For years we’ve been telling people to skip the built-in smart TV apps on their TVs and use an external device like a Roku or Google’s $35 Chromecast. Now Vizio is internalizing our advice. According to a report in Variety, the TV maker is removing the built-in smart TV apps from some of its 2016 …

While “Star Wars: Episode VIII” won’t open in theaters until December 15, 2017, we’re already getting a few clues from the movie’s director and actors on social media. We already know that filming has begun on the new Star Wars movie after Director Rian Johnson shared a brief new scene featuring Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Rey (Daisy Ridley). “Star …

How do you solve a problem like connecting the 1.7 billion people to the Internet who live outside of the range of mobile broadband? If you’re Facebook, the answer is drones. Also, lasers. Facebook’s drone project, named Aquila, is one of several initiatives the company is testing as part of the Internet.org coalition to try to improve global Internet access. …

Walking into a store and demanding cash from the register usually ends badly for all concerned — but an app called Spare replaces a stocking mask and a sawn-off when you want to withdraw cash straight from the till of any shop. Phones are increasingly muscling in on the stuff you’d previously need your wallet for. Mobile-payment services like Apple …

We’ve hauled our gear around endless meetings, we’ve drunk all the coffee we can find and we’ve found a collection of disgusting purple couches. It’s all kicking off at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. MWC is the world’s largest mobile-focused trade show, where the biggest beasts in the industry are showing off their latest and greatest products, like …

Apple has long provided a means to print webpages or documents from an iOS device to an AirPrint-equipped printer. However, the ability to save an item as a PDF isn’t as straightforward. Third-party apps have typically provided the ability to turn a document into a PDF, and now it turns out, Apple is providing a native solution to quickly and …

San Francisco has joined a half-dozen other cities in queue for Google’s high-speed fiber Internet service. Google will bring the service to some apartments, condos and affordable housing properties in San Francisco, the search giant said in a blog post Wednesday. But the rollout comes with a catch. Instead of laying down the necessary fiber from scratch, which is a …

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. Enlarge Image Apple If you’re a regular around these parts, you know that I consider a smartwatch all but indispensable. I can no …

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ordered employees to stop crossing out the phrase “Black Lives Matter” on the walls at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. In an internal post to employees this week, Zuckerberg said there have been several instances of the phrase being crossed out and replaced with “all lives matter” on the company’s chalkboard and white-board walls, which …

Hot news for you storage fans: SanDisk has whipped the covers off its latest USB Type-C flash drive here in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress. Available in four size configurations, the drive can transfer files for USB Type-C enabled devices, such as the recently announced LG G5 smartphone and the Huawei MateBook Windows 10 tablet. More efficient and faster than …