The last time Apple released a new version of OS X, we came away feeling a little… underwhelmed. Don’t get us wrong: We’ll never say no to a free software upgrade. But despite a handful of new apps and features, last year’s Mavericks release still…
Technical
Comcast’s customer losses are slowing, which is no surprise since it’s so hard to leave
Even as cable giant Comcast tries to get bigger by absorbing Time Warner Cable, its own revenue grew in the last quarter to $16.8 billion, up 3.5 percent from last year, and net income hit $1.99 billion. The most important number for a subscription…
Verizon enjoys a rush of new tablet users as smartphone plans stagnate
Verizon’s money machine continues to plow on, but much of its wireless growth this quarter came from tablets, not smartphones — a trend that started last quarter. Big Red added some 1.4 million net retail connections, of whom a whopping 1.15 million…
Nothing says you’re an Arsenal fan like buying a Huawei P7
It’s an exciting time to be an Arsenal fan, now that Alexis Sanchez has been bought with cash from new sponsors Puma and Huawei. The latter firm also wants you to show your support for all things Arséne by buying its latest handset, the Ascend P7….
UK government weighs Tesla’s Model S for its £5 million electric vehicle fleet
Despite costing £17,000 ($29,000) per car more than it budgeted, the UK government is weighing the purchase of Model S EVs for its fleet, according to Tesla. In an effort to go green, the UK said it wants to buy 150 electric cars for government…
Control high-speed photography from your phone with this camera trigger
High-speed photography can be daunting if you’re not a seasoned pro. You may have a fast camera and flash, but you probably don’t have the gear (or people) you’d need to get that frozen-in-time look in most situations. MIOPS’ new camera trigger might…
Recon’s ‘Google Glass’ for sports gets a finalized design ahead of September launch
No, the Recon Jet still isn’t out yet, but its manufacturer has a few bits of news to share. For starters, the sports-minded heads up display’s brain box is now angled slightly upward, which supposedly improves the display’s viewing angle and camera…
NASA says lunar caves could provide living spaces for future astronauts
It turns out that the Moon could be habitable. Sort of. NASA writes that some of the holes in our moon’s surface might actually be caves where future astronauts could hole up and guard themselves from radiation, micrometeorites and massive…
Amazon UK rep says an Android version of its video app is ‘imminent’
Amazon’s video service is well-rounded, with both video-on-demand selection and Prime all you can eat viewing, but there’s one big hole — Android. Even though Amazon has apps for its Android-based Kindle family of devices (along with iOS, game…
ESPN will broadcast a $10 million gaming tournament this weekend
If someone gaining an athletic visa to play StarCraft 2 or the staggering amount of hours spent watching pro gamers duke it out virtually wasn’t enough to prove that competitive gaming is a real thing, maybe some mainstream support is. This weekend’s…
Australia drops carbon tax in favor of paying industries to use clean energy
For years, Australia has tried to fight polluters through a carbon tax that charges the most egregious offenders based on their greenhouse gas emissions. Prime Minister Tony Abbott doesn’t believe that this strategy is helping much, however, and has…
Scuba divers get their own underwater comms network
Most teenagers would probably tell you that they’d die if you took away nonverbal communication, but one subset of our population actually could: scuba divers. They can’t exactly send texts via smartphone to one another because saltwater, and water…
Nyko is ready to give your PS4 controller the battery life it deserves
Although the PlayStation 4 is a fine gaming console, it has a definite Achilles’ heel — the very, very short battery life of the bundled DualShock 4 controller. It’s a good thing, then, that Nyko has at last shipped the PowerPak add-on that it…
TechCrunch: Samsung eyeing home automation startup SmartThings
We know that Samsung isn’t one to let any potential market segment pass it by, and according to TechCrunch, it’s considering an acquisition that would put it in play in the suddenly expanding home automation business. The target? SmartThings, which…
DARPA picks the first companies that will work on its unmanned spaceplane
Slowly but surely, DARPA’s XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane is becoming more than a bundle of nice ideas. The agency has just chosen the companies that will square off in the first phase of the unmanned craft’s design program, most of which are…