The USPTO published a number of Apple patent applications Tuesday, including two related to automobiles (via AppleInsider). The car patents both describe systems that can be built into future iPhones, replacing most of the functionality of your standard key fob with the smartphone, and providing a way to help drivers navigate the often maze-like interiors of parking garages to find their ride. → Read More
Games app downloads to smartphones and tablets are set to grow significantly over the next four years, according to a new report by analyst Juniper Research which projects there will be 64.1BN such downloads in 2017 — more than three times the 21 billion downloaded in 2012. Key drivers powering this high rate of growth include free-to-play releases, more sophisticated devices & smartphone… → Read More
Don’t write off Microsoft’s chances in mobile just yet. It may still be struggling to make itself count in the smartphone space but early signs are more promising for Windows plus tablets. Microsoft has gone from having no share of the global tablet OS market in Q1 last year to taking 7.4% one year later, with 3M Windows 8 tablets shipped in Q1 2013, according to Strategy Analytics. → Read More
Dropcam is updating their iOS apps today with two new features that their users have been clamoring for: location awareness and in-app time scheduling. → Read More
According to a report from Bloomberg Businessweek, e-commerce behemoth Amazon is preparing to launch a set-top box this fall, in hopes that you’ll consume all of your content through its spin on the now-common device. The company is already working hard to push its Kindle line to consumers, and this box would be for people who don’t want to deal with the fanciness of Apple products… → Read More
Waterloo-based Thalmic Labs is working on getting the MYO armband into the waiting arms of pre-order customers, which now number well above the 25,000 announced in March, Thalmic told me, making up over $4 million in total sales to date. MYO is a unique control device worn around the forearm, which measures muscle movement and electrical impulses and translates those into a control mechanism for… → Read More
New keyboard layout KALQ is designed to speed up thumb typing on tablets and phablets. Its creators, from the University of St Andrews, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech, claim that once users have accustomed themselves to the unfamiliar non-Qwerty layout typing performance can become about a third (34%) more efficient than thumb typing on split screen Qwerty layouts. → Read More
FreedomPop has been promising to bring mostly free 4G internet access to the masses for over a year now, but those ambitions have been hampered by partner Clearwire’s spotty WiMax coverage — there are sizable swaths of the country where you just can’t get service. That won’t be the case for much longer though, as FreedomPop has just started taking orders its first Sprint-friendly wireless… → Read More
Sprint’s Q1 2013 financial results came out this morning, and the news wasn’t great overall. Losses continue to accumulate, and total smartphone sales aren’t faring very well, either, with just 5 million units sold in total. The iPhone, after achieving a record high of 2.2 million handsets sold on Sprint’s network last quarter, dropped back down to 1.5 million, the same number Sprint saw in the… → Read More
Nokia has announced another handset in its S40-based Asha portfolio of low end mobiles which compete with the budget end of Android and cheap BlackBerrys. The 2G-plus-Wi-Fi Asha 210, due to ship before the end of Q2 costing $72 (before taxes), has a dedicated hardware key on the front that short-cuts to messaging app Whatsapp. A second variant, intended for separate markets, has a Facebook key. → Read More
Look, it’s no secret that HTC knows how to put together a nice phone. Despite the quality of its wares though, HTC spent most of 2012 releasing disappointing earnings statements and being outflanked by much larger rivals — what’s a company to do in a situation like that? The answer, according to CEO Peter Chou, was to double down on innovation and design in hopes of creating a device that would… → Read More
The BlackBerry Q10 is, some might say, the BlackBerry OS 10 device that the company should have led with, ahead of its all-touch Z10. That’s because it sports a hardware QWERTY keyboard, something that has become a unique distinction among top-tier smartphones these days. BlackBerry tells me they wanted to nail the all-touch experience first, in part to prove that they could, but based on my last… → Read More
While the Raspberry Pi is great for educating kids about computing, can it brew a mean beer? The BeagleBone Black can. Trevor Hubbard, an engineer at Texas Instruments, uses the new, next-gen board to control heat exchangers and monitors to handle beer temperature remotely. → Read More
Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t generally talk too specifically about upcoming product plans, but he went out of his way to put an unusually fine point on when to expect new products than he usually does. Cook kicked off today’s Apple earnings call talking about how Apple is looking forward to exciting product news in the fall, and throughout 2014, and then reiterated the exact same thing during the… → Read More
Apple has just released its Q2 2013 earnings report, announcing sales of 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter ending March. Apple also reported 19.5 million iPad units sold, which shows incredibly strong growth for Apple’s tablet business.
This is a slight decrease from last quarter, which included a holiday sales spike and being the first full quarter in which the iPhone 5 was available. → Read More
The Infinity Cell is a kinetic charger for the iPhone that uses your body’s movement to generate electricity. The current prototype for the Infinity Cell is a crude 3D printed rectangle, roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes, linked up to the iPhone with a cable. The plan is to create a more streamlined version during the product’s Kickstarter campaign. → Read More
It’s a surprisingly rare treat to see inside a very expensive and very unique timepiece. Although the video below is a render, it shows almost every important part of this wild watch including something called the chain-and-fusee, a method used for centuries to improve the accuracy of watches by ensuring constant force is applied to the balance wheel over time. → Read More
Sony has decided to release a sequel to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) for Xperia S it began in August of 2012, and took over from Google in November of last year. This time, the Xperia Z is getting its own project, which means that the company’s water resistant flagship phone will get to participate in the kind of Android development work normally reserved for Google-blessed Nexus… → Read More
Nokia looks like it’s hoping to turn up the volume of its Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones in the US by signing another carrier to its cause. Bloomberg is reporting that Nokia and Verizon have struck a deal that will see the carrier offer the Lumia 928 starting from next month. The deal has not yet been made public but Bloomberg said two people familiar with the situation confirmed the plan. → Read More
Geeksphone, the smartphone OEM startup based out of Madrid, put the first Firefox OS developer phones on sale early this morning, offering the Keon for $119 and the more powerful Peak for $194. Both devices are the first hardware to be offered with Firefox OS on board, and both devices are now listed as “Out of stock,” just a few hours after first going on sale. → Read More
The Nest thermostat has already gone through a hardware revision or two and found its way onto plenty of physical and virtual store shelves, but parent company Nest Labs is eager to get it into even more households in short order.
The Palo Alto company has just announced that it has teamed up with energy providers from across the country that will see new climate-control services (not to… → Read More
Because I like sharing cool watches with you guys I decided to share this cool watch with you guys. It’s called the Ressence Type 3 and it’s actually a liquid-filled mechanical watch with a nearly featureless face. Each of those dials – registers in the parlance – look like they are seamlessly embedded in the face surface and the watch, being suspended in synthetic oil, has no crown and is wound… → Read More
Leap Motion’s gesture-based controller launch is less than a month away, but so far we’ve heard relatively little about app support, besides the fact that the company is working hard on filling out its Airspace app store. Now, Leap Motion and Google are announcing support for Google Earth for Leap Motion tech, which will be built-in to the desktop Google Earth app for Windows, Mac and Linux as of… → Read More
HTC really wants you to buy an HTC One, and it’s making sure that you have every opportunity to do so. First, it opened up pre-orders for the HTC One Developer Edition, a carrier-unlocked 64GB version of the phone with an unlocked bootloader for custom ROMs. Now, it’s also offering a network-unlocked 32GB version of the handset, which doesn’t have the unlocked bootloader, but which is less… → Read More
My car’s steering wheel has taken a beating because of the all the lousy drum fills I’ve banged out on it over the years, and at least one entrepreneur thinks that experience could use a little bit of improvement.
Gregor Hanuschak (who, in a previous life, worked for NASA) has put together a Kickstarter project for the Smack Attack, an in-car gadget that lets users make those steering wheel… → Read More
Google Glass is getting closer and closer to becoming a shipping product. It’s already making its way out to early “Explorer” program pre-launch testers, and we’ll almost definitely see a lot more from Glass at Google I/O in mid-May. Drew already got his lucky mitts on an Explorer set, and provided some useful insight about how it operates, and how it might be useful as someone goes about their… → Read More
The Z2 wireless Airplay speaker from Bowers & Wilkins is a perfectly suitable option for those of us looking for a sightly, powerful, and compact speaker system. Anyone who’s already invested in Bowers & Wilkins systems before, like the Zeppelin Air or the A line should be especially considerate of the sexy little Z2, as it will fit in seamlessly with your current set-up in a relatively… → Read More
This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about Google Glass, the Galaxy S4, and the magic of Ubuntu laptops. This time we’re joined by Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Greg Kumparak, and a pair of underwear that vibrates in Australia. Enjoy! → Read More
For those startups in newer areas like robotics, artificial intelligence and augmented reality who complain that VCs are too focused on consumer internet companies, help is at hand: Genesis Angels is a new VC that has raised a fund of around $100 million, with a large chunk coming from co-founder and serial investor Kenges Rakishev, which it plans to use for early stage investments in emerging… → Read More
Another sign of the swift rise of tablets today: last month tablet usage of the BBC’s on-demand online TV service iPlayer edged past mobile for the first time, with 41M programme requests by tablet vs. 40M on mobile, according to BBC stats for the month. There were 200,000 more requests on tablets than mobiles. Overall, across all device types, the service saw 272M programme requests. → Read More
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