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It’s official: Lenovo owns Motorola

The cash has been handed over, the contracts are signed and the lawyers are sipping champagne, which can only mean that Lenovo’s deal to buy Motorola has been completed. The purchase makes Lenovo the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, and the Chinese company has been quick to promise not to meddle. The outfit has pledged to keep Motorola based in Chicago, and CEO Rick Osterloh will keep his job at the head of the table. What will change, is that Motorola will now be able to sell its devices in Lenovo’s Asian and European strongholds, which should help the pair meet its pledge to sell 100 million smartphones and tablets this year. The pair have also pledged to return Motorola to profitability by mid-2016, which seems a lot more plausible with a stable of devices that include the Nexus 6 , Droid Turbo and Moto 360 . Filed under: Cellphones , Tablets , Google , Lenovo Comments Via: Re/code Source: Lenovo

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It’s official: Lenovo owns Motorola

Startup wants to raise $1.8 million to build giant fighting robots

The folks at MegaBots Inc. dream of making humongous machines: 15-foot-tall, 15, 000-pound piloted robots to be exact. And they don’t want to build them for rescue missions or military use — nope, these robots are designed to duke it out in an arena à la Real Steel , except instead of using fists, they shoot each other with high-powered paint guns. A now-defunct convention called RoboGames used to have a real-life robot combat event, but this startup’s plans are obviously a lot grander in scale. Each MegaBot is big enough to carry a pilot and a gunner within its body (just like in mecha anime), with the latter in charge of firing paint-filled projectiles going at 120 mph at their opponents. While all these giant fighting robots deal sound too unreal, the team has managed to build a prototype upper body, arm, gun placement and weapon system these past months. The startup obviously still needs a ton of cash to make its fantastical dreams come true, though, so it’s trying to raise a whopping $1.8 million via Kickstarter . In case it does reach its goal, the money will be used to build two robots and make them “fight to the death, ” or more like fight until the other’s armor and panels start coming off. A very generous $10, 000 pledge will get your logo emblazoned on one of the MegaBots. But if you’d rather own it yourself, well, you’ll have to empty your coffers, so to speak, as a single one will cost you $1 million. Filed under: Robots Comments Source: Megabots , Kickstarter

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Startup wants to raise $1.8 million to build giant fighting robots

HP wants to be a 3D printing giant with new ‘Multi Jet Fusion’ tech

HP has just revealed a lot more information about the 3D printing technology it teased dramatically a few months ago. Called “Multi Jet Fusion, ” the company wants nothing less than to “change entire industries” with the tech. In case you forgot, the original goal was to make 3D printers build objects at higher resolution and much, much faster, speeds. If the claims we heard today are true, Multi Jet Fusion looks mighty impressive. Essentially, it’ll print 3D parts in a similar way that an inkjet printer produces documents. The system uses a four-step procedure in which the “ink” is applied to a material coating, then heated and fused to build up layers (see below). HP said that products like gears could be produced at least ten times faster than using conventional manufacturing techniques. It demonstrated one 3D printed product strong enough to pick up a car, and showed another part for the 3D printer, that was itself printed by the 3D printer. The company also said that it’ll print colors far more accurately than any 3D printer has yet, and showed several sample thingamajigs to prove it. HP’s VP dad-joked that it wasn’t a very good business idea, because someone could buy a single printer and print all the printers they’d need. It developed a prototype model (shown at the top), but for now, it’ll be strictly aimed at manufacturing businesses. Obviously, there’s no word yet on pricing or whether you’ll be able to start manufacturing widgets at home. Filed under: HP Comments

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HP wants to be a 3D printing giant with new ‘Multi Jet Fusion’ tech

Mobile pushes Facebook to even greater heights

…And Facebook’s march towards utter market dominance continues unabated. While Twitter enjoys plenty of success, and we’re sure someone out there still uses Google+ , there’s no denying that the king of the social networking hill is Facebook. And during the third quarter of 2014 the company did nothing but extend that lead . In particular the number of mobile users continued to explode at an impressive rate. The average number of monthly mobile users in September was 1.12 billion. (To put that in perspective: Twitter announced just 284 million monthly users across all platforms.) That’s 29 percent more than last year. Most impressively many of those users check in every day . The average daily number of mobile users during the quarter was 703 million. And when you take the desktop into account, usage balloons to 864 million per day — or about 64 percent of its users. Its no surprise with its continued growth that ad revenue has soared for the company. And that mobile ad dollars made up a majority of its income. A full 64 percent of the money coming into Facebook is from ads, and 66 percent of that ad revenue is from mobile. (You know, just in case you needed any more evidence that the future is on mobile.) While Mark Zuckerberg spoke at length about how important WhatsApp and Oculus are to the future of the company, he declined to go into to much detail during his prepared statements. He did however provide an update on Instagram which has seen its audience grow by as much as 100 percent in certain markets over the last year as it continues its international expansion. The mobile photo-sharing network also has an impressive grip on the attention span of its users. The average member apparently spends 21 minutes per-day browsing the service. The move to bring ads to the platform hasn’t seemed to hurt usage yet. Filed under: Internet , Facebook Comments

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Mobile pushes Facebook to even greater heights

Google Fit for Android is ready to compile all of your fitness stats

We first heard about Mountain View’s activity-tracking plans back at I/O, and now the Android faithful and get their hands on the goods. The Google Fit app, the company’s answer to Apple Health , is now available for download, compiling all of those collected fitness stats in the same spot. By leveraging your phone’s sensors, the software monitors walking, running and cycling activity, allowing you to set specific goals and benefit from some friendly advice. Fit also plays nice with third-party apps and devices — and of course, Android Wear gadgets — so that you can get an overall view of your progress from one place. Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach were specifically mentioned in the announcement. What’s more, the initiative can be accessed on the web should the need arise (once you’ve logged in on your phone). Looking to get moving? You’ll need a handset running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or above, but if you meet the requirement, the app is available for download at Google Play . Filed under: Software , Mobile , Google Comments Via: The Next Web Source: Google Play , Android Official Blog

This is Verizon’s Droid Turbo: 5.2-inch Quad HD display, up to 48 hours of battery life

What’s black and Kevlar and screams “turbo”? Okay, yes, a modded BMW M3. But also Verizon’s latest smartphone, the Droid Turbo by Motorola. Regular Engadget readers assuredly know a lot about this phone already : it’s got a 5.2-inch Quad HD AMOLED display covered in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3, a Kevlar back, and an incredibly long battery life. Verizon’s touting “up to” 48 hours of power and a quick charge feature that nets “up to 8 hours of use” from a 15-minute charge (using a specific charging cable included with the phone, naturally). The Droid Turbo’s not all charge and no oomph: a Snapdragon 805 processor is the heart of the Turbo (a 2.7GHz quad-core CPU) and an Adreno 420 CPU (running at 600MHz) handles graphics on that fancy Quad HD screen. 3GB of RAM handles memory, making all that processor power worth a damn. Should processor speeds not excite you, perhaps megapixel counts will? The camera out back on the Droid Turbo is a whopping 21-megapixels. And yes, relax, your selfies are safe: there’s a front-facing camera with 2MP resolution and 1080p video capability. In terms of the rest of the specs, the Droid Turbo is keeping up with the Joneses with Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 in all the flavors (a/g/b/n/ac), NFC, and microUSB for connectivity. Verizon’s XLTE comes inside the Droid Turbo as well — surprise! Honestly, it’s just a little frustrating to see this thing debut so shortly after the Moto X first hit the scene. After all, it basically improves on just about everything we didn’t dig about Moto’s recent flagship , so if you just bought one you might want to keep the receipt handy. In fact, all of the voice and gesture ability in Motorola’s Moto X is also in the Droid Turbo. How about that ?! Okay, now the elephant in the room: what’s powering that “up to” 48 hours of battery life? A 3, 900 mAH battery is nestled behind that tough exterior, sitting next to 32GB of internal storage (64GB optionally if you wanna get crazy ). It’s available October 30th; Droid Turbo starts at $199 (with a two-year contract) and jumps to $249 when you add the extra storage. So, how does the phone feel? Is it any good? These are all good questions that we don’t have answers for just yet, but we’ll have a hands-on for you shortly. Hang tight! Filed under: Cellphones , Handhelds , Mobile , Verizon Comments

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This is Verizon’s Droid Turbo: 5.2-inch Quad HD display, up to 48 hours of battery life

Apple to distribute over $100 million worth of iPads in underprivileged schools

Students in 114 schools across the country are about to get free iPads straight from Apple, thanks to the tech titan’s $100 million pledge to President Obama’s ConnectED initiative . Cupertino first announced its support for the project (which aims to give students access to high-speed internet) in February this year, but now we know how the company’s fulfilling its multimillion-dollar promise. According to Apple’s ConnectED page, 96 percent of the students in each of its 114 chosen schools are eligible for free or, at least, reduced-priced lunches. Also, half of the schools are in urban areas, with students who are mostly of Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian heritage. Apple placed emphasis in giving minorities access to technology and knowledge, as they usually don’t, putting them at a disadvantage. The company says it sees “the results of this and other forms of inequality every day”, as “minorities are significantly underrepresented in the technology industry.” In addition to giving every student in the school an iPad , Apple will also provide each teacher with both an iPad and a Mac and will equip classrooms with Apple TV. The company will be assigning special education teams to oversee each school, tailor curricula for the needs of every institution and work with providers to ensure students and teachers have WiFi or cellular connection, as well. You can check out Apple’s ConnectED page for more details, or the complete list of schools to know if there’s one in your area. [Image credit: Getty Images] Inspired by the students, teachers, and administrators at the 114 schools we’re partnering with for ConnectED http://t.co/WTsQT0yAD4 – Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 27, 2014 Filed under: Desktops , Tablets , Apple Comments Source: Apple

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Apple to distribute over $100 million worth of iPads in underprivileged schools

You can finally play the best-ever Star Wars games on a modern PC (updated)

Forget that upcoming Battlefront game for now — the Star Wars titles that hardcore fans have really been looking for are finally here. Good Old Games has announced official re-releases of X-Wing and TIE Fighter that let you play these legendary space combat games (arguably, the best Star Wars games ever) on a modern PC without resorting to bootleg copies or hacks. They’ll cost $10 each when they arrive on October 28th, and they’re Special Editions that include both the CD-ROM content (SVGA graphics! Voiceovers!) as well as all the expansion packs. If you’ve been waiting two decades to once more recreate the Death Star trench run or blow up a Rebel frigate, your moment has come. Update: As you may have suspected, GOG posted those game links prematurely — they disappeared shortly after we posted our story. Come back on the 28th and they should work properly. Filed under: Gaming , Software Comments Via: Sir_Crocodile (NeoGAF) , Kotaku Source: GOG (X-Wing) , (TIE Fighter)

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You can finally play the best-ever Star Wars games on a modern PC (updated)

Nextbit is bringing iOS-like app continuity and ‘limitless’ storage to Android

You may just about recall that Nextbit, a startup formed by ex-Googlers, has been collaborating with Cyanogen on a “really cool” secret project . As it turns out, this is all about the continuity experience across Android devices — very timely given the recent launch of OS X Yosemite and iOS 8.1 , which boast a set of continuity features. Nextbit’s offering is dubbed Baton, and as the name suggests, it lets you quickly pass an app’s state from one Android device to another, meaning you can continue playing on the same level in a game, editing the same document in an app or browsing the same web page right away; with the precondition being the second device must also have Baton and the same app installed. Better yet, app developers don’t have to do anything at all; existing apps should just work. To toggle a pass, simply hold down the “Recent Apps” Android soft key and then choose your desired target device. In a matter of seconds, the target device will wake up and launch the same app in the same state. Similarly, you can do the same to pass the app to the previous device or to a new one — provided that it’s already associated with your CyanogenMod account, running Baton and has the identical app installed. In the case where the passed app isn’t yet installed, the OS will prompt you to download it. The more we look at this, the more we wonder why didn’t Google come up with this. “We’ve taken the cloud and we’ve deeply integrated it into the OS itself, ” Nextbit CEO Tom Moss said proudly. Interestingly, Nextbit’s Baton somewhat contrasts with iOS’ Handoff by getting the user to “push” an app’s state to a target device, as opposed to pulling an app onto one’s selected device. Different initiations, but similar ideas. That said, Handoff only works on iOS and OS X apps that use its APIs (which isn’t surprising given the cross-platform nature), whereas Baton has the advantage of requiring literally no dev work at all. Don’t be mistaken: Baton isn’t an app that you download from the Play Store. Rather, it’s a framework that utilizes the cloud to keep apps and data constantly in sync across multiple Android devices. And since the state of the apps plus the UI’s look and feel are backed up daily, Baton also lets you restore to your desired moment. In fact, this particular part of Baton is already being shipped as a white label product on Japan’s NTT Docomo devices as of last week, and Nextbit is in talks with Chinese OEMs to spread the love further. OnePlus One will definitely be getting Baton. Likewise, Baton will only be available on devices made or sold by licensees, and Moss said he’s getting a pretty good momentum in terms of establishing partnerships. This feature is currently only available to select testers who are running the latest version of CyanogenMod, though Nextbit will soon be launching an invite-only beta program. We’re also told that Baton’s first public release will debut on the “commercially distributed Cyanogen operating system” at some point this year; and yes, this means the popular OnePlus One will definitely be getting Baton. But this is only just the beginning for Nextbit. Seeing that 50 percent of smartphone users run out of storage within the first 12 months, the startup’s next goal is to enable “limitless” storage — local storage and cloud storage combined as one — on Android devices. The execs didn’t dive into details since they are in talks with a carrier partner, but on paper it’s simple: This is achieved by intelligently moving data between local storage and the cloud, so the user wouldn’t notice a thing. “We don’t want to change users’ behaviour, so we’re keeping it totally seamless, ” said Scott Croyle , HTC’s former lead designer. “It’s all about solving the real pain points on our mobile devices, ” Moss added. Filed under: Software , Mobile Comments

Google exec sets a new record for highest-altitude jump (video)

Move over Felix Baumgartner (pictured above) — just two years after the daredevil’s record setting 128, 000 foot Red Bull Stratos space jump , Google VP Alan Eustace has topped it. The New York Times reports Eustace rode a balloon 135, 908 feet above New Mexico and dove back to Earth, opting for just a specially designed spacesuit / life support system instead of Baumgartner’s capsule + suit combo . It took two hours for the ride up, and another 15 minutes for the trip down, which peaked at speeds of up to 800 mph before the parachute system kicked in, and he glided back down to a landing site 70 miles away from where he started. He’s apparently been working on the project since 2011, and declined assistance from Google to go it alone, working with Paragon Space Development Corporation on the project, dubbed “StratEx.” He recorded the whole thing on GoPro cameras (of course) and you can watch highlights from the feat embedded after the break. [Image credit: AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos, Balazs Gardi] Filed under: Misc , Transportation , Google Comments Via: Larry Page (G+) Source: New York Times , Paragon SDC

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Google exec sets a new record for highest-altitude jump (video)