Brandon Hill
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
Following the successful launch of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung is looking forward to “The Next Big Thing.” For those that like phablets, you’ll be happy to know that Samsung is well on its way towards releasing the Galaxy Note 6, the logical successor to last year’s Galaxy Note 5.
Although we don’t...
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Do you folks remember Project Ara? It seems like ages ago when we last talked about Google’s modular project that would allow you to essentially build your very own “perfect” smartphone and swap out components with ease. Want to swap in an always-on secondary display? No problem, just slide the module in place and...
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It looks as though the folks at Oculus aren’t too happy about the Revive hack that we told you about in mid-April that allows Rift-exclusive games like Lucky’s Tale and the Oculus Dreamdeck demo to run on competing hardware like the HTC Vive. Just five months ago, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey proclaimed, “If customers...
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If you’re heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, there could be a new convenience feature headed to OS X 10.12 that would allow you to forget about entering a password to login to your Mac. A new report making the rounds suggests that the next major operating system release from Apple will gain the ability to use a...
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The latest in a long line of Gran Turismo games is coming to the PlayStation 4 this fall; November 15th to be exact. Gran Turismo Sport is being billed as the “world’s first racing experience to be built from the ground up” with online racing that’s officially sanctioned by the Federation International Automobile...
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Uber customers may be comfortable with the idea of being shuttled around by a human driver, but what if in the future those human drivers were replaced with computers? Fully autonomous/self-driving production vehicles are definitely going to be hitting our roads within the next decade, so it makes sense that Uber...
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When it comes to smartphones, we can only remember a few recent outright flops that were not only rejected by the tech community, but also general consumers. There was the ill-conceived Microsoft Kin, the HTC First “Facebook Phone” and more recently, the Amazon Fire Phone. In late 2014, Amazon took a $170 million...
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While other smartwatch operating systems seem to evolve at a somewhat glacial pace (a la watchOS), Google is kicking into overdrive with regards to adding features to Android Wear. The company is continually adding little tweaks and new software features here and there, and this fall will see yet another big revamp...
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Hewlett-Packard is struttin’ its stuff in the ultrabook class with the brand new EliteBook 1030, which slots in nicely between the lower-end EliteBook Folio 1020 and the range-topping EliteBook 1040. In fact, the EliteBook 1030 is actually based on the 12.2-inch CNC-machined aluminum body of the EliteBook Folio 1020...
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It’s no secret that Google is heavily invested in machine learning algorithms for use in its vast software portfolio. Products like Street View, Inbox Smart Reply and even voice search rely heavily on machine learning to deliver customers the data they need in quick fashion.
But behind what may seem like rather...
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It’s been nearly a year since NVIDIA first launched its Tegra X1-powered SHIELD console. Since that time, SHIELD has been upgraded to Android 6.0 Marshmallow and received nearly a dozen software updates and features enhancement to keep it up to date. But as its first birthday rolls around, NVIDIA is ready to drop some...
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Google is expanding its reach into virtual reality (VR) with the announcement of Daydream, a VR platform that is built on the upcoming Android N mobile operating system. Daydream encompasses both hardware and software, which means that later this year you will be able to purchase Daydream-ready smartphones from popular OEMs like Samsung, HTC,
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Google is moving its way into an arena currently dominated by Amazon: the home-centric, voice-activated digital assistant market. Today at Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai actually gave Amazon a proper shout-out for making getting consumers used to the idea of devices like the Echo. Amazon Echo started off a “simple”...
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Motorola has announced a revamped Moto G smartphone lineup, and expansion is the name of the game this year. The lineup is expanding to include three phones and two of those phones now have a larger 5.5-inch display.
Let’s first start off with the regular Moto G4, which now includes a 5.5-inch 1080p display, an...
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If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you have a new option when it comes to tapping into high-speed fiber internet. AT&T announced this week that its 1Gbps GigaPower fiber internet service is now available in the area. More specially, AT&T GigaPower will be available to residents of San Francisco, San Jose...
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Cloud storage company Backblaze is at it again with its latest report on failure rates for hard drives. Backblaze’s early 2015 study showed alarmingly high Seagate 3TB failure rates. For the first quarter of 2016, the overall failure rate for Seagate drives has fallen to a somewhat more respectable level, but Western...
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Once considered a throwaway feature for smartphones that few people used, there’s been an increasing emphasis in recent years by manufacturers on front-facing or “selfie” cameras. We’ve seen smartphones with 5MP and even 8MP selfie cameras become the norm. But Sony, which has seen its smartphone business crumble...
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It seems as though device manufacturers are increasingly hoping that consumers will supplement their expensive smartphones with smartwatches that can cost hundreds of dollars. There’s a problem though with this train of thought: using a tiny smartwatch display to navigate through UIs can often be a test of your...
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It looks as though the state of Colorado is welcoming electric vehicles (EVs) with open arms. The state just took the wraps off what it is likely the country’s best state-based incentive with respect to EVs: a tax credit that is worth a whopping $5,000 [PDF].
Unlike previous EV tax credits from the state, which...
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SpaceX has made three successful landings of its Falcon 9 boosters in the past six months — one via land and two at sea. The first landing occurred on December 21st, when a Falcon 9 touched down on its landing pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida after launching 11 ORBCOMM satellites into orbit. Its second and third...
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It’s safe to say that Adobe Flash is one of the most disliked pieces of software in the modern computing era. What started off as an innovative way for users to experience interactive content and simple online games has transformed into a resource hog and significant security risk. Software vendors have taken extreme...
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Hundreds Of College Students And Alumni File Suit Against Google For Scanning Emails Without Consent
Google seems to be forever linked with concerns over user privacy. After all, the company has the most popular search engine in the world and the world’s most popular smartphone operating system (Android). Now, Google’s penchant for scooping up massive amounts of data for advertising purposes has landed it in legal...
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