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Verizon sells off its AOL and Yahoo media properties, including Engadget and TechCrunch
The company lost about four billion dollars after its media push failed
For the last few years, some of the web's most long-running tech media publications have been owned by a giant telecom company. Verizon bought AOL in 2015 and Yahoo in 2017, which meant that websites like Engadget and TechCrunch were under its new Verizon Media umbrella. Today Verizon announced that it's selling off Verizon Media to a holding company, Apollo Global Management. The new organization will go by the old Yahoo name.
Google has been posting versions of most of its first-party apps to the Play Store in an effort to update key features of Android (or at least Google's branded additions to the platform) without having to wait for carriers to push out software apps. According to a report from Engadget, the standard camera app will soon get an upgrade, presumably following the same path. At this point we'll consider this a rumor, since Engadget only cites "sources aware of Google's plans."
HTC and Sprint's EVO 3D, the first three-dimensional handset in the US, won't be available in stores for eight more days - but the early reviews have already started flooding in. And I'll tell you this: they're pretty mixed. Some reviewers, such as LaptopMag's Mark Spoonauer, wholeheartedly enjoyed the device, even going so far as to give it an Editors' Choice award. Others, however, weren't nearly as fond of the phone - Gizmodo, upfront as always, called it "only suitable for shooting yourself in the face." Ouch.
Earlier this week, Sprint sent out an invitation to a special release event at the CTIA WIRELESS 2011 conference later this month. After a less than amazing showing at CES, and the "innovative" move they made with the Echo, Sprint is due for a highly anticipated device to come to their users. Thanks to an anonymous tip received by Engadget (though in no way confirmed or proved credible), you may now start anticipating.
Over the last couple of weeks, there has been quite the uproar over the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's first LTE phone. Most of the talk has been centered around the shipping date, with a rumoured release that slid from February 14th to the 24th to the 28th, then on to March 4th and 10th. After all this anticipation and disappointment, we may finally have a clue as to what is keeping this beast in its pen.
Hot on the heels of the mock-up leak for the PlayStation certified "S1," Engadget has caught wind of another Android-powered Sony tablet currently in the works. Continuing with the theme of wacky design, the device is rumored to be a clamshell-style, dual-touchscreen device. Each display will measure 5.5 inches, and when closed, the device has a cylindrical form factor reminiscent of the giant crayon-shaped calculator I had when I was 5.
One of the few tech blogs who managed to get their hands on Motorola's upcoming AT&T flagship - the Atrix 4G - is, of course, Engadget. The reviewer, unsurprisingly, is the infamous cool geek and editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, who, from my experience reading Engadget's reviews, does a good overall job but fails to go into those details that matter to most Android users. The Atrix 4G review is exactly what I had expected, and I'm going to summarize it and save you 20 minutes reading it.
A leaked ad from Best Buy shows that the Motorola XOOM will be priced at $799.99. It also confirms rumours that the tablet will be available in-store from February 24th.
Engadget was lucky enough to get its hands on a prototype of Sony's much-anticipated PlayStation Phone (believed to launch as the Xperia Play), and while not everything on the unit they got was finalized (Wi-Fi was completely broken), it does give us a pretty good idea of what to expect when the phone officially launches.
Having long been rumored, Hulu Plus for Android was finally confirmed during Samsung's press conference at CES. During the Keynote, Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar demoed the app running on the Samsung Galaxy S, announcing, for the first time, that the subscription service was being developed for Android.
Sony Ericsson has announced its first of a "new generation" of Xperia smartphones, christened the Xperia arc. The super-slim device measures 8.7 mm at its thinnest point and weighs just 117 grams. It packs:
Earlier today, Engadget posted a pretty sensationalist article (now deleted) implying that Gingerbread OTA updates are being streamed down to Nexus One device owners. Since I haven't seen a single confirmation yet, I grew more and more skeptical. To put an end to all rumors, Google's own Reto Meier just sent out a tweet refuting any OTA rumors and putting the Gingerbread update timeline as "in a few weeks":
Yesterday, Engadget got some hands-on time with the brand new HTC Sense upgrade that will debut on the Desire HD and the Desire Z. It will support all kinds of crazy stuff we've been waiting for like remote wiping, phone location, and backing up to and restoring data from HTCSense.com. Another cool feature is map pre-caching, which means that the phone will have pre-loaded maps on it.