Ben's Blog World

Monday, June 22, 2015

LG aiming to double its smartphone market share in India this year

LG India currently has a market share of five percent in the smartphone segment, and is looking to double that figure by the end of the year.

Nikki Reed
Elisha Cuthbert

Tim Cook talks China's influence on product design in new interview

China plays an increasingly important part in Apple's business decisions, including in some product design elements, according to a new interview with Tim Cook.{.intro}

In an interview with the Chinese edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the company takes the tastes of Chinese consumers into account with many its product designs. For instance, when Apple debuted the gold iPhone 5s in 2013, the Chinese market played a major role in the decision to offer a device in that color, according to Bloomberg:

The decision to offer a gold iPhone last year reflects in part the popularity of that color among Chinese users, he added. Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, is now Apple's second-largest market and has become a battleground for the company as it vies with Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Corp. for smartphone supremacy.

Since the release of the gold iPhone 5s, Apple has also launched newer phones, iPads, and even their latest MacBook in gold.

Cook also said that Apple would putting resources into a mobile technology education program in China, which features lessons on how to use apps like GarageBand, as well as courses to teach hearing-impaired students operate phones.

China is now Apple's second-biggest market. In the last financial quarter, the company was up 71% in China over the same quarter in 2014. This included 70% growth in iPhone sales, as well as a 31% jump in Mac sales.

Source: Bloomberg

Rihanna
Jordana Brewster
Jennifer Love Hewitt

Google wants some video creators to test out its Jump VR video hardware

Google is looking for some people to try out its ambitious Jump virtual reality camera hardware this summer.

Google introduced the world to its Jump virtual reality camera hardware at Google I/O in late May. The company now is looking for a few good video creators to test out Jump later this summer.

Malin Akerman
Mila Kunis
Eliza Dushku
Adriana Lima

The best gadgets of the week for June 21

We're going to try out a new series where we highlight the latest connected devices and accessories. Everything here has recently gone on sale for the first time, or is shipping in the near future. These will span Bluetooth accessories, connected home devices, and anything else that isn't a phone or tablet, but plays nice with them.

Charlize Theron
Anna Faris

What is an 'unlocked' phone? (And why do I care?)

Is my phone's bootloader unlocked? Is it SIM unlocked? What's the difference, and why is any of this important?

Unlocked. It's a word you'll see used a lot on websites about mobile technology, and most people writing about it will be sure to let you know that it is a good thing™. And it is (See? told 'ya). But unlocked can mean different things — that are all good things — depending on what, exactly, we're talking about.

Maybe you're wondering about being able to unlock the bootloader on the phone you want to buy next. Or maybe you'll need to SIM unlock your phone so you can take that trip abroad and not pay AT&T ten-cents a minute and a handful of dollars each time you check your email. Both are important, and we're going to talk about the differences.

Anna Kournikova
Hayden Panettiere
Cameron Diaz

How to disable ads in HTC BlinkFeed

Ads in BlinkFeed are rolling out to HTC phones in some countries — but it's easy to opt out if you want

HTC recently started showing promotions through its BlinkFeed home screen reader app. It's a somewhat controversial move that sees BlinkFeed — which had previously been free of advertisements — starting to show "interest-based" ads alongside news and social content in the U.S., UK, Germany, Taiwan, and China. That means you might have started seeing sponsored BlinkFeed items on your HTC One M9, One M8, Desire or other HTC phones. Fortunately, if you're not a fan of ads in your feed, it's easy to opt out altogether.

Olivia Wilde
Megan Fox
Bar Refaeli

HTC One M9 photo comparison: Before and after the latest firmware update

The camera experience isn't the strongest feature of the One M9, but HTC hopes that updates are making it better.

European versions of the HTC One M9 received a pretty substantial update at the start of June that claimed to improve many aspects of the phone, most importantly in the camera department. The fixes centered around better automatic exposure to keep photos in bright environments from getting washed out, while also improving low light shots by cutting back on noise and blur. Fringe cases where green or yellow hues were showing up on photos in harsh conditions have also supposedly been addressed.

Understanding the limits of how much can really change with a single update, we found it worthwhile to do some side-by-side comparisons between an updated One M9 and another device that has yet to receive the update, and see how the photos compared. This is what we found, and what you can expect to see on your M9 once it receives the update.