Samsung is getting ready to announce yet another family of tablets, following the Pro and Tab 4 models released earlier this year, the Galaxy Tab S, a line of tablets that was prominently featured in recent reports and leaks. While Samsung is yet to confirm the Galaxy Tab S tablets – expected to arrive in 10.5-inch and 8.5-inch flavors – a series of leaked images have already hit the web. Furthermore, the FCC has also published images showing the tablet, well ahead of its proper announcement.

In documentation for the SM-T800, which is what the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is known as, the FCC has shown the device from various angles. The SM-T800 is expected to be the Wi-Fi-only version of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5, although 3G and LTE models are also expected.

The Tab S devices, sometimes thought to be part of the Tab 4 family, have one particularly interesting feature, high-resolution Super AMOLED displays that are not usually found on tablets – in fact Samsung has not used an OLED display on one of its tablets since 2011.

Considering that the SM-T800 has already been spotted at the FCC, it wouldn’t be surprising to see an announcement from Samsung in the near future. However, at this time, it’s not known how much the Galaxy Tab S tablets will cost, or when they’ll be available to consumers.

Images showing the SM-T800, as presented by the FCC, follow below.

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After offering its Google Glass wearable to just about anyone in the U.S. for one day only last month, Google seems ready to sell the $1,500 gadget to more people in the region. However, the Google Glass product is still in beta, and it’s still as expensive as before. Furthermore, while Google is extending the Google Glass purchase program, the device will still be available only to U.S. buyers.

“Last week we told you we’d be trying out new ways to find Explorers,” Google wrote on the Google Glass Google+ page. “Well, we weren’t kidding. We learned a lot when we opened our site a few weeks ago, so we’ve decided to move to a more open beta. We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today anyone in the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand: google.com/glass.”

“We’re ready to keep meeting new Explorers, and we can’t wait to hear all your experiences and feedback to continue to make Glass even better, ahead of our wider consumer release,” the company added.

However, it’s not clear when Google will finally release a commercial version of its smart glasses or how much they’ll cost once they become widely available.

In addition to Google, other companies are working on similar devices, with Samsung being one potential manufacturer of smart glasses.

Existing Glass explorers should know that Google is rolling a new update to Google Glass, XE 17.1, which should bring several performance and fixes for the device.

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Category: Wearables, google, Google Glass

Now that anyone with a smartphone and a commute could be considered a gamer, it’s harder than ever to separate the casual players from the die-hard loyalists. In its latest report, The NPD Group describes “core gamers” as any individuals who spend more than five hours a week playing games on a home console (such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One), a Windows PC or a Mac. By these standards, there are currently over 34 million core gamers in the United States, and they are playing video games for an average of 22 hours every week. That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind, gaming can be a diet… of sorts!

“Core gamers are really the lifeblood of the industry, spending tremendous amounts of time on their hobby of choice,” said analyst Liam Callahan. “With the new console generation off to a great start, we can expect the amount of time spent gaming to increase as more core gamers adopt them.”

The core audience is defined by its interest in console and computer gaming, but according to survey results, mobile platforms have become an increasingly popular alternative. The survey also revealed that multiplayer gaming attracts around 70% of the core gamer crowd. When it comes to format, 74% of core gamers still prefer physical media to digital downloads, but that number is down from 79% last year.

“Core gamers are an important part of the games industry and understanding their behavior is critical to anyone invested in the games space – especially considering the launch of the new consoles and the continued evolution of digital gaming,” said Callahan.

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Category: Gaming, PC, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox One

Most smartphone accessories are pretty forgettable but Nokia’s Treasure Tags are designed to make things memorable. Treasure Tags, a new accessory that Nokia first unveiled this past February, are matchbox-sized tags that you can attach to your keys, wallet and other important items to make sure they never get lost. The tags, which are now technically Microsoft products after Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, are now on sale at Verizon Wireless for $29.99 each.

The tags have have two key features: The first is the ability to connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth and NFC and then issue an alarm if you try to leave your house without your tagged items. The second feature is integration with Nokia’s HERE mapping service so you can use your smartphone to track down any items that you’ve lost as long as they’re attached to Treasure Tags. The tags obviously work with all Nokia Lumia smartphones but has also designed an app to make them compatible with iOS and Android devices as well.

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Category: Accessories, Nokia, Verizon

Apple has a lot of work to do if it hopes to turn Beats Music into a music streaming powerhouse in the same league as Pandora or Spotify. The Guardian reports that newly leaked documents show that Beats Music had only 111,000 paying subscribers at the end of March, which needless to say puts it far, far, far behind other popular music streaming services. Spotify, in contrast, has 6 million paying subscribers and 24 million monthly active users while a survey conducted earlier this year showed that Pandora is still by far the most used music streaming service on the web. Obviously, integrating Beats Music into Apple’s iTunes Store and giving it a default app on the iPhone and iPad will greatly help raise its profile and give it more subscribers. But from the looks of things, it seems as though Apple will be practically be building a subscriber base from scratch when it comes to Beats’ music streaming business.

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Category: Business, Apple, Beats Music

Samsung on Tuesday released a new ad that’s part of its football-themed #Galaxy11 series of commercials that feature well-known football stars, including Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and others, for the purpose of promoting some of its recently launched Galaxy-branded devices.

After a long hiatus since its last #Galaxy11 ad, Samsung has released a four-minute video in which it shows the selected football players in training modes, preparing for the ultimate confrontation with an alien race that invaded Earth. The video is quite fun to watch, as the chosen players prove why they have been selected to defend our planet from the football-loving alien species.

But despite their skill and great visual effects of the ad, Samsung’s product placement feels rather awkward at times considering the whole premise. The Galaxy S5 and the new Gear 2 smartwatch and Gear Fit band are featured throughout the ad, as players rely on several smart features of these devices to perform various exercises, and even thwart an evil plan.

Even so, the ad is spectacular, and it promises even better sequels, as the selected 11 will eventually have to face off against the aliens. The company will probably figure out by then why using Galaxy devices and their software features on a football field will be required to win the fight.

Chances are that more football-related Samsung ads will come out soon, considering that the Brazil 2014 World Cup is a month away, and Samsung’s marketing machine is still buzzing at full speed, building hype around the somewhat criticized Galaxy S5.

The new #Galaxy11 ad follows below.

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Category: mobile, Galaxy S5, Samsung

A new report from The Guardian reveals that NSA has allegedly been tampering with U.S.-made electronic equipment including servers, routers and other network devices that are exported to foreign markets in order to insert backdoor surveillance malware, which can be later activated to spy on networks.

“The agency then implants backdoor surveillance tools, repackages the devices with a factory seal and sends them on,” The Guardian writes. “The NSA thus gains access to entire networks and all their users. The [NSA leaked] document gleefully observes that some “SIGINT [short for signal intelligence] tradecraft … is very hands-on (literally!)”.”

The publication obtained documents from Edward Snowden that details such operations dating back to June 2010.

“In one recent case, after several months a beacon implanted through supply-chain interdiction called back to the NSA covert infrastructure,” the report says. “This call back provided us access to further exploit the device and survey the network.”

Interestingly, the U.S. government has accused Chinese companies including Huawei and ZTE of doing exactly what these newly revealed documents claim the NSA is doing, which is inserting spying tools in networking equipment. Following pressure from these accusations, Huawei has left the U.S. market, although investigations from the House Intelligence Committee did not find actual evidence that the Chinese government was actually using Huawei and ZTE devices to spy on other countries.

“Warning the world about Chinese surveillance could have been one of the motives behind the U.S. government’s claims that Chinese devices cannot be trusted,” The Guardian notes. “But an equally important motive seems to have been preventing Chinese devices from supplanting American-made ones, which would have limited the NSA’s own reach. In other words, Chinese routers and servers represent not only economic competition but also surveillance competition.”

NSA has neither confirmed nor denied such practices in statements sent to CNET.

“As we have said before, the US technology industry builds the most secure hardware and software in the world today,” the Agency said. “NSA relies on these products to help protect our nation’s most sensitive information and, over the past decade, has turned to commercial technology to replace government-built technology. Given its own reliance on many of the very same technologies that the public uses, the US Government is as concerned as the public is with the security of these products. While we cannot comment on specific, alleged intelligence-gathering activities, NSA’s interest in any given technology is driven by the use of that technology by foreign intelligence targets. The United States pursues its intelligence mission with care to ensure that innocent users of those same technologies are not affected.”

“As we have previously said, the implication that NSA’s foreign intelligence collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false. NSA’s activities are focused and specifically deployed against — and only against — valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements. We are not going to comment on specific, alleged foreign intelligence activities. Public release of purportedly classified material about US intelligence collection systems, without context, further confuses an important issue for the country and jeopardizes human life as well as national security sources and methods,” the NSA said.

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Category: Security, NSA

Apple is often criticized for selling its chargers at a high profit margin, especially when you can easily find an incredibly cheap version on eBay. Well, it turns out there’s a reason these counterfeiters can make such cheap chargers. Engineer Ken Shirriff tore down an Apple-branded iPad charger and a counterfeit version, and he found that the counterfeit version skimps on power quality, construction, and safety. The counterfeit charger, which advertised itself as a 10W charger, was in fact just a 5W charger.

Shirriff explains how chargers work in incredible detail and accompanies his teardown with pictures that show the generally lower-quality production value of the counterfeit charger. The counterfeit charger has fewer parts, less insulation around the parts, and parts that are “visibly crooked or askew.”

Shirriff also offers his own recommendations for chargers. While he of course doesn’t recommend the counterfeits, he also believes Apple’s official chargers may not be worth it either.

“Non-Apple name brand chargers are generally good quality according to my tests, with some better than Apple,” he said. “If you want to get an Apple charger without the high price, the best way I’ve found is to buy a used one on eBay from a U.S. source.”

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Category: Tablets, Apple, iPad, teardown