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Nest Labs, the home automation company behind the well-known smart thermostat, smoke detector, and other smart products, has just sent out press invitations to a "big announcement" on September 20 in San Francisco. This comes after just having announced the Thermostat E earlier today, which boasts a lower price tag and cleaner design.
The unfortunate tale of the Galaxy Note7 has been a long one. Shortly after the release of the Note7, reports of the phone catching fire began to materialize, and before long Samsung started a global recall. Samsung sent affected users a "safe" model with the problem supposedly fixed, and later began selling it on retail channels, only for that to start exploding as well.
HTC has something new coming. It's probably a phone, or at least something phone-adjacent, though the company has made a few interesting tangents in the last few years. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be shown off on January 12th. Exactly where and when hasn't been disclosed - HTC sent us the image above and a brief snippet of text, with no city or venue to go along with it. Presumably we'll be getting that information sometime in the next three weeks.
Last week a report surfaced alleging that Samsung recruited and paid "temporary employees" to attend its Galaxy S6 launch event in China. The Paper, based in Shanghai, claimed that the company hired 400 to 500 people for 30 to 50 yuan (about $8) each to spend time at the launch event on Friday. If true, then paid attendees would have amounted to approximately half of the people there. Samsung has categorically denied the report on the Samsung Tomorrow blog and claimed that the original newspaper has retracted the story.
If you're wondering what NVIDIA has been working on for the last few months, you'll only have to wait a few more weeks to find out. The gaming and graphics company has sent invitations to technology press, including Android Police, for a presentation on March 3rd in San Francisco. According to the email, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be demonstrating something "5 years in the making" that will "redefine the future of gaming."
Dedicated gadget geeks will be aware of Xiaomi, a huge player in the Chinese smartphone market. In fact the company has become so big (and become big so quickly) that it's now the third-largest smartphone maker in the world by volume, more or less on the strength of the expanding userbase in China alone. But most other people in the west, even those who know the major players of the smartphone market, might not even know the company exists. Xiaomi wants to change that.
Oh selfies, how I loathe thee. You democratized and bastardized descendants of the self-portrait, you brothers of the awkward meal photo, you poorly-angled posers, you absolute scourge of social media. But alas, I appear to be in the minority, at least if the increasing focus on this hated term is anything to go by. You can't blame the manufacturers for making "selfie cams" - they're just giving the people what they want. And HTC is poised to do just that in New York City next month.
LG didn't do much of a job keeping the flagship G3 under wraps - pretty much every detail has been leaked in some capacity before today. But the press event in London made it official and laid the phone bare for all to see. LG's headliner for 2014 bests headliners from both Samsung and HTC with a 5.5", 2560x1440 screen boasting a DPI of 538. Unfortunately the oh-so-shiny case is only "metallic" (read: plastic), and not true metal like the HTC One family.
I'll wager that you haven't been to an action movie in the last two years without a trailer blaring great farting blasts of brass at you over quick cuts and helicopter shots. If it works for Hollywood, perhaps LG hopes it will work for Seoul. The company is teasing its upcoming G3 flagship in no uncertain way with a new teaser, no doubt intended to whet the appetites of gadget hounds before the press event on May 27th.
Despite the behind-the-scenes drama with Google and Lenovo, Motorola has been on a roll when it comes to hardware. The Moto X, Moto G, and Verizon's 2013 DROIDs are all well-regarded, so naturally people are wondering what's coming next. We'll find out in a little less than two weeks: Motorola will show off its next smartphone in London on May 13th.
Samsung Announces 'Kapture The Moment' Press Event For April 29th, New Galaxy Zoom Hardware Expected
Samsung has a press event up its sleeve for later this month, announced via the Samsung Tomorrow blog. As usual, there's not a lot of information contained in the invitation itself: it'll be at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore at 11 AM, which will be 11 PM Eastern Time here in the States. The tagline for the event is "Kapture the Moment," complete with intentional spelling mistake.
Mega-retailer Amazon has scheduled a press event for Wednesday, April 2nd in New York City. The press invitation teases the event with the phrase, "Please join us for an update on our video business from [Amazon Kindle VP] Peter Larsen." A background with a couch and a bowl of popcorn makes it clear that Amazon's sights are set squarely on the living room.