2017
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What does Fitbit need to succeed?
Fitbit is the current king of wearables, but for how much longer? The company has recorded four successive quarters of losses since the tail end of 2016, and that's a problem. Fitbit will publish its latest earnings results later today, and those numbers won't just tell us how the company is faring, but also how the wearables industry is doing as a whole.
LG's latest financials explain its shift in mobile strategy
Earlier this month, LG said that it would row back on its smartphone ambitions by abandoning an annual cycle of smartphone launches. Rather than releasing a flagship just because Samsung did, LG would only pump out a handset when it felt that it should. The report speculated that the move was in anticipation of more bad news for LG Mobile when its fourth-quarter financials were published. Now that the figures are out, it's clear that LG's patience for the division has worn thin, since it managed to lose $204.8 million in just three months.
2017’s biggest cybersecurity facepalms
2017 was a year like no other for cybersecurity. It was the year we found out the horrid truths at Uber and Equifax, and border security took our passwords. A year of WannaCry and Kaspersky, VPNs and blockchains going mainstream, health care hacking, Russian hackers, WikiLeaks playing for Putin's team, and hacking back. In 2017 we learned that cybersecurity is a Lovecraftian game in which you trade sanity for information. Let's review the year that was (and hopefully will never be again).
The best Engadget stories of 2017
This year gave us an innovative new console from Nintendo, an iPhone without a home button, EVs and self-driving cars from almost all the major automakers, and fresh headaches for Twitter and Facebook alike. As busy as we were reviewing a new flagship phone seemingly every other week, Engadget's writers and editors looked beyond that never-ending gadget cycle to deliver impactful, thoughtful features. In fact, some of our favorite stories from this year were weeks, sometimes months, in the making. Here's a selection of our best pieces, chosen by the team. Enjoy, and here's to even more long-form in 2018.
Google’s year in search finds people ready to take action
It's been a heck of a year. And as 2017 draws to a close, a bunch of web giants are on hand to remind us of what we got up to on their services. Twitter had us raging, Facebook saw us praying for victims of tragedies, and now Google (the biggest of the three) is sharing its year in search. The top spot in the US and worldwide was reserved for Hurricane Irma. The same went for Google news trends in the US, which were dominated by natural disasters, including Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Jose, and Hurricane Maria, with the looming threat of North Korea and the tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas making the top ten as well.
Spotify's latest playlist collects your top 100 tracks from 2017
Spotify's data-driven and editorialized playlists are some of the biggest features that set it apart from its competitors. It being December means the streaming service is taking a look back at the year that was. Specifically, it's offering a look at your year in music listening. When you log in today you'll find two playlists: one for your top 100 songs from 2017 and then "the ones that got away." More than that, there's a downloadable and shareable card with stats about how many minutes of music you've listened to, your top artists, top genre and top songs. The data analysis goes even further, with a report for how many songs you've skipped, how many artists you've listened to and how many songs you've streamed.
The only Sony division to lose money this quarter was Mobile
Kaz Hirai's slimmer, fitter Sony hasn't just turned a corner, it's well on its way to earning its highest annual profit in years. The latest update on the company's financial health revealed that it pulled in $18.25 billion in revenue and squeezed out a quarterly net profit of $1.15 billion. As usual, it's Sony's two most prized businesses that stand out on the balance sheet: PlayStation and smartphone image sensors.
LG's phone arm continues to eat away at its profits
One of the great problems with being a popular musician or comedian is that your audience is always aching for you to play the greatest hits. That can get pretty boring, especially if you want to be known as an artists with a broader, or deeper, body of work than just Achy Breaky Heart. Bear that in mind for poor LG which, yet again, has to announce that its mobile division is a furnace that turns money into ashes and dust.
Twitter closes in on its first-ever profitable quarter
Twitter has updated the world on its financial position for the third quarter of this year, and the outlook is better than it has been for a while. The company has seen monthly active user figures increase, arresting the slide that it had to report across the summer. In addition, net losses have been trimmed down to just $21 million, and if Twitter can improve on its targets in the next three months, it may even turn a profit.
B&O Play launches the E8, its first wireless earbuds
Bang & Olufsen never adopt a new technology until it can guarantee that the audio quality is up to its usual high standards. But the firm has moved fairly quickly, by its standards, to build its first pair of in-ear Bluetooth earbuds. The Beoplay E8 is a pair of Bragi and IconX-esque in-ears that come with their own charging case, just like its rivals.
The best way to customize a supercar is in VR
To paraphrase Robin Williams, buying a $2.8 million supercar is God's way of telling you that you're making too much money. And yet there's a certain thrill in picking out the red leather trim that goes so well with a black carbon-fiber shell. Because that's what I picked to trick out the Pagani Huayra I could buy if I had Zuckerberg-level money. It's also the same way that members of the super rich will customize their own rides soon.
Vizio adds the streaming apps its new TVs were missing
One of the more unique features of Vizio's smart TV lineup is that some models use an Android tablet to cast streaming services to the displays. That's rather than having apps baked directly into the TVs themselves. The TV manufacturer is rolling out an update for its 2017 models that adds apps directly to the displays themselves -- no casting necessary.
Sony's turnaround strategy is working
When Sony nominated Kaz Hirai to lead the corporation, he laid out an ambitious strategy that he titled One Sony. Hirai identified three key markets where he wanted Sony to be a leader: digital imaging, gaming and mobile, with the trio pushed accordingly. Five years later, and Hirai's managed to hit two out of three targets, with Sony's most recent financial reports vindicating his plan.
Over a million Americans quit Twitter in just three months
Controversial presidential announcements and celebrity revenge porn are all in a day's work for the social network everyone loves to hate. Now, Twitter has announced its most recent financial results and things aren't looking good for the microblog beloved by the leader of the free world.
LG's smartphones are no longer hurting the company
It's a testament to how topsy-turvy the mobile world is that a company can make its seventh successive quarterly loss and still feel good. That's because LG's mobile division, which managed to burn almost 500 billion Korean won in the last three months of 2016, has managed to stem the flow of blood from its neck. In fact, in the first quarter of 2017, the division managed to lose just 200 million Korean won, or $176,206.
Twitter is gaining more users, losing less money
Twitter has updated us on the state of its business and, if you squint, you can almost see that things are picking up for the service. The company revealed that while revenues fell by $164 million, it managed to trim its quarterly losses down to just $62 million. By comparison, Twitter burned $167 million in the last three months of 2016 and $80 million in the same quarter last year.
Analyst rumor: iPhone 8 'function area' to replace home button
While we're still months away from finding out exactly what's what with any new iPhone, the rumor mill is already running at full tilt. Following up on earlier reports of a 5.8-inch edgeless OLED-screened device arriving as the "iPhone 8," well-connected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is telling investors more about what its home-button-less front screen could be like. As explained by AppleInsider and 9to5Mac, the analyst notes that this presumed OLED iPhone with its $1,000+ price tag will be similar in size to the current 4.7-inch iPhone. However, instead of the home button, it will include a "function area" that can also display controls for video or games.
Sony's $300 Ultra HD Blu-ray player will arrive in March
Last month we got our first look at 2017's best electronics, in the next few months some of them will start hitting shelves, and in between, we're getting pricing information. Sony's taken the wraps off of details for much of its XBR TV lineup (with the exception of that high-end A1E OLED model), which all pack Android TV and Google Assistant for control of other smart home devices and multiroom audio. They're also ready for all kinds of HDR, with support for HDR-10 out of the box, plus Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) and Dolby Vision coming later in the year.
Never worry about leaving the stove top on ever again
The first time someone says "smart stove knobs," you instantly conclude that the technology industry needs an intervention. But while the Inirv React's concept seems gently ridiculous, the product itself makes you wonder why nobody thought of this before. Essentially, it's a series of powered dials that sit on your gas range, letting you turn them off remotely with your smartphone. Even more impressive, however, is that a nearby sensor can do it automatically if it senses heat, gas or that you've left the house.
A game of 'Whac-a-Mole' can tell if you're concussed
When Reflexion Interactive's Matt Roda was in high school, he suffered a severe concussion during a hockey game. At the time, his coach put him back in the game after asking asinine questions like who was president and what year it was. The experience inspired him and his friends to find a better way for high schools to detect concussions without buying expensive gear. A few years later, the Reflexion Edge was born.
