Microsoft’s exclusive deal with China Telecom to bring the Xbox One to a huge new market could be the boost the company needs to begin catching up with the PlayStation 4, but one major detail might be curtailing sales before the console even launches: The price. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Xbox One (without Kinect) will cost 3,699 yuan ($600) when it releases in China on September 23rd.
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When we think about music streaming services, we typically think of either the ones being offered by tech giants such as Google and Apple, or we think of the ever-popular third-party apps such as Spotify and Pandora. However, LifeHacker’s Alan Henry has put together a great list of music streaming services that he says you should use instead of the service you’re currently addicted to.
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Were you hoping to get an iWatch this fall? If so, then you might have to hold out until Christmas. AppleInsider points us to a new research note written by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a very solid track record with Apple rumors and who now says that Apple will start mass producing the iWatch in the second half of November and not in September as he previously reported.
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When you plug a USB stick into your laptop, you probably aren’t too worried about it completely taking over your computer. However, Ars Technica reports that researchers at Security Research Labs in Berlin are scheduled to unveil a new exploit at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas next week that will allow an infected USB stick to take over your computer and use it to execute malicious code.
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There seems to be some confusion about what certain emoji actually mean. Gawker brings us word that a TV station in Philadelphia described the emoji pictured above as being for a “high-five” of two hands slapping together, although it’s clearly supposed to be two hands held together in prayer.
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Apple is cleaning house as the $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics approaches completion. Bloomberg reports that Apple has informed over 200 Beats employees that they will not be able to stay on with the company for the long term once the transaction has been finalized. According to the source, most of those jobs are in finance, HR and other areas where the two groups might overlap.
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After a series of leaked images suggested that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Alpha smartphone will only have metal on its edges, with SamMobile saying the phone will be somewhat of a high-end device, a new report from AllAboutSamsung brings in more details about the phone’s specs and features, confirming that the device won’t have the Galaxy S5’s key features.
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There’s a hot new HTC smartphone on the market, although you won’t be able to get it unless you live in Japan. Japanese carrier KDDI on Thursday revealed that it will start selling the new HTC J Butterfly starting in late August, and from the looks of it, it seems HTC has done its best to fix two of the biggest flaws with its flagship HTC One (M8).
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Timeful is a new free iPhone application that wants to help users better manage their calendars and to-do lists at the same time. Timeful is an intelligent “Time Assistant” that relies on machine learning and behavioral science to automatically insert tasks in busy calendars, thus helping users get more things done without having to worry about scheduling.
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Samsung doesn’t always listen to fans when creating new mobile devices, no matter what it says during its press events — as long as smartphone sales are still strong, it will keep churning out the plastic. But the company seems finally ready to commit to making high-end devices out of materials other than plastic now that its smartphone profits are crashing — The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung senior vice president Kim Hyun-joon acknowledged during a recent earnings call that Samsung will release two new high-end smartphone models in the second half of the year, one with a large screen and the other made of “new materials.” It’s not clear whether the second will also have a screen as large as the first.
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