[CES 2014] A stylus goes down pretty well with your smartphone or tablet, even more so if you are one who cannot bear the sight of fingerprints on your mobile device. Not only that, a stylus works a whole lot more accurately compared to your finger during those tense moments when you need to get the exact pixel touched or selected. Qualcomm, more famous for their mobile chips than anything else, has taken the plunge into a different world – by churning out a stylus which is able to play nice with a smartphone or tablet sans wires, using sound alone.
It sounds (pardon the pun) like magic, but in reality, it is actually plain old technology being put to good use. Known as the Qualcomm Ultra Sound NotePad, the demonstration video that you view above will depict just how a device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor as well as a set of special microphones are able to “listen” for vibrations which are made by a pen. Best of all is, this pen does not even need to touch the screen, but rather, to be near it. I admit, it will feel pretty weird at first since we are all infinitely more familiar with grasping a stylus as it dances across a touchscreen, but barriers are always meant to be broken. In a nutshell, you can now write notes, draw pictures, or doodle on a sheet of paper that is located next to your tablet, only to see it replicated digitally. This is still a proof-of-concept, and it might never make it to the real world. Only time will tell.
Qualcomm Ultra Sound NotePad Featured original content from Ubergizmo. 
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[CES 2014] 
At the end of last year right before we kissed 2013 goodbye and ushered in the lovely 2014, we 
[CES 2014] It is that time of the year again, and this time around, we have the Caterpillar Cat B100 introduced to the masses which will offer yet another option if you are in the market for a handset that is able to handle all the rough tumbles in life. Available immediately in Europe, the Caterpillar Cat B100 should also arrive in other markets some time in the first half of this year. Just to get a rough idea on how rugged this bad boy can be, here are some details to stoke your interest. The Caterpillar Cat B100 happens to be IP67 certified and comes with MIL 810G protection, where the former indicates that this handset is well protected against dust, and is more than capable of surviving on its own when immersed under water for up to 3 feet. Not only that, it should also be able to shrug off drops, extreme changes in temperature as well as additional accidents that might just spell the end of your average smartphone.
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Due to our smartphones essentially being tiny computers that we can easily slip into our pockets, it has led to a development of a variety of apps that can do just about anything, from splitting a bill and finding out the right amount to tip, to weird and novel games that have been designed to take advantage of our smartphone’s hardware. It has also led to a change in certain hobbies, such as bird watching, where there are apps designed to mimic the calls of certain birds in an attempt to lure them out so that we might photograph them or to better study their environment. Unfortunately these practices have not been well-received by avid bird watchers who feel that such methods are considered unethical.
For a while it seemed that Windows Phone devices lagged behind Android in terms of hardware. While Android OEMs where busy putting out phones with quad-core processors and HD/Full HD displays, Windows Phone devices were still trudging along with dual-core chipsets and sometimes less than HD displays. To be fair the Windows Phone operating system never really needed such high-end specs as it had been optimized for its hardware, but on paper and in terms of marketing, it did not look good. Well if the rumors from 
Typo, the manufacturer of the Ryan Seacrest-funded 
We’re sure many of you guys have heard of the dating app called Tinder. For those who haven’t, it’s basically an app that lets you scroll through profiles of the opposite/same sex, swiping right if you like them, swiping left if you don’t. What makes Tinder different from a majority of dating apps/services is that messages can only be sent if you and the other person have “liked” each other’s profiles, ultimately cutting down on unwanted messages from people you might not have interest in. The app is available on iOS and Android, but it looks like it will soon be making its way onto Windows Phone, albeit unofficially with the 6tindr name.
