Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Samsung president Shin Jong Kyun this week to discuss a potential partnership, Bloomberg reported. Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, is interested in working with Samsung, the world's largest smartphone vendor, to help boost its mobile advertising sales. The two companies are also said to have spoken about investing in technology startups. Facebook previously partnered with HTC on the HTC … [Read more...]

Industry watchers began talking about an imminent slow-down in the high-end smartphone market back in 2011, but 2012 was still a huge year for pricy smartphones with cutting-edge specs. According to market research firm Berg Insight, sales of high-end smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung with retail prices above €400 before subsidies grew to 250 million units in 2012, up from 150 million in 2011. Of those, Berg says 40 million … [Read more...]

While you may be tempted to install the recently released beta version of iOS 7, you may also be worried that it could brick your iPhone. Never fear: 9to5Mac points us to a new demonstration program from consumer electronics website Recombu that lets you preview iOS 7 without any risk of wrecking your device. How does it do this, you ask? By hosting the entire thing inside your web browser. While this obviously doesn't give you the exact same … [Read more...]

The video game industry continued its downward spiral in May. According to research firm NPD Group, retail sales of hardware, software and gaming accessories in the U.S. fell 25% to $386.3 million last month, their lowest level thus far in 2013. Hardware and software sales fell 31% year-over-year to $96 million and $175.1 million, respectively, while sales of gaming accessories declined 6% year-over-year to $115.3 million. Including sales of used … [Read more...]

Don't mess with Texans' email. Ars Technica reports that Texas has become the first state in the United States that requires law enforcement officials to get search warrants before snooping on citizens' emails. The law only applies to state and local law enforcement officials, however, and won't apply to federal officials who can still access emails without a warrant once they've been opened or if they've sat unopened in a user's inbox for more … [Read more...]

Huawei on Tuesday announced the Ascend P6, the world's thinnest smartphone. The handset measures a mere 6.18 millimeters thick and weighs 120 grams, eight grams more than Apple's iPhone 5 despite the fact that the phone is much larger. The Ascend P6 is equipped with a 4.7-inch 720p display, an in-house 1.5GHz quad-core processor and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The smartphone also includes a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 2GB of RAM, a 2,000 … [Read more...]