Mihăiță Bamburic

If you want a good action camera that doesn't break the bank, you would normally take a look at Xiaomi Yi and other low-cost alternatives to the perennial GoPro Hero. Now though, after a huge discount, HTC's RE is also worthy of your attention.

HTC has given its RE action camera a $150 discount, bringing the price down from $200 to an extremely reasonable $50. For that kind of money, I wouldn't blame you for wanting to buy more than one.

Continue reading →

When your product has millions of users, any change that you make is guaranteed to impact a significant number of people. So, when you decide the time has come to remove a traditional feature, you are sure to encounter some resistance. Question is, where do you go from there?

Mozilla is in this exact situation. The organization apparently wants to drop support for FTP in a future version of its Firefox browser. And, even though most folks are likely not making use of it, there are still hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people who will be affected.

Continue reading →

If you are the sort of person who can't see the forest for the trees then Microsoft's new Surface Book is not for you. This much is clear after reading Brian Fagioli's article on why you shouldn't get the device. My colleague pays so much attention to certain details that he fails to see how Surface Book can be a great option for plenty of shoppers in the premium segment -- because those are the folks Microsoft is targeting, not the average Joe who takes issue with the $1,499 starting price.

Yes, Surface Book is a costly affair. But, it is also a unique proposition in today's market, which offers plenty of value for the money, something that cannot be said about most of its apparent rivals. So, without further ado, if you can afford Surface Book, here are five great reasons why you should get it.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has just released its Q1 FY2016 (Q3 CY2015) earnings report, posting revenue of $20.4 billion, operating income of $5.8 billion, net income of $4.6 billion and earnings per share of $0.57 (all GAAP figures). The software giant's numbers beat analysts' expectations, which has added around 10 percent to its stock price in after-hours trading. Here are the highlights of the software giant's quarter.

Microsoft has divided its earnings in three categories, namely Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The good news comes from Intelligent Cloud, where revenue is up by eight percent, while the bad news is in More Personal Computing, where the poor performance of Lumia and Surface devices lead to a 17 percent decrease in revenue, year-over-year.

Continue reading →

The new Microsoft is not afraid to try new things, as proven by the increasing number of experimental apps published by the team of developers at Microsoft Garage. Many of them were released on rival platforms first, and not on Windows or Windows Phone, and that is again the case with Parchi.

Parchi is an interesting new note-taking app that has made its debut on Android. What makes it noteworthy is the fact that it is designed to work on the lockscreen, unlike other offerings in this category -- like Microsoft's own OneNote or Evernote.

Continue reading →

When Apple releases an update for iOS these days you can expect to find new versions of OS X and watchOS too. So, today, on top of making iOS 9.1 available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, Apple is also bringing OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan to Macs and watchOS 2.0.1 to Apple Watch. So, let's take a look at what's new.

The common denominator between the three operating system updates is a refreshed collection of emoji, which now includes over 150 new items -- and, yes, the middle finger emoji is among them as the controversial photo above would suggest. But, probably, the most-awaited changes are under-the-hood.

Continue reading →

With the first Windows 10 Mobile devices set to arrive in November, there is not much time left for Microsoft to get its new mobile operating system ready for prime time. Development is in full swing, with a new Insider Preview build available now on the Fast ring.

Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview build 10572, just like the one that arrived a week before it, requires users to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 to install it on their smartphones, but it more than makes up for the trouble thanks to all the changes that Microsoft has baked in.

Continue reading →

You may have read that some iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus units have better battery life than others, and that, in order to get the "best" version, your new smartphone must come with the TSMC-made A9 processor. The A9 processor manufactured by Samsung has been said to be less energy efficient, leading to shorter battery life. But how much of that is true though?

Consumer Reports has tested two iPhone 6s units, one with a TSMC-supplied A9 processor and the other toting a Samsung-made A9 chip, and found that that the difference in battery life between the two units is entirely negligible. So, naysayers can now put an end to all the "chipgate" talk.

Continue reading →

Microsoft should not be surprised to see Windows 10 users ignoring its Edge browser, or other stock programs for that matter. People will do that, especially when there is an alternative that better suits their needs. But, as a new leaked build shows, Microsoft does not want to give up the fight just yet.

Windows 10 users who want to switch away Microsoft Edge (or some of the stock apps) might soon get a prompt, asking them to give the program a chance while listing some of its main features. But, at this point, this feels like a terrible idea, one that will surely annoy users and make them ignore Microsoft's efforts in the future, no matter how good its software might be.

Continue reading →

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 has proven to be very popular with business users, enough to push Dell and HP to announce that they would officially sell and support the device, alongside their own Windows offerings. Dell and HP are the third and second-largest PC vendors, respectively, so, naturally, market leader Lenovo was expected to also join the Surface Enterprise fold.

That has yet to happen, but it is not due to the lack of customer demand as some folks might be inclined to believe. The reason why Lenovo does not want to sell Surface Pro 3 is because, well, it sees Microsoft as a competitor.

Continue reading →

South Korean maker LG has announced plans to roll out Android 6.0 Marshmallow as early as next week, making it the first vendor, outside of Google, to bring the new mobile operating system to existing devices.

The first handset that LG will upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow is its current flagship smartphone, G4, with customers in Poland being the first to see the software update available on their devices.

Continue reading →

Even though Windows 10 was officially released months ago, development has not stopped at Microsoft. The software giant is actively working on new updates as part of its Windows-as-a-service strategy, employing the help of Windows Insiders to test all the major changes.

One such change is support for nested virtualization, a feature that allows users to run virtual machines inside virtual machines. While Microsoft has initially kept quiet about its availability, a version is actually part of Windows 10 Insider Preview 10565, which was released earlier this week.

Continue reading →

No matter which flagship smartphone you get, you are very likely to be happy with its camera quality. According to DxOMark, this year's crop of premium handsets from Apple, Google, LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony is extremely close in terms of photo and video quality.

But, while other makers have shown major improvements in this area over their previous efforts, Apple seems to have stagnated with its new iPhone 6s, which is no more better than last year's iPhone 6 despite having a new rear-facing camera. (DxOMark has not yet tested the iPhone 6s Plus phablet, but it is unlikely to be significantly better than its predecessor either.)

Continue reading →

Apple has refreshed its iMac line for late-2015, making Retina 5K displays standard on 27-inch models and introducing a new 21.5-inch version with a Retina 4K screen. The new iMacs also get faster processors and graphics, new internal storage options and two Thunderbolt 2 ports.

The Retina 5K display was first available on a more-expensive 27-inch iMac, initially priced starting at $2,499, that Apple introduced a year ago, and is now being made available as standard equipment on iMacs costing as little as $1,499. Meanwhile, the Retina 4K display is available for the first time on a 21.5-inch iMac, be it as an option.

Continue reading →

Windows 10 devices were responsible for over 50 percent of all Windows Store downloads in September, according to the latest Windows Store Trends update from Microsoft. The new operating system had been installed on over 100 million devices by the end of last month, increasing its reach to more than 110 million devices earlier in October.

That is not the only piece of good news, as Microsoft also says that Windows 10 gets two times better user engagement and four times the revenue per user compared to Windows 8.x. The most popular category of apps with Windows 10 users is games, which makes up just shy of 45 percent of all Windows 10 downloads.

Continue reading →