OSnews

Android Wear is getting a new update today that's easily its biggest yet. Google's introducing several new features that change how we use our watches, from Wi-Fi support to hand gestures and hand-drawn emoji. Individually, these changes are small, but collectively, they promise to make even year-old hardware seem new. They also ensure that Android Wear keeps up (and in some cases surpasses) the Apple Watch from a pure features perspective. That could become important down the line should Googleâs plans to release Android Wear for the iPhone come to fruition.I kind of like the wrist-flick gestures, but the rest seems more fluff that only makes Wear more complicated (and thus, more like the Apple Watch), instead of the opposite.

Sortix is a small self-hosting Unix-like operating system developed since 2011 aiming to be a clean and modern POSIX implementation. There's a lot of technical debt that needs to be paid, but it's getting better. Traditional design mistakes are avoided or aggressively deprecated by updating the base system and ports as needed. The Sortix kernel, standard libraries, and most utilities were written entirely from scratch. The system is halfway through becoming multi-user and while security vulnerabilities are recognized as bugs, it should be considered insecure at this time.Sortix 0.9 was released on December 30, 2014. It is a very considerable improvement upon Sortix 0.8 and contains significant improvements all over the base system and ports. The previous release made Sortix self-building and this release works hard towards becoming fully self-hosting and installable. Several real-life prototype self-hosting installations of Sortix exists right now, I expect the following 1.0 release to make real Sortix installations available to the general public.

The Vintage Computer Festival East is a once-a-year museum exhibit in Wall, New Jersey that shows off vacuum tube and transistor computers from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. While our own John Timmer visited the museum several years ago, we were long overdue to check back on the exhibition. VCF's newest addition made the trip well-worth it.The incredible piece of big iron you see in the first picture above arrived yesterday. It's a one-of-a-kind analog computer built for MIT, so it doesn't really have a name or model number. Built by George A. Philbrick Researches in 1958, the volunteers at the science center have just taken to calling it "George."Fascinating.

While you may have to give up some creature comforts doing so, it's relatively easy and straightforward to run an (almost - damn binary driver blobs and firmware) open source Android phone, with nothing but open source applications, through F-Droid, one of my major complaints with F-Droid is that it's about as user friendly as trying to cut down a tree with a used toothbrush. There's no popularity lists, every category is clogged up with nonsensical packages (to the average user, that is), and the presentation leaves much to be desired.Fossdroid changes that, and presents all these open source applications in a much clearer and nicer fashion. It also adds popularity and what's new lists, making it just a little easier to find the open source application you're looking for. There's still some things to be addressed, it's a well-done website.

Windows Phone fans pining for the days of Metro panoramas and integrated experiences have had a tough couple of years, with Microsoft steadily removing many of the platform's user experience differentiators. But as I've argued, there's reason behind this madness. And now an ex-Microsoft design lead who actually worked on Windows Phone has gone public and agreed with this assessment. You may have loved Windows Phone and Metro, but it had to change.A different theory for Microsoft moving Windows Phone closer to Android's UI design, from former Windows Phone executive Charlie Kindel (who now works at Amazon).

AnandTech has its usual in-depth review up for the HTC One M9, and it comes in two

Google's Chrome is the best web browser for my needs. Apple's MacBooks are the best computers for my needs. So why is the combination of the two such a wretched and chronically compromised situation? Almost every advice column on how to improve MacBook battery life begins with the suggestion to avoid using Chrome in favor of Apple's more efficient Safari browser. The idea that Chrome is a big and profligate battery drain on MacBooks has existed almost as long as the browser has been available, and most benchmarks reiterate it by showing Chrome's gluttonous consumption of system resources for seemingly basic tasks.Does the same apply to Chrome for Windows or Linux? I don't have a laptop, so I have no way of testing it out.

The folks over at WindowsMania.pl have gotten their hands on a new build of Windows 10 for phones; this latest build comes with a set of UI changes and enhancements; mainly a revamped multitasking screen. The new multitasking screen shown above displays open/recent apps in a card like manner, similar to how Meego or BB10 showed them, allowing you to quickly view all your open apps at once, while presumably still swiping them away (or simply pressing "x") to close them.Those screenshots remind me of this.

Some folks like to call it fragmentation, others call it choice, but by any name there are certainly a lot of different Android phones. Building applications that need to work with all of them is no easy task. You have wildly different hardware configurations that make for a big difference in performance, and even though one apk file can work on every one of them, there's still the issue of needing an app to run smoothly on low-end devices without sacrificing features on high-end devices. When you're talking about an app as popular as Facebook, this can quickly become a nightmare for the folks doing the coding.Facebook showed everyone at the Big Android Meat and Greet a new solution that's simple - the Device Year Class component.A clever method for developers to tailor their applications for specific Android phones - and it's open source.

Apple has released updates for both OS X and iOS today. OS X 10.10.3 adds Photos as a replacement for iPhoto, while iOS 8.3 updates and adds a whole bunch of emoji.

The day Mariina Hallikainen received a communique detailing first day sales stats for Cities: Skylines, she was very happy.The numbers were wildly ahead of all projections. She decided to splurge on a decadent and indulgent treat.She ordered a strawberry cream cake.It's amazing that a small team from Finland managed to build the SimCity EA could not. Cities: Skylines is completely and utterly worth it, and the best city builder currently available, by a huge margin.On a related note, an artist who used to work on SimCity for Maxis/EA is currently earning a decent buck through donations because he's designing a lot of additional buildings for Cities: Skyines and releasing them to the community for free. Amazing.

As of April 7th 2015, there are no IBM PC emulators in the world that can run the demo properly. Unless you have the exact hardware required (see below), this demo won't run properly; in fact, it hangs or crashes emulators before it is finished. To see what 8088 MPH looks like, I direct you to the video+audio capture of the demo running on real hardware.Impressive.

The first Apple Watch reviews are coming out right now. The Verge's review is incredibly detailed, and also, brutally honest: the Apple Watch has major issues right now, but it does have a lot of potential. The biggest issue highlighted by The Verge is performance, and the video review shows stuttering, loading screens, and unregistered taps on the screen.But right now, it's disappointing to see the Watch struggle with performance. What good is a watch that makes you wait? Rendering notifications can slow everything down to a crawl. Buttons can take a couple taps to register. It feels like the Apple Watch has been deliberately pulled back in order to guarantee a full day of battery life. Improving performance is Apple's biggest challenge with the Watch, and it's clear that the company knows it.These seem like the same issues the Moto 360 had when it first came out. Android Wear updates eventually addressed most of these issues, while also increasing its battery life, so I'm sure Apple Watch updates will do the same. Still, it's disappointing that such an expensive, high-profile device suffers from performance issues, especially since it leads to a huge problem for the Apple Watch, highlighted perfectly by Nilay Patel: "there's virtually nothing I can't do faster or better with access to a laptop or a phone".The other major issue is one I also highlighted in my Moto 360 review and other smartwatch articles: smartwatches make you look like a jerk, and the Apple Watch is no exception.It turns out that checking your watch over and over again is a gesture that carries a lot of cultural weight. Eventually, Sonia asks me if I need to be somewhere else. We're both embarrassed, and I've mostly just ignored everyone. This is a little too much future all at once.I worded this in the form of the funeral test (or wedding test if you're not a cynical bastard), and it's a crucial flaw in the entire concept of a smartwatch. It is a major weakness of Android Wear, and also of the Apple Watch, made worse by the fact that, according to The Verge, notification settings simply aren't granular enough.The Verge also discussed the Apple Watch with their fashion-focussed sister site Racked, and the responses weren't particularly positive - it looks way too much like a gadget and computer, and too little like an actual fashion accessory. Of course, there are many people who have zero issues with that (I'm assuming the majority of OSNews readers do not care), but I personally do. I have enough computers and gadgets in my life, and I want my watch to look like a watch - not a computer.The Verge eventually concludes:There's no question that the Apple Watch is the most capable smartwatch available today. It is one of the most ambitious products I've ever seen; it wants to do and change so much about how we interact with technology. But that ambition robs it of focus: it can do tiny bits of everything, instead of a few things extraordinarily well. For all of its technological marvel, the Apple Watch is still a smartwatch, and it's not clear that anyone's yet figured out what smartwatches are actually for.It turns out that virtually everything I've said about smartwatches in the past - in my Moto 360 review as well as other smartwatch articles - remains accurate even with the introduction of the Apple Watch. It's important to note that I am not saying smartwatches are a bad idea - just that their current incarnations - be they Wear, Pebble, or Apple Watch - are the wrong answer to the wrong question. Nobody seems to have found out yet what a smartwatch is actually supposed to be.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Grace lost her iPhone. Grace is a 15-year-old with a diagnosis of autism and a severe speech delay. Some people would call her "non-verbal" but she can say a few words and if people don't understand she shows them a picture.When Gracie was small, she used to have to carry a big book around to hold these pictures, but then the iPhone was invented and a very kind person gave us one to try. I was able to transfer all her pictures onto a folder on that phone and whenever we didn't have a picture, we could take a photograph and add that to her collection. Grace is considered to have an intellectual disability but she had no trouble navigating that iPhone, and she carried it around with her everywhere in an especially strong cover to protect against accidents.With the help of a young Irish gaming developer called Steve Troughton-Smith, I was able to create an App to store and sort those pictures and in honour of my daughter, he called it Grace App.The start of a lovely initiative to donate old iPhones to children with autism. The organisation restores any iOS 6-capable iPhone or iPad to factory settings, loads the Grace application, puts them a tough, donated case, and gives them to a child who uses it to greatly expand his or her communication abilities. It shows just how important technology like smartphones has become for people with disabilities or other problems. It can enable some of them to lead much richer lives, and that really puts a huge smile on my face.The application Grace is available for both iOS and Android, so if you know someone who could benefit from it - let them know.

If you've got a Windows Phone, today is your lucky day. On April 1, Microsoft released DOS for mobile: "All the productivity youâve come to expect from Microsoft in the simplest OS yet." Update: There's also a video ad.

Google has unveiled a whole lot of new Chrome OS devices today - mostly laptops - but there's also a small Chromecast-like dongle that you can slip into any HDMI port and turn that display into a full-on Chrome OS machine. It's only $99, which puts it right into impulse-buy territory.One of the laptops is a convertible with a touchscreen, which seems odd at first because Chrome OS isn't really built with touch in mind. It starts to make more sense, however, when you combine with the news that Google is opening up the App Runtime for Chrome to all Android developers, allowing them to get their Android applications ready for Chrome OS.It seems Google's vision for Chrome OS and Android is becoming clear. A few years from now, Chrome OS or Android will be a distinction without a difference for most people.

The result is Surface 3, as well as a mobile-broadband version, Surface 3 (4G LTE). It's the thinnest and lightest Surface we've ever shipped. It runs full Windows, including desktop applications. It includes a one-year subscription to Office 365 to help you really get down to work. And it starts at just $499.I was genuinely excited when I read about this Surface 3. I actually really like the Surface concept, but the Surface Pro 3 is simply too powerful (and thus, too expensive) for my specific workload (minor translation work, proofreading, watching some videos, some browsing, that sort of thing). A quad-core Intel Atom Surface with proper Windows (x86-64!) seems like a perfect machine for me, and the price, too, looked great: $499 for the basic model, and another $129 for the keyboard (even if Microsoft does not know how to red).And then I saw the European prices. Oh boy. The basic model is a whopping â¬609, and the keyboard is another â¬155. That's insane, and utterly ruins the value proposition for the Surface 3 in Europe.Great device, terrible, terrible pricing.

The reviews of the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are starting to roll in. The Verge seems first.But design at this deeper level matters. And it's something Samsung has chosen - or been forced - to contend with. The Galaxy S6 is the first time I've felt like Samsung might finally be grappling with the idea of what a smartphone ought to be on an ontological level. No, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge don't fully tick off every single box in that checklist. But they've done something better: become phones that are more than the collection of their parts.Samsung finally copied the right thing: caring about design.Basically, a good-looking phone that feels great in the hand, crazy fast, good, fast camera, and toned-down TouchWiz.

Since the release of build 10041 for PCs we've continued to make steady progress, and as I said in the blog post with that one weâre working to bring you builds to the Fast ring faster than before. Builds last week were BIG ones for us as well, since "Project Spartan" was integrated into our flighting branch for the first time. That's right, this means that today's release includes the new Project Spartan browser and you'll get to use it for the first time on PCs as it begins to show up across the Windows 10 device family.This is the first Windows 10 preview build with Microsoft's new browser.

A Senate panel plans to investigate whether the White House inappropriately derailed a federal investigation into accusations that Google was stifling online competition.Sen. Mike Lee, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary's Antitrust Subcommittee, plans to contact the Federal Trade Commission, Google, and other online companies to discuss the issue, Emily Long, a spokeswoman for the Utah Republican, said Monday. The subcommittee has no plans yet to hold a hearing on the issue, she said.If this is a genuine inquiry - and not just party politics, Democrats vs. Republicans or vice versa - then I'm all for it. This whole thing looks incredibly shady.

HEVC Advance, another patent licensing group, completely independent from MPEG LA, has announced its existence, but not its licensing fees. The uncertainty and potential costs may hinder acceptance of MPEG's next generation HEVC coding format, also known as h.265.This is good news for Google, who has just released another RC for their VP9 codec and for Xiph.org, who are finalizing their Daala.

I'm not a huge fan of Tim Cook professionally (personally, on the other hand, he seems like a nice guy), but on this one, he's 100% right.There's something very dangerous happening in states across the country.A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law.Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples - even if the Supreme Court strikes down Texas' marriage ban later this year. In total, there are nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law.America is the land of opportunity. Just don't be black, gay, or transgender.

Texas representative John Carter, chairman of the subcommittee on Homeland Security appropriations, and who sits on various other defense-related subcommittees, is hearing about cyber a lot these days. As he put it, "cyber is just pounding me from every direction." That's just the first few seconds of the very entertaining video, where Carter tries to find the right words to express his concern over new encryption standards from Apple and others.You may laugh about this, but... These are the people running the most powerful military of the world.

GNOME 3.16 brings a brand new notification system and updated calendar design, which helps you to easily keep track of whatâs happened, and includes useful information like world times and event reminders. Other features include overlaid scrollbars, updated visuals, improved content views in Files, and a redesigned image viewer.Major additions have also been made to the GNOME developer experience: GTK+ support for OpenGL now allows GTK+ apps to support 3D natively, a new GLib reference counting feature will help with debugging, and GTK+ Inspector has also had a major update.Also released: GNOME Builder, an IDE for GNOME.

Bithell has become one of a growing number of prominent indie game developers known by name after releasing a hit game. New platforms like Steam and iOS have made it easier than ever for a single developer to create a successful game, and sometimes those games really blow up - developers like Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson have become fast millionaires solely off of a single title. But after the elation of a hit game comes a sudden realization: you need to make another one.This is pretty common among artists; the second album is always the hardest.

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was Metro. And then it was Windows 8-style. And then it was Modern. And then it was Windows Store. And then it was Universal. And today, Microsoft has decreed that henceforth these apps - which are all ultimately based on Windows Runtime - will be known as Windows apps.Historically, of course, "Windows apps" (or "Windows programs") referred to standard, Win32-based executables that ran on the Windows desktop. Under the new naming scheme, these Win32 apps will now be called Windows desktop applications. As you can see in the slide above, despite the new nomenclature, the differences between the two types of app remain the same.Microsoft can paint itself red and call itself a girl scout until the pink cows come home, but everyone will still, and will continue to, call them Metro applications.

This is one of the most satisfying projects I have done I think. Mainly because this is a real device and something so historically important. It is a fully functioning Enigma machine you can wear on your wrist. This is a three rotor Enigma machine as used by German Wermacht in WW2 for encoding messages.Way cooler than any Android Wrist or iPhone Mini watch.

The feature phone. Still big in Japan. Still being sold in the millions. Still relevant, though? And does it even matter what a 30-something tech writer at a Western tech site thinks? Japan's large elderly population - people who haven't even heard of Angry Birds, Gmail or Uber - they're the ones sticking to their flip phones. Hardy, easy to use and cheaper than an iPhone. (If you need a primer on the phenomenon of gara-kei, you should probably read up on that here, but in short, it's how Japan's mobile phone market sped ahead with early technologies, then faltered when smartphone competition arrived.) So let's try using one. The best and newest feature phone available in Japan, no less. It's pitched as bringing the best smartphone features to the flip form factor. Is it better than a plain, old smartphone? Good lord, no.

AnandTech reviews the ASUS Zenbook UX305.Overall, even with the knocks against it, this is a heck of a device for just $699. A Core M processor, which allows a fanless and therefore silent device, but still offers good performance, and much more performance than any other CPU which would allow for a fanless design. 8 GB of memory standard. A 256 GB solid state drive standard. A 1920x1080p IPS display, once again standard. ASUS has really raised the bar for what someone can expect in a mid-range device.I honestly cannot believe that you can buy this much laptop for that kind of money these days - and unlike other cheap laptops, this actually isn't a piece of crap, but a proper, all-metal laptop that doesn't look like two stoeptegels slapped together.

I remember a time when I didn't know - or care - what a bezel was. Now, thanks to the efforts of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, I may be able to forget about this component all together. (If you don't already know, it's the metal or plastic bit that surrounds a screen.) A slew of new devices have appeared this month - some leaked, some released officially - all showing companies doing their best to erase the bezel. It's one of the latest trends in smartphone design and has already made its way to the US in the form of the $239 Sharp Aquos Crystal and its infinity pool-like display. Looking at these devices it seems we'll be seeing a lot less edge in future.I'm quite pleased about the bezel disappearing. The bezel is an irrelevant, useless part of displays, and it can be shaved off and removed.

At its WinHEC hardware conference in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft talked about the hardware requirements for Windows 10. The precise final specs are not available yet, so all this is somewhat subject to change, but right now, Microsoft says that the switch to allow Secure Boot to be turned off is now optional. Hardware can be Designed for Windows 10, and offer no way to opt out of the Secure Boot lock down.I am so surprised. The next step, of course, is to ban the disable-secure-boot option altogether. Just like everyone who knows Microsoft predicted.

Apple has seemingly decided to crack down on antivirus and antimalware apps, removing them from the App Store. Although there has been no official statement from Apple on a policy change, Apple's loose guidelines allow them to pull pretty much anything at any time, particularly something like antivirus which has questionable utility within the sandboxed iOS environment of iPhones and iPads.Great move by Apple. Get rid of these scammers. I hope Google follows soon.

According to the report, for one example, Google took content from companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Amazon. In the latter case, Google lifted product rankings and placed them in their own search results for those products. When the companies complained to Google about the process, Google threatened to remove them entirely from results. The Journal quotes this section of the report: "It is clear that Googleâs threat was intended to produce, and did produce, the desired effect, which was to coerce Yelp and TripAdvisor into backing down." The Commission ultimately had Google agree to let websites opt out of the process.And this is one, why the authorities need to keep close tabs on large companies, and two, why the close ties between those same authorities and companies need to be severed as much as possible. Even mere lobbying should be illegal.

The Korean government has finally announced its plans to start removing the troublesome ActiveX software from public websites later this month in order to create a more user-friendly Internet environment.For long, this tech-savvy country has been stuck in a time warp with its slavish dependence on Internet Explorer.ActiveX is an ancient piece of technology that is still prominent in South Korea. It has its multiple problems that sometimes bring down the whole banking system or the public service system every year. The good news is that it will finally be over according to this news.

Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is creating a smartwatch in partnership with American technology firm Google. The watch is an attempt to compete with devices by consumer-electronics makers, particularly the much-hyped watch by Apple. While TAG is the first traditional watchmaker to pair with Google, the partnership could open the door to other collaborations with high-end brands owned by LVMH, including Hublot and Zenith. One of the questions raised by Apple's $10,000 gold smartwatch is whether users will consider it a luxury item, and wear it for status as well as convenience.TAG Heuer is a pretty big player in the classic, mechanical watch market, so this could be pretty big for both Google and classic watchmaking. Imagine a watch with a traditional, mechanical movement and a modern chip and display - stamped with that ever-important Swiss Made. A step closer to my ideal.Unless it's square, of course, because that would be tasteless.

Sure - if you want a fast, well-built, well-equipped 4K laptop preloaded with Ubuntu, with most of the potential edge-case configuration issues already taken care of, with an active set of developers working to ensure that the necessary repos are kept current, and with an actual, for-real OEM warranty and support. The M3800 Developer Edition is what an OEM-loaded Linux laptop should be, and it's got the added bonus of being supported by Barton George and a small, dedicated group of Linux enthusiasts at Dell. Those folks are backed by Dell's significant resources and are in constant contact with Canonical.The value proposition is pretty clear there, but the question is whether or not that value proposition is worth the extra money versus buying a less-expensive base laptop and loading the Linux distro of your choice. There's going to be a lot of overlap between the M3800 Developer Edition's target market and the segment of potential customers who have no problem with just rolling their own Linux installation on a Thinkpad or even on a MacBook. For those folks, how much is it worth to have Dell do the heavy lifting?I guess the problem is this: a machine like this is for developers and enthusiasts. However, developers and enthusiasts have no issues with getting a cheaper model and installing and running Linux themselves. This puts this expensive Dell Linux laptop in a sort of demand limbo - which is sad, because it looks like a great machine.

Stallman expanded and formalized his ideas in the GNU Manifesto, which he published in the March, 1985, issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools, thirty years ago this month. "So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor," he wrote, "I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI Lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away." The nearly forty-five-hundred-word text called for collaborators to help build a freely shareable Unix-like operating system, and set forth an innovative method to insure its legal protection.Stallman is one of the greatest technology visionaries. He will never achieve the popularity status of businessmen like Jobs and Gates, but his contributions to technology - directly and indirectly - are immeasurable.And he was right all along.

Microsoft is putting a big effort into improving trackpad navigation for Windows 10. While Windows 8 introduced new precision trackpads with the help of Intel, Microsoft is building on its previous work by standardizing gestures for laptops that use precision trackpads. Windows 10 will include multi-finger gestures to access new features like the notification center, Cortana, and virtual desktops. Windows trackpads have traditionally been a pain point for laptop owners, and it's something PC makers have largely ignored despite it being the primary input mechanism and key to using a laptop.I've heard this promise so many times from Microsoft and its OEMs, but while improvements have been made, they're simply not even close yet to Apple's trackpads.

The Unicode Consortium has launched a very controversial project known as Han Unification: an attempt to create a limited set of characters that will be shared by these so-called "CJK languages." Instead of recognizing these languages as having their own writing systems that share some common ancestry, the Han unification process views them as mere variations on some "true" form.To help English readers understand the absurdity of this premise, consider that the Latin alphabet (used by English) and the Cyrillic alphabet (used by Russian) are both derived from Greek. No native English speaker would ever think to try "Greco Unification" and consolidate the English, Russian, German, Swedish, Greek, and other European languages' alphabets into a single alphabet. Even though many of the letters look similar to Latin characters used in English, nobody would try to use them interchangeably.Pretty damning explanation of how some of the most popular languages in the world are treated as second class citizens by the Unicode Consortium. Not coincidentally, this consortium is pretty much entirely run by American and European men and (a few) women.

Nintendo finally confirmed today it will be making the leap to mobile game development as part of a new partnership with DeNA.According to a statement released by the companies today, new Nintendo IP will be developed for smart devices and specifically optimized for this platform. In other words, rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS you can expect entirely new titles on mobile.I'm interested to see what Nintendo can do to cope with the inherent limitations of touchscreen gaming.

Neptune is calling its new project the Neptune Suite. At its most basic, it's six different pieces of hardware that Neptune promises will work seamlessly with one another. Yet where every major company with a smartwatch (short of Samsung), has put the heavy lifting on people's smartphones for things like network connectivity and apps, Neptune wants to put it on your wrist.hubIn the middle of it all is a wrap-around, water-resistant smartwatch called "the hub," which has a 2.4-inch capacitive touchscreen, a 3G/LTE modem that works with nano-SIM cards, and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. Joining it are a "pocket screen" and "tab screen," which expand the screen on the hub using super-fast, short-range wireless standard 802.11ad WiGig. Adding to that are three accessories: a keyboard that can turn the tablet into a notebook of sorts; a dongle with HDMI that will let you push what's on your hub to other screens (like Google's Chromecast); and last but not least, a set of wireless headphones.A very interesting idea, but in my view, a misguided one. This idea would work a lot better if the central device wasn't an unwieldy, huge bracelet, but the smartphone. I long for the day my smartphone can replace my PC, connecting to displays and peripherals without ever taking it out of my pocket.

Google Play, Google's marketplace for Android applications which now reaches a billion people in over 190 countries, has historically differentiated itself from rival Apple by allowing developers to immediately publish their mobile applications without a lengthy review process. However, Google has today disclosed that, beginning a couple of months ago, it began having an internal team of reviewers analyze apps for policy violations prior to publication. And going forward, human reviewers will continue to go hands-on with apps before they go live on Google Play.I haven't noticed any slowdowns or complaints from developers so far.

While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan. Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. "We're now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10," said Capossela. "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."The only sensible move. The Internet Explorer name is tainted far, far beyond repair.

Apple Pay itself should, in theory, cut down on fraud because it makes stealing credit card information almost impossible. Each time a transaction takes place, Apple generates the equivalent of a new credit card number so the merchant never actually sees a customer's information.The vulnerability in Apple Pay is in the way that it - and card issuers - "onboard" new credit cards into the system. Because Apple wanted its system to have the simplicity for which it has become famous and wanted to make the sign-up process "frictionless", the company required little beyond basic credit card information about a user. Nor did it provide much information to the banks, like full phone numbers and addresses, that might help them detect fraud early.The banks, desperate to become their customers' default card on Apple Pay - most add only one to their iPhones - did little to build their own defenses or to push Apple to provide more detailed information about its customers. Some bank executives acknowledged that they were were so scared of Apple that they didn't speak up. The banks didn't press the company for fear that they would not be included among the initial issuers on Apple Pay.It seems the Apple Pay fraud is a bit more complex than it just being the banks' fault. This is what happens when one company becomes so big and dominant that everyone else dances to their tunes. We've seen it before in technology, and it seems we are entirely unwilling to learn.In any case, letting a secretive, closed technology company take care of my payments seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do. I much prefer our banks to handle it - they're shady, too, of course, but at least here in The Netherlands, there are at least a lot of government and media eyes focussed on them, and they have far stricter laws and regulations to adhere to than a random technology company.

Windows devices can be lightweight and highly mobile, yet, when you need it, have the full capabilities of the Windows OS. The Windows Storage and Deployment Teams, the people who bring modern storage APIs, Storage Sense, setup, and servicing to your phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop would like to introduce you to how they are giving Windows 10 a compact footprint.Now that Windows runs on all manners of devices - from cheap phones to expensive gaming rigs - Windows' storage footprint is even more important than it already was. I'm glad Microsoft isn't losing sight of these lower-level things while working on Windows 10's user-facing features.That being said, the measures detailed in the blog post look an awful lot like treating the symptoms instead of the actual cause.

Engadget takes a look at the Recreated Sinclair Spectrum.With no embeddable games, the keyboard relies upon existing iOS and Android apps. Elite bundles a free app that launches with a short soundbite of the Spectrum loading sound and offers a number of free games, including exclusive rights to Chuckie Egg, and access to Sinclair BASIC. Other games can be unlocked via 79p ($1) in-app purchases. During my demo, I led Hen-House Harry through a number of levels and the gameplay was exactly like I remember it, as was the tactile feel of the rubberized keyboard. You don't realize just how much you missed those 8-bit soundtracks and super-simple graphics.I love that we live in an age where incredibly niche devices like this can be made and sold.

Exactly 20 years ago today, one of the best - I would argue, the best - video game(s) of all time was released: Chrono Trigger. This Gamastura article from 2012 gives a lot of fantastic insights into the game's complex, modular story.From Mass Effect to Skyrim, modern RPGs go to great lengths to merge linear, carefully crafted narrative with dynamic, emergent gameplay. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours are poured into these incredibly complex works, all in the effort to create a believable, cohesive story while giving players a sense of freedom in the way they play their game. The results of these efforts have been best-loved play experiences video games have offered.But the goal of marrying linear narrative to dynamic gameplay is not out of reach for developers that don't have the resources to create such complex systems. No game shows this better than the classic RPG Chrono Trigger. Crafted by Square's "Dream Team" of RPG developers, Chrono Trigger balances developer control with player freedom using carefully-designed mechanics and a modular approach to narrative.Chrono Trigger is something special, something one-of-a-kind that cannot be replicated. You see its influence in so many games today, and even on its own, despite its age, it can still hold itself up very well next to all the Quadruple Turbo HD Mega Graphics games of today. While Marle (or Nadia in the Japanese version) is my favourite character, it's hard to deny that as far as storyarcs go, Glenn's story is the most heartbreaking and emotional story ever told in 16 bits - and beyond (well - almost beyond).While originally a SNES game, Chrono Trigger is currently available for both iOS and Android.

Google has unveiled its new Chromebook Pixel, and The Verge has its review up.The new Chromebook Pixel is slightly cheaper than its predecessor, at $999, but it's still wildly more expensive than other Chromebooks. It has almost the exact same design as the original, and thus is a beautiful machine. It still runs Chrome OS, which has advanced significantly in the past two years, but not enough to be a real replacement for what you can do on a Mac or a PC.But the improvements in battery life and speed are both huge. When you use it, the dichotomy between what your heart wants and what your brain says is almost bittersweet. It's an amazing laptop that I want to use all the time, but when I really need to do more intensive "computer" things, it's not quite enough.Core i5, 8GB RAM, 12.85" 2560x1700 touchscreen, 12 hours of battery life (The Verge got 14 hours), $999 - but ChromeOS.

While some things about computers are "virtual," they still must operate in the physical world and cannot ignore the challenges of that world. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (one of the most important pioneers in our field, whose achievements include creating the first compiler) used to illustrate this point by giving each of her students a piece of wire 11.8 inches long, the maximum distance that electricity can travel in one nanosecond. This physical representation of the relationship between information, time, and distance served as a tool for explaining why signals (like my metaphorical sign above) must always and unavoidably take time to arrive at their destinations. Given these delays, it can be difficult to reason about exactly what "now" means in computer systems.

Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple's iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the "Jamboree," where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.Outrage something something not surprised exclamation point.