Gadgets

By Darrell Etherington Apple’s newest iPhone customers aren’t just old customers upgrading older devices – in fact, the vast majority are migrating from other platforms. Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that over 85 percent of consumers buying iPhones lately are coming from devices that aren’t iPhones, and that…

By Darrell Etherington Lego is no stranger to building epic sets as tie-ins timed with the release of big movies, but the upcoming SHIELD Helicarrier set (via Wall Street Journal) might take the cake in terms of scale. Lego’s version of the floating command and control vessel used by Marvel’s fictional global super spy and…

By Catherine Shu AutoBot, a Beijing startup that makes diagnostic tools for cars (not the robots in disguise), has raised a $6 million Series A from Gobi Partners and ABC Capital. The company will use the funding for marketing, hiring, and product research and development. Read More …read more Source: TechCrunch Gadgets

By Erez Podoly In 2014, Nike abandoned its FuelBand fitness tracker and Sergey Brin “left his Google Glass in his car.” In 2015, Apple will launch its iWatch and Sony will enter the eyewear space. More kinds of wearables were introduced in CES 2015, just to leave us wondering whether what happens in Vegas stays…

By Darrell Etherington Popular consumer drone-maker DJI is using firmware to fight some potential abuses of its hobbyist hardware, with an update that will prevent its Phantom 2-series drones from being able to fly onto the White House lawn, or carry drugs across country borders. This ones after an unauthorized drone made its way to…

By Josh Constine Uber covers drivers with $1 million of insurance when they’re on the job, but they still have to buy personal car insurance even if they hardly drive off-the-job. But now, Metromile and Uber have developed a seamless personal/commercial per-mile car insurance plan for Uber drivers that uses a cellular gadget that plugs…

By Romain Dillet There is not much to say about Insensi just yet. I met the company’s founder Ilan Abehassera in Paris two weeks ago, and he gave me a few hints about his very secretive startup. First, it’s a hardware startup based in New York. Second, he hired a team of all-star engineers. Third,…

By Darrell Etherington We venture into the glorious Land of Speculation today to ponder what a Nexus 6 with a fingerprint reader would’ve been like, after former Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside revealed one was planned but then scrapped after Apple acquired AuthenTec to provide the basis for Touch ID. We also discuss Android gaming on…

By Jordan Crook Apple sold 5.5 million Macs over the holiday quarter (ending December 28), according to the company’s Q1 2015 earnings report released today. Analysts estimated that Apple would sell 5.68 million Macs this quarter, putting the electronics maker just under estimates but still showing growth YOY. With this past quarter’s 5.5 million units…

By Romain Dillet Apple has just released its fiscal Q1 2015 earnings, reporting $74.6 billion in revenue, $18 billion in net profit representing $3.06 per share. Compared to the year-ago quarter, it corresponds to a growth of 29.5 percent in revenue, and 47.8 percent in EPS (adjusted for the 7-for-1 split). Fortune’s consensus among analysts…

By Darrell Etherington The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have helped Apple sell an astounding 74.5 million iPhones during the first quarter of the company’s fiscal 2015 year. That’s more iPhones than they’ve ever sold during a single quarter, up from the previous record of 51 million iPhone sales reported during the same time last…

By John Biggs Poland is a hotbed (get it?) for 3D printing and now up-and-comer Pirx is entering the fray. Their printer, the Pirx One, is a $1,199 PLA printer with some seriously classy looks and optional heated bed for ABS support. The printer is a standard FDM device that prints layers of plastic into…

By Danny Crichton For all the innovation that has come out of startups, few have addressed one of the hardest tasks in the world: caring for a newborn infant. Whether it is providing milk at 3 a.m. or ensuring that the baby is exposed to the right shapes and sounds appropriate for its age, parents…

By Darrell Etherington Apple has a new partnership in place with USA Technologies that will help the latter company accept Apple Pay at approximately 200,000 in-use self-serve payment terminals, 9to5Mac reports. The roll-out will bring Apple Pay to coffee machines, snack dispensers, laundromats, goods kiosks, amusement part ticket machines, car wastes, transit ticket and taxi…

By John Biggs Devices can’t get thinner for a few reasons. While a lighter, thinner battery would be amazing, screens still take up a lot of gadget real estate, a fact that is mitigated slightly by e-ink and other “flat” displays. Now, however, researchers are turning to Quantum Dot displays, screens that use light-emitting nanocrystals…