Edoardo Maggio

Albeit having been released months ago, much like all of its predecessors, the latest Android version, Marshmallow, is still running only on a relatively small number of devices. Much of it can be attributed to carriers and third party manufacturers, which often take a lot of time to properly re-skin, release certifications, and eventually give the green light to updates.

Fortunately for Verizon customers, however, it looks like Google‘s latest software is beginning its rollout for the Droid Turbo 2. In a note released on Tuesday on Google Plus, Motorola‘s David Schuster confirmed that the upgrade is in “full deployment”…

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Albeit still not as popular as smartphones, smartwatches are indeed making their way to the market as gadgets with ever increased functionalities — like the recently announced CoWatch and its Amazon Alexa integration — but at the same time trying to appeal to classic timepiece customers as well.

Samsung is an OEM trying to please both audiences: according to The Korea Herald, Swiss watchmaker de Grisogono has confirmed to be working with the consumer electronics giant again in order to bring to the market a luxury version of the yet-to-be-announced Gear S3, supposedly coming next March…

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While English is without a doubt the most common and prominent language in the world, it goes without saying that it’s not the only one, and that people often travel and want to understand what the words around them mean.

Multilingual dictionaries and translation apps come in handy, of course, but much like Google last year, Microsoft is taking a step ahead with its Translator app, giving it a few new features that will allow it to scan and translate on the fly…

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The spring hardware refresh seems to be on a roll, and this year, in addition to the usual Samsungs, LGs and HTCs, a slew of Chinese manufacturers are making their way to the market with improved, highly-specced and often premium designed high end handsets.

While not all of them make it to the West, at least initially — like the just unveiled LeEco “superphones” — these devices are certainly worthy of consideration. One of them is the Zuk Z2 Pro, the new flagship of the Lenovo-backed Chinese brand that wrapped up the presentation earlier today…

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For both Google and Apple, the operations on their virtual stores are hugely important, as they account for millions of dollars. However, there has historically been a disparity between the number of downloaded applications and the actual money generated by them, a trend that seems to have peaked in the first quarter of this year.

According to App Annie‘s Index Market for Q1 of 2016, in fact, Google’s Play Store saw a number of downloads that roughly doubles that of the iOS App Store, which in turns represents the platform with the highest profitability, with over 90% more revenue generated over its counterpart…

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After the big splash made by smartphones and then, albeit with less of an impact, tablets, various forms of smartwatches have tried to sneak in into everyone’s digital life. As companies like Google and Apple try to extend their reach with increasingly bigger ecosystems that attempt to lock users in, the smartwatch race may prove to be an important area, despite the generally lukewarm reception consumers seem to have so far given.

Indeed, much like with chatbots, companies like Microsoft and Amazon may be interested in having a part of their services used right on your wrist, and while not directly coming from the Seattle company, it looks like Alexa may be your next wearable’s digital assistant. iMCO and Chronologics, the two companies behind the project, seem to be on track to deliver the “CoWatch” smartwatch, and have started an Indiegogo campaign that already raised over $10,000 in the first day of debut…

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We’ve recently argued that the Galaxy S7 edge may represent the culmination of the “Smartphone 1.0 era”. It won’t please everyone about everything — and no such thing will likely ever exist — but it’s indubitable how all of the cornerstones of a modern smartphone have been tackled cleverly by the Korean giant, and all its positives can even justify its hefty price tag. Actually delivering something that steps up the game in a significant way, in fact, looks like a very tough challenge. Perhaps we will have to wait until true, Project Ara-like modular smartphones show up before radically rethinking the way we look at hardware, but the software roadmap seems to be getting clearer, with a future studded with bots.

Microsoft is betting big on them as a major part of the future of computing, and so is Facebook. There is a case that could be made for them to become the new apps — and this certainly is how these two firms are pitching the concept. Chances are that Google will follow sooner than later, and I think that if the general idea of bots we have been so far given remains valid, the owning of a platform as popular as Android may leave the Mountain View behemoth with quite an interesting card up its sleeve, which could give them a notable lead in the upcoming war for bots dominance, were they to play it cleverly…

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In a sea of powerful, feature-packed, and well supported third party clients, the official Twitter app has generally never stood out as a particularly good choice for enjoying the social network’s experience.

One of the main gripes some users have had over the years is in regards to design; given the service’s popularity, it was odd to see its stock Android app maintain a fairly anonymous — and not particularly brilliant — UI, markedly in dissonance with the platform’s guidelines. However, the San Francisco-based company may have been hard at work to fix that…

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It is common for OEMs these days to launch more than one flagship device on the market, as rarely one model alone is able to satisfy every segment of it. Often, like in the case of the just announced Huawei P9 and P9 Plus, manufacturers simply create different sized versions of the same phone, while other companies opt to design entirely new lines to target different audiences and keep up with the fast upgrade cycles.

Samsung has long established this pattern with the Galaxy S phones and its Note lineup, which is why a Galaxy Note 6 is highly likely to launch worldwide come the last quarter of the year. Naturally, albeit being only April, the rumor mill has all but started, with various information already floating around. A report from SamMobile claims that the forthcoming handset will inherit the Galaxy S7‘s water resistance capabilities, and may sport an iris scanner as well…

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If there is one thing we learned from CEO Satya Nadella’s corporate restructuring of Microsoft over the last couple of years, it’s that he wants its services to be everywhere. And that doesn’t just mean apps like those in Office 365‘s suite keeping your productivity up even on non-Windows systems, but something that aims at a much deeper integration.

With today’s update rolling out for iOS and Android, the Outlook app is adding what the company calls “Calendar Apps”. While you could already see your calendar from within the dedicated tab inside the app, the new addition — which likely comes from the Sunrise acquisition — will allow services like Evernote, Facebook and Wunderlist to integrate as well…

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It was perhaps unimaginable just a few years ago, but live streaming has become particularly popular thanks to apps like Meerkat and, most notoriously, Twitter-acquired Periscope. Not to be left out, Facebook joined the race last summer — albeit initially only for public figures via the dedicated Mentions app — and then pushed beyond earlier this year with the open introduction of “Facebook Live” in the US, a feature within the mobile app that allows anyone to live stream to their friends.

The experiment seems to be working well, and with the app update — which begins its rollout today — Facebook is adding a variety of features to enhance the Facebook Live experience; according to the company, adding a dedicated tab for finding live as well as archived video will “give you more ways to discover, share, and interact with live video, and more ways to personalize your live broadcasts”…

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Drones have become very popular among consumers over the last few years, with various applications mainly in photography and videography, but their potential suggests that there soon could be a slew of additional uses that normal people could benefit from. Particularly, drones could turn out to be very helpful for delivery of physical objects or perhaps an Internet connection.

According to Quartz, a new Google patent filed recently is all about a potential medical use. While last year the idea of medical equipment-carrying drones had already been patented by the search giant, it looks like the company may have found a viable method via which users could contact the devices…

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We are just a little over a week away from the official unveiling of HTC‘s last flagship smartphone, the so-called “10“, and despite the enormous amount of leaks regarding design, performance and even the phone’s wallpapers, the company seems confident in its new product, keeping us teased with various information about the device.

In a tweeted video released today, HTC addressed its commitment towards “tuning the highest-quality sound possible”, in order to deliver what it describes as “the best BoomSound yet”…

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Google Now is a powerful tool. Combining the huge databases at the company’s disposal alongside the incredible amount of information it can pull – once granted access – from a customer’s usage of its many services, there are dozens of things that Google can help you with. Its power goes from answering to simple questions and completing easy requests to solving increasingly complex tasks that require a combination of the above to give more tailored and specific results.

In a somewhat curious outcome, Reddit user barney13 asked Google to show him some pictures from his trip to Nice, France, which while promptly showing the user correct results about his question also pulled out a snippet from an email which seemed oddly and yet particularly related to the request…

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It is no secret that Android users love to customize their devices. Without diving too deep into rooting, the Play Store already offers a great deal of apps capable of sneaking their way into the phone’s UI and changing profoundly how the handset operates for a lot of day-to-day use stuff – think third party launchers. The lock screen is obe area where a lot of developers have focused, even though the arrival of Lollipop mostly eliminated widgets’ integration and standardized its look.

Just when I thought Samsung may have ended surprising me with its software, however, it came up with one very smart trick up its sleeve. By updating the Samsung’s System UI (a core system application), an app called ‘Good Lock’ – downloadable on the Galaxy Apps store – not only changes the standard look of Samsung’s lock screen, but the very way notifications are managed, the toggles’ UI, and even the unlocking animation. It does so all while bringing widgets back with an almost radical and intelligent (if a bit complicated) redesign…

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With about half a billion dollars between production and marketing campaigns, it is no wonder that ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ marketing and merchandise can be found all over the place. The movie directed by Zack Snyder features two of the most popular superheroes of all time, whose masked versions are just as famous as their ‘real life’ counterparts.

In a promotion for today’s release, a new Google Maps tour will allow you to step inside billionaire Bruce Wayne’s home…

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The Galaxy S7 and its curved-screen sibling are fast phones. Incredibly fast. Despite the demanding QHD panels, 4GB of RAM paired with a snappy processor keep things consistently smooth. However, unlike last year’s entire Galaxy S6 family – which mounted the Samsung-made Exynos 7420 – for 2016 Samsung decided to restore some faith in Qualcomm, whose faulty Snapdragon 810 processor gave certain devices more than one issue last year. In the United States, in fact, both Galaxy S7s use a Snapdragon 820 SoC; a choice which of course needed to lead to some controversy…

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