mobile

I first encountered the MyCharge Peak 6000 at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Since then it has become my most prized travel accessory. I literally never leave home (for a trip) without it.

Why am I so enamored with something as basic as a mobile charger? Simple: the Peak 6000 does right what every other mobile charger does wrong.

For starters, it packs a 6,000mAh battery, which can recharge an average smartphone three to four times. Even better, you recharge the Peak's battery by plugging the entire unit right into an AC outlet. Its fold-up wall prongs … Read more

Huawei, the embattled China-based telecom equipment maker that has been trying unsuccessfully to make an entrance into the U.S., thinks it has the right recipe to be successful in smartphones.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview published on Friday, Huawei deputy chairman Guo Ping said that his company wants to expand its presence in smartphones and not co-branded devices with carriers, as it has in the past. As part of that strategy, the company wants to try and combine the benefits of flashiness and high-tech to appeal to customers.

"In some ways, (designing) a smartphone is in the … Read more

Despite Samsung's claims last month that its Galaxy S4 was performing quite well on store shelves, and had reached 10 million units sold in less than a month, analysts are concerned things are changing.

Samsung's shares were down around 6 percent Friday, representing their largest drop since August. Blame analysts worrying about flagging demand for the Galaxy S4. JP Morgan was among the analyst firms that expressed concern about Samsung, and it cut its share-price estimate by 9.5 percent.

In a note to investors, JJ Park at JP Morgan said that supply chain checks are showing "… Read more

No matter how slick the new hardware is or how hard BlackBerry strives to convince us that its new BB10 handsets are the cat's meow, there's still one massive stumbling block -- quality apps. Apparently even the BlackBerry faithful agree and intrepid tweakers have stepped in to fix the situation themselves.

Read on to learn how you can quickly take advantage of free BlackBerry 10 apps that others have kindly ported from Android. Best of all, the entire process takes minutes and loading apps to your Z10 or Q10 just a matter of seconds.

Gather your tools So … Read more

F-Secure Mobile Security is an all-encompassing service that provides antivirus scanning, parental controls, and anti-theft solutions in an attempt to provide an all-encompassing protection package.

Upon installation, the app will walk you through a series of steps that include accepting some guidelines and allowing permissions, like the ability to wipe your device without warning, check your location, and other sensitive administrative actions. It'll then guide you through an anti-theft setup process, first with Android's stock security and then with F-Secure's own security code. You'll then be asked to add an optional trusted number to send an … Read more

LG will want to sell the Optimus F3 it announced on Thursday to everyone, but the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean smartphone comes with some features specifically meant for blind and hearing-impaired users.

Most notably, the phone automatically integrates Google TalkBack, a text-to-speech accessibility app that you would ordinarily have to download and activate to use.

Students can also download the Accessible Education ID pack using Sprint ID. It contains Web apps that center heavily on math and target students who struggle to read print.

For hearing-impaired users, the Optimus F3 color-codes a spectrum of LED colors and pulse patterns … Read more

Apple is eyeing yet another way to dabble in the mobile payments market.

Dubbed "Method and system for managing credits via a mobile device," the application published Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office envisions a system whereby mobile users would receive credits or coupons to be stored in their account. Acting as virtual currency, such credits could be used to help pay bills or buy items at a point of purchase.

Apple already offers a digital coupon system through its Passbook app. But the service highlighted in the patent application would take the concept a … Read more

Samsung has launched a firmware update for the wildly popular Galaxy S4 that should quell some unrest for those who own the 16GB version.

Once the firmware is installed, users will have the ability to offload their app installs to the SD card. That's especially important for 16GB device owners who were upset to find that they had just 9.15GB of usable space on the device's storage. Moving apps to the SD card can save some of the needed space. Samsung has also found a way to squeeze another 0.08GB of space on the device's … Read more

When members of the blind community petition the National Federation of the Blind about cell phones, they repeatedly ask for two things: a mobile phone that's easy to use, and audiobooks.

So says Odin Mobile, a new mobile network catering to the visually impaired. The Huawei Vision, Odin Mobile's star of the show at launch, promises to deliver both of those most-wanted attributes as soon as July -- and then some.

Less important than the coincidentally named and preexisting Huawei Vision debut device is the modified operating system that's loaded onto the Android phone. Called Project Ray, … Read more