Smartphone shipments likely had their best year ever in 2015, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by market researcher IDC. Global smartphone vendors shipped 1.43 billion units last year, an increase of 10.1 percent compared with 2014 and a single-year record, IDC reported. For the fourth quarter, strong holiday demand helped boost shipments by 5.7 …

Lyft drivers in California will remain independent contractors. That’s the takeaway from a settlement Tuesday between the popular ride-hailing service and its drivers. San Francisco-based Lyft agreed to pay $12.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought in 2013 by Lyft drivers in California. Lyft will also make some changes to the terms of service that drivers agree to …

Apple Watches and Fitbits may be all the rage, but a new product from Japan is redefining the phrase “wearable technology”. Archelis, a collaboration between Yokohama-based Nitto and Chiba University, is a wearable chair that eases fatigue by supporting key pressure points of the leg, such as the top of the thigh, the front of the calves and the balls …

If you’re like a lot of iPhone customers who use Chrome, there’s one gripe at the top of your list: crashes. Go to the wrong website, and Google’s browser disappears from underneath your fingertips, forcing you to restart the app. “Our biggest criticism has been ‘This app crashes a lot,'” said Abdel Karim Mardini, the Google product manager who leads …

Let’s face it. No one needed to watch “Sharknado.” No one needed to watch “Sharknado 2,” creatively dubbed “The Second One.” And, I won’t lie to you, you don’t need to spend an evening watching “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!” But who am I to rob you of the freedom to watch the best trashy TV that streaming services have …

Did T-Mobile’s no-holds barred advertising campaign cross the line of ethical business practices? Three labor unions think so and are using their consumer advocacy group to accuse the carrier of deceptive advertising as well as placing customers on services they never asked for, such as device insurance plans. On Wednesday the group, called Change to Win Retail Initiatives, filed a …

Remember Google Glass? Well, Google would apparently rather you didn’t. The tech titan last weekend erased all the social-media channels dedicated to its $1,500 smart specs, which it stopped selling in January 2015. Google Glass wearers, or Explorers as they are known, are left with only a support page bearing a phone number and email address. At the heart of …

We’ve seen a lot of pictures lately of charred, smoldering hoverboard innards. Now, thanks to the repair gurus at iFixit, you can peek inside a hoverboard that doesn’t have fire damage. The iFixit site, which regularly cracks open high-profile gadgets, in collaboration with The Wirecutter took apart a Swagway and its charger. It’s verdict is that “barring a couple of …

It’s Showtime for Stan after the streaming service announced it has landed a major licensing deal with US-based TV network, bringing first run exclusives on TV shows and access to a massive back catalogue of content for Stan subscribers. The deal is a big win for the local streaming service, which will get a raft of exclusive Showtime content to …

Now playing: Watch this: An easy way to fix a sluggish iPhone or iPad 1:00 iPhone acting sluggish or strange? When my iPhone feels like it’s a step slow, a poor network connection is usually to blame. And in instances where a weak signal isn’t the culprit, I usually power down my iPhone, give it a minute to catch its …