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Google wants to enhance the ebook reading experience for books that are not traditionally read front to back, like textbooks and cookbooks.

The company has updated their Google Play Books app, adding a new "Skim Mode" that will allow you to easily "skim" and slide between the pages of the book, in a zoomed out setting so you can easily see what the page shows and slide ahead hundreds of pages without effort.

In addition, the tablet of contents has been improved (if your book supports it), so you can see a detailed blurb of each chapter right from the TOC.

Perhaps equally as handy is the addition of a "timeline" and bookmarks to the bottom of the page. The timeline shows you what page you were on so you can easily jump back if necessary, and the bookmarks will allow you switch easily back and forth between pages or chapters you previously bookmarked.

Android users should be getting the update as we speak while iOS owners will have to wait a couple of more week.

Earlier this year, PC gamers were elated to hear that developer Rockstar's blockbuster Grand Theft Auto 5 would finally be headed to PC, after months of being available for Xbox 360 and PS3.

Sadly, publisher Take Two recently confirmed that the game would be delayed until at least January, 2015 for PC, disappointed eager fans in the process.

During a recent shareholder's conference call, Take Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick explained the reason behind the delay, basically saying it needs more time to be perfected. "When we move a title, it's almost always the same answer, which is giving a title a bit more development time to make sure that it can be everything that it ought to be. And while we would prefer never to change a release date, it's proven to be a good move for us in general. We have the highest Metacritic ratings in the business, and that correlates with revenue and ultimately, of course, profitability," said Zelnick.

Rockstar Games does indeed have a long history of putting out games that are free of significant bugs, even if it means they have had to delay the launch.

In 2011, Samsung and Microsoft signed a licensing deal in which the South Korean giant agreed to collaborate on new Windows Phone products for a discount on the amount it would have to pay Microsoft for Android phone sales.

Last year, with Samsung selling over 300 million devices, those royalties topped $1 billion but allegedly Samsung was late with the payment and Microsoft sued them asking for about $7 million in interest.

Samsung has now filed with the court claiming that the licensing deal should be null and void due to Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia, which in their words makes the company a "direct hardware competitor." In the deal, Samsung had agreed to share confidential business info with Microsoft that it clearly cannot do anymore given that Microsoft is in the smartphone business for themselves. If they continue to share secrets, there could be a violation of U.S. antitrust laws, Samsung added. "[T]he agreements, now between competitors, invite charges of collusion," Samsung concluded.

Microsoft has said their case is strong, and they expect to win in court. The company collects patent royalties from over 75 percent of Android manufacturers, and those figures are usually higher than what they make in Windows Phone sales.

Earlier this week, Sony named a new boss for its struggling mobile division, hoping fresh leadership can help turnaround their fortunes.

SVP Hiroki Totoki has been named the new head of the division, replacing Kunimasa Suzuki. Totoki formely led the company's financial division (Sony Bank) and also its Japanese ISP So-net. Suzuki will move over to become EVP of Sony Entertainment.

"In light of the global mobile market that is rapidly becoming competitive and difficult, we need to make our business profitable," said Sony of the move. "Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai judged Mr. Totoki, who has a proven track of record in turning the business profitable, is the most suited for the job."

Sony Mobile has been a "core" focus of the company's rebuilding efforts, as have their financial and video game divisions.

The company is expected to lose at least $1.65 billion for this year, marking nearly half a decade of full year fiscal losses.

Every month, NetMarketshare releases their Web browser market share data and there is always something interesting to gain from the figures.

For October, a few notable milestones occurred. Internet Explorer, as it has been since the 1990s, stayed on top holding on to a large 58.49 percent share. Google's Chrome continued its slow and steady ascent, now up to 21.25 percent share and good for second place. Firefox, which has been losing followers daily for over two years, fell once again, with share now down below 14 percent for the first time since 2010.

Firefox's fall is notable as the market is quickly becoming a two-horse race. Chrome has always been the fastest and safest of the brand name browsers and it appears as more and more people buy Android devices, Chrome and its syncing ability is becoming more popular. Firefox on the other hand, has been losing fans ever since they decided to move away from large annual updates to nightly and more regular background updates, just like Chrome. The change was confusing, and Mozilla has not been great with advertising new or exciting features. Most of the time, it seems like the devs are playing catchup with Chrome or Safari.

Speaking of Safari, Apple's browser continued to be stagnant (at 5% share) as Mac sales are relatively stagnant, as well.

HP has introduced a new all-in-one touchscreen PC this week dubbed the Sprout that features a strange new projector/3D scanner and a 20-inch mat that allows you to turn your desk into a tablet.

The company says the Sprout is their first "Blended Reality" device in an "effort to streamline the interface between real and virtual objects."

As a PC by itself, the device is powerful. Base models, which sell for $1900, run on a 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU with 8GB RAM, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 745A graphics card with 2GB RAM, a 1TB HDD/SSD hybrid drive, and connectivity includes an SD/SDHC/SDXC card reader, an HDMI port, and a pair of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The display is a 1080p 23-inch LCD screen.

While those are standard mid to high-end specs, the reason you are getting the PC is for the projector. The projector faces downward and projects a touch-sensitive keyboard onto the mat which allows for typing and gestures. In addition, the "HP Illuminator" also acts as a scanner and allows you to move "documents or objects in front of the computer, scan them with the Sprout's 14.6-megapixel and depth-sensing Intel RealSense cameras, and then use the multitouch mat to move those scanned objects around and resize them," reads Wired's review.

The upcoming MB Chronowing, the smartwatch designed by designer Michael Bastian and tech giant HP, is easily the nicest looking watch to date but it will lack in many of the features seen in the Apple Watch or Android Wear.

MB Chronowings will not have a touchscreen, no mic, and no way to track your heart rate or steps but it will give you notifications of your texts, emails and notifications from a multitude of apps.

Says Bastian of the new watch: "How many times have you been in a lunch and someone keeps checking their phone?" The new watch is "intended to make you more polite." It does work with both iOS and Android and Bastian jokes that it has a "clock dial on the face, because that's the thing you're going to use 99% of the time."

The actual display is a monochrome LCD and it can show full messages, your stock portfolio, alarms, calendar events, the weather and more. On the side of the device are physical buttons (what are those?) that can be used to navigate the device, turn on the backlight (like Casio G Shock and other watches) and you can also control your music.

Because of the lack of a full touch color LCD screen, the device has a stated battery life of 7 days, easily beating out the current lineup of watches that last a day.

Amazon has leaked the existence of a few updates to the popular Moto 360 smartwatch today, although the pages were quickly pulled.

It appears that Motorola will begin offering a champagne (gold) color version of the watch, priced at $299 just like its other steel band brothers. The company will interestingly offer the standard 23mm band and a smaller 18mm band, as well.

In addition, the company will offer a "Cognac" new leather band color, which is brown and looks very classy with the silver rimmed Moto 360. Just like the other leather models, Cognac will also cost $249.

For now, the updated bands can only be seen in cached pages but Motorola is likely to officially announce them soon.





Source:
The Verge

Samsung has introduced their new Galaxy A3 and A5 smartphones this week, taking a step away from the large plastic Galaxy S devices and showing off slim, metal devices it hopes can appeal to more people.

The two devices are slim, at just 6.7mm and 6.9mm thin, and include nice perks for avid camera users, including a 5MP "selfie" camera on the front.

Armed with a small 4.5-inch screen (960 x 540 resolution), the A3 has a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, an 8MP rear camera, a microSD slot, LTE support and runs on Android 4.4.4.

The A5 is the higher end device, with a five-inch screen (unclear if 720p or 1080p), 2GB RAM, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, a 13-megapixel camera on the back, 16GB internal storage and a microSD slot.

Samsung recently announced its worst quarter in years, as revenue stagnated and the company promised a turn around and more desirable phones.

According to new reports, Android co-founder Andy Rubin is preparing to leave Google and his current role as head of the company's robotics division.

Rubin is moving on to a found an incubator for hardware startups and his position will be filled by Google research scientist James Kuffner.

Google CEO Larry Page thanked Rubin for his time with the company, stating "I want to wish Andy all the best with what's next. With Android he created something truly remarkable-with a billion plus happy users. Thank you."

The high-ranking exec joined the company in 2005 when Google acquired Android. Before Android, Rubin worked with Danger (remember the Sidekick) before it was killed by Microsoft and also at Apple and WebTV (also acquired my Microsoft).

Rubin had been rumored to be leaving the company for the last couple of years, but has always denied doing so.

The Amazon Fire Phone was and remains a disaster for Amazon, and the company finally confirmed it by taking a $170 million loss in the last quarter.

Company senior vice president of devices David Limp has admitted this week that the device was mispriced. "We didn't get the price right," Limp says. "I think people come to expect a great value, and we sort of mismatched expectations. We thought we had it right. But we're also willing to say, 'we missed.' And so we corrected."

When the device launched, Amazon stuck to standard industry pricing, selling its base model phone for $199 with two-year contract, which it also foolishly made an AT&T exclusive. Within two months, in an effort to move stock, Amazon dropped the price to just 99 cents with contract.

Despite the price drop and significant OS updates since launch, Limp says the company still has $83 million in surplus unsold phones, a huge amount of excess inventory for a phone that is still having issues selling.

About 9 months after the company revealed its surprise acquisition of the smartphone and telecommunications equipment maker Motorola Mobility, Lenovo says the deal has cleared all regulatory hurdles and Motorola is "now a Lenovo company."

The deal was for $2.91 billion, a fraction of the $12.5 billion Google paid for the company and its patents in 2012. Google got to keep the patents and with them they have a formidable defense against Apple and others, so it is clear that they did not really care for the hardware business, at all.

Adds Motorola:

Today, Motorola Mobility becomes part of the Lenovo family of companies, and we are thrilled.

Over the past two years we have transformed Motorola by focusing on what matters most -- consumers. We've made huge strides in bringing the mobile Internet to millions of people around the world and improving their lives through exceptional technology, experiences and value. While we're proud of the progress we've made, we recognize that there is still much more we can achieve -- in innovation, reach and impact.

In Lenovo we have a partner that shares our mission and that brings global scale, a diverse product portfolio and a track record of seizing strategic opportunities and making the most of them. Together we will go farther, faster. With an impressive portfolio of smartphones, wearables and PCs, our two companies will be uniquely positioned to push the boundaries of choice and value, and bring exciting new experiences to people everywhere.

According to research firm IDC, Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi is now the world's third largest smartphone maker - an incredible leap for a company that was founded just four years ago in 2010.

Thanks to sales of its new high-end Mi4 device, the OEM was able to jump ahead of Lenovo and LG, which are now tied for fourth. Samsung, even with falling sales, remains the clear leader followed by Apple, and both will be hard to pass.

Xiaomi has a massive presence in Asian nations, most especially China, but has a near 0 percent share everywhere else. The company's devices are not officially available in Western Europe nor North America, at least as of yet.

"Despite rumors of a slowing market, smartphone shipments continue to see record-setting volumes," said Ryan Reith, Program Director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "We've finally reached a point where most developed markets are experiencing single-digit growth while emerging markets are still growing at more than 30% collectively. In these markets, smartphone price points are making mobile computing possible where we once expected feature phones to remain dominant. This is great news for overall volumes, but the challenge has now become how to make money on devices that are quickly becoming commodity products. Outside of Apple, many are struggling to do this."

LG Display has unveiled a new 5.3-inch 1080p LCD panel that offers the narrowest bezel the world has seen yet, at just 0.7mm thin.

The company notes that the bezels are even more narrow now than a credit card, and LGD says they had to use a "Neo Edge" module processing and also "Advanced In-Cell Touch" tech.

"With the growing trend for large screen smartphones, customer demand for displays with a narrow bezel is increasing, because it enables users to enjoy the maximum use of screen area without compromising excellent grip and design," added Byeong-koo Kim, Vice President and Head of IT/Mobile Development Group at LG Display. "With this innovative product having many advantages, ranging from its narrow 0.7mm bezel and high resolution picture quality to its slim design and touch-embedded solutions, LG Display will continue to lead the growing market for large screen smartphones, meeting the expectations of customers and users by enhancing the quality of devices."

LG explains that their "Neo Edge" tech "uses an adhesive instead of double-sided tape to attach and completely seal the total area and edges of the panel's circuit board and backlight unit. Because there is no plastic guide panel to attach the panel and backlight, the Neo Edge technology helps achieve minimal bezel width, while blocking light leakage and being waterproof and dustproof."

Microsoft has announced its fitness platform today, Microsoft Health, rivaling new offerings from Apple and Google.

Reads the company's press release:

"The Microsoft Health platform includes a cloud service for consumers and the industry to store and combine health and fitness data to create powerful insights. Microsoft Health will be available for consumers from the new Microsoft Health app which launches today on Android, iOS and Windows Phone."

As you can see, Health is cross-platform, which is different from the iOS and Android-locked platforms of Microsoft's rivals, and should therefore, in theory, see a nice sizable amount of potential users.

Adds the release:

Microsoft Health will unite data from different health and fitness devices and services in a single, secure location. Once stored in Microsoft Health, you can combine the data you generate from different devices and services – steps, calories, heart rate and more – to receive powerful insights from our Intelligence Engine. At launch, our Intelligence Engine will share insights such as:

Which exercises burned the most calories during a workout
The recommended recovery time based on the intensity of a workout
The amount of restful vs. restless sleep
Over time, you will have the choice to combine your fitness data with calendar and email information from Office as well as location-based information and more. As you make more data available, the Intelligence Engine will get smarter and provide more powerful insights, such as: