Earlier this month, Google sent a cease and desist letter to Microsoft as they found their YouTube app violated its API and strips out the advertisement that are available in videos. Microsoft then replied to the cease and desist by saying they would need help from Google in order to be given access to the necessary APIs to include advertising in YouTube videos on Windows Phone. It looks like their response has gotten them somewhere as Google has announced both companies are working together on a new YouTube Windows Phone application.
Read full post →Microsoft, Google Working Together On Windows Phone YouTube App

There are some moments in a person’s life that they feel inclined to share on social media, such as what they’re currently eating, wearing or listening to. But one thing I think we can all agree should stay behind closed doors is surgery, especially brain surgery and that’s exactly what UCLA Health Systems shared yesterday on not just one, but three separate social media sites.

Twitter, Vine and Instagram were used to live broadcast the implantation of a brain pacemaker, which took a total of six hours to complete. During that time, regular updates were posted on Twitter along with Vine videos and Instagram photos. Some of the updates featured the patient being awakened during the surgery to play a guitar in order to help fine tune the placement of the implant.

The purpose of the social media blitz was to help raise awareness and reduce fear about the procedure, which we’re sure many of us can’t fathom going through any kind of brain surgery sometime in our lives. In this case, the brain pacemaker is being used as a way to treat Parkinson’s disease as well as essential tremor. Since it’s for education purposes, we guess it’s ok for you to watch a surgery on social media.

Back in April, we reported that Logitech had launched its FabricSkin, a keyboard case for iPad that looked amazingly well integrated and generally efficient. Now, we have our hands on it and after using it for a few days, we can report back from the trenches to let you know how it really feels to use it in the real world.
Read full post →Logitech FabricSkin Review [iPad Keyboard Case]

If you’ve ever accidentally flung your iPhone at your significant other after you found them cheating on you with your cousin, you know how heartbreaking that experience can be if you happen to break your iPhone screen in the process. Currently, Apple charges $229 in order to repair the screen on an iPhone 5, which many would point out costs more than a subsidized iPhone 5. The Wall Street Journal took a at the rising price of repairing an iPhone 5′s screen, and what they found is the combination of more expensive components and low supply of those very components are the culprit for the rise in costs.

“The replacement components for the iPhone 5 are much more expensive than similar parts for prior models — so expensive in fact that many independent repair services cannot compete. “Due to the high cost of replacement parts, we are not yet offering iPhone 5 repairs,” according to a statement on ComputerOverhauls.com, an online repair shop. “Currently, the Apple Store is the least expensive option for repairing damaged iPhone 5s.” Other services charge as much as $250 for the repair.”

According to the article, the iPhone 5 is actually much easier to fix than previous iPhone models, which we find to be quite ironic considering it costs way more to get it fixed. Hopefully you learned that you need to take some serious care when walking around with your iPhone 5. If you suddenly become a jaded lover, we recommend you throw a pillow since they don’t hurt as much and if they break, getting a new one won’t cost you over $200.

Have you heard enough about the Xbox One since its big reveal earlier this week? It seems the majority of news surrounding the next-generation console has been negative, but a new rumor may have outted a cool feature Microsoft hasn’t officially announced.

The rumor points to a feature that will make it possible to remotely play on the Xbox One through Skype. The feature would allow someone to remotely take over another person’s local console directly from within a Skype call, which can be broken by either player at any time during the call. As of now, the supposed feature is currently in its testing phases as sources note a number of details are still unsure, such as how long a remote play session can last for or if the other person controlling the local console would need to own the game or not.

Considering Sony announced its PlayStation 4 would feature the ability for players to take over someone else’s game if given the opportunity, this leads us to believe this was a last-minute feature Microsoft may have wanted to implement in its Xbox One after seeing it done by Sony. Either way, helping each other out through a tough level is something we’re sure many people would love to have as an option.

Intel’s Architecture Group vice president Rani Borkar said earlier today laptops would be able to squeeze 50 percent more battery while running if they use the company’s Haswell chip, and today, we’re hearing of one of the first computers to incorporate Intel’s new chip.

Asus is announcing its new VivoBook V551 ultrabook that features and Intel Core i7-4500U Haswell CPU, a 15.6-inch display and an NVIDIA GeForce GT740M graphics card. The VivoBook V551 seems to have a nice-sized battery on it as it’s a 3-cell Li-Ion 65 Whr 4500mAh battery. It also comes with a DVD burner, which you don’t see many ultrabooks feature these days, although we’re curious how well its battery will perform with a DVD drive connected to it.

The Asus VivoBook’s resolution isn’t particularly high as its able to produce a 1366 x 768 resolution, which may look a bit underwhelming on its large 15.6-inch display. Its weight is also somewhat heavy coming in at 5.3lbs, although it’s understandable considering its screen, disc drive and additional components like its graphics card.

The VivoBook V551 is already available for order on a number of retailers, costing a little over $1,000, but at this point, there’s no word on when it’ll be made available.

At CTIA, MoGo has announced its second generation of modular sleeves that can turn a $200 device into a touch, enterprise ready tablet with extra battery capacity, optional laser bar code reader and many more options. Basically, if the order is large enough, MoGo will even design and build it for the customer.
Read full post →Mobelisk Turns Ordinary Tablets Into Enterprise Devices

Earlier today , we reported on a story where rumor has it, sales from used game purchases will be profiting both Microsoft and the game’s publisher. Retailers were recently briefed by Microsoft to help educate how exactly this would work as it was believed customers would be the ones footing the bill when they purchase a used game from a retailer. That is sort of true, according to a new claim published by Eurogamer.

According to Eurogamer, who is sourcing a “high-ranking UK industry source,” said customers won’t be footing the bill when it comes to paying an activation fee for used Xbox One games. Instead, the retailer will be responsible, which will then influence the price they sell their used games, thus having the customer free of any charges outside of their transition with the retailer.
Read full post →Xbox One Used Game Fees Will Charge Retailers, Not Customers [Rumor]

We’ve seen a number of iOS 7 concepts over the past few months that offer some interesting ideas into what the upcoming operating system can look like. Widgets, contacts, and a new lock screen have all been conceptualized in the past, but Jony Ive has been rumored to be planning to introduce a drastic overhaul of iOS 7 when it’s announced later this year.

A number of new features and design elements Ive is planning for iOS 7 has recently been revealed to 9to5Mac, the first of which will do away with the “heavy textures” which is found across iOS in favor for a unified scheme that features a more simple black-and-white tone. Some icon applications will be mostly white, but will have its own unique color scheme.

Some other areas of iOS 7′s redesign were also detailed such as the lock screen doing away with its glossy, reflective “slide to unlock” bar to make way for a more muted, black interface along with a redesign of the numerical pad when entering your lock code. There were many more examples over at 9to5Mac, but ultimately, what you should take away from this story is the rumors of a completely redesigned iOS 7 are pretty strong at this point, and the redesign will make iOS 7 look less flashy.

NVIDIA Has introduced its new high-end consumer graphics card, and it’s a monster. In fact, the new GeForce GTX 780 is very close to the company’s “professional” top of the line GeForce Titan, a Monolithic single-GPU card that contains 2688 stream processors that work on pixels in parallel. The GTX 780 has a slightly more modest count of 2304 such processors, but if you compare that to the previous GTX 680 (1536 processors) and GTX 580 (512 processors) we are talking about a big leap in raw horsepower.
Read full post →GeForce GTX 780 Quick Review