South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Friday announced the availability NFC TecTile 2 tags that are compatible with the company's new Galaxy S4 smartphone.

Samsung's TecTile tags are small NFC (near field communication) stickers which can be easily programmed to execute certain tasks on a smartphones and other mobile devices when the device is brought into contact with them.

read more

Fights back in ongoing antitrust case over e-book price-fixing, Apple has alleged publishers had taken measures like windowing - a practice of postponing releases of e-books to benefit sales of hardcover editions, as early as 2009.

In a filing before the Court for the Southern District of New York, the Cupertino-based tech giant also said that the publishers had also followed in 2009 an agency model to sell e-books, in which the publisher used to set the price range and the retailer would act as an agent and receive a commission on sale of each copy of an e-book.

read more

Recon Instruments has come up with Google Glass-like heads-up display glasses called Recon Jet.

Recon Instruments demonstrate the Jet at Google's annual I/O conference in San Francisco.

Almost identical in size to the Google Glass, the Recon Jet has been designed keeping the sports crowd in mind. It shows the user statistics of my speed and altitude in various sports. The company didn't name any sport to be targeted by the Jet, but many people who donned the glasses at the conference said that it would be perfect for skiing and skydiving.

read more

Amazon, one of the world's leading sellers of both e-readers and tablets, has confirmed that it has hit a deal with Samsung to acquire display manufacturer Liquavista.

Liquavista makes use of electrowetting technology to produce colour displays for portable media players and e-readers.

Confirming the deal, Amazon said, "We are always looking for new technologies we may be able to incorporate into our products. The Liquavista team shares our passion for invention and is creating exciting new technologies with a lot of potential."

read more

The much-awaited Nokia Lumia 928 Windows Phone has now been officially announced by Verizon Wireless; with the carrier revealing that the handset will be available from May 16.

According to the Verizon announcement, the upfront cost of the Lumia 928 - the latest handset in Nokia's Lumia series - will be $150, with a $50 mail-in rebate, and a two-year service contract.

Some of the most impressive features of the attractive-looking Lumia 928, which boasts sharp lines and a slim profile, include a big 4.5-inch AMOLED screen at 1280-by-768 resolution; a Snapdragon S4 processor;

read more

A CNET report has disclosed that tech giant Apple is apparently flooded with demands from police officials to decrypt seized iPhones, so much so that the company has recently created a "waiting list" to tackle the deluge of iPhone decryption requests.

According to court documents, the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man, who was accused of distributing crack cocaine, stymied the federal agents so much that they sought Apple's help in decrypting the handset, last year.

read more

Micro-blogging site Twitter on Thursday announced its latest acquisition -- Ubalo, a startup that offers various services aimed at accelerating the coding process.

Ubalo calls its chief technology as "pods" that may contain code, data and any other files required to support a developer's app.

The startup works on simple ways of scaling code beyond single machines. Ubalo allows developers to write code for multiple machines without any additional overhead, with the help of same tools, languages and libraries that they typically used for single-computers apps.

read more

Software giant Microsoft has announced its plans to make enhancements and additions in Office Web Apps, the browser-based version of the company's popular Office suite, within the next twelve months.

The Redmond-based software firm said that their main objective behind making the planned enhancements in the Office Web Apps was to enable users to create polished Office documents from the very start to finish, all from the Web.

The new features will enable real-time co-authoring of documents as well as of the apps in Android tablets through mobile Chrome browser support.

read more

Two popular apps for windows Phone, viz. YouTube and Foursquare, yesterday received major updates.

The update issued by Microsoft gave a new look to popular video-sharing website YouTube, in addition to a number of new features. The list of new features that update for Windows Phone 8 version of YouTube has brought includes the ability to pin videos, channels, playlists, and searches to the Start screen as Live Tiles and a new playlist design.

read more

Intel Corp., the world's largest chipmaker, has promoted its Chief Operating Officer Brian Krzanich to the top post of CEO.

Intel announced that Mr. Krzanich would replace Paul Otellini on May 16. Mr. Otellini announced his surprising decision to step down from the top post nearly six month back. Mr. Otellini has been with the company for nearly four decades, including eight years as CEO.

read more

CenturyLink Inc, the incumbent phone firm in Omaha, has announced that it would provide nearly 48,000 homes and businesses in West Omaha with Internet speeds of up to one Gigabit per second (1Gbps) under a pilot high-speed fiber network initiative.

The Internet speed of 1Gbps is around 100 times faster than average broadband speeds in the state.

The company claimed that it new service would allow subscribers to download high-definition (HD) movies in seconds and also provide them with instant access to cloud services and apps on demand.

read more

Infrastructure software providers Novell and NTP Software on Tuesday announced their entry into the crowded enterprise file sharing market by unveiling their own versions of file sharing services for mobile devices.

Novell named its file sharing service as Filr, while NTP called it Universal File Access.

Novell's file sharing service Filr has been designed to be deployed as an on-premise solution. It stores files on a firm's internal network. It also boasts global search capabilities across the enterprise.

read more

The much-awaited Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock has finally become available for purchase for $299.99.

The Mac accessory, which was unveiled in January 2012, provides users with instant access to a total of eight ports by connecting merely one high-speed Lightning cable to their Mac computer.

As per Belkin's claims, the Thunderbolt's high speed enables users to download a high-definition (HD) feature film in just 30 seconds, or sync one year's worth of constant music in just 10 minutes.

read more

Technology giant IBM on Monday announced the launch of a new appliance that can manage data from a great number of mobile devices and sensors.

Designed keeping the auto, traffic management, healthcare, home appliance, oil & gas industries in mind, the IBM MessageSight appliance is based on the MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) technology.

read more

Microsoft is considering cleaner and trendy logos for its various brands like Xbox, Skype and Bing.

The announcement about Microsoft's plans to introduce new logos, Windows Phone design studio GM Albert Shum and Wolff Olins creative director Todd Simmons at the Design Day 2013 Event, which recently took place in Norway.

The duo discussed the Redmond-based software giant's efforts to renovate its design identity. Mr. Simmons indicated that Microsoft products like Xbox, Skype and Bing would see new logos soon.

read more

South Korean electronics giant LG has announced the launch of the Optimus F5 smartphone in France, and said several other markets, including Commonwealth of Independent States, South & Central America and Asia will get the new handset over the coming few weeks.

The Optimus F Series is family of Android OS-based smartphones that boasts LTE connectivity as well as affordability. The F5 handset features a 4.3-inch IPS display, 1.2 GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor and a 2,150 mAh battery.

read more

In a bid to attract more and more customers, Tesla Motors on Friday announced a series of new perks for owners of its electric sedan Tesla Model S.

The company announced battery warranty for eight years. It said if the Model S electric car's battery pack fails for any reason apart from deliberate abuse, the owners of the car would be able replace the battery free of charge for eight years.

read more

Digital Storm has claimed that its newly launched PC gaming system, the Vanquish, has put an end to claims that the DIY (do-it-yourself) route is better than pre-built systems.

The company claimed that the Vanquish line of gaming PCs has considerably narrowed the gap between costs of pre-built systems and the systems created through the DIY route.

Ina statement, Digital Storm said, "The Vanquish line narrows that gap to a mere $23-$58 difference making the difference a no brainer -- DIY is simply not worth the hassle."

read more

Finnish handset maker Nokia on Wednesday introduced the world to its the Asha 210, Windows Phone handset that boasts QWERTY keyboard equipped with a dedicated hard key for SMS rival WhatsApp.

The Asha 210 comes preloaded with WhatsApp, and the dedicated key in the QWERTY keyboard of the handset provides users with direct access to the free messaging service.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton said they were focused on delivering the best free messaging experience to the maximum possible number of people.

read more

Rumors are flying that Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc may fire its CEO Tim Cook and fill the vacant position with a more dynamic leader.

The latest rumblings came from Wall Street reports that the iPhone-maker may be looking to shake-up its top management.

On Sunday, columnist Gene Marcial claimed that sources told him that a move like replacing Tim Cook was afoot, but then he conceded that there was no available evidence that the tech giant's board was officially in such a game-changing mode.

read more