Sprint was clearly hungry for capacity when it bought spectrum from US Cellular last fall, and it's at last getting its fill -- some of it, at least -- by closing the deal today. The carrier has officially taken possession of 20MHz in airwaves across Midwestern cities like Champaign, Chicago and South Bend, as well as 10MHz in St. Louis. The customer handover isn't quite as grandiose as was mentioned in November, however: Sprint is ultimately adopting 420,000 US Cellular customers, rather than the originally claimed 585,000. It should be a relatively bump-free transition, no matter who's included in the group. Sprint expects the switch to take several months, and it's keeping the US Cellular network active while customers go hunting for discounted phones.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Sprint

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Source: Sprint

Most approaches to capturing 3D models of real-world objects involve multiple cameras that are rarely cheap, and are sometimes tricky to calibrate. The University of Glasgow has developed a method that ditches those cameras altogether. Its system has four single-pixel sensors stitching together a 3D image based on the reflected intensity of light patterns cast by a projector. Reducing the pixel count lowers the cost per sensor to just a few dollars, and extends the sensitivity as far as terahertz wavelengths. Real-world products are still a long way off, but the university sees its invention as useful for cancer detection and other noble pursuits. Us? We'd probably just waste it on creating uncanny facsimiles of ourselves.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: New Scientist

Source: University of Glasgow

Though Mozilla has long been a proponent of WebRTC for plugin-free video and voice chat, it hasn't been ready to enable the full protocol in Firefox as a matter of course. It's more confident as of this week: the newly available Firefox 22 beta turns on complete WebRTC use by default, allowing for both live web conversations and peer-to-peer file swaps. There's more to the release as well, depending on the platform. Windows users receive support for HiDPI displays, like that of the Kirabook; every desktop user also gets gaming-friendly OdinMonkey JavaScript tuning, a web notification API and a font inspector. Android users won't have WebRTC and other upgrades for now, but everyone can experiment with the latest Firefox beta at the source links.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software

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Via: Mozilla (1), (2)

Source: Firefox Beta, Google Play

Adobe's Photoshop Express has been taking care of our botched photos on Android and iOS for quite some time, but it hasn't had its turn on a desktop-class platform. That changes with today's launch of a version for Windows 8 and RT. Like their mobile counterparts, Windows users can now make basic edits, apply filters and sync photos to Revel in a touch-friendly interface; the chief difference is the landscape-oriented Windows Store look. If you've wanted to use your Surface as a mobile photo workshop without paying for apps, you can grab Express for free at the source link.

Filed under: Tablets, Software

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Source: Windows Store

The urge to record video at a concert can be distracting for fans and musicians alike -- enough so that some bands now forbid it altogether. Soundhalo's new media service and Android beta might just keep both sides happy, as long as they've got the money to spend. The platform lets a backstage team make audio and video available for purchase from the app, as soon as a song is done; theoretically, you can start a replay before you've left the front row. Downloadable copies are DRM-free, and concert-goers can always grab tracks again from the app or the web. Soundhalo is still working on an iOS release, but Android users who've been to Alt-J's recent Brixton shows (or just missed out) can already relive the memories at about $1.50 a pop.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile

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Via: The Guardian

Source: Soundhalo

Despite being one of the hotter social networks, Pinterest hasn't been on the cutting edge of sharing: members wanting to send their pins through official channels have had to use old-fashioned email. The service is catching up to the modern era in style, however, with a new option to send pins directly to friends through Pinterest's mobile and web apps. While email is still hanging around, both ends now just have to be mutual followers on Facebook or Pinterest for the magic to happen. Sharers will also receive any adulation (or criticism) right away -- comments, likes and repins on those items will appear as notifications. It will take weeks to fully deploy the direct sending feature, but it shouldn't be long before everyone is on the same page.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Facebook

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Via: CNET

Source: Pinterest

Amazon is still determined to snag every TV exclusive possible, and it just scored one of its better deals -- or at least, one of the more forward-thinking. It now has the sole unlimited subscription streaming rights to the previous seasons of five NBCUniversal shows. The highlight could be Hannibal, which will reach the service later this year; gamers may also like the crossover SyFy series Defiance, which should be ready in early 2014. Those who just can't wait to stream something will get their fill through exclusives for Covert Affairs, Grimm and Suits, all of which are in the catalog today. Amazon isn't completely shutting out rivals like Netflix, however: its expanded NBCU deal includes regular deals for Alphas, Eureka, Smash, Warehouse 13 and a collection of children's shows destined for Kindle FreeTime Unlimited. While we'd prefer that there be as few exclusives as possible, there's no question that some Prime members will feel better about springing for that $79 yearly fee.

[Thanks, John]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Amazon

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Source: Amazon

Porsche isn't about to let the LaFerrari steal the hybrid spotlight: it just unveiled the finished design of the 918 Spyder, which is expected to ship as a 2015 model. The look won't shock anyone keeping up with their spy videos, although Porsche's formal unveiling helps firm up the specifications that customers will get if they've dutifully shelled out $845,000. The performance is even more intimidating than it was in 2011, we know that much: there's 887HP of combined V8 and plug-in electric power, a 0-62MPH time of 2.8 seconds and up to 18 miles of gas-free driving. About the only disappointment (price notwithstanding) is the lack of options beyond a weight reduction package. We doubt many Spyder buyers will complain when they can even outrace a 911 GT3.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: Autoblog

Source: Porsche

Previous work on using organisms as circuitry has usually involved shoehorning parts of the digital world into a very analog environment. MIT has just found an approach that uses the subtlety of the natural world to its advantage: the circuits themselves are analog. By combining genes that produce similar molecules in response to different inputs, the school's scientists have created bacterial cells that perform basic math -- the exact quantity or ratio of a given molecule is the answer. The approach offers a much wider range of results than a binary circuit (10,000 versus 2), and it exploits the cell enzymes' inherent ratio awareness to do some of the hard work. MIT wants more variety in genetic ingredients before it can produce a truly universal system, but its work could lead to organic sensors that are much simpler and more precise than their digital peers.

Filed under: Science

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Via: ExtremeTech

Source: MIT

Google let us all know that it would strip out unneeded WebKit code to make its Blink web engine scream, but it never said exactly what kind of pace we could expect. The answer, it turns out, is "breakneck." The company's Alex Komoroske told Google I/O attendees that the Open Web Platform team has already yanked 8.8 million lines of programming from Blink in about a month, with 4.5 million of them scrubbed almost immediately. Removing so much cruft has reportedly improved not just the upcoming engine, but the engineers -- they're far more productive, Komoroske says. The team has already had time to explore new rendering techniques and garner code contribution requests from the likes of Adobe, Intel and even Microsoft. Although we don't yet know if all the trimming will be noticeable to end users by the time Blink reaches polished Chrome and Chrome OS releases, it's safe to say that some developers won't recognize what they see.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

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Source: TechCrunch

When Apple's Tim Cook revealed that his company would once more assemble a Mac line in the US, there was a flood of questions almost immediately: which model? Where would it be made? While the CEO isn't revealing all his cards quite yet, he just gave us a better sense of those domestic production plans through a Politico interview. The American Mac will be a new iteration of an existing family, Cook says. It also won't just be a collection of parts shipped from overseas, as multiple pieces will come from Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Texas. We're glad to hear that Apple's partial shift to US manufacturing is sincere, although the timing of the news isn't coincidental: Cook is about to defend Apple's growing offshore cash supply in front a Senate committee, and any visible support for the US economy is likely to burnish his firm's image.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Apple

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Via: The Verge

Source: Politico

Corning's Lotus Glass promised a world full of thinner, more advanced mobile displays when it was unveiled in 2011, but it hasn't always been easy to build with the volumes or features that customers want. Enter the company's new Lotus XT Glass as the solution: clients can produce it more reliably at high temperatures, leading to more usable panels for our LCDs and OLEDs. The improved yields should not only result in larger device volumes than the original Lotus Glass could muster, but push the technological limits -- Corning notes that hotter manufacturing allows for brighter, sharper and more efficient screens. The glass is commercially available today, although we'll still need to wait for gadget makers to choose, implement and ship it before we notice the XT difference.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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Source: Corning

Lenovo teased a potential sweet spot in its convertible laptop line when it revealed the IdeaPad Yoga 11S, blending the portability of the Yoga 11 with the raw performance of the Yoga 13. As of now, we can do more than just imagine how well that balance works: the Yoga 11S is at last available to order. Those who plunk down at least $800 can buy the bendy Windows 8 PC online from either Best Buy or Lenovo, although shoppers will want to think carefully before jumping in with both feet. While both outlets equip their Yogas with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive at that price, Best Buy lists a 1.5GHz Core i5 where Lenovo starts with a more modest 1.4GHz Core i3. No matter which outlet beckons, would-be owners will have to bide their time. Lenovo is quoting a four-week wait for new shipments, and Best Buy will only see the Yoga 11S grace its retail stores on June 23rd.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo

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Source: Lenovo, Best Buy

Although Panasonic's cellphones have traveled far from Japan, the company has left the hot Indian market relatively untapped -- until today, that is. The company is staking its first proper claim in the country with the launch of the P51. The Android 4.2-toting smartphone reflects the local market's taste for big-screened yet modest phones between its 5-inch, 720p LCD and quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek processor, but comes across as a sort of Galaxy Note lite: Panasonic bundles both a capacitive stylus and a magnetic flip cover in the box. The remaining hardware is a slightly unusual mix of budget and premium components, with the so-so 1GB of RAM and 4GB of expandable storage buffered by an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front camera and support for both HSPA+ and dual SIM cards. The P51 will be comparatively expensive for India at 26,900 rupees ($517) contract-free when it's available next week, but it should be a bargain next to its pen-packing Samsung counterpart.

Update: Panasonic is being a bit clever with its Indian foray -- we now know that the P51 shares a TCL-built design template with the Alcatel Scribe Easy, keeping the French phone's basic formula while upgrading the processor, camera and screen resolution. However, the P51 is definitely identical to the TCL Y900 in China.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: FoneArena

Source: Panasonic

Yes, we all know that Android has the prevailing device market share right now, but which companies in that group are actually making money? According to Strategy Analytics' estimates for Q1, it's Samsung... and virtually no one else. With $5.1 billion of Samsung's $7.9 billion operating profit last quarter believed to have come from Android, the Korean firm reportedly accounted for 94.7 percent of Android's hardware profit engine. The only other company that made enough money to stand out was LG, whose $119 million in mobile profits got it to a much smaller 2.5 percent. HTC, Sony, ZTE and the rest were lumped into the ignominious "other" category, at 2.7 percent. The figures don't mean that all other Android manufacturers are floundering, but they do suggest that Samsung is in a much better position to survive any market turbulence.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Google, LG

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Source: Strategy Analytics

Don't think that the Galaxy S 4 has a lock on the concept of touch-free input. Panasonic has bolstered NTT DoCoMo's summer lineup with the Eluga P P-03E, a 4.7-inch Android phone whose one-handed interface can involve even less finger contact than Samsung's flagship. Its central Touch Assist feature lets owners unlock their phone, answer calls, preview content and enter text by hovering a digit just above the glass. The handset is no slouch outside of its signature trick, either -- it carries a 1080p LCD, a 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor, 32GB of expandable storage and a sizable 2,600mAh battery. Japanese customers will have their chance at Panasonic's above-the-screen magic in late June, although we wouldn't count on the Eluga P reaching the US anytime soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Panasonic (translated)

As powerful as Android can be, Bluetooth is one of its glaring weaknesses: the absence of a default Bluetooth framework has led to inconsistent implementations from both device builders and app developers. Google is at last covering that gaping hole, however. As hinted earlier today, it's incorporating Bluetooth Smart Ready support (that is, Bluetooth 4.0 on a dual-mode chip) in an upcoming version of Android. Having a common platform should allow for more reliable behavior, not to mention fewer roadblocks to using low power Bluetooth Smart (single-mode Bluetooth 4.0) devices like the Fitbit Flex. There's only one catch that we can see, so far: when Google hasn't said how soon we'll get that Android upgrade, wireless peripheral lovers will have to remain patient.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Tablets, Mobile, Google

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Source: Bluetooth Blog

Google's new, unified Hangouts platform focuses heavily on its mobile apps, which give Android and iOS users a common platform for text and video chats. In theory, they're the cure for the consistency problems Google's messaging systems have faced for years. But are they the fixes we've all been waiting for, the all-encompassing solutions that have us dropping the likes of Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp? We gave Hangouts a test on both Android and iOS to find out -- check our impressions after the break.

Gallery: Google+ Hangouts app hands-on

Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Google

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To this day, relatively few wireless carriers offer LTE at its loftiest 150Mbps speeds. We'll soon get to count NTT DoCoMo among those ranks, however. Alongside the launch of its summer phone lineup, the Japanese network has firmed up some details of its Xi speed-up plans. The initial rollout will focus on the major centers of Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo, all of which should have 150Mbps access by the end of the year. While NTT DoCoMo hasn't settled on the frequencies it will use, Impress Watch understands that this could involve reusing 1,700MHz FOMA 3G bands to get around local spectrum limits. Regardless of the speeds, there should be a tangible improvement in coverage -- the provider hopes to more than double its Xi base stations from 24,400 in March to 50,000 by the end of 2013. Most of us won't reap the rewards of the upgrade, but it's good to know that Japan's biggest carrier will soon be a first-class 4G citizen.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Via: Impress Watch (translated)

Source: NTT DoCoMo (PDF)

We're used to Google's mobile search apps letting us ask questions as we would with real people, but the desktop has usually been quite stiff. That's changing today: Google is bringing conversation-like voice search to our computers through Chrome, with no typing required. Web denizens just have to say "okay, Google," ask their question, and get back a spoken response similar to what they'd hear on their phones. The company hasn't said just how soon Chrome will incorporate the new voice features, however.

Gallery: Google I/O 2013: Google conversational voice search

Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Google

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The rumors were apparently true: Google's unified chat platform (widely nicknamed Babel) is launching as the new Hangouts, with new mobile apps to match. The messaging service puts Android, Chrome, Gmail and iOS all on the same page for the first time, focusing the interface on conversations that carry over from device to device. Across the board, you'll find consistent notifications, as well as emoji and shared photo pools that weren't in Google Talk. Contacts are still there, but they're pushed to the side in the mobile view. Live group video is new, too, while text chats have watermarks to clarify who's reading and typing. Everyone gets access to the updated Hangouts today. The Android and iOS apps are available as we write this; Gmail users can hit a "try it now" button, while Chrome users can install an extension. One word of warning: the Android app currently won't run on some tablets, including the Nexus 7.

Gallery: Google I/O 2013: Hangouts

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Google

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Via: Official Gmail Blog, Google+ Project

Source: Chrome Web Store, App Store, Google Play

Many have chastised Google for doing little to properly expose Android tablet apps, but it's addressing that in style: the Google Play Store now includes a dedicated section in the charts for the top tablet-native releases, all of which meet the company's design guidelines for bigger screens. The company is also bringing its recent Play Store mobile redesign to the web. It shares the same interface, but it takes advantage of the extra screen area with a sidebar that lets shoppers quickly switch between media types. Both updated portals should be accessible today.

Gallery: Google I/O 2013: Google Play tablets section

Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, Google

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While Intel's Clover Trail+ Atom platform has been slow-moving so far, with only a handful of noteworthy unveilings, it just got a big shot in the arm through the official launch of ZTE's Grand X2 In. The 4.5-inch, 720p Jelly Bean phone is smaller than the Geek we saw not long ago, but it still carries that 2GHz Atom Z2580 inside -- and it's quite the screamer for shutterbugs between its 24 frames per second burst shooting, zero shutter lag and image stabilization. It otherwise sits in the middle of the road like its ancestor, carrying an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 1-megapixel front camera, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage. We're digging that soft-touch purple finish, though. Europeans should receive the Grand X2 In sometime in the third quarter of the year; there's no word on launches elsewhere, but you can be sure that we're interested in giving this x86 headliner a proper shakedown.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Intel

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Via: MojAndroid.sk (translated)

Source: ZTE

We'd heard talk long, long ago of Verizon hooking up with VMware for a virtual workspace on its smartphones, and we can at last say that it's more than just chatter. Starting today, Verizon's business customers can buy VMware's Horizon Mobile for their Android devices. The solution gives corporate phones a common desktop with encrypted apps, data and policies that can't be touched from the device's regular environment. While this puts the Verizon-VMware partnership in competition with the likes of BlackBerry Secure Work Space and Samsung Knox, it won't be a perfect match for those services: the two companies are asking $125 per person for Horizon Mobile, and the initial device support is oddly limited to the LG Intuition and Motorola Droid RAZR M (neither is pictured here). Nonetheless, the deal might be a good fit for companies that would rather tie their phones to a single carrier than any one hardware manufacturer.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Google, Verizon, LG

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Source: VMware

While Jordan Mechner's Karateka burst back onto the scene through its 2012 remake, that wasn't good enough for purists who really just wanted a port of the 1984 original. Consider their wish granted, as Karateka Classic is coming to both Android and iOS on May 16th. The release goes the extra distance to recreate much of the Apple II-based fighting experience, warts and all -- would-be warriors can even choose a monochrome screen palette or hear a floppy drive churning away. About the only concessions to modernity are touch control, playing tips and a Sands of Time-style rewind feature. At 99 cents, Karateka Classic is undoubtedly a cheap nostalgia trip... even if it does trigger that fear of birds we thought we'd cured ages ago.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming

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Source: Karateka