mobile

A list of top marketplace-centric companies was released today. It's called the A16Z Marketplace 100, and it ranks the top 100 companies that are marketplace startups and/or non-public companies. On top of this list are four titans - all four of them relatively new companies - followed by a fifth... Valve. The top four companies on this list account for a whopping 76 percent of consumer spend. That's a dominance we don't often see in any industry... unless we're talking about the smartphone market, of course.

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The future is slightly cooler than the present, according to a pair of prototype devices revealed today by HTC. This is HTC Project Proton, a prototype (a pair of prototypes) for "XR glasses-style" devices "from HTC Vive." Specs are forthcoming, but we've got some imagery of both different sorts of device. These prototypes were made specifically to gather public opinion well in advance of production.

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Today Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux was made available for public preview, and a version for iOS (for iPhone and iPad) and Android were announced. The Android and iOS versions of Microsoft Defender ATP will be released later this year. Today's preview of the Linux version was first shown at Ignite 2019 running on Ubuntu.

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This week iOS 13.4 Beta 2 was released - mainly for developers - with a set of new features for future public consumption. This is a Beta 2 release, mind you - part of a bigger release that'll go live in the Spring for all users. Today's update includes feature changes for both iOS for iPhone and iPad as well as iPadOS, though the iPadOS update is called iPadOS 13.4 Beta 2 (not iOS any longer). It all begins in the TV app - which appears to be making accommodations for the oncoming deluge of 5G data speed and big bandwidth.

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The newly unveiled Galaxy Z Flip smartphone is already sold out, according to Samsung. The device joins the Motorola Razr in offering consumers a clamshell-style smartphone with a flexible display and horizontal hinge. Despite some consumer concern over the long-term durability of these devices, Samsung reports that its clamshell foldable sold out and won't be back in stock until later this month.

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Today we get our first major glimpse of what Google developers are doing to prepare Android 11 (or Android R) for 5G connectivity. We see the next-generation operating system update with the Android 11 Developer Preview, a bit of software that was just released for app developers today. With 5G, the Android experience expands in a number of exciting ways - but it begins at the base, with features like "dynamic meteredness" and a newly updated bandwidth estimator API.

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Five years ago, Microsoft suggested we "try the new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps", as the lot replaced the "Office Mobile" app. This week, Microsoft decided they were better off pushing those apps back into a single app, now re-named "Office." If you never deleted the Office Mobile app from your phone back then, all you need to do now is hit the update button. Easy as pie!

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Today we're taking a peek at a set of renders made of the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 based on rumored specs and features. These images are not officially made by Samsung, but instead represent all that's been leaked, tipped, and rumored by insider sources thus far. In this machine we see a full-screen display up front and a full-screen display inside - far more coverage than the first generation device.

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Today Verizon released a set of pre-order promotions for the Samsung Galaxy S20 collection. This includes the Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G as well as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, but NOT the non-plus, non-ultra Galaxy S20, because Verizon will not be selling a device like that - not until Q2.* Pre-orders for the Galaxy S20+ and S20 Ultra with Verizon start on Friday, February 21, at 12:01am ET.

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Foldable phones are fragile and expensive pieces of electronics but that only seems to tempt people more to find out just how much torture they can take. It turns out, not that much but each new generation is admittedly getting more resilient than the previous one. The Galaxy Z Flip, at least on stage, was touted to have addressed many of the issues found in the Galaxy Fold. Naturally, the folks over at iFixit couldn't help but put at least one of those claims to the test.

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When Samsung launches a new smartphone, it sometimes does more than commercialize a new mobile device. Sometimes, that smartphone also becomes the showcase and demonstration of a new technology that the company will eventually commercialize and sell to other customers. That is the case for many of its displays, from curved edge screens to its different kinds of Infinity cutouts. Now it's also doing the same for the Galaxy Z Flip's foldable display cover window which it will be selling to other OEMs as Samsung UTG.

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The 120Hz displays on the Galaxy S20 series are definitely game-changers as far as the traditionally slower AMOLED screen tech goes. But as with the first 120Hz screens that landed on the first Razer Phone, there is some confusion as to what the feature can and cannot do or even when. Samsung may have opted to err on the side of caution much to some new Galaxy S20 owner's dismay but it seems that at least one of those will be "fixed" in some future firmware update.

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