Siri should be right on spot though, it's during commercials or ads. But there again, it seems like Siri, or rather Apple marketing department, isn't on top of its game.
In a recent ad placed on the back cover of the Economist, Siri was asked "what does poison oak look like" and she managed to return the wrong results...
It's no secret that both Sebastien and I purchased Nexus 7 devices from Google. We may have differing reasons for our purchases, but one reason we share in common is the desire to see how Google is performing in the tablet space. This is especially so with the Nexus, since it's the flagship that's guaranteed to run stock Android with no additives or preservatives.
The Nexus 7 is the first Nexus device I've owned, and I've come away quite impressed; read my thoughts on the Nexus 7 for more details on that. I've even been able to identify a few things that Google is doing well, and that Apple could stand to learn from. Items like widgets, and offline dictation, to name just a few...
Apple has made an interesting acquisition, snapping up smart sensors maker AuthenTec in a transaction valued at $356 million, Reuters reported Friday. AuthenTec makes fingerprint sensor chips used in personal computers.
What's more, its swipe sensors can read the live layer beneath the skin's surface and comply with strict government standards. They also produce chips that utilize near-field communication (NFC) technology which is said to be a part of this fall's iPhone hardware refresh...
With recent moves by both AT&T and Verizon to nudge their remaining customers off of unlimited data and onto their new share plans, the spotlight has turned to Sprint.
Sprint is the last remaining major carrier in the US to still offer an unlimited data plan for smartphone subscribers, and everyone wants to know how long that's going to last...
Earlier in the month, we showed you one of the earliest known iPad prototypes dating back to 2000, looking particularly bulky when compared side-by-side to today's iPad. Today, we also caught a glimpse of an early mockup envisioning a Sony-inspired iPhone that Samsung is now using to establish prior art in the courtroom.
Court documents related to the upcoming July 30 trial contain a bunch of other mockups of several iPhone and iPad prototypes, including an iPad with a kickstand. Bear in mind that Jony Ive and his team iterate hundreds and hundreds of prototypes in their secretive design bunker so these renderings depict just one of the many design considerations that were evaluated (and dropped) at some point...
Rumors that Facebook has been working on its own smartphone have been around for more than a year now. Last fall, a report came out that the social network had tapped HTC to help it build the handset.
Since then, the speculation has only gotten louder. Yesterday, Bloomberg even threw its hat into the ring. But this afternoon, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to squash the chatter...
Apple's profit margins on its products are something of legend. Thanks to its massive supply chain influence and crack operations team, the company enjoys some of the best margins in the business.
This afternoon, some court documents surfaced from the ongoing Samsung-Apple trial showing that those margins are much better on the iPhone than they are on the iPad. In fact, they're almost double...