LONDON/TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s HTC Corp has unveiled the new smartphone that it hopes will set it apart from the crowd of Google Android devices on the market and help it make up ground lost to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc.
It has distinguished the phone, the HTC One, from rival Android devices by using new software – the BlinkFeed feature – to replace icons on the home screen with a personalized stream of news articles, social networking updates, photos and video.
HTC is also billing it as the first smartphone with a built-in remote control function, opening a window into a potential new business model for phone vendors and cable TV operators.
HTC is in discussions with cable operators in different countries, and hopes to offer a more interactive package for consumers by transforming the phone into a remote control for TVs, set-top boxes and receivers, according to analysts who attended a conference with HTC on Tuesday. The company declined to comment on whether it was in talks.
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HTC One smartphone: The complete FAQ (Computerworld (blog))
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HTC launches new Android smartphone with revamped features (San Jose Mercury News)
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