Android

Verizon sold 4M iPhones in Q1

Verizon Wireless sold 4 million iPhones in the first quarter.

The breakdown of iPhone sales was split evenly between the iPhone 5 and older iPhones, Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said during a conference call Thursday.

The company sold 7.2 million smartphones in the period, with 28 percent going to customers new to Verizon. Shammo declined to provide a figure for Android sales.

In total, Verizon sold 9.7 million devices on a contract basis, with 87 percent of those being phones of some sort.

The 4G LTE push continued in the first quarter. Verizon activated 5.9 million … Read more

Android 4.1.1 rolls out to Sony Xperia S tablet today

Owners of Sony's Xperia S tablet will finally get a crack at Android 4.1.1, aka Jelly Bean, early today.

Sony expects to push the update to its production server sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. PT. Xperia S owners will then receive a notice in the bottom right Notification Area alerting them that a system update is available. Users can also follow the steps outlined on Sony's System Update page to manually check for the latest Android flavor.

The update will be available in the U.S, Canada, and Latin America. … Read more

Samsung Galaxy S4 camera software hands-on (video)

Samsung showed off its swanky new superphone, its Samsung Galaxy S4, at a London launch event, so I took the opportunity to take a deeper look at some of the new camera features. I was only able to get a brief hands-on and wasn't able to perform the usual tests I'd do for a camera, but I had enough time to form a reasonable impression.

In terms of hardware, the sensor has been given a boost, jumping from the 8 megapixels you'll get on the old Galaxy S3, up to 13 megapixels. It's the software that'… Read more

Eye Tribe for Android tracks eyes, makes fingers obsolete

Today, during the Demo Mobile conference in San Francisco, The Eye Tribe, maker of eye-tracking software for Android, announced that in June it will release a developers' kit for games and apps.

In its press release, The Eye Tribe claims to make the "world's first eye control software" for Android devices.

The software makes it possible to scroll down Web pages, play games, and unlock your home screen, using nothing but your eyes.

While devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 are said to have eye-tracking software already, that handset's Smart Pause feature only recognizes whether your … Read more

Should incest-warning app be a Facebook service?

Meeting someone in a club or a bar -- or even a church -- has its dangers.

You don't know who they really are. You don't know what they're like in a bad mood, as opposed to a bed mood. And you have no idea if they're really your cousin.

Such dilemmas have struck all those who are seeking love, or merely the comfort of warm, fragrant skin on a chilly Wednesday night.

Some extreme intellectuals in Iceland have decided to assist society's thrust toward safer human interaction.

They have created IslendingaApp, an app that gives you fair warning if the target of your pupillary expansion is, in fact, a close relative.… Read more

App lets Icelanders know if they're about to bjork a cousin

At just 320,000, Iceland's population is tiny -- and apparently that can be a real problem, since, as every Icelandic native is descended from the same family tree, everyone is related to everyone else.

Luckily, there's enough distance between most people so that inbreeding isn't a serious concern, but it seems that enough Icelanders end up in bed with their cousins without knowing it for it to be a bit of a problem. So much of a problem, in fact, that in 2010, the Islendingabok (book of Icelanders) Web site was launched, containing a database of … Read more

Move over Siri, Sherpa's in town

The march toward a better, voice-controlled future continues, even with Siri, Google Voice Search and newer digital assistants, such as Donna, already on the scene.

The latest entrant is Sherpa, a natural language Android app that's a top app in Spain and Latin America and today is rolling out in the U.S. -- first for Android, eventually for iOS.

Like Siri, Sherpa attempts to help organize your life and perform tasks when you ask the app questions or give it commands. It's the brainchild of Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria, who's based in Bilbao, Spain, and has been working … Read more

Galaxy S4 heads to T-Mobile for $150, Sprint for $250 this month

Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will hit its stores later this month.

T-Mobile's Galaxy S4 will come out first on April 24 for $149.99 down and monthly service payments, which are likely to be $20. Sprint's Galaxy S4 will hit the market three days later, and will cost $249.99 with a two-year contract.

T-Mobile's and Sprint's prices for the Galaxy S4 can't exactly be stacked side by side because T-Mobile requires the monthly fees and Sprint requires a two-year service contract. Sprint said that new customers that switch … Read more

Samsung: Galaxy S4 for U.S. has four cores, not eight

It's official: Samsung's Galaxy S4, the marquee device due out in the upcoming weeks, will feature a quad-core processor instead of a chipset bearing eight processing cores.

Samsung had kept us guessing when it first announced its Galaxy S4 in New York last month, saying only that in some regions, a 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 series processor would rev the GS4's engines, and Samsung's own 1.6GHz eight-core Exynos 5 Octa silicon would take care of others.

In addition to some promising processing muscle, the Galaxy S4 features a 5-inch full-HD Super AMOLED display, … Read more

ACLU to FTC: Mobile carriers fail to provide good Android security

The America Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission today asking the agency to investigate the four major mobile carriers' security practices in regards to smartphones.

The civil liberties group claims that AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint are not doing enough to protect users' private and personal data -- specifically on Android devices. The gist of the complaint (PDF) is that these carriers aren't providing users with timely security updates, which the ACLU says is akin to "deceptive and unfair business practice."

"The major wireless carriers have sold millions of … Read more