Consumer Electronics Wins

First, the hardware. Square’s new Credit Card Reader is familiar, but refined. Although it’s larger than before, a 1” by 1” rounded square isn’t big by any means. The glossy white plastic box, flat on the back with a depressed square pattern on the front, is about as thick as […] Read the original post…

Jawbone has released Era ($130), an updated version of its 2011 Bluetooth headset. The new Era is being billed as “the smallest, lightest, most comfortable” headset made by Jawbone. Its NoiseAssassin technology eliminates background noise. Era offers up to four hours of talk time, which can be doubled with use […] Read the original post…

Like other co-molded cases, Symmetry Series is rubber on the inside and plastic on the outside. Although it’s not difficult to install, we did find the phone catching on the case’s bottom edge every time we put it on. It takes just a few seconds of tugging to get everything […] Read the original post…

Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson said in a CNBC interview that “the greatest innovation in the world today right now is coming from Google.” While Isaacson called Apple’s China Mobile agreement “a big deal,” he said Google’s acquisition of Nest was more important, saying, “I think this shows an amazingly […] Read the original post…

Jawbone has released Era ($130), a new Bluetooth headset. Era is being billed as “the smallest, lightest, most comfortable” headset made by Jawbone. Its NoiseAssassin technology eliminates background noise. Era offers up to four hours of talk time, which can be doubled with use of its charging case. An app […] Read the original post…

Not every new hard drive shown off at the 2014 CES was a crazy expensive piece of art. Take Seagate’s much more standard looking Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive ($270). At a little over half the price, it delivers four times the storage. That’s right, this portable hard drive packs […] Read the original post…

Coming in at a surprisingly high price, PureGear’s PureMove Armband ($50) is compatible with not only the iPhone 5/5s, but also iPhone 5c. The hard plastic shell is augmented with shock-absorbing foam both inside and out, making it protective for your phone and comfortable on your arm. Volume button protection […] Read the original post…

Apple has settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over in-app purchase disclosures, a new email from Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals. The email, posted by 9to5Mac, finds Cook explaining at length steps Apple has taken to make in-app purchases safer for customers with younger children. Cook also took issue […] Read the original post…

iPhone keyboard cases aren’t a total novelty. The earliest models came out at the end of 2010 — ThinkGeek’s TK-421 Mobile Keyboard Case doesn’t look anything like Typo, but offered similar functionality. After that, there were sliders, including NUU’s MiniKey, among others. None were set up in portrait orientation, though, […] Read the original post…

Apple CEO Tim Cook played up the importance of the company’s recent China Mobile deal in a recent press briefing in Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reports. China Mobile will start selling the iPhone 5s and 5c on Friday. “As of this weekend we will be selling iPhones in more […] Read the original post…

VirnetX, the patent holding company which successfully sued Apple for infringing its VPN patents in FaceTime in 2012, has added more Apple devices to its pending patent infringement lawsuit. As announced by VirnetX, the holding company is now adding the iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display, iPhone 5s, iPhone […] Read the original post…

There have been big advances in iOS stylus technology since the earliest models came on the market in 2009 — consider Adonit’s Jot Script Evernote Edition, which incorporates Bluetooth 4 technology and a fine-point tip as just one option. By contrast, AluPen Twist L’s dome-like stylus tip looks and feels […] Read the original post…

A patent granted to Apple today describes a user interface in which onscreen graphics are automatically adjusted when the device is in motion. The patent background suggests that it’s harder to interact with a graphical user interface while the user is in motion; the patent would enable the device to […] Read the original post…