There’s no question that Google Glass is the ultimate geek toy right now, but are you really ready to spend $1,500 and fully embrace the “glasshole” lifestyle? Google this week said in an email to people who had previously expressed interest in Glass that the company is now letting prospective buyers try its connected eyewear for free before they commit to buying it.
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Is there any company that so regularly releases great products while also regularly being in the midst of turmoil as HTC? Engadget’s Brad Molen has written a comprehensive timeline of major executive departures at HTC over the past two years and they show how HTC has faced constant turnover at key positions without showing any signs of stabilizing anytime soon.
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In an effort to further distance itself from rival Samsung, Apple signed an agreement with TSMC regarding the ongoing production of microprocessors for its smartphones and other devices last summer. On Thursday, Reuters published a new report which suggests that Apple might be rethinking this arrangement, as Samsung is expected to supply a larger proportion of the 14 nanometer smartphone chips than TSMC in the second half of 2015.
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NVIDIA already makes killer smartphone and tablet chips and now it looks like it’s going to soon release a killer tablet of its own as well. @evleaks has just posted a new leaked picture of a device called the NVIDIA Shield Tablet, 2014 that looks like a very slick device that will put a lot of emphasis on mobile gaming.
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Not everyone with an Android device has been fortunate enough to gain access to the Android L Developer Preview, but some the elements of the update have been making their way back to older versions of Android. One of the most notable apps to make it on to the Google Play store was the Android L keyboard by developer Shen Ye, but it was unceremoniously pulled from the store shortly after its release.
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I scream, you scream, we all scream for Google to announce that it’s bringing Google Fiber to more markets. However, it seems that Google seems content to take its time for now and keep its Fiber deployments confined to the three markets it’s announced so far: Kansas City, Missouri, Austin, Texas and Provo Utah.
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If you ask Nest about sharing data with its new owner, the company will say that advertising isn’t part of its business model and that it plans to protect the privacy of its customers from Google. Nest will have to share some data with Google and others in order to enable automatic home-related features, but it is not supposed to lead to Google targeting users with even more ads than it currently does. To make sure Google won’t someday spam Nest owners with ads, a group of hackers plans to take preemptive action against Google and Nest, Forbes reports.
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Following the enormous round of layoffs announced this morning, Microsoft has now confirmed that Xbox Entertainment Studios will be getting the axe as well. Re/code was the first to report that despite the fact the entertainment division of the Xbox team didn’t receive a mention in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s letter on Thursday morning, Microsoft will be shutting the door on future Xbox original programming initiatives.
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Google on Thursday reported earnings of $6.08 per share on revenues of $15.96 billion, which missed the consensus estimate of earnings of $6.24 per share while beating the consensus estimate of revenues of $12.32 billion. The past quarter was a very busy one for the search giant, which unveiled its new Android L platform that features a completely new user interface design, as well as Android Wear, its first attempt at making a platform for wearable computers.
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For many of us, nine years was far too long to wait for a new generation of consoles. Although the PlayStation 3 and especially the Xbox 360 were as much platforms for continued growth as they were gaming consoles, many would argue that the industry was going limp by 2013. There were plenty of standout releases, but if anything was going to reinvigorate developers, it would be new hardware.
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