Apple

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 →

You probably know that you can set custom ringtones for different contacts on your phone, but did you know that you can set custom vibration patterns for them, too? As long as you have an iPhone running iOS 7, you can easily set this up and know exactly who’s calling you without looking at your Continue Reading →

Chromebooks have come from nowhere to grab nearly a fifth of U.S. school purchases of mobile computers, posing problems for Microsoft and possibly even Apple. The inexpensive laptops, which run Google software but are mostly sold by other companies, accounted for 19% of the K-12 market for mobile computers in the U.S. in 2013, according 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 →

Samsung and Google have signed a sweeping deal to license their patent portfolios to each other, covering both existing intellectual property in addition to patents filed over the next ten years. United under Android, the two companies haven’t really been seen as litigation threats to one another — but with this deal, the threat drops 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 →

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 →

It looks like Apple is taking a page from Samsung in more ways than one. According to The Wall Street Journal (paywall), Apple not only plans to release iPhones with larger screens but it plans to release two such models: a 4.5-inch model and a 5-inch model. Apple has been slower than other manufacturers to Continue Reading →

We’ve learned that Apple is making progress on its development of a successor to the current Apple TV and that the device is well into testing. We are led to believe that the new device, which is said to be a set-top box rather than a full-fledged TV set, will likely be introduced in the Continue Reading →

Like any conscientious digital citizen you politely set your phone to vibrate while at work, in movie theaters, and at important business dinners. But while sparing everyone your Clock Radio Alarm ringtone is great, that buzzing in your pocket tells you nothing about how important the call might be. Should you check it? Is it Continue Reading →