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CommBank targets shoppers with in

The CommBank Offers app (left) is entering trial stages, while a new Loyalty feature will let customers ditch their physical loyalty cards. Commonwealth Bank Commonwealth Bank may be a business concerned with helping people save their money, but now it’s going to help customers spend it with two new retail-focused initiatives to expand its mobile …

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Galaxy S6 fails to bring back Samsung’s mojo

The Samsung Galaxy S6, and its many variants like the Galaxy S6 Active (pictured here), haven’t been enough to boost the company’s financial results. CNET Samsung’s Galaxy S6 was supposed to turn its fortunes around. Instead, the company reported its seventh straight profit decline and will be cutting the price of its three-month-old device to attract new buyers. The South …

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Jump the line and get Windows 10 right now

As you’re no doubt aware, today is Windows 10 launch day. If you’re already registered for the new OS, now it’s just a waiting game as Microsoft pushes out the update. Don’t want to wait? You don’t have to: There’s actually a Windows 10 download page where you can grab the OS right now. Although it appears to be focused …

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How your next ‘flagship’ smartphone may cost less than $300

The Idol 3 is Alcatel OneTouch’s idea of a flagship smartphone. Josh MIller/CNET When you think flagship smartphone, Apple’s iPhone 6 or Samsung’s Galaxy S6 — devices that start at $650 without a service contract — come to mind. But Chinese smartphone vendor Alcatel OneTouch doesn’t believe flagship necessarily has to equal expensive. “It’s all of the right technology at …

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Telstra wants to Roku with Telstra TV launch

Telstra TV is a rebadged Roku 2. Telstra Australian streaming video fans have often wondered if or when the popular US set-top box Roku would arrive in this country. Well now the wait is over, though a licensing and rebrand as Telstra TV may surprise and disappoint. Announced in a blogpost on Telstra Exchange on Tuesday, Telstra will add the …

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The many faces of Cortana: How Microsoft’s virtual assistant wants to woo the world

Microsoft’s Cortana, a personal virtual assistant, can crack jokes about the Halo games (where the name Cortana originates) and tell country and language-specific jokes. Josh Miller/CNET We live in a world where we’re starting to talk to our computers, but it still feels like the device on the receiving end is a machine. Microsoft believes it’s begun solving that with …

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Twitter’s user growth skids to a stop

Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. James Martin/CNET Twitter has been a slow-growth company for a while. The company on Tuesday warned investors that it’s essentially a no-growth company. “We do not expect to see sustained meaningful growth in [monthly active users] until we start to reach the mass market,” Twitter CFO Anthony Noto told analysts during the company’s second quarter conference …

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Qualcomm invents way to wirelessly charge mobile devices with metal bodies

Qualcomm’s new technology will let you wirelessly charge a device with a metal exterior. Jessica Dolcourt/CNET Mobile phones that sport metal bodies or cases will soon be able to wirelessly charge themselves courtesy of a new technology created by Qualcomm. Qualcomm subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies Inc. (QTI) announced on Tuesday that it’s the first company to enable wireless charging of mobile …

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