Hasta La Gadget!

Russia-based Yota Devices has been working on a curious beast called the YotaPhone for years now, and it’s gained quite a reputation for itself because of its split personality. While the front of the phone sports a traditional LCD screen, the back plays home to a power-sipping eInk display because… well, why not?

The launch date was one of the last big questions left unanswered, but that’s no longer the case: the company has just confirmed to us that the YotaPhone will launch internationally before Christmas.

Frankly, it’s about time they’re getting this thing out the door considering just how long they’ve been teasing it to the public. Word of device first started making the rounds late last year, and an a very early version of the phone made public appearances at massive trade shows like CES and MWC (you can see our CES footage of the thing below). And it isn’t exactly a surprise that the company was gearing up for an official launch either – earlier this year the Russian company was confirmed it would start the mass production process with the help of a Singaporean manufacturer called Hi-P.

Still, the news may come as a bummer to some of YotaPhone’s biggest fans, as an earlier report out of Russia claimed that the Yota subsidiary would be pushing the device out the door some time in November. Those same reports also claimed that the YotaPhone would ship with a €500 price tag attached to it, but so far company representatives have remained mum when it came to cost.

That long-than-expected gap between promotion and production may have done the YotaPhone more harm than good. There’s little doubting that it raised plenty of eyebrows, but the spec sheet is looking a bit long in the tooth compared to the competition – the final production model is going to feature a dual-core 1.7GHz chipset, 2GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch 720p screen upfront, and a seemingly paltry 1800mAh battery. Granted, it shouldn’t be a total slouch with components like those, but the big question is whether or not the gimmicky second screen will be enough to tempt potential customers away from more prominent rivals like Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, and more.

This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.

The days are getting shorter, friends, and that can only mean one thing: winter is coming, and so too are the holidays. We here at TechCrunch like to think of ourselves as a gaggle of technological bon vivants, so we’re starting our Gift Guide a little early this year.

First up: my picks for the digitally savvy bookworms and writers in your life. For whatever reason, these people just can’t tear themselves away from their endeavors – after all, the lure of taking in or laying down words can be too much to resist, so why fight it?

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ ($379)

Our own John Biggs offered his in-depth impressions of the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX some weeks ago (TL;DR he likes it quite a bit), but when it comes to earnestly consuming media, I happen to prefer the next size up.

Part of that is because of a handsome 8.9-inch display running at 2560 x 1600 that lends itself equally well to both video playback and devouring ebooks. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the 8.9-inch HDX feels like one of the nicest Android tablets in recent memory, either. It’s clad in a soft-touch plastic finish, noticeably lighter than the model that came before it, and is just a hair slimmer than the 7-inch version we already reviewed.

Throw in a surprisingly competitive spec sheet to drive everything (there’s a 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset and 2GB of RAM humming away in there) and features like Mayday to help troubleshoot issues on the fly and you’ve got a package that’s capable of dealing with just about anything you throw at it. Just know that by buying into the vast Amazon ecosystem, you’re also limiting yourself when it comes to the selection of apps you can install without additional cajoling.

Kindle Paperwhite ($119) vs. Nook Glowlight ($119)

If Amazon has the best honest-to-goodness tablet for immersing yourself in tomes, surely it stands to reason that its e-readers are on top of the heap, right? That’s long been the case and Amazon dutifully churns out updated models pretty frequently, but Barnes & Noble isn’t ready to wave the white flag just yet. Case in point: it just pushed the new Nook Glowlight onto store shelves in time to give the folks at Amazon another run for their money

With the new Glowlight, BN traded the dreary blacks and grays for a more buoyant white finish… sort of like the one Kindles use to have in the early days. It’s awfully light, too (which is a very good thing), and while the redesigned body looks just a bit dopey, the rounded edges and wider bezels mean it’s more comfortable to hold. To top it all off, the Glowlight’s e-Ink display has been configured in such a way that the mildly annoying “black flash” of a screen refresh that usually occurs every few page turns is almost completely gone.

Meanwhile, the new Paperwhite looks nearly identical to the model that came before it – the only big visual difference is that Amazon managed to fix most of the uneven lighting issues that plagued the first one. Most of Amazon’s innovation here is on the software front, as users can now

In the end there are more than enough reasons to justify whichever direction you take. If the thought of ads on your e-reader is just too much to bear and you prefer a cleaner, more handsome UI, consider the Nook. On the other hand, if you’re already somehow locked into the Amazon ecosystem, the newest Kindle Paperwhite comes out ahead once again.

Livescribe 3 ($149)

What happens when the time to read has passed and you’re itching to let the words building up inside of you out? The Livescribe 3 is a smartpen that aims to help you tap your metaphorically lexical keg by automatically transmitting a copy of whatever you write to a smartphone or tablet that’s connected via Bluetooth 4.0.

But let’s back up a minute. The first thing you’ll probably notice about the Livescribe 3 is that it’s actually much more like a pen than the unrepentantly geeky models that came before it – to hear CEO Gilles Bouchard tell it, the team that designed this thing went through scads of iterations before settling on a final design.

The only bummer? Thanks to the inconsistent proliferation of Bluetooth 4.0 across Android devices, only iPhone and iPad users will be able to watch their words magically make the leap from paper to app for now.

Scrivener ($40 for Windows, $45 for OSX)

I have a confession to make – between dashing off paper after paper in college and blogging for years, the actual act of putting pen to paper and scrawling out words for any considerable period of time seems alien to me. No, all of my writing these days results from the furious pounding of keys, and Scrivener is an invaluable tool for when idle thoughts give way to bigger concepts that need to be written about.

That’s because Scrivener isn’t just a text editor. It’s just as much an organizing system that helps to track, highlight, and organize all the little snippets, references, and half-formed ideas that ultimately give way to a larger work. Sure, minimalist writing interfaces like Draft and iA Writer seem to be all the rage (and I’m awfully fond of them, too), but I’d like them to wrangle and display the sheer amount of stuff that Scrivener can. And better yet, it’s available for OS X and Windows users.

Today Motorola unveiled its Moto G smartphone, which is related to the Moto X in many ways, but very different in others. I had the chance to try out the Moto G in person at Motorola’s Canadian HQ in Toronto, and in many ways, it’s a very impressive device. In others, however, it still reveals its cost consciousness.

One of the first things I noticed was that the phone feels a little chubby. It’s relatively thick compared to premium smartphones like the Moto X or the Nexus 5, but that’s to be expected considering the screen it’s packing and the price. Display tech costs a lot when you’re trying to reduce thickness, less so when you’re unconcerned on that score.

The size is not offensive, however; it’s a comfortable phone in the hand, and the 4.5-inch screen is much more my speed when compared to some of the gargantuan displays out there. Resolution is crisp, too, with 329 ppi screen density that’s roughly on par with the iPhone’s own Retina display. Motorola still tends to favor high contrast, exaggerated saturation on their screens, though it’s much less pronounced than on devices Motorola made before the Moto X.

Performance on the Moto G really is quite impressive for a phone that costs less than $200. Animations and transitions are all smooth, and the only time you encounter any kind of stutter is on image-heavy websites, where you’ll get a little bit of stickiness with scrolling. That’s still an issue with some high-end Android smartphones and tablets, however, so it’s not really a major complaint. Motorola talked up the speed with which it loads things like the dialer and browser, and side-by-side with a Nexus 5, speed did indeed at least on par, which is astounding considering the difference.

The matte back has a nice feel, and there are textured plastic back accessories that you can swap in and out, including one that features a cover flap for the front. This is one area where some users might encounter some frustration, as removing the back plate is actually quite tricky. A number of us gadget bloggers had some trouble until a Moto rep showed us that you pull from the Micro USB port, and pull quite hard (harder than you might assume will be safe). It does offer a lot of customization options, however, including one type of case that includes a shock absorbent bumper.

The bottom line is that while you can nitpick at the Moto G from the perspective of someone who regularly uses various $600 smartphones, this is a remarkable device that has the potential to blow up the mid-tier market. If Motorola continues to innovate in this direction, I wouldn’t be surprised by a seismic shift in what Android OEM owns the developing market.

Cyanogen Inc. revealed a few months back that it closed a $7 million seed investment from Benchmark Capital. The vision it laid out at the time was no small one: it wants its cooked version of Android to become the third most-used mobile OS behind iOS and Android proper.

Naturally, that involves getting CyanogenMod onto as many devices as it can, and today the company took one giant leap in that direction. They’ve just made it easier for average folks to flash their software onto their smartphones with an installer app available in the Google Play Store.

If that last bit doesn’t sound like a big deal, then chances are you’ve never tried to install CyanogenMod on your own. After all, the original installation process wasn’t exactly for the faint of heart. While some devices could be coaxed into running CyanogenMod in mere moments, others required lengthy lists of instructions and some occasional finger crossing. Hardly an ideal situation for a company trying to get CyanogenMod working on as many devices as possible.

Even now, there are still some caveats to deal with. The Android app won’t do a whole lot all on its own for one, as it requires a companion Windows installer for heavy lifting so Mac users are plum out of luck at the moment. And most notably, the list of supported devices represents just a fraction of the Android gadgets currently floating around out there, so true mass-market penetration is going to take some time.

But let’s back up for a moment: why would someone want to swap their current Android build (whatever it may be) with CyanogenMod? Long story short, the Cyanogen team has been working to build extra features into their custom version of Android by way of very frequent updates. While they’ve been developing CM for a long while, it’s still very early days for Cyanogen as a company. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t making headway. The team inked a partnership with Chinese OEM Oppo to fold CyanogenMod support into its curious N1 smartphone, and with any luck, more manufacturer partnerships are in the cards, too.

Meet the new definition of an all-in-one coffee machine: the Bonaverde. It not only brews and grinds coffee beans, the tabletop machine roasts them as well. Put unroasted coffee beans in the machine, press a button or two and 12-14 minutes later it produces truly fresh coffee. But the creators need help bringing the device to market and just launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking $135k in preorders and donations.

The last ten years saw the emergence of all-in-one coffee machines that grind and brew a pot of coffee. These can now be bought for less than $100. Obviously the Bonaverde will cost a bit more, because, you know, it also roasts the coffee.

For early Kickstarter supporters the Bonaverde can be had for $250, but the company expects to eventually sell the device for north of $400.

The process is pretty straight forward: Put the unroasted coffee in the machine which then sends it through a roasting process. From there, a fan will cool the beans before a ceramic disk grinds them prior to brewing. The machine then brews the coffee using a rain-shower-type method that thoroughly saturates the beans with the heated water. The  whole process takes 12-14 minutes and produces 2-12 cups of coffee.

But where do you get unroasted coffee beans from? The farmers, of course. And apparently the company will facilitate that transaction, as well, providing buyers of its coffee machine with bean buying options from coffee farmers.

The product has been in development for over two years. The design itself was born from Jovoto where the company crowdsourced over 110 designs and the company expects to start shipping in the August of 2014.