The long-running patent battle between Apple and Samsung is finally over. The two phone giants on Wednesday notified a district court in San Jose, California, that “they have agreed to drop and settle their remaining claims and counterclaims in this matter.” Judge Lucy Koh, of the Northern District of California, signed the order dismissing all …
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Google is moving ahead with Duplex, the stunningly human-sounding artificial intelligence software behind its new automated system that places phone calls on your behalf with a natural-sounding voice instead of a robotic one. The search giant said Wednesday it’s beginning public testing of the software, which debuted in May and which is designed to make calls to businesses and book appointments. Duplex instantly raised …
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On this podcast, we talk about: Google’s Duplex AI being turned over to the public in limited trials. Our take on the BlackBerry Key2. Qualcomm banking on parents and kids wanting smartwatches. The 3:59 gives you bite-size news and analysis about the top stories of the day, brought to you by the CNET News team in New York and producer …
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Qualcomm is betting more kids will soon be sporting smartwatches. The San Diego chipmaker on Tuesday in Shanghai (Wednesday, China time) unveiled its new Snapdragon Wear 2500 Platform to help make watches geared toward kids. Yes, that’s right. Smartwatches for children. Qualcomm makes chips for everything from smartphones to Windows 10 tablet-laptop hybrids. While it already provides processors for wearables, …
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Cameras have become one of the most important features on our phones. In phones’ early days, cameras were an afterthought — the original iPhone didn’t even record video. But now phone cameras can record 4K video, slow-mo and shoot beautiful portrait photos with artistically blurred backgrounds (bokeh). Phone makers have largely improved phone photography in two ways. The first was …
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Perhaps a two-camera setup isn’t enough to make a flagship phone stand out in 2018. Now LG is said to be releasing a phone with five cameras. The LG V40 will reportedly come with three cameras on the back and two on the front, according to Android Police. The report says that the dual-camera front may allow for a 3D …
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Nokia says you’ll soon be able to unlock a handful of its phones with your face. Nokia confirmed in a tweet, spotted by Android Headlines, that face unlock technology is coming to at least four of its devices in an over-the-air update in “the coming months.” The company said the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus, Nokia 6 and Nokia …
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Firefox is getting smarter about using your computer’s memory for a bit of a speed boost. The changes come in Firefox 61, released Tuesday, the latest version to sport the Quantum brand that for the last half year has embodied Mozilla’s effort to restore its browser’s reputation and reclaim ground lost to Google’s dominant Chrome. One change, called retained display …
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Today, every phone is more or less a rectangular slab along the lines of the iPhone X ($285 at Amazon) or Galaxy S9 ($198 at eBay). That’s not inherently a bad thing, but when you stack these devices side by side, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in a sea of sameness. From time to time I like to …
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A new tool by Google will make your trip planning easier. Google Earth launched a measurement feature on Monday that can calculate distance and areas, the company said in a blog post. The feature is available on Chrome and Android, but will be added to iOS soon. You can use it to check out the perimeter and area of a …
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