October, 2015

• 20 October

  Yahoo continues to sputter as services fail to excite

  

  CEO Marissa Mayer has reiterated Yahoo’s plans to spin off its 15 percent stake in Alibaba as quickly as possible. Britta Pedersen/dpa/Corbis Here’s something to plug into Yahoo’s search field: How do you make the Internet giant exciting again? That’s the question CEO Marissa Mayer has been wrestling with after spending the past three years …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  Make pit stops in navigation mode with Google Maps’ update for Android

  

  Google Maps’ latest update for Android lets you search for gas stations, restaurants and other points of interest along your route without leaving navigation mode. Prior to this update, you would need to leave your turn-by-turn directions to search the map for a gas station, for example, and then jump back into navigation mode. Now, you can search along the …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  Jawbone wins injunction in legal battle with rival Fitbit

  

  A San Francisco judge has ordered five employees of wearable-device maker Fitbit to return confidential information they took before leaving rival Jawbone, a legal victory in a series of lawsuits that claim Fitbit stole its trade secrets by poaching employees. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn issued a preliminary injunction Thursday, ruling that Jawbone would likely win its claim …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  AT&T accidentally ushers in large

  

  AT&T may soon introduce a sequel to the LG G Vista. Josh Miller/CNET Just a day after announcing the upcoming Kyocera DuraForce XD, AT&T has inadvertently confirmed it will soon offer the LG G Vista 2, a new Android-powered jumbo phone. A video posted to AT&T’s YouTube account prematurely tipped the Vista 2’s impending arrival. Although the video has since …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  What’s new at Amazon for November 2015

  

  Just out of frame is a TV. History Channel If you’re paying for Amazon Prime for shipping purposes, don’t forget you get access to a whole bunch of movies and TV shows. In November, Amazon’s original series “The Man in the High Castle” arrives. Based on the 1962 novel by Philip K. Dick, it looks into an alternate history of …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  Verizon promises an open road for unlimited

  

  Customers who signed up for unlimited data are going to get it, Verizon says. That means no throttling. Verizon Verizon Wireless’ unlimited-data customers finally have something to celebrate. Subscribers to the carrier’s grandfathered unlimited plans won’t suffer slowdowns, even if they run wild with their data usage, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in an interview Tuesday. The nation’s …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  Using block and unsubscribe in Gmail for Android

  

  If your Gmail inbox has turned into a daily chore of deleting messages from people or companies, then it might be time to start using the Block or Unsubscribe features. The Block feature became available back in September on both the Web and Android versions of Gmail, and Unsubscribe (which was already available on the Web) has finally started rolling …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  For Verizon, network quality means growth keeps chugging along

  

  Verizon faces increasing competition from its rivals. Verizon Do you want reliable wireless service or do you want cheap service? That’s long been Verizon’s justification to customers for why it charges a premium over its rivals. It’s also a question being asked more often as rivals drop their prices and promise better service. Well, coverage continues to win out for …

  Read More »
• 20 October

  Bentley’s app builds the perfect car by analyzing your face’s emotions in real time

  

  For car enthusiasts, online configurators are a great way to kill some time — you get to build your perfect idea of a car from scratch. Bentley’s taking the whole process to a new extreme with its Inspirator app, which uses facial recognition to assemble your perfect car without asking you to make a single conscious choice. Inspirator is a …

  Read More »
• 19 October

  Chrome drops ‘OK Google’ voice search

  

  It may feel like you are screaming into the void the next time you attempt to initiate a voice search on your computer by uttering “OK Google.” With the latest iteration of its desktop browser, Chrome 46, Google has removed the ability to trigger a search with your voice on Windows, Mac and Linux systems. Voice search is no longer …

  Read More »