Apple appears close to getting the regulatory green light to open its first retail stores in India. The company is expected to win approval from the Indian government to launch the stores, the Bloomberg news service reported Sunday, citing “a person with knowledge of the matter.” Apple did not immediately respond to a request for …

India has blocked Facebook’s Free Basics service. The action is the result of a new regulation released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), BBC News reported Monday. Free Basics, launched in 2014 under Internet.org, is a Facebook-backed initiative that aims to provide a limited number of Internet sites and services for free to areas of the world where …

Consumers eyeing Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 tablet or Band 2 activity tracker can save some cash thanks to a new sale. The Surface Pro 4 comes in five variations, each now on sale for $100 off the usual retail price at the Microsoft Store. The offer is good through February 27. The Microsoft Band 2 is on sale for $200, …

Got an iPhone with a cracked screen or busted camera? You can now hand it over to Apple for store credit toward a new iPhone. The Apple Store Reuse and Recycle iPhone trade-in program has always offered store credit for older models. But the program has applied only if your current iPhone is in good condition with no cracks or …

Have an Amazon Echo? Need an Uber ride? You can now use the former to get the latter. Amazon’s Echo, a cloud-connected wireless speaker that acts as your personal assistant via voice commands, now supports Uber, the ride-hailing service announced in a blog Friday. Instead of using the Uber mobile app to request a ride, you can just ask Alexa, …

Marshmallow, the latest flavor of Google’s Android mobile operating system, is still on only a tiny fraction of devices. But it looks like it’s starting to stick. Launched in early October, Android 6.0 Marshmallow is on 1.2 percent of Android devices, according to the latest stats offered up by Google’s Android Developer Dashboard. While a tiny percentage, it’s a significant …

Kindle owners will find browsing, buying and sharing books easier when a software update arrives this month, according to Amazon. An Amazon page details the features and refinements coming to Kindle e-book readers. The update will enable you to personalize the home screen, for example, so your most recent books appear at the upper left of the screen. All of …

Samsung may have spilled the beans on the existence of a Galaxy S7 Edge phone. Images on a Samsung developers site made reference to the expected-but-still-only-rumored Galaxy S7 Edge, as well as to the Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge Plus, both of which launched last year. Those images were apparently then tweaked to remove the reference to the S7 …

The Apple Watch may be just what the smartwatch market needed. Smartwatch unit sales will jump from 30 million last year to 50 million this year and 66.7 million in 2017, Gartner said in a research note released on Tuesday. The industry can thank Apple for the anticipated surge, according to Gartner, as the Apple Watch has been “popularizing wearables …

Imagine commanding your iPhone or iPad without your finger actually touching the screen. A new Apple patent proposes just that. The patent “Proximity and multi-touch sensor detection and demodulation,” granted Tuesday to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark Office, describes sensors that detect the position and motion of your finger or fingers hovering above the screen. Your device would …