Author: Stuff writer

Marques Brownlee claims to have obtained the front panel of the upcoming iPhone 6 (the actual component that’ll be used in the product, not a mock-up), and has posted a video in which he attempts to bend it, scratch it with a set of keys and even stab it with a knife. The sapphire glass doesn’t shatter, snap or show a single mark. Serial Apple leaker Sonny Dickson has also posted a (much shorter) video showing the panel being bent. [youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0_FJ4r73s”] It looks to be significantly tougher than the Gorilla Glass used on current iPhone models. Brownlee says you…

After previously making Ferrari-branded handsets, luxury smartphone maker Vertu has switched lanes to forge an all-British alliance with Bentley. The companies are teaming up on a five-year partnership to create a line of co-branded luxury smartphones. Over the course of the collaboration you can expect a total of five different (and doubtless incredibly expensive) phone designs to hit the market, with the first Vertu for Bentley planned for October this year and offering exclusive Bentley content via an app. All we know about the phones as of now is that they’ll be ultra luxurious, what with both brands being known…

Microsoft has made its Kinect for Windows v2 sensor available for pre-order online, and will be sent out from 15th July and is aimed primarily at Windows software developers. Working with the Kinect for Windows software development kit 2.0, they’ll be able to create apps with voice and gesture controls for desktop and laptop computers. The second edition of Kinect hasn’t enjoyed the best of careers thus far. Originally packaged with every Xbox One and billed as an integral component for the console, Microsoft has recently made it an optional feature: you can now buy an Xbox One without the sensor…

No, browsing the Internet with a VR headset doesn’t mean walking around as an avatar and flying through flashing tubes of ones and zeroes—not yet, at least—but there’s potential for web developers to do some interesting things. Last week, Mozilla began implementing WebVR support in daily builds of Firefox, and now Brandon Jones, a Chrome WebGL developer for Google, has detailed the company’s own plans for VR in Chrome, with experimental builds available for PC and Mac now (with Linux on the way). He also provides a few samples of content to check out if you’re lucky enough to have…

Some spy snaps of a new Nokia/Microsoft smartphone have just popped up on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter – but the identity of the handset on display remains something of a mystery. The phone’s plastic backside and aluminium frame have led some to speculate that it could be a replacement for the Nokia Lumia 930 (aka Icon), a high-end Windows Phone that we liked a lot. But given that it’ll be coming out several months after the 930, a better guess might be that it’s more of a mid-range model – a replacement for the Lumia 820 dubbed, possibly, the…

Apple has been awarded a patent that may hint at the future of its speakers and headphones – and it’s a real gas. We mean that quite literally. The document describes how a light gas like helium could be sealed behind a speaker’s cone; when the gas pressure changes, the cone vibrates and makes sound. Usually, outside air is used to vibrate the cone, but using a specific gas instead can result in more precise, more faithful sound reproduction. It’s a concept which already exists in some “plasma speakers”, but these have to be installed in such a way that…

Is the next Nvidia Shield device a tablet rather than a traditional handheld console? It certainly appears that way. A new entry from the Global Certification Forume (the organisation that handles certification for 3GPP, the standards body for 3G devices) lists a 4G LTE device called “SHIELD Tablet” with Nvidia as the manufacturer. That ties in nicely with last year’s brief sighting of a device called “Nvidia Mocha” – a tablet with a 7.9in 2048 x 1536 screen and Tegra K1 processor. Nvidia already has an Android tablet in the form of the Tegra Note, but a Shield-branded slate would…

If your smartphone mic isn’t delivering, why not swap it out for a better one? That’s the vision of the Phonebloks alliance – and now German microphone and headphones manufacturer Sennheiser has signed up, it’s become a shade more likely. Future modular phones such as Google’s Project Ara could include Sennheiser’s interchangeble audio blocks; you’ll be able to assemble a mother-of-all-smartphones using components from different vendors in the Phonebloks alliance. Sennheiser’s involvement will focus on its areas of expertise, such as the creation of broadcast-quality microphones or highly compact devices, like recorders, that are less receptive to wind noise. Theoretically,…

Siri is about to get a high-tech upgrade in iOS 8 to improve its voice recognition abilities, according to a report in Wired. Apple looks set to ditch Nuance’s technology for an in-house solution and has poached one of Microsoft’s top scientists to head its team. The move comes just weeks after Microsoft upped the robo-speech ante, demonstrating live two-way translation between German and English within its Skype videophone service and promising a consumer version by the end of the year. The shift in-house should also see Apple adopt the latest deep neural network algorithms, which Microsoft has found can…

Apple didn’t make time for CarPlay during its big WWDC keynote last month, but that doesn’t mean that the company is easing up on its in-car tech platform. In fact, nine more companies were added to the list of partners as of yesterday, and all will be offering the iPhone-connected interface in upcoming vehicles. The new partners revealed include Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Mazda, and Ram. With the nine new additions, the full list of partners now totals 31 (including aftermarket options), with Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo offering CarPlay on models during 2014. Other…