Bellabeat Let’s face it: A lot of tech gear is the opposite of stylish. The wearables category in particular tends toward the dorky black bracelet — not exactly high fashion. Bellabeat aims to change that with the Leaf, which looks more like something you’d find at a craft show than it does a tech-savvy health …
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Tay Tay takes on the tech giants. On Sunday, Taylor Swift announced she would not put her songs on the upcoming Apple Music service. In a blog post, she blasted the company for not paying royalties for songs streamed during free trials. Later that same day, Apple changed its policy. When Swift speaks, big business listens. Watch Update for a …
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A developer preview version of Android M is now available for select Sony devices. James Martin/CNET Sony kicked off the week by announcing a developer preview version of Android M for its Xperia devices. Designed to help developers prepare apps and games for the next generation of Android, it’s also a taste of things to come later this year. Related …
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Tom Ford’s pocket iWatch. pic.twitter.com/VwU8JSI5k6 — Matthew Schneier (@MatthewSchneier) June 15, 2015 Steve Jobs famously restricted his own kids’ iPad time, so he might also have approved of limiting direct skin contact with Apple’s first wearable by taking the Apple Watch off the strap and putting it on a chain in one’s pocket instead. Leave it to fashion king Tom …
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Adobe’s David McGavran shows how Apple’s Metal technology gives Illustrator a fluid new zoom ability. Stephen Shankland/CNET This year, a new way to handle graphics chips will speed up everything on your computer — from Photoshop to a first-person shooter. That’s because a more efficient way for software to control chip hardware will lift graphics performance, empower the graphics chip …
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The US wireless carriers may not be able to stand in the same room together, but they can agree on one thing: the industry needs more spectrum. Wireless spectrum — it’ll color the future for your smartphone service. James Martin/CNET What is spectrum? It’s the set of licensed radio airwaves that allow carriers to ferry cat videos and Instagram selfies …
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Taylor Swift during her June 19 performance in Cologne, Germany, at a stop on “The 1989 World Tour.” Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images for TAS When it launches next week, Apple Music will be minus a blockbuster album from one of today’s hottest pop stars. On Sunday, Taylor Swift said that she will withhold her album “1989” from Apple’s new streaming-music service, …
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Taylor Swift on stage June 21 in Amsterdam — the same day Apple heeded her call to action on payments to musicians. Michel Porro/Getty Images for TAS Apple Music has reversed its position on royalties for artists in the wake of a high-profile protest from artist Taylor Swift. The singer-songwriter sensation had taken to Tumblr on Sunday to tell her …
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MrSpeakers Ether headphones MrSpeakers In a crowded field of high-end contenders, the new MrSpeakers’ Ether headphones are getting a lot of attention for two good reasons: it’s a pleasure to wear, and the sound is revelatory! Even compared with one of my reference headphones, the Audeze LCD-X, Ether’s sound felt liberated, with clearer highs — it was more transparent overall. …
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Steve Guttenberg/CNET I’ve listened to and reviewed hundreds of headphones, and here’s what I’ve learned: they all sound different. Examining their specifications — frequency response, impedance, sensitivity, driver size, etc. — rarely yields useful information. For me the only spec that (sometimes) matters is the easiest one to understand — weight — because weight and long-term comfort are related. To …
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Sarah Tew/CNET There are few things that come in as wide a variety of prices as cables and interconnects. HDMI cables, for instance, can run from $1 to over $1,000 for the same length. USB cables can be similarly cheap or high-end. Speaker cable is even more extreme, from pennies per foot, to hundreds of dollars for the same 12 …
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Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure hints that the unlimited plan may one day be eliminated. Troy Thomas/Sprint Sprint’s unlimited data plan may get pricier in the near future. Sprint may raise prices for unlimited data in the latter part of the year, CEO Marcelo Claure said in an interview with Kansas City, Mo.-based TV station KSHB. Related stories FCC to fine …
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Collage.com Congratulations to Christopher C. of Dothan Ala., for winning a T-fal OptiGrill in last week’s giveaway and to David D. of West Plains, Mo., for winning two educational robots from Wonder Workshop the week before that. Got a naked wall in need of some decoration? Collage.com, which makes a wide range of customized photo products, is offering a free …
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Marvel Zap! Bam! Pow! That’s the (admittedly made-up) sound of Marvel Comics breaking loose of Comixology and landing in Amazon’s Kindle Store, where Kindle tablet owners can now purchase over 12,000 single issues. Some clarification: Marvel has long had a relationship with digital-distribution platform Comixology, and Comixology’s apps have long made those comics available via Android, iOS and Kindle apps. …
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Acer It’s not Tuesday, but when a good tablet deal comes around, alliteration be damned! (Sorry, “Tablet Tuesday”…) Continuing the discussion from earlier this month — can a $37.99 tablet possibly be any good? — Acer’s eBay outlet store is offering the refurbished Acer Iconia Tab A1-840-131U 8-inch tablet for $59.99 shipped. It normally runs $89.99 — already a pretty …
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