Darren Orf

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

This week is all about Windows 10 (as it should be), but that doesn’t mean mobile operating systems decided to take a weeklong vacation. We’ve got a new launcher from Microsoft, ways to finally get down to business and learn code, and Yahoo’s zombified resurrection of Yahoo Messenger. Should be fun. Let’s get to it.…

Samsung Gets Weird With Its Latest Smartwatch Patent

Samsung has a history of making strange stuff. A smartphone with two sloping sides? What? Why? Either way, you have to appreciate, to a certain degree, Samsung’s “fuck it, let’s try it” approach when it comes to some of these ideas. And now a new smartwatch patent shows Sammy’s got even more weird stuff to…

You Can Now Buy Those Stupid/Great Amazon Dash Buttons

Amazon Dash buttons are either the peak of convenience or a step toward a commercial-rampant apocalypse, but whatever camp you happen to be in, you can now buy those amazingly awful and awfully amazing brand-specific buttons for $5 as long you’re a Prime member. The way these technological terrors/wonders works is you buy one (out…

Yahoo’s New Livetext App Wants You To Livestream While You Text

Smartphone apps are entering a live-streaming age, with services like Meerkat and Periscope offering instant access to everyone you follow. Yahoo’s new Livetext app is the same idea—but tweaked for more personal, one-on-one conversations. Think soundless video for texts. It’s kind of weird. Where Periscope puts video at the center, Livetext—as its name suggests—is more…

This Hololens Tech Brings Us One Step Closer to Star Wars Holograms

When I watched Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time as a five-year-old, my face looked like O_O for two straight hours. Spaceships! Lightsabers! Robots! But one piece of future that wormed its way even deeper into my brain was the Millennium Falcon’s holographic monster mash chess game, aka Dejarik. It was the…

The New Moto G May Still Be the Best Phone for Your Money

Motorola just released a hardware Kraken the likes of which we’ve never seen. The new Moto X Style! The battery-conscious Moto X Play! And then there’s the Moto G. Only a few years ago, no one would care about the lesser budget sibling alongside these two powerhouses—but the Moto G is Motorola’s real smartphone champion.…

Moto X Style Hands-On: A Great Smartphone With a Price To Match

The Moto X Style is in every way a successor to last year’s Moto X. It’s got all the requisite upgrades you’d expect: the better quad HD display, the better 21 megapixel rear camera with a front-facing selfie flash, and just an all around better look and feel. And somehow, it only costs $400. Picking…

The New Moto X Play and Moto X Style Are All About Looks and Battery

When looking for the next great phone to ride shotgun through your life, there are a few things it needs to do well. It needs to have a great display, look neat, and not have garbage battery life. With the third-generation Moto X, Motorola is laser-focused on all three. Motorola does this with two separate…

Note 5 Leaks: We Could Be Looking At One Of the Best Big Smartphones

Yesterday, Samsung sent out invitations to a New York City event where we’ll all finally (officially) meet the new Galaxy Note 5. But Samsung has done a pretty horrible job keeping wraps on what the new smartphone actually looks like, leaking everything from CAD designs to these new hi-res photos. Technology is filled with all…

Are Kill Switches Really Enough to Deter Smartphone Thieves?  

When California became the first state to require new smartphones to have a built-in kill switch—a way to disable and brick a device when it goes missing—it seemed like the days of rampant smartphone theft were finally over. After all, who would sell a completely bricked iPhone to some sucker person, amirite? Turns out—a lot…

Android Vulnerability Lets Hackers Control Your Phone With One Text

The best defense against any of your gadgets becoming flooded with malware has always been personal vigilance. “Hmm, this app looks sketchy and is from a third-party app store I’ve never heard of. NOPE!” But a new vulnerability, discovered by security experts at Zimperium, can attack your phone with just a text. According to Zimperium…

Razer, the lime green snake-labeled company that makes very good mice and very good gaming laptops, just bought Ouya, the company behind that microconsole Kickstarter that everyone talked about for a month then forgot. Maybe Razer wants to make its Forge TV console better (with Ouya somehow)?

Microsoft’s Surface 3 Now Has a Swanky LTE Version

Starting today, Microsoft begins selling 64GB and 128GB Surface 3s on AT&T and T-Mobile (through the Microsoft store). In addition, Microsoft’s Atom-powered tablet/computer hybrid will be available in AT&T stores. T-Mobile will begin selling the tablet on July 31. For LTE, you’ll be paying a cool $100 extra. [Microsoft] https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-surface-3-review-the-tablet-i-want-at-the-pr-1696598172

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Next week is going to be an absolute onslaught of tech—Oneplus Two, Moto X, and finally Windows 10. Before we’re consumed in all that gadget-y goodness, let’s take a look during the dying days of this week at some of the great software recently making all our smartphones even better. Android Pause Paste was one…

Xiaomi’s Going to Start Uber-ing Smartphones to People

In another piece of evidence for the overwhelming argument for me to never leave my couch, Xiaomi announced that it’s going to partner up with Uber to hand-deliver smartphones. Yep, this couch is real comfortable. One full day before the Xiaomi Mi Note is available online (July 27), you’ll be able to tap a “Xiaomi”…

Watch How Malicious Apps Can Secretly Devour Your Data

Buying apps through official app stores usually means the app’s been approved by a team of developers whose job is to flag shady behavior. But when it comes to ad fraud, one research firm says many slip through the cracks—serving hundreds of unseen ads and destroying your battery life and data plan. Conducted by Forensiq,…

Everyone Is Piling on the “Take Down Apple Music” Bandwagon

When Apple enters any kind of business, it tends to turn heads. But when it comes to Apple Music, the company’s new music streaming service, it’s getting a different kind of attention—the federal trust-busting kind. Technology is filled with all kinds of rumors and speculation — real and fabricated. BitStream collects all those whispers into…

YouTube Is Making Vertical Video Less Awful Because Humans Never Learn

Because we can’t be trusted to do anything right, YouTube is alleviating our long-standing pain and anguish over watching vertical videos in landscape by finally giving us the option to watch those horizontally-challenged bits of cinema in full screen on Android phones. And there was much rejoicing. As Android Police reports, a new version of…

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Welcome to another week of new apps! This week we get back to what apps do best—making your life just a little bit easier, whether that’s booking hotel rooms, watching YouTube videos, or just scrolling through Instagram. Take a look through these wares and see if anything strikes your fancy. Android Booking Now As its…

That Rumored Huawei Nexus Smartphone Sounds Pretty Amazing, Actually

We started hearing whispers about two months ago that Google would pull a first with its smartphones and tap Chinese company Huawei to churn out its new Nexus device. And now, with the familiar late-October release date for Nexuses approaching, rumors are starting to reach critical mass. Technology is filled with all kinds of rumors…