Author Archives: Chris Burns

Google acquired Fitbit on November 1, 2019, making it the second major smartwatch-related buy made by the company just this year.* In December of 2016, Fitbit acquired (most of) Pebble. We've taken a brief trip, here, down the unlikely path that'd lead Google to use what they've acquired to bring Pebble devices back to life. That'd mean new efforts in updating Pebble OS, its various apps, and in creating a whole new piece of hardware.

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On November 6, 2019, Razer revealed two new gaming mouse devices, the Razer Basilisk Ultimate, and the Razer Basilisk X HyperSpeed. These gaming mice were also wireless, working with the company's own branded "Razer HypeSpeed" technology that they suggested was "25% faster than any other wireless gaming technologies." Razer also suggested that these mice had the lowest click latency with said Razer HyperSpeed tech onboard, with "improved Adaptive Frequency Hopping" to boot.

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A terrifying new vision from M. Night Shyamalan called 'Servant' is coming to Apple TV+ in November of 2019. Servant is a streaming, episodic series. This production looks every bit like a big-budget movie, the likes of which M. Night Shyamalan's created before, but it's going to come with 10 episodes. Or it'll have 10 episodes to start - we'll see.

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Today WhatsApp, a Facebook company, updated their so-called Privacy Settings. This is the latest in a line of updates with the word "privacy" in the title released by Facebook and Facebook companies that, collectively, likely aim at doing some good for the overall image of the social networking giant. The latest update is for WhatsApp Groups and it has to do with your Contacts.

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The LG G Pad 5 10.1 tablet was revealed today with a design that might confirm your suspicion about the tablet-makers plans for future devices. Yes, LG does seem to be making a new tablet, and yes, it looks nothing like what we'd expect from a serious competitor for the very few high-end tablet makers on the market today. The LG G Pad 5 10.1 runs Android and has the potential to connect to 4G LTE mobile data - but the rest is a bit confusingly low-end.

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A new study expanded on a seemingly impossible scenario in which wood ants survived while trapped for years in an abandoned nuclear weapons bunker in Poland. The wooded area around the former Soviet nuclear base at Templewo, Poland contained (and still contains) large colonies of the wood ant (Formica polyctena Först). In the year 2012, volunteer researchers entered the bunker (one of two, actually), to ascertain information about bats that'd found their way in to hibernate. In 2012 they found bats, but they also found a massive amount of ants - and so they started gathering data on the ants as well as the bats.

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China-based smart device maker Xiaomi just released a "Xiaomi Mi Watch" that looks a whole lot like the Apple Watch. It has a very, very similar size and shape... and home screens (watch faces). See if you can tell which of these watches (at the head of this article) are from Xiaomi, and which are from Apple. There are some simple giveaways, but really - there's no getting around the idea that there's some MAJOR design inspiration going on here - to put it kindly.

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The Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro was released today with a set of 5 cameras on its backside. We've seen smartphones with 5x camera lenses before - a combination of front and back lenses - but never 5x on the back of a phone in an array so impressive as this. The primary lens amongst these monsters is a 108-megapixel sensor - a sensor that might well make its way to the Samsung Galaxy S11 in 2020.

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Today a report detailed an acquisition of the design firm Gossamer Engineering as initiated by the exercise-centric tech company Peloton Interactive Inc. earlier this year. The acquisition was apparently made to assist the company's efforts to create new hardware, like treadmills and bicycles - so said people familiar with the matter speaking with Bloomberg. Gossamer Engineering was an independent firm before this acquisition, having found success in contracts with both Facebook and Google.

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The United States' "leading craft and fabric retailer" JOANN has a new 3D printer on store shelves called the Polaroid PlaySmart. Before you go buying this just-released 3D printer for your friends, associates, or family members this holiday season, take a peek at a few of the details here and get to know the device a bit better. This device might be a bargain - or it might just be a bust - we shall see!

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It's time to take a peek at the latest round of Samsung Galaxy S11 release rumors and expected camera features. As it's been with the past several Samsung Galaxy S smartphones, the two primary draw points are the display and the back-facing cameras. With the Samsung Galaxy S11, we're at a point at which the jump between generations will be massive - in one way or another.

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The last iPhone SE was Apple's love letter to the iPhone 4, a smartphone design that lasted for several years before giving way to the larger iPhones we know today. Now that the design is fully rounded-edged and beyond-rectangular (for the most part), what's left for a new iPhone SE 2 to do? Today we're taking a peek at all the tips, rumors, and release date targets likely for the year 2020. This might be the second coming of the iPhone SE, the last of the tiny iPhone devices!

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