Verizon will give you up to $650 in credit if you switch to the ‘better network’

The numbers two, three and four (especially three) of the US mobile carrier landscape have been ruthlessly hunting for disgruntled competitor subscribers, aiming their switch-incentivizing campaigns in particular at Verizon. Though well ahead of T-Mobile and Sprint in user counts, and unlikely to see its domination challenged by AT&T very soon either, Big Red might be starting to feel the heat, kicking off a hard to resist network swap offer. Like a “not-so-cool holiday ...

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Galaxy S7 size rumors continue, with latest source pointing to three main options

When you’re prepping the launch of a major new flagship, there’s a lot on the line, and even the smallest decision could have a big impact on sales. And while there’s little doubt that Samsung’s Galaxy S7 will be huge, seemingly simple choices like those concerning the handset’s design could ultimately contribute towards a shift in millions – or even tens of millions of units sold. In that light, maybe it’s understandable why we’re hearing so many conflicting reports about both the size and ...

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Samsung may not want to share the Exynos 8890 SoC, lower-end 8870 prepped for other OEMs

Besides developing smartphone and tablet processors for in-house Galaxy use, Samsung can technically also supply rival device manufacturers with top-of-the-line Exynos silicon. Of course, so far only second-tier companies like Meizu have opted for the Korean giant’s Snapdragon or MTK alternatives, but since the Pro 5architects are coming up in the mobile world, Sammy must think of its primary business and profit generator first. Hence, this year you should expect the Galaxy S7 and its ...

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The best gaming headset (for most people)

By Dennis Burger This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. Read the full article here. After more than 100 hours spent researching and testing 37 gaming headsets in all, plus more hours of long-term comfort testing than could reasonably be counted, we think the Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset is the best gaming headset for most people. It's beautifully built, comfortable on a wide variety of heads, and excellent ...

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New renders and video featuring Xiaomi Mi 5 leaked

Less than a week after Xiaomi's upcoming Mi 5 flagship smartphone leaked in renders, another leak has popped up. This time, a set of new renders have been leaked by a Weibo user, showing the device in several color options, including white, black, pink, and gold. Not only this, a video featuring the device - specifically the white colored variant - has also been leaked online. The video in question, which shows off the handset's front panel in detail, can be ...

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North Korea's version of Linux is extremely oppressive

It's no secret that North Korea has its own Linux distribution, Red Star OS, that limits you to a government-approved view of the world. However, researchers have just taken an in-depth look into how Red Star works -- and it's clear that software is as authoritarian as the country that created it. Besides its known tendency to watermark files on USB sticks (to track people shuttling contraband material), Red Star is paranoid about modifications. It not only has extra safeguards ...

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ASUS signs deal to pre-load AdBlock Plus on its products

When we reviewed the ASUS ZenFone 2 — or, at least one of them — this year we noted that for an unlocked phone, this thing sure had quite the bloatware. The company sure loves packing on those feel-good additionswhere possible but this one might just take the cake, especially when we’re talking about the fuss iOS is going through with its apps. AdBlock Plus has signed on with ASUS to get its services pre-loaded and activated on the manufacturer’s in-house ...

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Firefox OS lives on, as leak reveals internal product concepts

How many mobile operating systems can the market sustain? Right now we’ve got two major players, a third with a lot of potential (and serious backing), a fourth that just can’t seem to die, and a fragmented assortment of hangers on, none yet to achieve real mainstream success. 2015’s been especially hard on those upstarts, and in recent weeks we haven’t just seen Sailfish OS hit hard times, but Firefox OS throw in the towel, withMozilla announcing an end to Firefox OS-powered smartphones. ...

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How Android can really do split-screen multitasking right

Some of you are too young to remember the early days of computing. Back in the 1980’s most of us ran MS-DOS. In this environment your user interface was a black screen with a flashing white cursor (or some other color combination). From there you’d type a command to launch whatever program you wanted to run. That program might have been a word processor, a spreadsheet, an encyclopedia, a game, or some other “app”. Not only could you only run one program at a time, you had to exit out of it ...

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Apple v. Samsung: Apple wants $180 million more

Apple wants a gift from Samsung. It’s money. Okay, it wouldn’t be a gift, it would be a favorable judgment in court. After a crucial Apple patent that was part of the basis of the company’s legal entanglement with Samsung was invalidated, Samsung paid up more than half a billion dollars in damages it owed to Apple. Samsung, in lieu of a reversal of judgment against the company, is waiting to see if it can make its case in theSupreme Court. Consider this next move a hiking of ...

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Different kinds of encryption and why it’s so important in today’s mobile lifestyle

Privacy, in these United States, is a fundamental Civil Right. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment enshrines that no unreasonable searches shall be performed without a warrant. This protects individuals from being targeted because of their beliefs, whether those are religious, political, ethnic, cultural, or anything else. As much as we’d like to deny that sort of targeting exists, history shows us that the British used unlawful searches to single out and victimize Colonists based on their ...

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Google is reportedly making an AI-powered chat assistant

Hey, Facebook: you might not be the only tech giant with an artificially intelligent chat assistant. The Wall Street Journal's sources understand that Google is building an AI-based messaging service that would search the web to answer your questions. From the description, it sounds like a more elaborate, more conversational Google Now. Third parties may even build their own bots to give you site-specific answers. Google isn't commenting on the apparent leak, and there's no word on when and where ...

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'Battlefield 4' hides an incredibly elaborate Easter egg

You've probably seen some clever gaming Easter eggs in your day, but few of them are likely to be this... involved. Gamers playing Battlefield 4's new Dragon Valley map have discovered an Easter egg that requires a massive, multi-step sleuthing campaign to complete. How massive? Well, it starts with translating Belarusian Morse code and moves on to hidden objects, logic puzzles and audio editing. The kicker is that this isn't repeatable -- even if you pay close attention to the video below, you'll ...

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The Gold Nexus 6P, Exclusive To Japan At Launch, Is Coming To Indian Retailer Flipkart On December 21st

When the details of the Nexus 6P started to leak, several colors were spotted: aluminum, white, black, and gold. As it turns out, the gold-colored version was exclusive to the Japanese market. We never found out why the gold phone isn't available elsewhere - a gold option has been popular for flagship phones across most major manufacturers for several years now. Whatever the reason, customers in India will soon have a crack at the gold Nexus 6P, courtesy of online retailer Flipkart. Manufacturer ...

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CNN: FBI is investigating the Juniper Networks security hole

Yesterday's news of "unauthorized code" that could enable untraceable backdoor access to VPN traffic on certain Juniper Networks firewalls is now being investigated by the FBI. That news comes from CNN, which said that a US government official described the vulnerability as "stealing a master key to get into any government building." There's no word yet on which government agencies or private companies may have been using the specific ScreenOS-powered devices affected, but that's ...

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