Todd R. Weiss

Samsung replaced its longtime handset chief, J.K. Shin, with another executive as the global smartphone leader continues to seek a strategy to get itself out of a pattern of disappointing financial quarters. Shin will give up his day-to-day handset role to Dongjin Koh, who takes over as president of the company’s mobile communications business, according […]

Swiss watchmaker Swatch SA has signed a deal with Visa Inc. to allow Visa credit card holders to use Swatch Bellamy wristwatches to make instant payments by touching the watch to a special terminal without having to pull out a plastic credit card. Under the deal, which was announced Nov. 30, Visa card holders in […]

Sonos will connect the Apple Music streaming music service with its Sonos wireless speaker systems starting Dec. 15 so that users can pipe Apple’s music into their homes, offices or other locations as part of a beta preview. The addition of streaming music from Apple Music will bolster the wide variety of other streaming platforms […]

Amazon, which dropped sales of Apple TV devices in October because the devices didn’t offer dedicated access to Amazon’s streaming Instant Video offerings, is now apparently working on an Apple TV app that is rumored to be released soon. Word of the pending Apple TV app from Amazon was revealed in a Nov. 27 Twitter […]

Since 1997, Sears delivery workers have been driving trucks filled with new washers, dryers, refrigerators, treadmills and other oversize home appliances to buyers’ homes using a homegrown database application that routed the trucks and provided needed delivery information. But as updates lagged and demands and deliveries grew, the then state-of-the-art system began to get overwhelmed, […]

Amazon has unveiled a new drone prototype aircraft for its still-in-development Prime Air package delivery system, this time with a model that takes off and lands vertically but flies on a horizontal flight path to its destination. The company showed off its latest drone design in a 2 minute, 17 second video it posted on […]

BlackBerry is exiting the Pakistan mobile communications marketplace on Dec. 30 after the country’s government said it would begin to monitor all email and SMS messaging traffic over BlackBerry’s servers. The Pakistani government’s action, and BlackBerry’s decision to pull out of the country in response, was announced by Marty Beard, the company’s chief operation officer, […]

Apple has acquired motion-capture technology startup Faceshift, which builds applications that capture human facial expressions as animated avatars or characters. The acquisition of Faceshift, which is based in Switzerland, actually occurred earlier this year but was only recently confirmed by Apple, according to a report by iPhoneHacks. Faceshift’s motion-capturing technology “allows animated characters to capture […]

Google is making it easier for shoppers to stay up-to-date with the best prices and deals on a wide range of products with its new Short Message Service (SMS) texting alert service that arrives just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping. The free service allows shoppers to create custom searches for products […]

Bing Maps has added live images from more than 35,000 traffic cameras across the United States and 10 other nations to its online maps, giving travelers more information about their routes before they hit the road. That means that travelers can also check those traffic cameras for live updates from mobile devices as they drive—well, […]