Mobile recap: Asus VivoWatch; new ARM chips; LoopPay in Galaxy S6, and more for Saturday, February 7, 2015

Mobile recap: Asus VivoWatch; new ARM chips; LoopPay in Galaxy S6 Kevin C. Tofel Feb 7 2015, 6:05am PDT In the run up to March’s Mobile World Congress Event, there won’t likely be any big mobile hardware announcements. But there are some clues as to what’s coming. Asus is working on its second smartwatch, for example. With its ZenWatch (pictured), the company was among that last […] Read More » Brian Williams was an anachronism even before his memory problems Mathew Ingram Feb 6 2015, 5:30pm PDT Some media watchers are wondering whether NBC anchor Brian Williams will be able to regain his position at the pinnacle of the U.S. news business now that he has been caught in a lie -- but the reality is he lost that position a long time ago, thanks to the web Read More » Exclusive: Pivotal CEO says open source Hadoop tech is coming Derrick Harris Feb 6 2015, 2:32pm PDT Pivotal, the cloud computing spinoff from EMC and VMware that launched in 2013, is preparing to blow up its big data business by open sourcing a whole lot of it. Rumors of changes began circulating in November, after CRN reported that Pivotal was in the process […] Read More » Apartments are the home of the future. Let’s make them smart. Stacey Higginbotham Feb 6 2015, 1:03pm PDT Would you find it creepy if your apartment owner was tracking every time you switched on a light bulb or how much energy your apartment used each evening? What about noticing every time you ran dishwasher or the noise levels next door? With about $900 dollars […] Read More » PhotoTime is a deep learning application for the rest of us Derrick Harris Feb 6 2015, 12:23pm PDT A Sunnyvale, California, startup called Orbeus has developed what could be the best application yet for letting everyday consumers benefit from advances in deep learning. It’s called PhotoTime and, yes, it’s yet another photo-tagging app. But it looks really promising and, more importantly, it isn’t focused […] Read More » Got sick kids? Take their temp with Wishbone and your phone Kevin C. Tofel Feb 6 2015, 11:34am PDT With both of my kids now in high school, it’s been a long time since the days of taking a crying baby’s temperature. I still remember it though, trying — and generally failing — to get a squirming, cranky child to hold still while trying to use an in-ear or oral […] Read More » Sling TV reveals plans for sports package including Universal Sports Janko Roettgers Feb 6 2015, 11:02am PDT Sling TV, the internet-based TV service operated by Dish, just gave us a look at its plans for sports fans: Sling TV’s new website, which launched Friday, reveals the line-up of channels that will be available as part of a Sports Extra add-on package. Sports fans who pay […] Read More » Here’s why platforms like YouTube shouldn’t remove ISIS videos Mathew Ingram Feb 6 2015, 10:48am PDT Many people argue that Google and Facebook and Twitter are doing us a favor by removing videos of graphic violence committed by groups like ISIS -- but there are also some compelling arguments for why those videos should be allowed to remain Read More » Windows 10 phone pic leaks show revamped settings, keyboard Kevin C. Tofel Feb 6 2015, 7:16am PDT It appears that some handsets have the technical preview of Windows 10 for phones a bit early, and their owners are happy to share what they see. China-based site ITHome published several screenshots of the new software, which Microsoft will make available later this month, showing a bit […] Read More » The Ubuntu phone is about to go on sale, but curb your enthusiasm David Meyer Feb 6 2015, 6:33am PDT Finally, after many delays, the first Ubuntu phone is about to hit the market. In Europe. And only through a series of online flash sales. And you’ve almost certainly never heard of the manufacturer. On the plus side, it will come with quite a few recognizable […] Read More » Anthem breach: Vendors never let a good crisis go to waste Barb Darrow Feb 6 2015, 6:14am PDT Given this week’s news of a potentially huge security breach at insurance provider Anthem, security vendors of all types are eager to give advice, and, oh, get their company names in front of affected consumers or (better yet) other big companies spooked by what happened to Anthem. The breach, in […] Read More » Are media companies building another house of cards on Snapchat? Mathew Ingram Feb 5 2015, 3:48pm PDT SnapChat has convinced media companies like CNN and Yahoo and Vice to be part of its new Discover feature, and they were easy to convince because of SnapChat's 200M-plus millennial audience. But who ultimately benefits from these deals? Read More » Verizon to sell part of its wireline biz to Frontier for $10.54B Stacey Higginbotham Feb 5 2015, 2:48pm PDT Verizon Communications is fleeing the crufty wireline communications world as fast as it can and has turned once again to Frontier to buy its fiber and telephony assets in Texas, Florida and California in a deal valued at $10.54 billion. It also has signed a deal […] Read More » Katy Perry’s lawyers demand takedown of 3D printable Left Shark Signe Brewster Feb 5 2015, 1:47pm PDT While the nation identifies with the Super Bowl’s insta-star Left Shark, Katy Perry’s lawyers are apparently more the Right Shark type. They issued a cease and desist letter (see below) to on-demand 3D printing service Shapeways on Tuesday, demanding a 3D model depicting Left Shark be […] Read More » After handing over license plate info, Uber re-opens its NYC bases Carmel DeAmicis Feb 5 2015, 10:10am PDT Uber has relented against New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) and handed over its data. As a result, it can now open the five Uber dispatch bases that the TLC shut down when Uber refused to comply. New York City passengers won’t see much of a […] Read More » Sprint is growing, but it’s still losing core phone customers Kevin Fitchard Feb 5 2015, 7:23am PDT Marcelo Claure may have brought the struggling Sprint back to growth, but the new CEO probably wishes the company were growing in different ways. Sprint added 1 million new connections in the fourth quarter, but they were all prepaid, wholesale and tablet connections instead of core […] Read More » Brown Moses launches crowdsourced tracking of troops in Ukraine Mathew Ingram Feb 4 2015, 3:13pm PDT Eliot Higgins, the investigative blogger also known as Brown Moses, has launched a new project that uses crowdsourced data to track Ukrainian and Russian troop and vehicle movements in real time Read More » How can a baby have three parents? Lasers, software, and a joystick Elizabeth Armstrong Moore Feb 4 2015, 1:56pm PDT After spending several years interviewing scientists and holding public forums to debate ethics and air concerns, the U.K.’s lower house of Parliament this week voted to allow babies to be born with three genetic parents. While some call it a perversion, the procedure has nothing at […] Read More » Report: 80% of all mobile data is consumed by just 10% of users Kevin Fitchard Feb 4 2015, 1:40pm PDT Cisco Systems this week offered some insight into just how much mobile data the world is consuming — 2.5 exabytes a month, to be exact – and now a new report from Amdocs sheds a little light on who among those billions of users is consuming […] Read More » The FCC’s net neutrality proposal is awesome, but has a loophole Stacey Higginbotham Feb 4 2015, 1:05pm PDT FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has taken the unprecedented and awesome step of using Title II to ensure that the internet remains open and that ISPs cannot discriminate against the type of traffic flowing across their networks. This is a big deal, as I explained earlier, and […] Read More »