HTC One X9 now stars in live photo shoot

HTC’s next smartphone following the recently unveiled One A9 will be the One X9, as countless leaks and rumors have told us over the past few weeks. We’ve already seen the upcoming device in several sets of renders, but now it’s time for a few live images.

Someone in China has somehow managed to get his or her hands on the handset, and promptly decided to make it the star of a photo shoot of sorts. You can see the resulting images below (make sure you click on the thumbnails for the full-size pictures).

HTC One X9

The design of the One X9 is thus once again confirmed, with its front-facing speakers, capacitive Android buttons, and its metal construction. On the right side we can find the SIM card slot, as well as the power and volume buttons, while the 3.5mm headset jack is at the top and the USB connector on the bottom side.

The HTC One X9 should sport a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 13 MP main camera with OIS, an UltraPixel front camera, the MediaTek MT6795 SoC (which has a 2.2 GHz octa-core CPU), 2 or 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 3,000 mAh battery, according to the source of the photos.

Source (in Chinese) |…

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HTC One X9 now stars in live photo shoot

Google Search picks up a Star Wars Easter egg

Star Wars fever is in full swing today. The first reviews of Episode VII are coming out, Google released a new Chrome experiment last night so you can kill Storm Troopers with your phone, and now we just learned that there is a fun Easter egg in Google Search specifically for Star Wars fans. The Easter egg was first discovered a few weeks ago, but it’s new to us and the timing seems right to show you how it works.
All you really have to do is go to the Google Search bar and do a search for “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.” Assuming everything goes right, your … – Source

Google Search picks up a Star Wars Easter egg

Centre finalizing subsidy norms for electronics production

“We have introduced an element of production subsidy, now we are in process of finalizing guidelines and since there are different kinds of projects, we are looking for specific technical inputs,” DeitY additional secretary Ajay Kumar said.

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Centre finalizing subsidy norms for electronics production

17 best Photoshops from 2015

A tuck here, a polish there — Photoshop can make nearly anyone look flawless

Generally viewed in a negative context, many blame Photoshop for allowing magazines, corporations and advertising to further push unrealistic beauty standards.

See also: The 25 most Florida things that happened in Florida in 2015

But Photoshop is so much more than a tool to take off a few pounds and clear up a couple of zits. It’s a tool the Internet also uses for good, for entertainment, for putting Kanye West’s head on his daughter’s body

Keep up the good work, Internet. Here are the best Photoshops of 2015

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. …

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17 best Photoshops from 2015

The 10 most cringeworthy brand fails of 2015

Nazi symbols on subway cars, creepy jokes about date rape, QR codes leading to porn sites.

Brands blundered, offended and groveled their way through another banner year for facepalm-worthy marketing fails in 2015

See also: The 10 most brilliant trolls the world saw in 2015

Transgressions ranged from tone-deaf failures to read the room to abject misogyny or sexism to errors so embarrassing that they can only be explained by a complete lapse in common sense

The brand outrage cycle has become so commonplace that it’s something of a ritual process at this point: Brand does something boneheaded or offensive, social media reacts with outrage or mockery, brand pulls the offending item and apologizes, life goes on. …

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The 10 most cringeworthy brand fails of 2015

First photo of the Moto X (4th Gen) leaks, shows metal unibody design

Motorola is working on the fourth generation Moto X and a photo of its effort has leaked. The photo shows a metal unibody design, which is quite different from the current generation Moto X Style.

We especially like the camera design

There’s no information on specifications just yet. Looking at the photo, the upcoming Moto X (4th Gen) has a redesigned camera housing, protected with a large glass. On it, you can spot the Moto logo as well as a dual-tone flash. Below the camera, there’s the usual Motorola logo, which look to sit flush with the back this time around.

We assume the top and bottom of the back is made of plastic in order for the antennas to work. The speaker grille is also at the bottom, but we don’t know if it’s stereo or not.

Source |…

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First photo of the Moto X (4th Gen) leaks, shows metal unibody design

Mei Mei from 'Kung Fu Panda 3' stars in her new series on DreamWorksTV

LOS ANGELES — DreamWorks Animation is turning to its YouTube network — DreamWorksTV — to introduce a new Kung Fu Panda character to fans of the franchise.

Meet Mei Mei (voiced by Kate Hudson): Pandiva, princess, and star of a new four-part series for the channelMashable got an exclusive look at the series (above), which officially launches on Thursday.

See also: DreamWorksTV Hits YouTube With Shrek the Ogre ‘Vlogger’

“We fell in love with the character,” Birk Rawlings, head of DreamWorksTV, told Mashable in a phone interview. “We obviously have this advantage with DreamWorks animation and got a sneak peak at the movie. This felt like it was a unique opportunity to create some custom programming for our audience that will both entertain and build an audience for the movie.” …

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Mei Mei from 'Kung Fu Panda 3' stars in her new series on DreamWorksTV

Apple's peculiar Kardashian autocorrect insult - CNET

Type a certain derogatory word into iOS 9.2 that rhymes with “harda**” and you get the autocorrect “Kardashian.” What can this mean?

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Apple's peculiar Kardashian autocorrect insult - CNET

Expected Trump-Cruz fireworks fizzle during GOP debate

WASHINGTON — Republicans expected a showdown between businessman Donald Trump and Texas SenTed Cruz on the debate stage Tuesday night — the final GOP debate of 2015.

But Trump didn’t take the bait from CNN moderators, instead heaping praise on the one candidate whose rise threatens Trump’s quest for the nomination.

“Let me just tell you having gotten to know him over the past three or four days, he has a wonderful temperament, he’s just fine,” Trump said of Cruz

Cruz recently pushed Trump from Trump’s first-place spot in the Iowa caucus. A Des Moines Register-Bloomberg poll of the race — widely hailed as the most accurate polls of the caucuses — showed Cruz surging ahead with 31 percent to Trump’s 21 percent. …

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Expected Trump-Cruz fireworks fizzle during GOP debate

Target back on naughty list with another security vulnerability - CNET

Did you make a wish list on Target’s mobile app? Well Ho ho ho, your phone number and address are publicly accessible thanks to a newly discovered flaw.

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Target back on naughty list with another security vulnerability - CNET

Follow live: The GOP debate in Las Vegas

Martin Bialecki/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Live coverage

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Follow live: The GOP debate in Las Vegas

Pebble Time watches now track your health, older models get new Timeline UI

After a short beta testing period, Pebble has today released the latest software version for its smartwatches. This is the one that brings the all-new Timeline UI (as seen on the Pebble Time, Time Round, and Time Steel) to older models such as the Pebble Classic and Pebble Steel.

But that’s not all it does. If you have a newer Time, Time Round, or Time Steel watch, you’ll be happy to know that it can now track your health without the need for a third party app. Unfortunately though, this functionality hasn’t made it to the Classic or Steel, so if you have one of those you’ll still need to use apps like Misfit or Jawbone.

Pebble Health tracks your daily activity and automatically detects your sleep phases. And, as you may expect, it’s fully integrated in the Timeline UI, showing you easily glanceable information about the day’s stats. Pebble Health doesn’t nag you to achieve an arbitrary step count, instead measuring your progress against your own personal average. It also tracks how well you sleep and suggests methods of improving your sleep if you need to. Pebble Health is fully compatible with Apple HealthKit and Google Fit.

To take advantage of all these features you need to have the latest Pebble app installed on your Android handset or iPhone, and the latest 3.8 firmware on your smartwatch. To upgrade your wearable’s software, use the appropriate menu inside the Pebble app for either iOS or…

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Pebble Time watches now track your health, older models get new Timeline UI

Pebble Introduces 'Pebble Health' Activity Tracking And Brings Timeline To Older Watches As Part Of Firmware 3.8

Part of the appeal of smartwatches is using them in place of a dedicated activity tracker. Pebble watches have had a number of third-party options available, but now Pebble is making a full effort of its the own. The company has rolled out Pebble Health, watch software that tracks your steps and monitors your sleeping.

Pebble’s take on the pedometer sets your goals relative to your own personal average, so you won’t feel like a failure every time you fail to hit 10,000 steps.

Read More

Pebble Introduces ‘Pebble Health’ Activity Tracking And Brings Timeline To Older Watches As Part Of Firmware 3.8 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Pebble Introduces 'Pebble Health' Activity Tracking And Brings Timeline To Older Watches As Part Of Firmware 3.8

Hands-on with Simblee, connecting things to the cloud through smartphones

Have you ever turned a light on from a webpage? Well, I have with the Simblee chip connected to this LED, a mobile app, and a connected cloud service. (credit: Sean Gallagher)

Earlier this year, Ars Technica got a demonstration of a technology that seeks to change how we interact with embedded computing technology—tying together Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communications, Arduino-style microcontroller technology, and mobile Internet connectivity. The chip at the core of the technology, called Simblee, allows device developers to build and deploy their own mobile applications without having to write iOS or Android code or having to publish their applications through an app store. Eight months have passed, and Simblee Corporation’s eponymous chip is now shipping to pre-order customers and is for sale through electronics distributors.

Ars was given an opportunity to work with an early release of Simblee’s developer kit. While we haven’t yet built a mobile app-controlled, cloud-connected mobile army, we did get a chance to dive into the code that makes Simblee tick. There’s still a good deal of polishing to be done—there’s currently only a mobile client application for iOS, and the documentation is still being put together. But Simblee succeeds in taking a significant chunk of the work out of developing mobile-connected “Internet of Things” devices, making the technology much more accessible to a broad range of developers.

Simblee was not born out of thin air. Armen Kazanchian, Simblee’s founder, also founded RF Digital—the company that created the RFduino (which Ars looked at two years ago). It’s also not the only contender for the market of Arduino developers looking to build mobile applications. BLEduino, a crowdfunded product from Kytelabs, also aims to deliver a common mobile client application, though the project is still in development. Tah, another open source hardware project based on Arduino with BLE, is available now through CrowdSupply (though it’s functionally more in line with the RFDuino—simply integrating a Bluetooth interface with core Arduino functionality).

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Hands-on with Simblee, connecting things to the cloud through smartphones