Mobile & Wireless

Global average connection speeds have hit a new high, rising 29 percent year-over-year to 3.6 Mbps. Meanwhile, the demands of the mobile world are growing very fast, with data traffic increasing by 80 percent in the last year. The latest figures come from Akamai, which today published its quarterly State of the Internet report for Continue Reading →

Guests arriving at the Aloft Hotel in Manhattan or one in Silicon Valley will soon be able to do something hotels have dreamed about offering for years: walk past the check-in desk and enter their rooms by using a smartphone as a room key. The boutique hotel brand from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide plans Continue Reading →

Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin said on Twitter that the Nexus line of devices will be discontinued in 2015, replaced instead with a new brand spawned from the current Play Edition family. Google has launched various Play Edition devices this year, including the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the LG G Pad 8.3, the Sony Continue Reading →

Here’s a little-known fact: Owning a smartphone can make you feel better about the world. At least, that’s what a recent poll from Microsoft has found. A global Microsoft poll, released at the Davos World Economic Forum, found smartphone owners around the globe see the world as more “cooperative and harmonious” than non-smartphone owners. They’re Continue Reading →

Samsung has been rumored to be working on wearable glasses similar to Google Glass, supposedly under the Gear Glass name, and according to a report from The Korea Times, Samsung will unveil Gear Glass this year at IFA in September. According to the report, the smart glasses are tentatively called “Galaxy Glass” – a Samsung Continue Reading →

Apple has already laid the groundwork for a strong mobile payments service. The Cupertino-based tech giant has sold well over 500 million iPhones and iPads to date. The company has hundreds of millions of credit cards on file for its iTunes stores. If you own an iPhone 5S, it can use your fingerprint to confirm Continue Reading →

The Incipio Cashwrap case for iPhone launched on Friday, available online now and in AT&T stores next week for $69. The case includes a secure NFC, or near-field communications, chip that works for contactless payments on the ISIS system. ISIS is a U.S. payment program similar to Google Wallet and is backed by AT&T, T-Mobile, Continue Reading →

Competition is fierce in the world of on-demand transportation. The consumer demand for better, more convenient car service has exploded over the last two years, and startups services are racing to capitalize. In fact, the race is now so heated that it seems some companies are willing to try anything to put the brakes on Continue Reading →

Chipmaker Qualcomm just announced that it’s acquired 1,400 granted and pending US patents and another 1,000 foreign patents from HP. Those include “fundamental mobile operating system techniques” and come from a collection of patent portfolios that include those of once-great smartphone manufacturer Palm. The sale comes just months after the announcement that HP sold Palm’s Continue Reading →

Users of flagship smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone 5s and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are continuing to suck down more data than their tablet-wielding counterparts, according to a large-scale survey of mobile data consumption in 2013 conducted by JDSU (which last year bought mobile data analytics company Arieso, the company that previously ran the annual survey). Continue Reading →