Brian Heater
Hardware Editor
The Latest from Brian Heater
Ajit Pai formally recommends T-Mobile/Sprint merger approval
Ajit Pai has long signaled that he would approve a T-Mobile/Sprint merger, but today the FCC chairman made it official. In spite of widespread opposition suggesting that the combining of the country&#
Misfit releases a new Wear OS smartwatch
It’s almost certainly no coincidence that Misfit’s new smartwatch bears more than a passing resemblance to the Fossil devices announced a week or two back. The one-time modular fitness startup has
Oregon joins lawsuit opposing T-Mobile/Sprint merger
Oregon this week became the 15th state (plus the District of Columbia) to sign onto a lawsuit seeking to stop a T-Mobile/Sprint merger. The suit, co-signed by 16 attorneys general, argues that a merge
Phones, laptops and game consoles get tariff reprieve until December
Update: Trump confirmed to reporters that the delay is due to timing for the holiday shopping season. “We’re doing this for the Christmas season,” he said. “Just in case some of the tariffs wo
Spotify’s podcast dashboard comes out of beta
Over the last couple of years, Spotify has made a big push into podcasts. The tip of the spear has been major investments, including acquisitions of companies like Gimlet and Anchor. It’s all part o
Samsung’s Note 10 game streaming arrives in August
Update: Samsung has since adjusted timing. The app will be available this month, not early September as originally reported. PlayGalaxy Link got fleetingly little stage time at last week’s Unpacked
DJI slims down and simplifies its smartphone gimbal
As we noted last month, DJI’s camera stabilizer line began life as an offshoot of the company’s drone offerings. Since then, however, it’s grown into a pretty massive portfolio in its own right,
Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress.com parent, Automattic
Six years after Yahoo purchased Tumblr for north of $1 billion, its parent corporation is selling the once-dominant blogging platform. WordPress owner Automattic Inc. has agreed to take the service of
Huawei’s new OS isn’t an Android replacement… yet
If making an Android alternative was easy, we’d have a lot more of them. Huawei’s HarmonyOS won’t be replacing the mobile operating system for the company anytime soon, and Huawei has made i
Apple starts selling Mophie’s take on AirPower
There’s no shortage of AirPower knockoffs on the market. Many have been in the works since Apple took the wraps off its in-house version, positioned as more affordable alternatives. Since the compan
The smartwatch category is growing, as Apple remains dominant
Last week Samsung and Fossil kicked off the week by announcing new smartwatches. On the same day. At the same time. For a brief moment, it felt like 2015 all over again, when the world of smartwatches
Samsung is bringing PC game streaming to the Note 10
One of the more interesting news tidbits from yesterday’s Unpacked event got a bit drowned out in all of the noise. Understandably so — Samsung jammed a lot into an event that ran just over an hou
The Galaxy Book S is Samsung’s Windows-powered answer to the MacBook Air
We were hoping for at least one surprise during today’s big event. At the end of Unpacked, Samsung debuted the Galaxy Book S, a thin and light system created in tandem with Microsoft and Qualcom
The Note’s most impressive new feature is only available on the 10+
The new Note’s 3D scanning feature got what may well have been the loudest applause line of today’s big Samsung event. It’s an impressive feature for sure, but it’s the kind wi
Samsung’s Galaxy Note gets even larger (and smaller)
The first Note was a spectacle. It wasn’t just the reintroduction of the stylus. In 2011, the idea of a 5.3-inch phone was laughable. Around the same time, Steve Jobs famously mocked a push toward 4
The headphone jack dies not with a bang, but a Note
Next month marks three years since Apple unceremoniously murdered the headphone jack. Courage. The company was roundly mocked for its own hype, and the intervening product cycles have been marked by s
This is Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and 10+
Eight years later, the Galaxy Note is undeniable. The original device, unveiled at IFA 2011, seemed unfathomably massive for a handset — all 5.3 inches of it. Nearly a decade and hundreds of million
There’s a 5G version of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10+ headed for Verizon
The 5G iPhone isn’t expected until roughly this time next year. But when it comes to the next-gen cellular technology, Samsung has already been there and done that. Back in the February, the company
Trump attacks Google and Sundar Pichai in morning tweets
The president of the United States of America kicked off the morning with a series of tweets criticizing one of the country’s largest corporations for alleged ties to election tampering and China’
AT&T rolls out (limited) 5G in (parts of) New York City
Both Verizon and Sprint have been promising 5G coverage in the nation’s largest city for some time now. AT&T this morning, however, said it’s starting to do just that. The U.S.’s