HTC teams up with Under Armour; wearables on the way?

Athletic apparel company Under Armour has been getting into the software and services game lately, and at CES this week, the company introduced its new UA Record app. The software acts as a hub for gathering data from fitness trackers, helping you analyze that info, and allowing you to connect with other users – really, it doesn’t sound too far off from the sort of fitness hubs we’ve seen already, even with UA promising broad hardware ...

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Sony Xperia Z1 Compact review: small phone, big performance

“Where have all the small phones gone?” “Remember when mini smartphones were actually small?” “Why do small smartphones have to suck on the spec sheet?” Those blurbs, taken from two years’ worth of Pocketnow editorial headlines, succinctly illustrate our historic frustration with the smartphone sizing problem. For the past few generations, average device size has skyrocketed: HTC’s HD2 was considered massive when it ...

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Firefox OS developer tablet details revealed

CES 2014 brought with it some news of what’s next for Mozilla and Firefox OS, including the platform making its way to televisions (webOS-style) as well as tablets. The company shared just such a tablet design, and offered a few initial specs, but this week the full picture finally emerges, as we get our hands on the details behind the first Firefox OS tablet. Like some of that early Tizen hardware we’ve mentioned on occasion, this Firefox tablet is intended specifically for developer ...

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Pocketnow Live S02E11: Post-CES craziness

Click this link to join the hangout! . Topic It’s been a year since we last talked; well, not really, but back then we still wrote dates containing the number 2013. Much has happened since! We went to Vegas, returned, some of us with nasty souvenirs that put us in bed for a couple of days, however, with some nice memories, and a lot of tech videos to remember all the buzz of an interesting show from the ...

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CES 2014: our coverage from start to finish

For all the months we spend looking forward to the CES, thinking about which devices we might see, and planning whose booth we’re going to hit first, it sure can go by in a flash. Sure, it doesn’t seem like it when you’re in the thick of things, but looking back on it now, just a week later, it’s already starting to seem like a distant memory. Part of that has to be due to just how close we are to MWC, and how quickly we have to transition back into that building-up role ...

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Pocketnow Weekly 079: Galaxy S 5 whispers, Moto moves, and the CES 2014 virgin experience

[vamp] [vamp] [vamp] [vamp] That’s the text that leads us in to each episode of the Pocketnow Weekly: a column of virtual prompts on the rough rundown reminding us that, after our loosely scripted intro block, there’s a gulf of pure off-topic nonsense between the opening music and the rundown’s news section. It’s a handful of minutes devoted to office banter, good-natured ribbing, and, in today’s case, an EQ experiment by our own Taylor Martin that results in him literally reading the “vamp” cues out loud like the delightful troll he is. ...

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CES showed us just how far ahead Pebble truly is

The week before CES, Michael and I were discussing what Pebble could possibly announce at the show. We knew it had a press event scheduled for Monday, January 6 in Las Vegas, one day before CES actually started. I recall blatantly saying, “Whatever it is, it isn’t hardware. That’s for sure.” I was at the Pebble press event in 2013 and CEO Eric Migicovsky stood in front of a small group of press and boldly said, Pebble is future-proofed. He explained how the major updates for Pebble in the foreseeable ...

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Three reasons to be excited for the coming ZTE smartphone onslaught

If you’d told me a year ago that one of my key takeaways from CES 2014 would be a renewed interest in ZTE smartphone developments, I’d have told you to “go home, you’re drunk” (which would have been a pretty timely reference back then). Nonetheless, it’s true: of the many impressive sights we beheld at this year’s International CES, the wares showcased by ZTE were high on my list – and if you’re my kind of mobile geek, they ...

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CES 2014 wrap-up: boring, but not a total wash

Unlike my two comrades who joined me, this year marked my third trip to Las Vegas for the annual International Consumer Electronics Show. In that time, I’ve had a decent chance to gauge my expectations beforehand, to learn what to expect when the plane touches down at McCarran International Airport, and to predict which companies will (or will not) have a presence at the convention. For the past several years, International CES has been growing. And this show was one of the biggest yet, covering over 2 million square feet, hosting over 3,200 exhibitors, and welcoming more than ...

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Pocketnow Bloopers – episode 5, CES 2014 edition (Video)

CES 2014 included a lot of serious work and a ton of walking, but that doesn’t mean the guys don’t have fun. In fact, a large part of the show culture is about fun. Whether it’s coworkers who rarely see each other goofing off in front of a camera at a product unveiling or joking with colleagues a meet-and-greet, there is a lot of fun to be had when you’re cramped in a city with 150,000 other nerds who want to drool over the new gadgets just as much as you do. The former part of that statement, ...

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CES 2014, 60,000 steps later

A few days before heading out to Las Vegas for my third consecutive Consumer Electronics Show, I started having flashbacks to the … uhm … adventure the previous two shows had been. Not only were they scheduling and logistical nightmares, they were hell on your feet, back, sleep schedule, and morale, much less your health. For anyone who has never been to a trade show like International CES, it’s essentially three or four days of intense walking, minimal eating, and lots on stress. Oh, and there might be some (or a ...

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Pocketnow Weekly 078: CES 2014 wrap-up – the best and worst from Vegas

Horrible sickness. Missed flights. Broken promises from major airlines. Desert air-induced hacking. A too-late arrival followed by a too-early departure. That’s just a partial list of the challenges faced by the four-man three-man Pocketnow team at 2014′s International CES in Vegas, easily one of the most difficult trade shows we’ve ever done. But while the road was rough, the payoff was (mostly) worth it: in exchange for our hardships, we were among the first to spend time with some of the world’s newest and hottest mobile gadgetry, and we did the best we could to ...

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CES 2014 recap (Video)

CES 2014 was a blur. Michael, Tony, and I were on the ground, and it felt like it was over as soon as we really got started. We walked dozens of miles, filmed a handful of new and innovative products, and hung out with all our colleagues. Samsung unveiled four new tablets: Galaxy NotePRO 12.2, Galaxy TabPRO 12.2, Galaxy TabPRO 10.1, and Galaxy TabPRO 8.4. Sony pulled the curtain on two new phones: the Xperia Z1S and Z1 Compact. ZTE revealed an arsenal of new devices. And Huawei followed up the Ascend Mate from last year with ...

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iPhone 6 leaked frame, Galaxy S5 plans, $50 smartwatch & more – Pocketnow Daily

Watch today’s Pocketnow Daily as we talk about T-Mobile’s new plans to reimburse you for early termination fees from competing carriers. We then move to the Moto G as the device has just landed at Verizon for just $100 on a pre-paid plan. Up next we have Archos, a company we haven’t talked about before, and its plans for a $50 smartwatch later this year. We later talk about the iPhone 6 and the rumored frame that just got leaked, aside from more details on the phone’s camera. We end today’s show talking about Samsung, and its plans for the Galaxy S5, Galaxy ...

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LG Lifeband Touch hands-on (Video)

LG is entering the ever-popular fitness tracking wearable market with the recently announced, wrist-mounted Lifeband Touch. With a expected battery life of two to five days, a touch-sensitive OLED display, and one-size-fits-all design, it certainly has enough allure to raise some eyebrows. The Lifeband Touch has a companion app which will be available on both Android and iOS, but it will also work with a bevy of third-party applications, as well. It tracks things like steps, workout time, heart rate, and calories burned. You ...

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