Latest news

Xiaomi has denied reports that it will finally bring its popular phones to the U.S.

US Mobile had begun selling the Xiaomi Redmi 2, Mi 3, Note 2 and Mi 4, but the phones are not optimized for the U.S. and don't even support LTE for US Mobile (T-Mobile network).

Says the Chinese startup giant: "Recent reports have indicated that Xiaomi products will be available in the US. Xiaomi only offers a small selection of accessories for sale in the US through Mi.com. There are no plans to sell smartphones through any authorised distributors in the US. US Mobile is not authorised to sell Xiaomi products in the US."

Despite this lack of support from Xiaomi, US Mobile will still sell the devices and provide full services and support for the phones.

Seemingly overnight, Uber has changed their entire branding, including their logo.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick made the announcement today with a large blog post, which I have posted here:

Zagg has announced it will be acquiring smartphone battery pack and case maker Mophie for $100 million.

Besides the $100 million, Mophie can actually earn more money depending on how well the company performs from April 2016 until March 31, 2017.

Zagg believes the synergies of both companies will lead to "numerous opportunities" for boosting revenue due to the company's respective strengths and distribution networks.

Mophie is best known or their JuicePack battery cases but the company also has 140 global patents and a plethora of retial relationships in the U.S.

Despite the fact that Microsoft has arguably the best mobile keyboard of the major operating systems, multiple reports claim that the software giant is preparing to buy SwiftKey for $250 million.

SwiftKey has long been a popular keyboard for Android and more recently for iOS, but the alleged selling price still seems high given that the company's main source of revenue is from in-app payments for different themes and emojis.

FT speculates that the deal and the high price has nothing to do with the keyboard but more to do with SwiftKey's current research in artificial intelligence and their new keyboard that uses a neural network rather than algorithms for predicting what you are typing.

Regardless of how they use the IP, Microsoft continues to make smart investments in smart teams as the company expands its cross-platform services.

Marissa Mayer's company is in deep trouble.

Yahoo reported their quarterly earnings this week, making $63 million in net profit on $1.27 billion in revenue. Four years ago, when Mayer was hired to turn around the company, the company had higher revenue showing that despite all of her efforts to make Yahoo 'cool' again, there has been very little to show for it.

After the report, the company announced it will be laying off 15 percent of its employees in a cost-cutting measure that will save it $400 million over time, likely a move to help the company be sold. At the same time, Yahoo is reportedly having issues selling their core assets, since investors value the company at little to nothing outside of the company's Alibaba stake and the cash it has on-hand.

Furthermore, Mayer killed off Yahoo Smart TV and Yahoo Games, with the company focusing now on Search, Mail and Tumblr, and four verticals - News, Sports, Finance, and Lifestyle.

A German court has found that YouTube is not liable for copyright infringement when a user uploads a video to the service illegally.

The sole responsibility for such infringement lies with the uploader and not YouTube, according to the Higher Regional Court Munich (OLG). GEMA, an organization representing songwriters and publishers, was disappointed with the decision of the court.

"Today's decision is most regrettable. The court has obviously followed YouTube's argument that it is only the uploaders who are responsible for the contents that are retrievable via the service", said GEMA General Counsel, Dr Tobias Holzmuller, reports Music Business Worldwide.

"We consider this to be wrong. Furthermore, the decision is not justified from an economic perspective, as it continues to enable YouTube to generate high advertising revenues without passing them on to musical authors."

GEMA - which represents more than 70,000 members - maintains that YouTube should obtain licences for the use of content just like any other music service online. To date, YouTube has never paid any licence fee to the group.


Source: www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

Malware and malicious adverts are common on unauthorized football streaming sites, it has been warned.

Illegal sports streaming has become increasingly popular in recent years with hundreds of streaming portals offering live feeds of sports in varying quality for free. Some sites pull more than eight million visits per month from users seeking access to feeds.

However, a study from Stony Brook University that thoroughly detailed how such streaming services work found that around half of the sites fed malicious software to users' devices either through malvertising or other deceptive measures, such as directing a user to a "plug-in" download.

"[To watch the stream] you have to install the extension, and once the user installs the extensions, it can infect any website the user is visiting," lead researcher Zubair Rafique told the BBC News website.

"So, if a person installs an extension to watch a stream, and then visits a site like BBC.com, this extension can actually change the contents of BBC.com and include malicious links. This is extremely dangerous."

Some countries already have forced ISPs to block sites offering unauthorized streaming of sports events, but with so many portals popping up it is impossible to block everything.

Despite the departure of series creator Beau Willimon, Netflix has confirmed that 'House of Cards' will return for a fifth season via the streaming service.

The renewal comes just ahead of the launch of the show's fourth season, which begins in early March. The next season will begin filming in 2017, without Willimon, who left to try his hand at other projects.

"I'm grateful to Netflix and MRC, my fellow executive producers, our two incandescent stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, our talented writers, as well as the incredible cast and crew with whom I've had the privilege to work," Willimon said last week. "After five years and four seasons, it's time for me to move on to new endeavors, but I'm supremely proud of what we've built together, wish the show much continued success, and leave it in the hands of a very capable team."

If you are already excited for season 5, don't miss the trailer for season 4, here:

OnePlus has begun selling its OnePlus X smartphone to all, without the need for an invite.

The X sells for just $249 and comes with high mid-range specs. The X has a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, a Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB RAM, dual-SIM slots, 16GB internal storage (with microSD slot), dual 13MP/8MP cameras and a 2525 mAh battery.

OnePlus launched the device in November and says the move to general availability is its quickest ever for a phone.

The device has been generally well received, however, in the U.S. it is mainly useless as it is lacking LTE bands required by GSM providers here in the states.

Finnish startup Jolla has confirmed that just under 700 crowd-funded Jolla Tablets will ever reach consumers, and over 21,000 backers will eventually receive refunds.

The original Indiegogo campaign concluded in November 2014 and raised $2.5 million, hitting every stretch goal. So far, the company has only shipped 121 units running the company's own Sailfish OS 2.0, which remains in beta and will likely always remain in beta.

Says Jolla: "We have been analyzing different alternatives regarding the Jolla Tablet project situation. But no matter how you come at it, the tight financial situation remains a major constraint and, therefore, a main driver of the solution. Furthermore, due to the delays in the latest financing round it has simply become too late to produce all the tablets for the project. The supplier no longer has the needed components and many of them are no longer available. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done now to change this."

Unfortunately for backers, you will get a refund but it will likely not be until the Q4 2016. Word of advice: The next time a company claims it can 'disrupt' the Apple/Google duopoly, just close the web page and put your wallet away.

As reported last month, Apple's free, ad-supported iTunes Radio service is now dead.

The free, streaming radio service will live on only through the DJ-hosted Beats 1 radio station that will remain active.

If you'd like to keep listening you will have to upgrade to Apple Music for $9.99 per month, giving you access to curated radio stations and on-demand access to tens of millions of tracks.

Apple Music has seen swift growth since it launched last summer, and now has over 10 million paying subscribers. Spotify is the leader in the market, with over 20 million paying subscribers, although Spotify launched nearly a decade ago.

Earlier this week, Sony announced its quarterly earnings, showing small growth in revenue and a nice boost in profits thanks to strong PlayStation and Sony Pictures sales.

The company had $21.25 billion in revenue for the quarter and managed to bring in income of $1.69 billion, a huge turnaround for a company that has been losing millions (and even billions) for years.

Sony's Mobile and Devices division continues to bring the company down but Sony is trying to nullify those losses by offering less and less phones, TVs, tablets, etc with a better focus on quality. Perhaps most surprisingly, however, was the decrease in sales for the company's smartphone camera sensor business, normally a stalwart at the company. Sales fell 12.6 percent for the sensor business, leading to a $97 million loss for Sony compared to a nearly $450 million gain in the previous quarter.

On the positive side, restructuring costs dropped by 50 percent year-over-year, and cost cutting across the company's divisions appear to be paying off. PlayStation sales increased 10.5 percent, and revenue from the division increased to $4.9 billion.

Overall, Sony appears to have finally begun its long-awaited turn around although many could still argue there is more to cut at the legendary Japanese co.

According to sources, Apple is working on wireless charging technology that can be used for its iPhones and iPads starting next year.

While wireless charging technology is certainly not new, Apple's will be different in that it will not require the phone or tablet to sit on the charging mat, suggesting the phone could be charged from feet away rather than inches.

The tech is not available today because Apple is still working on overcoming "loss of power over distance," say the sources. Efficiency is drastically reduced as the distance between the device and the charger increases, meaning it takes longer to charge the battery.

The grand old man of smartphone leaks, Evan Blass of VentureBeat has leaked one of the most anticipated smartphones of the year. It is of course the flagship model of Sasmung, Galaxy S7.

There's two pictures of the two different versions shown – the regular 5.1 inch Galaxy S7 and the larger 5.6 inch Galaxy S7 Edge. Blass has added one of the pictures to an ">early January VentureBeat story (show above) and the other picture is seen in his tweet below.

By the looks of it the phone will be pretty much identical to the Galaxy S6, but obviously a lot of differences can be found under the hood. The Galaxy S6 – and especially the Edge version – and its metal and glass finish got a warm welcome after a slew of plasticky models, so not changing the exterior certainly isn't a bad choice.

According to Blass, Samsung has also added some key features to Galaxy S7 that the community has been aching for. The battery is still non-replaceable but microSD card slot will allow memory expansion and the phone is also finally water and dust resistant.

Microsoft has revealed quarterly results and disclosed details on smartphone sales. It might not come as a surprise but the figures do not paint a pretty picture, and some have deemed the platform dead.

During the fourth quarter of 2015, Microsoft sold only 4.5 million Lumia smartphones, dropping over 50% from just couple years back. Other phones, so called dumb phones without Windows, Microsoft sold 22.3 million units. The figures are dreadful for the Redmont giant.

Windows Phone has never quite found its place in the smartphone platform wars and the acquisition of Nokia didn't seem to help Microsoft. After the acquisition Microsoft has seemed to scale the smartphone business down rather than give it a strong, maybe its last, push. Now it looks like the swan song was a rather weak one, if we indeed have witnessed it.

Since 2010 only 110 million Windows Phones have been sold, which is minuscule compared to more than 4.5 billion Android phones or iPhones. It's hard to see a way up for Microsoft. Everything could change with one magical product, but it's really hard to see that happening.