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Alphabet X leak details Project Wolverine super-hearing gadget
The technology would allow you to isolate speech from one speaker among many
It's been a while since we've seen a really out-there device come from Google, along the lines of Project Ara or Google Glass. A new leak from the X division of Google's (technical) parent company Alphabet certainly qualifies. According to the unconfirmed report, "Project Wolverine" is a device that lets the user isolate audio to focus on a specific person or source.
Google has announced that it is re-adopting its Glass division — a longtime staple of Alphabet's moonshot incubator, X — and releasing the first major upgrade to its AR smart glasses product for enterprise customers. With the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 comes beefier components and potentially wider deployment opportunities.
As part of Google's big 2015 reorganization, many of the divisions tucked away inside Google became their own companies under the Alphabet umbrella. For example, the Google X's self-driving car project became Waymo. Now, two more wacky former Google projects are getting the same opportunity. Project Wing and Loon are both becoming Alphabet businesses.
What's that strange feeling? Almost like I've seen a ghost. Oh, Google Glass isn't dead after all? That'll be it. There have been recent signs that the seemingly abandoned experimental wearable might be making a return in one form or another, more than 2 years after the Glass Explorer Program officially ended. The first was an update to the MyGlass app last month, after lying dormant for nearly 3 years. This was followed the next day by a mysterious firmware update making its way to any Glass Explorer Edition units still in use. Google has confirmed that was regular maintenance to the consumer device, and not related to this fresh news about the Glass Enterprise Edition that Alphabet's experimental X subsidiary (formerly Google[x]) has been busy working on for the last two years.
Sony, for a couple of years, was my very favorite smartphone manufacturer. The Z3 was, in my opinion, the best smartphone of its generation. I have since moved on to a Nexus 6P, but my wife still uses my old Z3 and I still miss its epic battery life and water resistance.The Japanese manufacturer has hit a bit of a rough patch the last couple of years, but they are still cranking out phones, and I'd wager some of you readers are still on team Sony, lusting after their hardware.If that's the case, then you really should check out the sale going on over at Amazon today. As part of its daily Gold Box promotion, Amazon has discounted all colors of the Sony Xperia XA, X, and X Performance by 25%. That translates to $199 for the Xperia XA, $349 for the Xperia X, and $499 for the X Performance. Sure, they may just be clearing out inventory for the newer XZ, and X compact, but a deal's a deal, eh?These are easily the best prices that I've seen yet for the Sony handsets and beat the deal we posted a few days back for the Xperia X by a fair margin. Want an unlocked Sony Xperia? Now is a good time to buy one — grab one for yourself by following the links below. The sale expires at the end of the day, so don't procrastinate.
We've been hearing mumbles and whatnot about a new, smaller OnePlus handset called the X for the last few months. Well, it's a real thing, and it's finally official.
Google may have finally unleashed the new YouTube app layout to the world after four months of testing, but that doesn't mean it's done tweaking the YouTube app or testing new design features. The latest tweak-in-testing, after a redundant (and non-standard) share icon is a new X button on the video player.
The Google Glass team announced today, in a post to its Google+ page, that Glass is "graduating from Google[x] labs," presumably still marching toward a "real" consumer launch.
Relative to last year's downpour of Nexus 5 leaks, there's been a bit of a drought in Nexus phone rumors this season. So far, we know that Motorola is expected to have made a large Nexus device codenamed Shamu, which multiple sources have affirmed and which is supposed to share an impressive spec sheet with another device codenamed Quark. This device is supposed to be set for a November release.
We've been hearing a lot about Volantis lately, but what about the other supposed Nexus device - Shamu? Since we originally broke the story back in July (with the Information affirming Shamu's existence soon after) things have been relatively quiet, with only a benchmark test here or there popping up with alleged specs that seemed to point to a smaller device.
A few days ago, it was confirmed that Google had started asking manufacturers to brand boot animations with a specific "Powered by Android" lockup as part of Google's Mobile Services license. Samsung's Galaxy S5 and HTC's new One M8 both carry the branding, and today Motorola's Moto X and Moto G have joined the party, but Motorola has something else in store as well - a new boot animation just in time for April Fools Day. The animation features a UFO, bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster, all exposed by Motorola's spotlight. Check out the full sequence below.
This afternoon, Motorola's Punit Soni shared a post on Google+ to follow up on the company's earlier "more to share soon..." post. Soni's post pointed users toward Motorola Mobility's online upgrade checking interface, which tells users whether or not their Motorola device will be receiving any planned updates.
The leakiest and one of the most mysterious phones in recent history just got a little less mysterious as @evleaks dropped the first official press renders onto our sleepy heads late Friday night. The OS is close to stock (it's Android 4.2.2 for now, but we fully expect 4.3 soon after its release), the cameras are where they're supposed to be, the on-screen buttons make us happy, and overall, it's not such a bad-looker for a mid-spec, affordable device.
Google+ user Дима Прокопенко has just given us a tantalizing, more complete look at the Moto X, posting a Rogers "Tech Experts" demo video that shows off some of the hotly-anticipated device's unique features.
Motorola is rolling out its first ad for its upcoming Moto X tomorrow, one day before Americans kick off Independence Day celebrations. This is no coincidence. Motorola wants its Made-In-The-USA smartphone to stir patriotism in the hearts of consumers across the country. Yet that is just the beginning. Not only is the company pushing the Moto X as the first smartphone designed, engineered, and assembled in the USA, it's calling it the first smartphone that you can design yourself. If you're an American, this statement skips over platitudes of individual liberty and hits you straight in the gut. How can you not want to buy this phone? I'm feeling all kinds of awful for having just dropped so many Benjamins on an HTC One.
"Many people don't realize … the majority of the world is not connected to the internet. How do we get cost-effective, inexpensive, and reliable connectivity to the remaining 5 or 6 billion people who don't have it?"
I have a confession to make: I'm obsessed with wireless portable audio gear. Bluetooth earbuds, headphones, and portable speakers excite me more than they probably should. And I'm OK with that. My wife, however, gives me "the look" every time a new gadget arrives, rolling her eyes so far up her skull she could have easily become a soap opera star or an extra on The Walking Dead. She doesn't get it - she's not a geek who loves to get to the bottom of every feature, spot every miniscule detail, and figure out if we have something special on our hands. She doesn't get why I travel with 4 pairs of headphones and a wireless speaker. And lucky for you, she's not the one reviewing JayBird's latest and greatest Bluetooth earbuds - the BlueBuds X.I've been using the BlueBuds X (BBX) for about 2 months now, which allowed me to test it out in a variety of situations and form an opinion of where it stands compared to some of its competitors, such as the Sony HBH-IS800, Sony Smart Wireless Headset Pro, Sony MW600, and Meelec Air-Fi AF9. I haven't had the pleasure of trying JayBird's previous flagship called the Freedom (Cameron reviewed it back in November of 2011), so unfortunately I can't compare the two outside of pointing out the obvious evolution of design and bud size. But what I can do is break down all the positives and negatives, and let you decide for yourself whether the BlueBuds X is right for you.Let's dig in, shall we?
HTC One X+ Review: A Mid-Cycle Refresh Makes A Great Phone Even Better
The HTC One X was (and still is) a fantastic device thanks to its solid hardware, but thanks to a refresh it's now even better.
The HTC One X was (and still is) a fantastic device thanks to its solid hardware, excellent build quality, and stunning display. But it's a little long in the tooth, partially because the newest high-end smartphones have both quad-core CPUs and LTE, and partially because in the smartphone world, anything that's 7 months old is (unfortunately) outdated.
Earlier today, a couple of rather exciting photos found on Picasa began hitting news sites showing what could be a leaked device called the Sony Nexus X. Of course, during Nexus season, any rumor or glance at a possible new device is always exciting, but sometimes it's worth while to take a step back and consider whether what we're looking at is actually what it appears to be. Our penchant for putting leaked images under the microscope led us to do a bit of investigating.
I had a brief hands-on with HTC's newest Android devices here at MobileCON in San Diego; specifically, the One X+ and One VX, both of which are tied down to AT&T here in the US. And the one you're probably interested in, the One X+, comes in any color you like - as long as it's black.