Author: Stuff writer

We like history at Stuff. In a general sense, as well as in a few specific cases. There are several reasons for this. The first is that we like to know where we’ve been so that we can see how far we’re going to go. The second is that we love having a basis of comparison. Is this iPhone better than the last iPhone? (Trick question – It’s always better. At least a little. So far). Plus, we like to be able to avoid the mistakes of the past – always very important. Nobody wants to see another Zune. The point…

Last month, LG asked the world’s tech press to save the date for 21 February, but didn’t give a very clear indication of why — although, given the timing (one day before Mobile World Congress 2016) we had a pretty good hunch what was in store. And now, we know for sure: LG will indeed reveal its G5 smartphone at the event in Barcelona. Last year’s LG G4 launched a little later than its biggest competitor, debuting in April, but by then the Samsung Galaxy S6 had already stolen the show — even so, LG produced a damn fine phone.…

Reports and leaks have been mounting for months, and now there’s a firm target ahead: Apple is expected to reveal its next iPhone and iPad releases on Tuesday, 15 March. Both 9to5Mac and BuzzFeed News are reporting that, based on information from their sources, and both have been right about various Apple leaks in the past. The date matches up well with a report from last week, in which Apple was said to be considering an event sometime during the week of 14 March. So what are these new devices? Well, the new iPhone is reportedly the iPhone 5se, also…

We have amazing smartphones, smartwatches on our wrists, VR headsets, self-driving cars on the roads, and drones working on delivering packages – and yet it’s this mirror that has us convinced we’re finally living in the future. It’s perfectly pristine and seamless, which is surprising since it’s a homemade side project; granted, it’s one from a longtime Google engineer who was a lead on the Glass project. Max Braun decided to make this Android-powered mirror when he couldn’t find one available for sale like the ones he’s seen in sci-fi flicks over the years. The gorgeous result comes from a…

Last month, BlackBerry CEO John Chen told CNET that the company would only release Android phones in 2016, following the debut of the keyboard-slider BlackBerry Priv. But at the time, he left the door open for another BlackBerry 10 device down the line. Now it seems like that’s unlikely to happen, thanks to word from Damian Tay, BlackBerry’s senior director of APAC product management. His comments to the Economic Times suggest that Android is the company’s only way forward, and that the Priv is less an alternative option from the company and more of a hard pivot. “The Priv device…

Alcohol has been around since… as long as humans have been able to keep track of ideas. So since the advent of writing then, though we suspect that beer came first. The need to write things down arose out of forgetting what we were supposed to be doing after the beer was ready. Again, we’re just speculating. Don’t cite this in a thesis or anything. The point is that beer is one of those things that has been around forever and you don’t expect there to be much innovation in something that has been around since as least Mesopotamia (and…

Samsung’s about to make it a whole lot easier to shoot 360° videos – it’s got a VR camera that should launch alongside the Galaxy S7. According to SamMobile, the Gear 360 is a spherical camcorder that will shoot 360° videos with two 180° fisheye lenses. It will pair with your phone over Bluetooth, has its own battery for wire-free filming, and has an as-yet unknown amount of on-board storage. The Gear 360 Connect app will act as a remote viewfinder, and the Gear 360 Gallery will play back your recorded clips, with the touchscreen letting you spin the scene…

Is that the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge+? It’s not, apparently — but we understand why you might be fooled. If these really are Samsung’s Galaxy S7 models, the apple clearly didn’t fall far from last year’s tree. According to a tweet from noted leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks), these appear to be the first images of the Samsung Galaxy S7 (left) and the slightly larger Galaxy S7 Edge (right). He tweeted out the image this evening along with a link to a report he wrote for VentureBeat early last month, which detailed the size differences and other details. He…

Earlier, we got our apparent first look at the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge thanks to a leak of multiple images, one of which showed 21 February as the date. Can you guess when Samsung’s next event is? Bingo. Samsung just revealed that its next Unpacked event will indeed take place on Sunday, 21 February in Barcelona, just one day before Mobile World Congress kicks off. The official video teaser below shows a man viewing a spinning cube with his Gear VR headset, and the cube has what looks to be a glowing “7” on it. The hashtag “#TheNextGalaxy”…

Last year’s HTC One M9 (shown) was a perfectly respectable, mostly excellent smartphone, but it was also one of the biggest disappointments of the year: a lightly evolutionary device that fell short compared to the big, bold Samsung Galaxy S6. But with sinking fortunes, it sounds like HTC is ready to make a bigger leap with this year’s expected HTC One M10, reportedly codenamed Perfume. According to a report from VentureBeat by noted leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks), the One M10 will be HTC’s first wide-release phone to have a Quad HD (1440×2560) AMOLED display — just like the Galaxy S6.…