Hasta La Gadget!

It’s no surprise, really. Offline devices just don’t carry the allure that they once did, and in fact, yours truly would argue that they simply lack the requisite functionality to become runaway hits in the modern era. It’s genuinely difficult to think of a flagship consumer electronics product, with a display of any kind, being engineered in the year 2013 without at least some level of internet connectivity in mind. Even a Kickstarter dream dubbed Pebble would be borderline useless without an online link, and as consumer demands shift dramatically towards expecting more for less, it’s the carriers who have found themselves positioned to take advantage.

Verizon has joined a host of other megacorps in launching so-called innovation centers across the world. Earlier this year, Samsung committed $1.1 billion to create a pair of Open Innovation Centers — temporary homes for upstarts looking to woo Sammy’s check writers into believing in their technology. In 2011, AT&T’s Palo Alto, Calif.-based Foundry innovation center joined similar entities already running in Texas and Israel. In a nutshell, these facilities exist solely to ensure that pretty much everything with a circuit board also ships with an AT&T radio. Microsoft, Intel and Vodafone have all done likewise in the past three years.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Verizon’s first Innovation Center — a sprawling facility located squarely in Massachusetts’ famed Route 128 technology corridor. The center opened in Waltham in the middle of 2011, and now enables roughly 25 employees to “largely operate outside” of what you probably associate with the word “Verizon.” What I found was the world’s greatest case against the existence of a “dumb pipe” — a phrase often used to describe carriers that do little more than provide access to a network. No structured technical support, no humans on the other side, no bloatware on the devices they sell. Companies who show up looking for aid in the art of interconnectedness face no fees, no risk of surrendering intellectual property and no requirements of exclusivity. This is the future of the wireless carrier: an increasingly vital component in making tomorrow’s whiz-bang gadget one that this generation will actually crave.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon

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Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this roundup, we’ll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You’ll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won’t stick around long.

End of the weekend blues got you down? Well, allow us to present a handful of discounted gadgets that are ready to cure that case of the Mondays. An APC battery backup unit and Western Digital dual-band router are ready to outfit home offices and three more devices follow closely behind. Head on past the break to view the entire lot and access the requisite purchase info.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Portable Audio/Video, Wireless, Storage

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Source: Slickdeals

Some of ASUS’ big Computex 2013 launches today involved the latest 802.11ac WiFi flavor, and since you’ll need to feed them with a router packing the same tech, ASUS has also announced one of those: the RT-AC68U. The company claims it’s the first dual-band 802.11ac router with AC1900 data rates up to 1900 Mbit/s, thanks to AiRadar beamforming, which helps bring a stronger connection and 150 percent better range, too (if accurate). You’ll also be able to share files between ASUS routers with USB-attached drives thanks to a router-to-router sync mode, negating the need for a switched-on PC or other device. There’s no word on pricing or availability, but the previous RT-AC66U flagship ran about $200 or so — so we’d be surprised if it came in under that figure.

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless, ASUS

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The Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active isn’t really much of a secret at this point, despite the fact that it’s still unannounced. It’s already been seen in its share of images and videos, and the I537 — the AT&T-branded version — has even been spotted passing through the FCC. Fortunately, @evleaks dug up some imagery of this particular variant of the rugged smartphone in black (though it will supposedly be offered in teal as well), complete with the trademark AT&T globe on the back. It’s rumored to offer a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, HD display, 8-megapixel rear camera and water-resistant protection. What’s more, we’re being told that this is just one of many Samsung devices on its way to the large GSM operator this year, accompanying the Galaxy S4 Mini, Galaxy S3 Mini (oddly), Galaxy Mega 6.3 and Galaxy Note 3. Pricing is still unknown, but we have to wonder if the date on the phone’s display above is an indication of what we can expect to see at Samsung’s June 20th event.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung, AT&T

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Source: TheUnlockr

Twitter has made it just a tad easier to tweak your profile information by offering the option of changing them inline. The feature, which is available through both the website and its official mobile apps, enables faster changes to your account bio, as well as drag-and-drop upload capability for your header and profile photos. It’s a small change, but ultimately it’s meant to encourage users to keep their accounts fresh and relevant. Check out the video below the break to see exactly how it works.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Via: TheNextWeb

Source: Twitter