Phones

Successful health technology startup Fitbit has just gained access to a new round of investment funding, to the sweet tune of $30 million.

According to a report by venture capital watcher TechCrunch, multiple sources have told the outlet that Fitbit is in the process of raising over $30 million. This influx of additional cash has helped the company notch an impressive $300 million in valuation.

While the extra funding is eye-popping, these figures should not come as a big surprise to those following the personal fitness space closely. The category is exploding with a flood of players, from device makers … Read more

You may be able to manage your iPhone someday just by giving it a little squeeze.

A patent granted to Apple today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office details a housing for a mobile device that responds to the pressure of your touch or squeeze. Known as "Sensing capacitance changes of a housing of an electronic device," the patent uses a mobile phone as one example. But could just as easily work with portable music players, laptops, and other electronic devices.

Today's touch-screen devices already react to the tap of a finger. But Apple's … Read more

Hackers can get past the Galaxy Note 2's lock screen -- if their fingers are fast enough.

A minor security vulnerability has been found in Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note 2 smartphone-tablet hybrid, which leaves the door open to fast-fingered ne'er-do-wells.

The flaw, first discovered by Terence Eden, finds that certain apps and widgets can be briefly accessed with a few taps from the lock screen. Somewhat tricky to accomplish, it requires the user to press the "Emergency Call" icon, then the ICE (in case of emergency) button, and then hold down the home button. With success, … Read more

Samsung has posted a video teasing the upcoming Unpacked event in New York City where the smartphone giant is expected to unveil its Galaxy S4 phone.

The video introduces viewers to Jeremy, a boy who Samsung says will be the "secret messenger" for its Unpacked event. In the video, Jeremy is allowed to look inside a box that ostensibly houses the Galaxy S4, and runs home with it. At the end of the video, Jeremy sits down at a desk in his room and the video ends with a "to be continued."

Samsung sent out invitations for its Unpacked event … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Of all the multitudes of phones launching amid the grandeur of Barcelona this week, Motorola Solutions quietly broke champagne over one device from the back corner of a convention center here.

The Motorola AME 2000, originally announced a few weeks back, is not a phone for the average consumer. That makes sense, given that its public bow was at the RSA Conference 2013 this week, an annual confab of security nerds, experts, researchers, enterprise security vendors, and government representatives.

Motorola Solutions focuses on government and enterprise devices, and remains independent from the Google-owned Motorola Mobility. Its booth at RSA … Read more

If you didn't get enough new phones from Mobile World Congress this week, then I have good news for you. Sprint today followed through on a previous leak by announcing the Sprint Force, an Android smartphone made by ZTE.

Running on Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 and powered by an 1.5GHz dual-core processor, the Force Sprint has a 4-inch WVGA (480x800 pixels) capacitive touch screen display and, for a smartphone at least, a relatively compact build (4.88 by 2.54 by 0.47 inches; 5.4 ounces).

Inside you'll find Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel main camera with … Read more

HTC quietly confirmed today (or should I say quietly and brilliantly?) that its custom Sense 5 interface will come to select 2012 Android smartphones. A post on the company's Facebook from last week tells of multiple models which should expect the new HTC experience.

The short list of devices tapped for the HTC Sense 5 UI are the HTC One X, One X+, One S and the HTC Butterfly. HTC does not explicitly name which iterations will see the update though it mentions "global variants." Depending on how loosely this is interpreted, we might see the Droid … Read more

As expected, the annual Mobile World Congress has delivered an army of new Android devices. Really, though, we'd expect nothing less from the world's largest gathering of mobile-minded products and services. And with Android playing a dominant role in the smartphone landscape, it stands to reason that a majority of new phones and tablets would launch with the Google platform.

A number of standout devices made headlines this week, including the ZTE Grand Memo, Huawei Ascend P2, and the Sony Tablet Z.

LG got things started last week with the refreshed Optimus L series as well as new … Read more

Virgin Mobile today announced that the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE has joined the carrier's smartphone portfolio. Priced at $299.99, the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean handset is Virgin Mobile's first LTE smartphone.

Also available through Sprint, the Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE includes a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 5-megapixel rear camera (HD video capture) and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. As is the case with many of today's Android smartphones, the Galaxy Victory 4G LTE also features NFC, Wi-Fi, microSD expansion card slot (up to 32GB), and Bluetooth 4.0. On top of that, Samsung'… Read more