Lenovo sells a record four devices per second as phone and tablet demand soars

---

In stark contrast to Dell, with its corporate upheavals and hygiene issues, Lenovo's business is still booming. The company sold a record 29 million devices last quarter and saw double-digit rises in revenue and profit -- a level of growth that almost makes it seem like it has stepped out of the stagnant PC market and into something illegal. What's actually happening, however, is healthy and continuing diversification: unit sales of smartphones and tablets overtook PCs back in the summer, and now, when combined with smart TVs, account for 15 percent of Lenovo's revenue -- versus eight percent a year ago and just four percent the year before that. With the company's regular PC trade also in good shape, snatching nearly an 18 percent slice of that traditional market, it's perhaps a shame that the company has reportedly been prevented from expanding even faster.

Source: Lenovo

Report: Apple Store to offer in-house repairs for Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c

Drop your new Apple iPhone 5s and crack the screen? That is enough to ruin your day, make you feel depressed and wonder why you have been singled out to bear this pain. According to a new report on Thursday, there might be an easy way to get the violins to stop playing and to regain your sunny disposition. All it would take would be a quick trip to the local Apple Store.

According to a source with knowledge of Apple's plans, the Cupertino based tech titan will soon outfit its Apple Stores with the machinery needed to calibrate a replacement touchscreen on both the Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c. The source says that Apple will charge $149 to replace the display on either handset which is still cheaper than shelling out several hundred dollars for a new unit. While it could take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to complete the task, it still is faster than setting-up a new iPhone to your liking with your content replaced.

In addition, equipped Apple Stores will also be able to replace certain parts on damaged iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models that in the past would have required replacing the broken unit with a new phone. Among the parts that will be repairable in an Apple Store are the volume buttons, vibrating motor, speaker and the rear-camera. While the plain ol' home button on the iPhone 5c can be replaced, the Touch ID home button on the iPhone 5s is off limits. If the Sad Sack that is walking into the Apple Store with a broken iPhone has AppleCare, replacing defective parts is free. Otherwise, each new part will ring the register with a new home button for the Apple iPhone 5c priced at $26 and a battery replacement costing $79.

Apple Stores are said to be receiving the equipment and parts while personnel are getting trained. The hope for Apple is that by offering repairs at its Apple Stores, broken iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models can be repaired instead of having to be replaced by a whole new unit.

source: 9to5Mac via BGR

China Can't Stop Hacking the World's Only Superpower

It's been almost a year since The New York Times, working with cybersecurity firm Mandiant, outed the Chinese military for being behind an ongoing series of hacking attacks aimed at the United States. Articles were written. Meetings were held. Defense budgets was boosted. Did it stop the hackers? Not a chance.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission just admitted in a draft report that the public shaming only served to quell the attacks for a short amount of time. The report says that the unit of the People's Liberation Army responsible for the hacking chilled out for about a month after the bad press, but it has since ramped its attacks back up to previous levels. "From what we can tell, they are still stealing the same type of data from the same industries," Mandiant spokeswoman Susan Helmick told Reuters. "The focus appears to be the same but the methods and malware, they had to shift."
Well, that's swell. You give the Pentagon's burgeoning cybersecurity force a clear target to aim at, and they miss for ten months straight. Or at least that's how it seems.
To be honest, it's hard to tell if the resilience of the Chinese hackers should be attributed more to the PLA's capabilities or to the incompetence of the United States. It's become glaringly obvious in recent months that these Chinese hackers know what they're doing. They've managed to steal sensitive U.S. weapon design files and they even hacked the president. More ominously, they appear to be multiplying now with mercenary groups popping up all over the place and going after U.S. networks.
But the U.S. is trying! Trying so hard to figure out how to stop the attacks without soiling Sino-American relations. A Wall Street Journal report over the summer explained in knuckle-biting detail how government agencies are mobilizing against the Chinese hackers and working with internet service providers to block the cyberspying. Even then, however, officials admitted the relative futility of their efforts. "Part of the problem is we can close this door and it's fairly easy for them to open another door," one official told The Journal.
So the doors keep swinging open. Of course, China denies any involvement in the hacking activity, despite Mandiant tracing the PLA unit to a specific building in the outskirts of Shanghai. From a diplomatic perspective, this is a tough one. On one hand, it's Bad News Bears for the Chinese military to go snooping around our servers. It's even worse news to launch anything that could be interpreted as an attack—cyber or otherwise—against China. Because, you know, World War III.

[Reuters]
Image via Getty

Samsung says Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4 will get killer 16MP camera

Earlier reports suggested that Samsung’s next-generation flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone will be getting a significant camera upgrade when it debuts next year and now the news is confirmed. Samsung said this week during its analyst day meetings that the upcoming Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 hero phones for 2014 will both get the company’s new 16-megapixel camera module. And we’re not looking at a simple spec bump here — Samsung plans to make use of its new ISOCELL technology that will seemingly afford huge improvements in low-light photo quality while also improving color reproduction and sharpness in any lighting. Samsung’s Galaxy S4 might not be the runaway smash the company was hoping for, but next year’s hero phone is shaping up to be an absolute beast.

Tags:

Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, Samsung

Via:

SamMobile

Source:

Samsung

Motorola patents neck tattoo that acts as a microphone and lie detector

Back in the dark days of March 2012, we told you about Nokia's patent application for a removable ferromagnetic ink tattoo that would send you haptic feedback whenever your phone receives a call. Different callers could be tied to different vibration patterns so that you could tell who is calling without having to look at your phone. Now, Motorola has received a patent for a similar, but functionally different idea.

Motorola's idea is to place a skin tattoo sticker on your neck to be used as a microphone, sending signals to your Motorola Moto X or the latest version of the Motorola DROID. The microphone would be able to send a clearer sound to your handset as it would eliminate background noise. The tattoo would come with its own transceiver, antenna, microphone and signal processor. For some reason not explained, the tattoo would also come with a screen even though the placement of the sticker would preclude you from looking at it.

And wait, there's more. Motorola adds that the tattoo could include a skin detector that could help determine if someone is talking in the confident manner of someone telling the truth. That's right, the tattoo patch could double as a lie detector. Sounds like we might not see too many politicians using Motorola handsets in the future.

As far as the tattoo is concerned, we wonder if the wholly owned Google subsidiary will have one that says "Mom" with a big heart.

Motorola patents a neck tattoo microphone

source: USPTO via UnwiredView