Latest news

According to new reports, Google could be preparing to acquire the mobile payments company Softcard (formerly known as Isis) to boost their current offerings in the space.

Isis was started in 2010 by T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon to be the standard in mobile payments, but the venture never gained any traction. The project was renamed Softcard after terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the Syrian extremist group calling itself Isis.

Google is said to be buying the project for $100 million, which would be a huge loss for the companies that started it, each of which has spent at least that much. Google would not comment except to say "We don't have a comment, background, deep background, off the record steer, nod, wink or any other verbal or non-verbal response to these sorts of rumors."

Softcard is available for Android and Windows Phone devices, and the group says that over 200,000 merchants in the U.S. can accept the NFC payments just like they do with Apple Pay. The big problem is that no consumers use it.

As is almost always the case, Google could be making a play for patents, of which Softcard has 120 related to mobile payments.

Google has announced that some of YouTube's biggest stars will be headed to the White House on January 22nd to interview President Obama following his annual State of the Union speech.

For the last few years, the President has responded to questions via Google Hangouts and YouTube following his address, allowing the average person to have their questions answered. This year will be a little bit different as the questions have already been submitted and a few of the more popular YouTube channel owners will ask them via a live broadcast.

YouTube creators Bethany Mota, GloZell Green and Hank Green will be the interviewees. Mota is popular for her fashion advice, GloZell is a popular comedian and Green runs a popular science channel.

To get your question asked potentially, use the hash tag #YouTubeAsksObama on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media.

Three years after every other carrier started carrying Lumia Windows Phone devices, Sprint finally has their first one.

The company has picked up the budget Lumia 635, which had been available for their prepaid Boost and Virgin Mobile brands for some time.

Microsoft's device features a 4.5-inch screen with 480x854 resolution and Gorilla Glass 3, Windows Phone 8.1, a quad-core Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.2GHz, an Adreno 305 GPU, 8GB internal storage (expandable to 128GB) and 512MB RAM.

The device is cheap, as well, with Sprint selling it for $170 upfront or financed for $7 per month for 24 months.

If you live in a country where censorship is prevalent, PirateSnoop hopes to save the day.

PirateSnoop is a bundle package of SRWare Iron Chrome with special extensions and some custom configs that allows you to circumvent censorship in certain countries such as Iran, North Korea, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Italy and Ireland.

The releasing team does say that PirateSnoop is not intended to be a full browser as only specific domains go through the proxy anti-censorship network, which is used to help route around the censoring and blocking of websites your government is blocking.

For now the following domains are automaticly proxied: rarbg.com, thepiratebay.se, kickass.so, kickass.to, 1337x.to, isohunt.to, extratorrent.cc and yts.re.

Try it out here: PirateSnoop at Afterdawn

Nokia's N1 tablet, the company's first Android tablet running the Nokia Z launcher, continues to sell out whenever they go on sale.

The company has been selling the tablet in China, but only small batches at a time, after seeing over 500,000 people sign up to learn more about the tablet. The first batch went on sale last week (20,000) and sold out in 4 minutes. The second batch sold out in about 15 minutes today.

A new batch will be available on January 22, with registration starting tomorrow.

The N1 features a 7.9-inch 2,048x1,536 display, is powered by an Intel Atom Z3580 SoC (2.3 GHz quad-core), 2GB RAM and a 5300 mAh battery. The tablet has dual 8MP/5MP cameras, 32GB internal storage and runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with Nokia's own Z Launcher user interface overlay. The UI is an adaptive homepage/lock screen that allows your phone to get you to your favorite apps quickly and easily especially with the use of gestures.

Chinese giant Xiaomi has unveiled their new phablets, the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro, featuring high-end specs in a tiny frame.

The mainstream Mi Note smartphone features a 5.7-inch Sharp/JDI 1080p display (386ppi) with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, is powered by a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and an Adreno 330 GPU with 3GB RAM.

Additional specs include LTE support, Dual-SIM support, a large 3000mAh battery and dual cameras: A 13MP autofocus rear camera w/ Phillips Two-Tone Flash
Sony IMX214 Image Sensor, f/2.0 lens aperture, OIS and a 4MP front camera with 2-micron pixels. The phone also supports Hi-Fi audio with 24-bit/192KHz lossless playback.

Squeezed into a thin and light from, the Mi Note weighs 5.65 ounces and is just 155.1 x 77.6 x 6.95mm thin.

The Mi Note Pro takes all specs to the next level including a QHD display 2560×1440 @ 515ppi, a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, an Adreno 430 GPU, 4GB RAM and all the features of its brother.

Both the devices are on sale in China and will eventually go on sale in other Xiaomi nations in the near future. If you want them in the U.S., you will have to go through third party resellers, with the prices around $399 for the Mi Note and $599 for the Pro.

Microsoft has continued their trend of offering cheap Windows Phone smartphones for emerging markets and the EU by unveiling the Lumia 435 and Lumia 532.

The software giant is making a concentrated effort at "bringing devices to as many people and price points as possible," said Jo Harlow, corporate vice president for phones at Microsoft. "With the Lumia 435 and Lumia 532, we've realized our goal of creating the most affordable Lumia devices to date, opening up the opportunity to reach those people who are buying a smartphone for the very first time."

Both devices will sell in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa starting next month at 69 to 79 euros ($81 to $93).

The Lumia 435 has a 4-inch display (800x480), a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage and Windows 8.1 with Lumia Denim. Microsoft Word is included, as is 30GB of free cloud storage. The cameras are 0.3MP up front, and 2MP on the back.

For its slightly higher price, the Lumia 532 offers a low-end quad-core processor and a 5MP camera.

Bankrupt electronics store RadioShack is in talks to sell leases for some of its stores to major U.S. carrier Sprint.

The retailer is expected to file for bankruptcy next month after a half decade of declining sales and profits and will be closing over 1000 stores, as well.

RadioShack hopes to emerge from bankruptcy with around 3000 stores compared to the 4000 it has now, and the leasing could certainly help with some cash flow.

Over the past years, the company has moved away from its roots in general consumer electronics and tried to become a destination for mobile phone buyers, with mixed results.

The once king of social media, MySpace, attracted 50 million unique visitors in November, 2014, a shockingly high number for the platform that has passed on to memory for most Internet users.

In 2005, News Corp. purchased the company for $580 million (right before Facebook destroyed it), and News Corp. later sold the property for $35 million in 2011 to a small Internet ad company called Specific Media. For all intents and purposes, MySpace is dead and has been dead for the better part of a decade, but clearly with 50 million uniques, the social media site is making a comeback.

Tim Vanderhook, the CEO of Specific Media's parent company Viant, says the site remains popular among 17-to-25-year-olds, and especially popular among music fans. The site has free streaming music and music videos as well as original content like interviews with artists, and much of the content is from big names in the industry, even if it is somewhat older.

Comically, Vanderhook said that MySpace always sees a spike on Thursdays, as former users of the site head back to their old profiles to download pictures to use for "Throwback Thursday" postings on other sites like Facebook and Instagram. "MySpace was an early photo-sharing platform," said Mr. Vanderhook. "So we still see a lot of people coming back to access old photos. They may not visit every day but they come back once a week or once a month."

After two years of delays, Samsung has finally unveiled its first real Tizen smartphone, the Z1.

The Z1 is available in India for just 5700 rupee ($90 USD) with a potentially larger release in the future.

With its cheap price, the specs are also as expected: weak. The Z1 has a 4-inch WVGA PLS screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 768MB RAM and 4GB internal storage (expandable via microSD). Photo takers will have to struggle with a 3.1MP camera and 0.3MP camera up front.

Z1 owners will get to try out the Tizen 2.3 operating system, and the device is dual-SIM, as is standard everywhere outside of the U.S.

For its Indian-focused device, the device will also come bundled with a 'Joy Box' package that has trial access to Hungama.com, nextGTv and Bot TV. Because all that content needs data, Samsung has also teamed up with Airtel to provide all buyers with 500MB of 3G data for the first six months.

All that content requires bandwidth, and a joint promotion with operator Airtel gives buyers of the Z1 500MB of 3G data for free for an initial six months.

The Z1, and Tizen in general will face a large uphill battle. There are very few apps for the operating system, and all apps written for iOS or Android have to be re-written to work for the new OS.

The now infamous Sony Pictures hit "The Interview" will be available on DVD and Blu-ray as a special "Freedom Edition" collectible disc on February 17th.

Starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, the comedy has the two recruited by the CIA with the mission to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Reads the press release:

Earlier today, reports hit the wire that Samsung was looking to acquire BlackBerry, sending the enterprise smartphone maker's stock soaring nearly 30 percent.

Within a couple hours of the report, both companies denied the rumor. Blackberry said: "BlackBerry has not engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry." Samsung called the reports "groundless."

In the report, which cited unnamed sources, Samsung was allegedly willing to purchase BlackBerry for up to $7.5 billion. Before the report, the company had a market value of around $5 billion.

BlackBerry, despite mostly being out of the smartphone market that it once dominated, remains a force in the mobile security realm and also has a popular messaging application.

According to new reports, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai is open to selling the company's struggling mobile division.

Besides a potential sale, there is also the possibility of a joint venture with another partner.

Sony has been actively trying to turn their businesses around, selling off assets and focusing on more "core" divisions but there has been little success. The company is facing a near $2 billion loss for the fiscal year ended in March, and the company has not been profitable in the last 6 years with the exception of a tiny net profit in 2013.

On the positive side, Sony's PlayStation division and their imaging sensor businesses are very successful but other businesses continue to destroy the bottom line.

Source:
Reuters

Luxury smartphone maker Vertu has announced their new 'Diamond' collection, a new (and insane) group of Android phones with all kinds of premium design features.

The top-end model, the Pure Jet Alligator Diamonds, has 124 Brilliant White Diamonds Set In A White Gold Pillow Trim,
Stereo Sound Bar With White Gold Detail, Brushed and Polished Black PVD Titanium, Jet Alligator Skin and a Jet Ceramic Pillow all for the price of $21,700.

If that hits the wallet too hard, you can put down $12,500 for the Diamonds Red Alligator which has 55 White Diamonds (0.15 cts), Polished Stainless Steel V Pillow, Polished Upper Back Plate and Red Alligator Leather.

Check the Vertu Diamond collection here: Vertu

ASUS has celebrated the sale of their 500 millionth motherboard this week by offering prizes including special edition PCs with custom cases.

The company started selling motherboards back in 1989, and remains the world's largest maker of motherboards.

ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih said: "I want to thank all of our customers for their support throughout the past 25 years. We share a common passion for technology and their inputs have enabled us to grow on this journey in search of incredible. We are committed to delivering more innovation to market and we aim to bring a seamless and joyful digital life for everyone to enjoy."

To win, you have to visit ASUS, enter the giveaway, share via Facebook for an added entry or answer a quiz about the history of the company.

Besides the grand prize of a PC with a custom ASUS TUF case and a Sabertooth Mars S motherboard, there are other prizes like the VivoPC, dual-band routers and LED projectors.