As you may already know, we, as reviewers, tend to get our hands on numerous smartphones throughout the year simply due to the nature of our job. So while we technically don’t have daily drivers in the traditional sense, my definition of a daily driver is the phone that I always return to once I’m done with a review of another device. In that sense, my daily driver for the foreseeable future is the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, and here are five reasons why.
Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that a warrant is required for cell phone location tracking since someone’s cell phone location data is included as part of a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.
In the case, the police used data from cellular providers to catch armed robbers. The police did not get a warrant and instead obtained a court order which instead of requiring ‘probable cause‘ is obtained if there is ‘reasonable grounds to believe” that the information is relevant to such investigation.
We continue to makes the rounds at IFA, getting all the best video coverage possible. Now we’ve had a little time with the new Ascend Mate 7, a 6-inch flagship from Huawei that offers pretty solid specs including their in-house Kirin octa-core processor.
Design wise, the phone has an attractive and sleek metal construction with lines that give it a nice profile. The phone is very thin at 7.9mm and it really feels great in the hands and is still pretty easy to grip despite the phone’s overall size — though obviously one-handed use my be a little difficult as you’d expect.
The up and coming Chinese manufacturer Oppo has made a name for itself with the Find 5, a sleek piece of technology combining high-end specifications with a fresh take on Android.
With the newly launched N1, Oppo builds and extends on the foundation it laid with the Find 5. The device features great hardware, a unique swiveling camera, and a rear mounted touchpad. And, while the 5.9-inch device is impressive on its own, it has a special claim to fame: it’s the first smartphone to ship with CyanogenMod on board, the Android-based operating system developed by Cyanogen Inc.
Making a catch phrase that sticks and good product placement are some of the best ways to market your product. One could say that Apple has this down to an art. In this case, Apple has dubbed the iPhone 5 as “the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone.” The iPhone 5 is lighter and slimmer than its predecessors, packs a larger screen with Retina Display, and runs on Apple’s newest A6 chip.
After two not-so-successful attempts with the Padfone and Padfone 2, Asus is hoping that its next smartphone and tablet hybrid, the Padfone Infinity, will gain a better traction in the market. Following its official unveiling last February at MWC 2013, the first big test for the Infinity is coming.
As reported by Focus Taiwan, the Padfone Infinity will arrive in stores in Taiwan starting tomorrow on March 26. Although the price hasn’t been disclosed yet, the device(s) will be offered by three major mobile operators in the country.
Samsung has really been leaning hard on their mobile payment service lately. Earlier this month, they announced that they’re rolling the service out to Australia, Singapore, Brazil, the UK, Spain, and China. Also, we’re expecting Samsung Pay to be available for online payments sometime this year. Now, a new commercial starring comedian Hannibal Buress has arrived that showcases how widely the service can be used.
The heft of the ad relies a little bit on you being familiar with Katz’s Deli, a renowned New York City delicatessen that has a reputation for being a little luddite.
TL;DR
TAG Heuer has announced the Connected Modular 41, a smaller sequel to its Modular 45 from last year. The device features a host of customization options, including a quick mechanism for changing from Android Wear to an analog module. It’s available now starting at $1200. TAG Heuer, the Swiss manufacturer of luxury accessories, has been one of the more interesting players in the Android smartwatch market. The company released the TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 last year, a premium watch offering hundreds of customization options and digital-or-mechanical modules.
The Kirin 980 chipset powering the Huawei Mate 20 series looks like an AI powerhouse, offering big machine learning improvements on paper over last year’s chipset.
The company upped the ante with the Kirin 980, bringing two NPUs to the chip —one more than the Kirin 970. According to Huawei, the setup boosts image recognition performance 120 percent.
Apparently, one NPU is dedicated to “vast AI computing,” while the other tackles “specific tasks.
Duolingo is one of the most popular language learning apps in the world, providing free access to tons of language courses with an engaging “gamified” experience. It’s already brilliant, featuring on our best language apps list, but it had until now been lacking the world’s most prevalent language: Mandarin.
This was added to the Duolingo app yesterday, following the introduction of a couple of other Asian languages earlier this year (Duolingo received support for Japanese in May and Korean in September).