Here’s some unsolicited advice to technology companies drawing up their plans for 2014: Dare to be stupid. We saw plenty of that this year. Samsung Electronics raced to launch its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, and it was widely lambasted. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talked up the idea of flying drones delivering our Blu-Ray discs and books, …

More sales news: Vodafone has started its January sale, knocking 25 per cent off SIM-only deals, uSwitch reports. 1,200 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB of data can be yours for just £13.60, down from £16. A still very reasonable £16.80 a month will get you unlimited texts and calls, along with 1GB of data. Previously, that would’ve cost you £21 …

Here’s something to get your heart rate up: Apple has won patents on a heart rate monitor that knows who you are and a screen that you can control without even touching it. First up is US patent No. 8,615,290, involving a ‘Seamlessly embedded heart rate monitor’ that scans your EKG reading. The obvious application for this would be to …

It’s easy to understand why there’s so much confusion surrounding the differences between earbud and in-ear headphones. The two designs are sometimes referred to interchangeably, but they are two very different types of headphones. Earbuds rest on the outer concha ridge of the ear, located in the center of your outer ear. In-ear or ear-canal headphones are placed inside the …

Home theater is always one of the major stars at the Consumer Electronics Show, with every major company rolling out a full suite of new products promising to make your digital entertainment look and sound better. Those product lineups tend to include plenty of products that feel pretty stale, such as new Blu-ray players and home-theater-in-a-box systems that won’t be …

Last week, we heard it was coming, and now it’s here. Android Jelly Bean has made it to a slew of Sony Xperia Z devices, including the Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, and the Xperia Tablet Z. Jelly Bean has already come to the Xperia Z1 and Xperia Z Ultra. Sony made the announcement in a blog post, though …

I did not expect to like the TaskLab TaskOne iPhone case. After all, my last experience with a multifunction holster — the ReadyCase — was decidedly disappointing. Mostly it was an interesting idea marred by less-than-stellar execution. So it was with some skepticism that I approached the TaskLab TaskOne multitool iPhone case, which I wrote about in my recent roundup …

Need your mobile Facebook fix but don’t have any data coverage? T-Mobile has one option for you. T-Mobile has tweaked its GoSmart Mobile prepaid wireless plan to offer free Facebook and Facebook Messenger access for all customers starting in January. That means subscribers can use Facebook without chewing up their data allowance or without even needing a data plan. Related …

Perhaps not surprisingly, BlackBerry has decided to forgo its big conference next year. The struggling handset maker will not host a BlackBerry Live conference in 2014, the company announced in a blog post Friday. Instead, it will hold smaller events throughout next year that will focus on the “specific business, developer, and partner audiences.” Related stories Best Password Manager to …

Specs of what is believed to be the LG G2 Mini have leaked online, but if they’re the real deal, it looks like this small phone will be a big disappointment. Phone Arena reports that a handset with the model number LG D410 — believed to be the rumoured G2 Mini — has had its benchmarks leaked at GFXBench. A …