Todd R. Weiss

As Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones go on sale on March 11, AT&T and T-Mobile are offering buy-one-get-one-free deals on the handsets to new and existing customers who add a new line of service. AT&T will provide a free Galaxy S7 phone to customers who add a new S7 or S7 Edge […]

Toyota engineers are working to develop a wearable device that could one day help blind and visually impaired people “see” their surroundings through the help of sensors, cameras and audible devices that could improve their mobility. The BLAID device, under development in Toyota’s partner robotics division, will be equipped with cameras that detect the user’s […]

Project Fi, Google’s inexpensive mobile phone service that was unveiled in April 2014 under an invitation-only system, can now be used by anyone who buys or provides a compatible Nexus smartphone that will work with the service. The open invitation to all users was made by Simon Arscott, product manager for Project Fi, in a […]

Verizon has been fined $1.35 million by the Federal Communications Commission for using special data headers, or “supercookies,” to target ads to millions of its mobile customers from 2012 to 2014. The fine, which was announced by the FCC on March 7, resulted from an investigation the agency conducted into the practice after critics complained […]

Mozilla announced the first of its Internet of things projects that are evolving out of what was once its promising Mozilla Firefox OS operating system initiative. Ari Jaaksi, Mozilla’s senior vice president for connected devices, unveiled the first four IoT “experiments” in a March 1 post on the Mozilla Blog, just a month after the […]

Apple must pay out about $450 million to U.S. consumers and states to settle claims that it illegally conspired with ebook publishers to raise ebook prices starting in 2010. The coming payout will now be made after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Apple’s last appeal and declined to hear arguments in the antitrust case, according […]

Chinese smartphone and telecom equipment maker ZTE, which allegedly violated U.S. laws by shipping parts from U.S. technology companies to Iran in recent years, is slated to be hit with export restrictions by the U.S. Commerce Department as a punishment. The pending export restrictions will “make it difficult for the company to acquire U.S. products […]

After removing encryption from its line of Fire devices in late 2015 and hearing resulting criticism about the move from customers in recent months, Amazon has reversed course and will bring data encryption back this spring. The concerns from customers follow the ongoing legal wranglings between Apple and the FBI over very tight security measures […]

Virtual-reality thrills and chills are coming for amusement ride fans at nine theme park roller coasters across the United States and Canada in 2016 under a partnership unveiled by Samsung and the Six Flags Entertainment Corp. The VR roller coasters will use Samsung Gear VR virtual-reality headsets to give theme park fans full VR experiences […]

The Oculus Rift VR headset still doesn’t support Mac OS because Apple doesn’t build any computers that are powerful enough to meet the high-performance standards the headset requires, according to Palmer Luckey, founder of virtual-reality vendor Oculus VR. In fact, said Luckey, a Mac release could only come if Apple would up its performance game, […]