Sarah Tew/CNET Pivotal Living’s low-cost activity tracker has generated a lot of buzz. The company took a unique approach when it entered the wearable market, offering its Pivotal Tracker 1 for $12 in the US. That cost gets you the tracker and one year of access to the company’s mobile app. You can then pay …

Amber Alerts will pop up in Facebook News Feeds. Facebook The world’s largest social network is integrating Amber Alerts into its platform, giving the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) a direct way to reach people who could help find the abducted children, Facebook announced on Tuesday. Through the new arrangement, NCMEC will be able to post Amber …

An image of a chest cavity taken from the GE Revolution CT scanner. GE Healthcare Images captured by a new type of CT scanner are something to behold. GE’s Revolution CT creates immensely detailed images of the beating heart and other organs, including bones, that could replace a barrage of tests previously required for a diagnosis. It can, for example, …

Image: Microsoft Unlucky for some: it’s 13 January 2015, and that means the end of free support for Windows 7. Happily that doesn’t mean your computer is going to automatically break or stop working, but it does mean Microsoft will no longer offer free help and support if you have problems with your Windows 7 software from this point on. …

Phone case or ninja gear? You decide. Nitto Novelty smartphone cases have become something of an art form. While the pinnacle already may have been reached with KFC Japan’s fried-chicken drumstick case, there’s still room for innovation. Take the Trick Cover iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus case, for example. It’s a slide-y, flip-y, floppy creation that allows you to …

Amazon ups its game with Woody Allen. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage) Jamie McCarthy, WireImage Woody Allen has signed a deal with Amazon to write and direct his first-ever television series — a half-hour show that’s set to premiere at some point next year exclusively on Amazon Prime Instant Video, Amazon announced on Tuesday. Currently dubbed “Untitled Woody Allen Project,” there …

Samsung may usher in a new line of smartphones with the so-called J1. SamMobile Samsung may soon launch a new, entry-level J1 smartphone, according to details obtained by tech site SamMobile. The Samsung SM-J100 is reportedly slated to feature a 4.3-inch 480×800-pixel display and a 5-megapixel camera. Low end by today’s standards, the handset could also feature 1GB RAM with …

Google Glass has gone into hiding, but headsets aren’t going away. CES, this year, was full of them. Google Glass-alikes, augmented reality, virtual reality and plain old over-the-head movie-watching goggles were lurking throughout the show. Virtual reality, however, has become the eye-catching showstopper. Largely, thanks to Oculus. Its headsets were everywhere in Las Vegas: not just at its own massive …

The latest iPhone is a desired gadget in China. Getty Images Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are popular gadgets in China. At one point, smuggled iPhone 6s were going for over $2,400. While the phones are now officially available from Apple, there’s still an active market for stolen phones. Feeding those underground sources are smugglers who come up …

Will Samsung try to top the Galaxy S5 with two variations of the S6? Josh Miller/CNET Samsung may try to challenge the competition with not one but two new variations of its upcoming Galaxy S6 smartphone. The company, whose current marquee phone is the Galaxy S5, will reportedly roll out one model with a metal design, a change from the …

Spotify has hit 15 million paid subscribers. Spotify Music-streaming service Spotify has grown substantially over the last year, new data from the company shows. By the end of 2014, Spotify had reached 15 million paid subscribers and 60 million active users worldwide, the streaming provider announced Monday. The company provided no other information on its growth. But Spotify’s expansion does …

Jawbone By now many of you know my feelings about fitness bands: If you’re going to strap something to your wrist, it should do more than just track your sleep and steps. It should tell time, duh, and it should notify you of calls, text messages, calendar appointments and other important happenings. That said, the amazing popularity of single-purpose fitness …

These huge outdoor LED displays are a feature of everyday life in big cities. But what’s behind them? Aloysius Low/CNET SINGAPORE — With an enviable grace that came from years of practice, Shaw Organisation Vice President Terence Heng scrambled over the narrow ledge, peering down at the scaffolding that would soon cover his company’s entire outdoor LED display, located in …

Start of another billing cycle. Jason Cipriani/CNET Tiered data plans are horrible. Keeping track of how much data you’ve used has been streamlined with carriers offering warning texts and emails, yet they always make me feel like I’m being yelled at by a parent. Sorry, AT&T! I didn’t realize I was at 60 percent until you notified my entire family. …

Evernote Scannable can work with a ScanSnap scanner, but it’s pretty awesome on its own, too. Evernote The scanner is dead. Long live the scanner! Why rely on a bulky, expensive, deskbound piece of hardware when you can “scan” items just as easily with your smartphone? That’s the idea behind Evernote’s new Scannable for iOS, a free app that joins …