Samsung may be eyeing an iris scanner for its Galaxy Note 7. A screenshot from software for Samsung’s newly launched Galaxy Beta program shows an option in the settings screen that, when translated into English, says “Use iris,” as shown by Indian comparison shopping site PriceRaja.com. Further, a report displaying import and export data indicates …

Congressional Democrats are throwing their weight behind a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission to bring competition to the cable set-top box market. At a press conference Thursday, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Mark Takano of California, Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut pushed back against critics of the plan and urged the agency to adopt …

Microsoft is taking advantage of Apple’s June 13 developers conference to tout its own stuff. Dubbed “The Future of Apps,” Microsoft’s party starts at 5 p.m. PT Monday in San Francisco, just about the time Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference should be winding down there. Taking place at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters — a five-minute walk from WWDC at Bill Graham …

Watch more than two hours of “Orange is the New Black” in a single night? You’re devouring it. Watch just an episode or two of “Fuller House?” You, my couch potato friend, are savoring. That’s the scale on which Netflix now judges how its audience is consuming its content. The company’s newly announced Binge Scale shows how members watch a …

Microsoft’s latest Office component is now available to anyone and everyone. GigJam, a collaboration app, was previously accessible just as an invite-only beta. But as of yesterday, the preview version is available to all. And in the tradition of CEO Satya Nadella’s cloud-friendly, OS-agnostic Microsoft, the cross-platform app runs on Macs, iPhones and iPads, in addition to Windows PCs. (Users …

Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay have one less competitor to worry about. CurrentC, a mobile payments system that went through a round of beta testing this year, announced on its website that it will shutter the service as of June 28. At that point, all active accounts will be disabled, the CurrentC app will no longer work and …

Now playing: Watch this: How Pixar created its most complex character yet for… 3:54 When Pixar’s “Finding Nemo” was released in 2003, critic Roger Ebert was so impressed with the immersive underwater world on screen that he wrote: “I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision.” …

The amount of hate speech on Twitter has grown too much for one prominent journalist. Jon Weisman, an editor at The New York Times, said Wednesday that he will abandon the microblogging site as the result of anti-Semitic and other comments. Weisman, the newspaper’s deputy Washington editor, announced in a tweet that he “will leave @twitter to the racists, the …

CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. And find more great buys on the CNET Deals page. If you like geometric shapes, you’ll love the Turtle Shell 2.0. Especially when they’re two for the price of one. Outdoor Tech Still …

There’s a reason everybody and their brother is trying to build an app — it’s essentially the modern-day gold rush. The total market for mobile apps will be worth $102 billion in 2020, or nearly double its current value, according to business intelligence firm App Annie. That represents a slight increase from $101 billion in a projection issued in February …

Now playing: Watch this: Android running on an iPhone 1:18 A special case with Android for brains can put Android on an iPhone. We talked to the developer behind it, Nick Lee, to find out more details on how his iPhone can run Google’s mobile operating system. Lee also let us know if he plans on selling such a case …

Snapchat wants to give music fans around the world the true festival experience, but without all the crowds, sweat and sunburn. The popular disappearing photo and video app has struck a deal with live music company AEG Live to cover some of its biggest events via Snapchat Live Stories. Among the first festivals to be covered are the Stagecoach Country …

Tweeters who use the Android app should notice a few changes the next time they tap into it. Updated Tuesday, the latest version of Twitter for Android offers a look similar to other Android apps that use Google’s Material Design aesthetic, with larger icons and more white space. Twitter has been struggling to attract more tweeters at the same time …

Now playing: Watch this: Transfer songs between streaming services 1:04 Recently I canceled my Rhapsody subscription in favor of Spotify, mostly because the latter now offers a $15/month family plan (though it stubbornly refuses to block explicit lyrics, grumble, grumble). Having been with Rhapsody for a couple years, I’d assembled quite a number of playlists and was dreading the thought …

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become well-known for his town hall-style question-and-answer sessions. He’s done them from places including Berlin; Delhi, India; and Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. But next Tuesday, he’ll do his first Q&A via Facebook Live, the live-streaming video service the social network has been intensely pushing lately. It will start at 11:30 a.m. PT. People …