Sprint Hops Aboard the Windows 8 Train With $100 HTC 8XT Smartphone

Beginning next Friday, July 19, Sprint will be offering one of its first Windows 8-based phones, the HTC 8XT, for $100 after a rebate. The HTC 8XT is comparable to HTC’s midrange 8S, but is the first Windows 8 smartphone to come with “BoomSound,” which means that it has dual…

Posted on: July 9, 2013 5:00 pm

Virgin Media launches Play Games portal for TiVo

* Virgin Media unveils TiVo games portal and opens doors for developers Virgin Media today announced the launch of a new casual TV gaming portal, Play Games. Available to its 1.5 million TiVo customers, the newly designed portal presents a wide variety of casual games that can be played directly on With…

Posted on: July 9, 2013 7:00 am

Smartphone Makers Hit By Rising Competition

Samsung Electronics Co.'s weaker-than-expected earnings guidance for its second quarter and tepid results from HTC Corp. show that high-end smartphone makers are starting to see growth taper amid intense competition and cheaper devices flooding the … Keep reading…

Posted on: July 8, 2013 5:00 pm

Robot mom would beat robot butler in popularity contest

(Phys.org) If you tickle a robot, it may not laugh, but you may still consider it humanlikedepending on its role in your life, reports an international group of researchers. Designers and engineers assign robots specific roles, such as servant, caregiver, assistant or playmate. Researchers found that people expressed more…

Posted on: July 8, 2013 12:00 pm

Apple Reportedly Prepping for September Launch of New iPad, but iPad Mini …

Digitimes reports that Apple has finalized plans for its fifth-generation iPad, targeting a September launch for the redesigned device that is rumored to be taking design cues from the iPad mini with narrower side bezels and a thinner body.Since upstream suppliers have mostly finished preparing for the production of the…

Posted on: July 8, 2013 12:00 pm

Rosphere spherical robot could be rolling up for work to monitor and tend crops

If you see what looks like a hamster ball rolling around a cornfield, it doesn’t mean that someone’s pet is incredibly lost. It may be an experimental robot developed by the Robotics and Cybernetics Research Group at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) called Rosphere. The spherical robot can propel…

Posted on: July 8, 2013 7:00 am

Robotics team makes it to regional finals

The Hitchhikers FIRST robotics team poses for a photo with its robot, Trillian, while accepting a regional finalist award at the N.C. FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Tournament at Dorton Arena in Raleigh last spring. In the top row, from left, are Henry Moree, mentor Zack Coutant, Christian Colglazier, mentor Daniel…

Posted on: July 8, 2013 7:00 am

Software and iPad Put Video and Statistical Database a Tap Away

One of the many routines that baseball players follow before a game is to wander into the video room at a stadium. There, hitters can watch video of their recent at-bats, and pitchers can get a look at the tendencies of coming opponents. But a growing number of players are…

Posted on: July 7, 2013 5:00 pm

BlackBerry Investors to Turn Up the Heat on Management

BlackBerry will likely face tough questions about its future at its annual meeting on Tuesday after dismal quarterly results last week triggered a 28-percent plunge in the Canadian smartphone maker’s share price. Sales of BlackBerry’s make-or-break new line of smartphones in the quarter ended June 1 came in well below “The…

Posted on: July 7, 2013 12:00 pm

Q&A: Adding Pictures to the Windows 8 Photos App

I have a bunch of pictures right there on the desktop of my Windows 8 computer, but I don’t see them showing in the Photos app. Why aren’t they there? A. The Photos app included with Windows 8 should be able to display those images as long as you move them Click…

Posted on: July 6, 2013 5:00 pm