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Andy Rubin's Essential launched its first phone in 2017, and it turns out that will be its only phone. After making some news last year with the bizarre Project GEM prototype, Essential has now announced that it won't be releasing that device or any other. Essential will shut down, effective immediately.
Four Samsung Galaxy Fold review units in the hands of major US tech journalists all experienced device-breaking display failures today. Steve Kovach of CNBC, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, and Dieter Bohn of The Verge have reported major failures of their phones' display panels, just two days after receiving them. To say this is a disaster for Samsung is probably underselling it. Well-known YouTuber MKBHD claims to be having similar problems, but hasn't posted any images (update: he has, see below). Bohn and Kovach claim their displays failed without removing the panel's protective film (Samsung says not to take it off), but both Gurman and Brownlee did remove it and hypothesized that it led or contributed to the failures.
The KEYone is the first QWERTY BlackBerry phone manufactured by TCL. Despite having a great deal of software problems at launch, many owners enjoy simply having a modern keyboard smartphone. However, the original batch of devices were not very durable (to say the least), but BlackBerry and TCL have been working to fix that.
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- The G Suite Status Dashboard has been updated with the below statement:
Did you think Google's intentional downgrade OTA for the Nexus 6 from yesterday was bad? Google appears to be on a mission to break as many products as possible, and next up is the Google Drive client for Windows.
There have been rumors, speculation, hints in Hangouts updates, and now finally Google Voice is being rolled into Hangouts. The Hangouts app is offering to enable Voice SMS and voicemail via a popup in the conversation list. So check your app now!
A crystal clear 7-minute video of the Nexus 5 (I think we can accept that's going to be the name at this point) was just leaked on the web. It's an older build than the one leaked by TuttoAndroid yesterday, but look - it's the Nexus 5 hardware in the clearest shots we've seen yet! smartphones.sfr.fr appears all over it, so the full credit for this leak goes out to them.
Google has just announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The search giant will be paying $40 per share, a premium of 63% from the closing price of Motorola's shares from last Friday. The actual acquisition is expected to take place in late 2011 or early 2012 pending regulatory approvals.
Update #1: Skype is investigating the issue, we've been told.
If you, like me, are constantly checking what's going on in the world of technology, science, world news, entertainment, gaming, music, and a million other things - on top of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, have I got an app for you. Picture, if you will, an Android app that will aggregate all of these news feeds and your social media streams into a cohesive and, quite frankly, sexy interface. You just imagined My Taptu, my new favorite news reader.
Whoa! Only a few hours after sending out a notification about a big Market maintenance, Google sneakily updated the Market publishing interface with a variety of new options, pointing to nothing less than an updated Market likely to launch very soon, probably together with Gingerbread. The presence of higher resolution graphics underscores Google's newly embraced support for tablets and TVs, and possibly suggests that Market web interface we've been waiting for since Google I/O is finally around the corner.
After months and months of waiting for a voice-enabled Skype to be out on Android and giving Verizon users an evil eye for that exclusive deal Skype signed with the largest US carrier, I am here to tell you that less than 2 hours ago, Skype officially hit the Market. This time, the long-awaited app is no longer restricted to Verizon, so download away (Android 2.1+ required)!
A video has come to our attention the shows just how harshly you can treat the Motola Defy. It can take all the Hulk-smashings that inevitably result from using Motoblur for more than 10 minutes - in addition to being flushed down a toilet when you're done.
For one of the first phones out with a Snapdragon, this sure has been some time coming. Over at the MoDaCo Android forum, poster LIQUID_USER managed to obtain what he has described as a “very early build” for Acer’s 3.5”, Éclair-running slate. Despite this somewhat unofficial status, the build Acer_LiquidF_0.007.00_EMEA-GEN1_05.01.01) is said to be quite stable, with most device functions working as normal, including wireless tethering and Adobe Flash.
Folks, we have a Nexus One. We also have Froyo. In fact, we have the two mixed together in the most delicious frozen-yogurty Android 2.2 kind of way you can imagine.
Farewell rumors, hello solid information! Verizon has just put out a press release nailing down some details on the HTC Droid Incredible. We're all well acquainted with the stats by now, but we were unaware of the potential release date or price.