jfruh writes "Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader line has largerly been regarded as a botched attempt to compete with the Kindle, whose failure has contributed to the bookseller's financial woes. Well, despite earlier statements that the company was abandoning it as a hardware platform, now the B&N CEO insists that the company is committed to the product line and the new Nooks are in development."

Dave_Minsky writes "About 600 students will enter Lynn University's freshman class this year, the largest since 2007, and they will all be using iPad Minis instead of textbooks. The iPads will cost $475, saving students up to 50% of what a semester's worth of textbooks would cost, estimates Lynn. Students will be able to access core curriculum classes on their iPads that are 'enhanced with custom multimedia content,' and will come with 'at least 30 education, productivity, social and news-related iOS apps — some free and some paid for by the university.' This seems to be the beginning of a new era for American colleges. The Boca Raton university is not the first to give iPads to students instead of textbooks. Back in 2010, New Jersey-based Seton Hill University announced it would give students the tablets rather than books."

colinneagle writes "A lot of people don't password-protect their smartphones, and even those who do employ a simple four-digit passcode to at least keep it a little convenient. Their phones aren't really protected, as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends a 12-character random password. Those who check smartphones 50 times a day would probably get tired of that. So Motorola developed the Skip, an NFC-based unlocking tool smartphone users can clip to their clothes. Tapping an NFC-enabled phone to the Skip unlocks it. The Skip also comes in sticker form, so users can install one in their cars or at their desks." That's why the muggers want your jacket, too.

Nerval's Lobster writes "The crowdfunding campaign to build an Ubuntu-powered smartphone has fallen short of its ambitious goal. Canonical, which works with the open-source community to support Ubuntu worldwide, decided to fund its Ubuntu Edge smartphone via crowdfunding Website Indiegogo. The funding goal was set at $32 million, and at first it looked as if the project had enough momentum to actually succeed: within the first 24 hours of the project's July 22 launch, some $3.45 million had poured in. But that torrent of cash soon slowed to a trickle. In the end, the campaign managed to amass $12,809,906 by its August 21 closing. Nonetheless, Canonical did its best to put a brave face on the situation. 'While we passionately wanted to build the Edge to showcase Ubuntu on phones, the support and attention it received will still be a huge boost as other Ubuntu phones start to arrive in 2014,' the organization wrote in a posting. 'Thousands of you clearly want to own an Ubuntu phone and believe in our vision of convergence, and rest assured you won't have much longer to wait.'" Update: 08/22 16:14 GMT by T : Oops -- headline edited to reflect that the Edge was an Indiegogo project, rather than Kickstarter.

SmartAboutThings writes "It seems that LG is going to join Alcatel, GeeksPhone and ZTE in the Firefox OS market. During an interview with Bulgarian online outlet Dnevnik.bg (in Bulgarian), LG's mobile communications head in Bulgaria spilled the beans on company's plans for the future. While he tried to refer only to plans that regard Bulgaria, it's obvious that he also spoke about LG's global strategy. Mister Valev said that LG is also looking to come up with a new Android tablet, phablet and even a smartwatch. Valev said LG is already working on a Firefox OS that could possibly be released in the first quarter of 2014."

jfruh writes "One of the biggest challenges Microsoft has faced with its Windows Phone platform is that it's far behind in the apps race against iOS and Android. One way to close the gap is to lower the barrier to entry for new app devs, and Microsoft has done so with Windows Phone App Studio, a hosted service that lets you build applications without actually writing any code. The description of how App Studio works may leave you wondering how useful or exciting the apps created will be, but a surge of developer interest during the current beta program has surprised even Microsoft with its scope."

jfruh writes "On Friday, Dell was selling Windows RT tablets for as low as $300. By this morning, the cheapest one on offer was $479. The difference? The only tablets they're selling now come bundled with keyboards, which may indicate that customers are finding even the Metro-focused RT version of Windows 8 too irritating to navigate by touch alone. (If you really want a 10-inch Dell tablet without a keyboard it looks like you can still get one on Amazon, at least for the time being.)"

Volanin writes "The Ubuntu Edge has now passed the $10.2 million mark, thus making it the most pledged-to crowd-funder in history. While the Ubuntu Edge campaign is to be commended for reaching such a mammoth milestone as this, it can't quite claim ultimate victory yet, since it's just short of making one-third of its $32 million goal with a little less than a week left."

hypnosec writes "The CyanogenMod team has announced the release of version 10.2 nightly builds, which are based on Google's latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. The current nightly builds have been released for the Google Galaxy Nexus, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S3, LG Optimus G, Sony Xperia Z, and Motorola Razr among others. As always, CyanogenMod team reminds that these are experimental."

gurps_npc writes "I have seen several technology holsters. There are a lot of good ones for cell phones, but I am looking for something larger — for a tablet (Nook/Kindle/Nexus/iPad). There is, however, a direct trade-off between being discreet and having decent carrying capacity. Has anyone found an ideal balance? I would love to hear from people with direct experience. Do you look like the worst kind of geek hipster while wearing it? Any feature I should look for? I found one from a company called techslinger, but it looks a bit too geeky for me (double-sided makes it really stand out)."

CowboyRobot writes "It's looking like Microsoft is planning to replace its underachieving Surface tablet with two new products, but it may need three to finally have success with the Surface. Three tablets would provide an entry point and an upgrade path. Multiple Surface RT models would help Windows RT survive OEM skepticism. Microsoft needs device fanfare to accompany Windows 8.1, and to coincide with enterprise hardware upgrades. If the company releases one of the models before the end of the year, the device would arrive in time not only for the holiday season, but also to cash in on user interest in Windows 8.1, which will be released later this fall. Surface devices released next year, meanwhile, could capitalize on enterprise hardware upgrades, which are expected to pick up as Windows XP's April 8, 2014 end-of-service date nears."

An anonymous reader writes "In a fascinating post from Kelly Jacklin, the long time Apple software engineer details how he helped create the default text alert sound on the iPhone — a sound otherwise known as 'Tri-tone.' The history of the the pleasant text alert sound that we've all come to know and love stretches all the way back to 1998, nearly 10 years before the iPhone ever hit store shelves." Here's Jacklin's post.

In the wake of AOSP maintainer Jean-Baptiste Quéru's resignation, there was speculation that there would be no factory images or binary drivers released for Google's new Nexus 7 tablet. Happily, that's not the case — whatever other open source gaps there are in the Android world, Ars reports that those images and binaries have been released for the Nexus 7.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled that certain models of Samsung phone violate Apple patents, and are likely to be blocked from import to the U.S. From the article: "The patents in question are U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949, which relates to a touch screen and user interface and U.S. Patent No. 7,912,501 which deals with detecting when a headset is connected. The ITC said Samsung didn’t infringe on the other two patents. In a statement on the matter, the ITC said the decision is final and the investigation has been closed. ... As was the case with the previous ruling that saw Apple devices banned, the ban on Samsung devices won’t go into effect until 60 days but can be blocked by a favorable ruling following a presidential review. That seems unlikely as such a block has only been issued once since 1987 – last’s week’s ruling in favor of Apple."

Lucas123 writes "With 3D NAND flash going into high production and one startup demonstrating a resistive NAND (RRAM) flash array, it may not be long before mobile devices have hundreds of gigabytes of capacity, even a terabyte, with performance only limited by the bus. Samsung announced it is now mass producing three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) chips, and start-up Crossbar said it has created a prototype of its RRAM chip. Both technologies offer many times what current NAND flash chips offer today in capacity and performance. Which technology will prevail is still up in the air, and experts believe it will be years before RRAM can challenge NAND, but it's almost inevitable that RRAM will overtake NAND as even 3D NAND heads for an inevitable dead end. Others believe 3D NAND, currently at 24 layers, could reach more than 100, giving it a lifespan of five or more years."

Freshly Exhumed writes "Microsoft advises that a cryptographic problem in the PEAP-MS-CHAPv2 protocol used in Windows Phone 8 to provide WPA2 authentication allows a victim's encrypted domain credentials to be collected by an attacker posing as a typical WiFi access point. Redmond further states that this problem cannot be patched, although a set of manually entered configuration changes involving root certificates on all WP8 phones and on WiFi access points will apparently address the issue. WP7.8 phones are likewise vulnerable."

DW100 writes "Ubuntu has secured a surprise enterprise backer of its $32m Edge smartphone crowd-funding push with corporate powerhouse Bloomberg signing up for the top tier Enterprise 100 package, worth $80,000. Chief technology officer at Bloomberg Shawn Edwards said the firm wanted to give its support to the innovative open source project as it could have real benefits for its IT workforce." Adds reader nk497: "So far the campaign has raised $8.5 million and has two weeks left to run. Individuals can buy the smartphone-cum-PC for $780 at the moment, but Canonical is also offering business bundles of 100 handsets, including a month of support, for $80,000. Bloomberg is the first business to opt for the bundle — but it will get its money back if the project isn't fully funded." Update: 08/08 12:58 GMT by T : One more note: Canonical has dropped the price to $695 for the remainder of the fundraising campaign.

bogaboga writes "You might be wondering why the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service doesn't have a compelling Android footprint. I was wondering too; until they provided the answer. They say, 'Simply put, it’s too complicated for us to even consider an Android app for the first version; we’ll continue to support those viewers with mobile web. ... As we’re focused on the tablet for this project, we’re only designing for the larger screen sizes. But even there, there are a wide range of sizes and aspect ratios. It’s possible to build flexible sizing for these screen layouts, just as we do for the range of desktop web screen sizes. But the flip side to these wide variations is that in a touch experience, ergonomics plays an important role in the design. Navigational elements need to be within easy reach of the edges of the screens since people often are holding their tablets. If the experience is not fine-tuned to each variation the experience would suffer.' They also cite fragmentation. I'm left wondering whether they didn't find support for various screen sizes on Android developer website. Their budget is undoubtedly limited; are their concerns legit? What companies and organizations have developed Android applications that are good to work with on various screen sizes?"

jones_supa writes "QuakeCon 2013 is running full tilt. John Carmack kicked off his speech by addressing the 'elephant in the room,' discussing the arrival of a new console generation to a crowd of attendees at the largely PC-focused event. He's optimistic about the coming console cycle, commenting that it's 'obviously going to be a good thing for gamers, developers, and an excellent thing for AMD.' John said he hasn't run quite enough tests on the hardware for the two consoles, but said they're both 'very close, and very good.' In his traditional long talk (watch on YouTube), Carmack also commented on Microsoft's always-on Kinect, its recently reversed DRM policies for the upcoming Xbox One, the death of optical media, and the state of handheld gaming."

adeelarshad82 writes "After months of speculation, leaks, and cryptic tweets, Motorola's new flagship smartphone is upon us. The Moto X runs Android 4.2.2 and is powered by the new Motorola X8 mobile computing system that includes several chips: a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, as well as a natural language processor and a contextual computing processor that handles the sensors. The phone carries a 4.7-inch, 1,280-by-720 display with 316 pixels per inch. Also since the phone features an active display, time and other selected alerts — text messages, missed calls, etc. — are shown without having to wake up your phone. Among the other features that Motorola talked up was the touchless control. Once activated, you can talk to your Moto X from up to 15 feet away. The Moto X differentiates itself from the other droid phones with customization options, and since Motorola is assembling the Moto X in Fort Worth, Texas, the company expects users to have their customized Moto X within four days of placing an order."