Michelle Maisto

BlackBerry has taken in stride leaks about its upcoming Passport smartphone—so much so that CEO John Chen chuckled to analysts, during the company’s last earnings call, that they should “go online and check it out,” as “all the information has already been leaked.” Now, added to the information they might find, is a video demonstration […]

Verizon has announced an improvement to its FiOS wireline broadband service. Starting July 21, new and existing customers can begin to expect upload speeds on par with their download speeds, at no additional cost. Previously, it was typical for upload speeds to be, at best, half as fast as download speeds. FiOS customers paying for […]

Samsung has offered Galaxy Gear owners the option to update their aging smartwatches to the software that’s run by its newer Gear 2. Noteworthy is that while the Gear runs Google’s Android OS, the Gear 2 runs the Samsung-backed Tizen. “The update is completely optional,” Samsung wrote in the second sentence of a very brief […]

An Early Look at the Amazon Fire Smartphone by Michelle Maisto Meet the Amazon Fire The Fire smartphone has a 4.7-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS), LCD HD display with “Dynamic Image Contrast” technology that makes for a great outdoor viewing experience. It also allows, in some instances, for a 3D-like experience. Amazon Fire OS The Fire […]

Mobile phone maker Kyocera is trying to make the most of the fact that, if the rumors prove true—and there’s growing evidence they will—it will soon have something in common with Apple: sapphire glass. Or maybe that’s not quite right. Maybe the brag is more exactly that Kyocera has been making sapphire glass forever, and […]

The European Commission (EC) has chastised Apple for failing to make changes to help prevent children from making inadvertent purchases within mobile apps or parents from receiving unexpected bills. The EC announced July 18 that it has joined forces with national authorities to address the issue, and their actions are delivering “tangible results”—just not from […]

With Samsung Galaxy Tab S, No Buyer’s Remorse by Michelle Maisto Samsung Galaxy Tab S Tablet The Galaxy Tab S, a flagship device for Samsung, is now available with WiFi-only connectivity. An LTE-enabled model will arrive later this summer. The Tab S is offered with an 8.4-inch or 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display, and in Titanium […]

Bill Campbell, Apple’s longest-serving board member, hand-picked for the task by Steve Jobs 17 years ago, is retiring, Apple announced July 17. Susan Wagner, a founding partner and director of asset-management firm BlackRock, has been elected to the board. Apple CEO Tim Cook called Campbell’s contributions to Apple “immeasurable,” and in a statement thanked him […]

Tablets, like smartphones, seem to be near the end of their innovation cycle. They’re thin, they’re light, their displays have more pixels than the eye can appreciate. What more can be done? Samsung continues to answer this question by differentiating—on size, on price, on materials, on features—if even only subtly. With the Galaxy Tab S, […]

Apple has agreed to pay consumers $400 million, as part of a government lawsuit that claimed Apple conspired with the nation’s largest book publishers to fix the prices of ebooks—but only if its appeal of a New York federal judge’s ruling from last year is unsuccessful. According to a July 16 court filing, if the […]