Cricket calls up $200 ZTE Grand X Max for October 10
Cricket Wireless on Tuesday announced the upcoming launch of its next smartphone, the ZTE Grand X Max. Scheduled to touch down on Friday, October 10, the handset features a massive 6-inch display and 3200mAh battery. The handset runs Android 4.4 KitKat and packs a 1.2GHz quad-core Snadpdragon processor, 8GB internal storage, and an 8-megapixel rear camera.
Indeed, there’s an awful lot happening here when you consider the price tag is only $200. Per the press release we received this morning, ZTE is now the 2nd largest brand in prepaid, 3rd largest Android manufacturer and 4th largest smartphone brand in the U.S.
Cricket offers a $100 bill credit for anyone who jumps from T-Mobile or MetroPCS before October 19. What’s more, a separate promotion sees the carrier tossing in more data for the money on the Basic, Smart, and Pro Plans.
Deals, Discounts, Freebies, and More! Click here to save today!
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Samsung Profits Tumble as Apple Enters Large-Screen Phone Market and Low-End Options Thrive
Samsung’s third quarter 2014 earnings are likely to disappoint as the company faces intense competition from both high-end and low-end competitors, even as Apple’s newly launched iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are just starting to roll out. According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung is expected to announce a quarterly operating profit drop of up to 62 percent in what may be its fourth consecutive quarterly decline.
Though it may see a marginal increase in smartphone shipments, Samsung’s operating profit decline may be the result of lower handset selling prices and increased marketing costs as smartphone competition escalates.
Samsung’s smartphone business is facing intense competitive pressure at the low-end from Chinese handset makers, and at the high-end from the iPhone. With the iPhone 6, Apple essentially wiped out Samsung’s distinguishing feature: a big screen size. And with the jumbo iPhone 6 Plus, Apple has now entered into the “phablet” segment that Samsung pioneered.
Samsing's handset revenue is forming an uncomfortable trend. Squeezed from above & below even before iPhone 6/6 Plus pic.twitter.com/npOE9PS83U
— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) October 7, 2014
While its mobile device division struggles, Samsung’s components business is expected to increase 10 percent over the coming year, accounting for more than 40 percent of operating profits in 2015.
One of Samsung’s main component customers is Apple, although the iPhone maker has cut back significantly on its usage of Samsung parts. One major move away from Samsung came with the main A8 chip used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, with Apple turning to TSMC for the first time for chip production. Some industry sources believe Samsung to still be producing a portion of A8 chips, but so far it does not appear any have been seen in teardowns of the new devices.
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NVIDIA’s Maxwell architecture brings desktop-class performance and improved battery life to notebooks
Read through NVIDIA’s Maxwell desktop GPU announcement, and you might think you were looking at a feature set designed for laptops: lower power consumption, new anti-aliasing technology and a downsampling feature that can force any monitor to display 4K content. It sounds almost like a dream feature set for a portable gaming machine and, well NVIDIA agrees — today it’s officially launching the GeForce GTX 980M and 970M GPUs.
If you didn’t read up on the company’s flagship GPU announcement, let us break it down for you: NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs are all about power efficiency with a hint of overkill graphics performance on the side. This is a combination of lower performance per watt, and implementing new technologies like Multi-Frame Sample Anti-Aliasing, the aforementioned technology that promises to boost performance by as much as 30-percent with no visual concessions. NVIDIA says it’s also made significant gains with its BatteryBoost feature, which limits in-game framerates and balances system performance to boost on-battery play time by 20 to 30-percent.
As for that side of performance, well, not only do the new GPUs promise to perform better without being plugged into a wall outlet, but Maxwell’s new Dynamic Super Resolution (NVIDIA’s branded and optimized downsampling solution) is designed to put 4K-quality content on lower resolution screens. It’s kind of like lying to your computer’s monitor: the game is rendering itself at a 4K resolution and is filtered down to your laptop’s native 1080p display.
NVIDIA’s new chips (and new GPU features) will be available in NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M and 970M-equipped laptops, starting today. Machines rocking the new hardware can be had from all the usual suspects: MSI’s GT72 and GS60 will have it, for instance, as well as the ASUS G751, Gigabyte Aorus X7 and the Clevo P150 (which will likely be rebranded under Origin PC or Maingear flags). How do these machines perform in practice? We’ll let you know as soon as one crosses our review desk.
Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, NVIDIA
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‘Super Smash Bros.’ coming to Wii U on November 21st
The launch of a new Super Smash Bros. game for the first time in six years on 3DS was great news, but it left us wondering: when the heck is it coming to Wii U? Luckily, Nintendo has quickly answered that question. It’ll arrive to the big console on November 21st in North America for $59.99, and in the UK on December 5th for £39.99 (see the new game trailer below). Being Nintendo, there’s more, of course. You’ll be able to pick up a set of 12 Amiibo figures for $12.99 (with six more coming by December) and even use a GameCube to control your Wii U too, thanks to a $19.99 adapter. In fact, if you want the whole shebang — GameCube, Super Smash Bros. and the adapter — Nintendo’s also offering the complete bundle for $100.
Source: Nintendo
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The secret to this interactive hologram tech is water vapor
It’s 2014 and while we don’t have flying cars just yet it looks like interactive holographic displays could be a reality rather soon. The not-so-cleverly-named Leia Display System (LDS) uses a combination of light, water-vapor and air to provide a transparent canvas for projected images while sensors track movement and touch inputs from users. The videos we’ve embedded below show all manner of poking and prodding by users, a bit of Minority Report-style pinching and zooming things in mid-air and even using gestures to rotate and flick stuff out of the way. There’s even a sample with a Mercedes sedan driving through the curtain and it “shattering” around the vehicle as it passes through.
As of now, the screens come in 95cm x 65cm (roughly 37 inches by 25 inches) and 3m x 2.5m (around 10 foot by 8 foot) versions, with the latter able to be linked with other displays for an even bigger installation. The tech’s Polish creator says that the LDS mostly has been requested for use in digital signage and advertising so far, but that it gets “non-standard” use requests pretty regularly. Here’s to hoping that we see it used for more than just shilling products in the near future — let’s save that for Michael Jackson, okay?
Filed under: Displays, Software
Source: Leia Display
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Lithium Card: Last chance at wallet-sized power, ends today $39.99 [Deal of the Day]
Who hasn’t been out and about when that dreaded low-battery indicator begins blinking and sucks the life out of whatever you were previously engaged in? Leave the action-hero life of feverishly analyzing your surroundings for the nearest electrical outlet behind and throw some portable power in your pocket!
The Lithium Card is a wallet-sized charging solution that’s roughly the thickness of 5 credit cards. Employing HyperCharging technology, the Lithium Card allows you to refill your device at the rate of about one-percent per minute. With 1200mAh of capacity and an ultra-thin design, the Lithium Card could be the new must-have for every wallet or purse. LinearFlux has slashed the price by 27 percent which means AndroidGuys readers can snag this for just $39.99.
Check this deal out, and many others at deals.androidguys.com!
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Microsoft’s Project Spark game creator comes to Xbox One and PC
If you enjoy the creative part of building games but not so much the coding, Microsoft’s Project Spark is now available for Xbox One and PC (Windows 8.1 only). That marks the end of a six month beta period that saw over a million testers create 70,000 game levels, according to Microsoft. As a reminder, Spark lets you build games with relative ease by using onscreen tools to add monsters, geography, game dynamics and logic. You can also use a Kinect HD on either platform to capture your own movements and facial expressions for game characters. Download it now for Windows 8.1 and Xbox One for free, or as Microsoft helpfully suggested, buy a starter disk with content for $39.99. Otherwise, fresh content has to be earned during gameplay or by purchasing tokens.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Xbox
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UK prosecutors say posting revenge porn can lead to 14 years in prison
In a bid to crack down on the sharing of “revenge porn,” UK prosecutors have warned that the most severe cases can come with a 14-year spell behind bars. According to new guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), explicit images that are sent to force victims into sexual activity or humiliate a former partner can break sex offense laws (and possibly even child protection regulations), allowing prosecutors to seek longer sentences for offenders. In the past, many cases were tried under obscenity laws, which come with softer punishments and also need to meet a “public interest threshold” that gauges the impact of the offense.
Although the sharing of images can be damaging in itself, they are often accompanied by personal information such as a victim’s name, social media profiles and address. While no new laws have come into place, the CPS is clarifying existing legislation so that the public, and those intent on humiliating their former partners, “can now see clearly that this is a crime that can and will be prosecuted.”
[Image credit: jhaymesisvip, Flickr]
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile
Via: The Telegraph
Source: Crown Prosecution Service
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Toshiba’s new android ’employee’ uses sign language, speaks Japanese
Toshiba’s newest hire (of sorts) is called Aiko Chihara — and she’s manning a reception desk at the company’s booth at CEATEC 2014 in Japan. Oh, and she’s silcone-coated robot. Interaction isn’t in her repertoire just yet — a Toshiba spokesman said that it was certainly a possibility in the future — as Aiko only came into being last month. There’s 15 actuators inside the head for expression, while yet more are paired with air compressor to give (unerringly) smooth motion to the arms and hands. Toshiba collaborated with several universities, including Osaka University, to develop the robot and its sign language skills are geared for Japanese (with voice commands narrating along with it). While the bot is lifelike and fluid, there’s no intelligence to speak of: actions are all preprogrammed. The company says that there are also plans to teach Aiko American Sign Language in the future, as well as hoping to install the android and its (sign) language skills at other exhibitions and shows in the near future — something that a handful of other robots are already being tasked with. We’ve got video-based glimpse of the uncanny valley right after the break.
Filed under: Robots
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Apple Opening New Retail Store in Venice, Italy This Saturday, October 11 [Mac Blog]
Apple today announced on its website (via Setteb.it) that it will be opening a new retail store in Venice, Italy this Saturday, October 11. The store will be located in Venice’s Nave de Vero shopping center, which spans multiple floors and hosts over 100 stores.
Image credit: The Apple Lounge
Apple put up its traditional black barrier at the location earlier this year, as some pictures have shown the location occupying a large space on the shopping center’s larger floor. The new location will be Apple’s 15th in Italy, joining stores in Rimini, Florence, and Bologna.
At store openings, Apple usually hands out commemorative T-shirts to the first 1,000 customers to visit. Apple’s new store in Venice opens at 10 A.M. this Saturday, and the location has begun accepting reservations for workshops and Genius Bar appointments.
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AIVAnet 