More Fire Phones in the pipeline, Amazon undeterred by failure

Amazon won't back down so easily

The first Fire Phone has proved something of a failure, but Amazon says it is not ready to give up on creating more phones in the range.

Amazon president of devices for Amazon in Europe Jorrit Van der Meulen says that doesn't mean we won't see more Fire phones in the future, though.

"In an honest assessment of the Fire Phone, we've learned a lot on this one… We're undeterred, but we're not immune to the criticism either."

Rather than plugging away at the same blueprint, Van der Meulen suggests the second Fire phone may be quite different from the first, "we certainly read everything that's written from customers to journalists and take note, so might the second step be slightly different than our first step, sure. I suspect that it will be."

This also suggests we may be a way off the second Fire Phone — although even in the fast-moving mobile world we've barely waved goodbye to the first phone's UK launch on 30 September.

The Fire Phone's dismal launch bit a $170 million chunk out of Amazon's recent financial reports, with $83 million worth of the things sitting around unsold.

Van der Meulen compared this failure with that of the first Kindle device, which was a rather funny-looking thing compared with what we're used to today. And no everyone loves Kindles now, right?

However, there are obvious differences in terms of the markets these devices are part of. Smartphones are fairly mature – ebook readers weren't back in 2007.

We'll have to wait to see whether Amazon has already done too much damage with the first Fire Phone to rise again, possibly next year.

Via Guardian

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HTC's new Rapid Charger cuts certain phones' charging time by 40%

Charger technology marches on with HTC's Rapid Charger 2.0

Most people are content to simply plug their smartphone into a charger when they go to bed, unhook it in the morning, and maybe give it another boost in the car on the way home.

But charging tech is improving in leaps and bounds lately, and HTC has just upped the ante with its new Rapid Charger 2.0.

The HTC Rapid Charger 2.0 works with any microUSB-charging handset, but certain HTC flagships will benefit from a 40% faster charge, the company says.

These include the HTC One M8, HTC One E8, HTC One Remix, HTC One M8 Harmon Kardon Edition, and HTC Desire Eye.

The HTC Rapid Charger 2.0 uses Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 tech, which the chip maker unveiled earlier this year.

It follows in the footsteps of Motorola's Turbo Charger, which can reportedly give phones like the Google Nexus 6 and the Motorola Droid Turbo eight hours of juice after just 15 minutes plugged in.

That's a lot more than a 40% increase in charging efficiency, so it appears Motorola may have HTC beat in this department.

For a while it seemed like wireless charging was going to be the new hot thing, but if it takes plugging a gadget in to get charging speeds like that then the future may be wired after all.

Via Ubergizmo

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Sub-$1 3D-printed microscope turns phones into science tools

This little device costs just pennies in plastic. Video screenshot by Amanda Kooser/CNET

Smartphone cameras are great for a lot of things, but they're not designed for getting super-duper up close with tiny objects like salt crystals or blood cells. You can give your mobile device a helping hand, though, and open up a world of microscopic adventures. It's not going to cost you much, either. You just need a 3D printer, a glass bead and some free files from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The microscope consists of a 3D-printed clip and a glass sphere. Put them together, slide the gadget over the camera lens of your smartphone or tablet, and you get a cheap, but very functional microscope. The glass beads used in the project are the same kind used in reflective pavements markings at airports.

PNNL suggests starting your explorations with the 100x version of the microscope to familiarize yourself with the system. It takes more effort and practice to get good, clean images with the higher-magnification versions, so training wheels makes sense. If you master the entry-level microscope, you can then move up to 350x and even 1000x versions.

Printer files for multi-platform and iPhone 5S-specific applications are available to download. The PNNL researchers say they've gotten their best results with the 5S, but that the microscope works well with other devices, including tablets.

Among the cool things that can be identified with the 1000x microscope are plague cells and anthrax spores. The lower-power 350x version can peer into blood samples to see parasites. If you're not impressed, then you need to turn in your Bill Nye the Science Guy fan club card right now.

This cool scientific instrument was inspired by a need of the Department of Homeland Security for what PNNL describes as "rapid bio detection technologies." This includes first responders reporting to a scene to investigate things like mysterious white powders. The microscope had to be extremely inexpensive in case of contamination issues so it could be thrown away without tossing a chunk of a government budget with it.

The super-cheap microscope is bound to enable some pretty sweet school science projects, but it could just as easily find a home in the traveling kits of professional scientists or land in the hands of the science-curious public.

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Exclusive: Sony: no to bringing PS4 remote play to other phones - except our own

Come on - give the Z2 owners a little thrill

Sony has confirmed it's considering bringing PS4 to other smartphones – but only Xperia devices.

One of the big headlines of IFA 2014 was the news that the new Sony Xperia Z3 range would allow you to remotely play your PS4 games.

However, it was limited to just the Sony Xperia Z3, Xperia Z3 Compact and Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact.

Pierre Perron, Sony Mobile president for North West Europe, told TechRadar that while there was no chance of the service coming to other phone brands, unlike the now-retired PlayStation Mobile app that was available on most Android phones.

When quizzed on plans to roll the Remote Play service out further, Perron was unequivocal about the fact it would stay in the Sony family:

"It is important to highlight that this functionality will be exclusive on Xperia, and there is no intention to roll out this on any other competitor device," he said.

However, when asked about whether older Sony phones could also see the compatibility, he confirmed that while it was possible technically, the brand hadn't decided whether it would bring it to phones such as the Xperia Z2:

"Today we cannot answer whether we will be [allowing older Sony phones to have PS4 remote play capabilities]; the Z3 series will be the only series compatible with the remote play, and then we will see in the next six months.

"There is no reason technically [why we don't do it], the only limit we would have is the processing power of the smartphone. So depending on that, there is no reason why at a certain point we wouldn't bring the functionality as we did on other Sony features.

"But for the time being we are committed to bringing this out on the Z3 series."

Given the Sony Xperia Z2 has a largely similar internal architecture to the Z3, there should be no reason why it couldn't support Remote Play as well – here's hoping in six months time, probably when Sony launches the Z4, we see the Z2 shown some love as well.

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The queen misses eye contact, blames cell phones

The queen wants to laugh with you. CBS News screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

It's hard out there for a royal.

You walk among your subjects every day, hoping for some adulation, or at least a little respect, and all you get is a morass of plastic with apples on them and words like "Samsung."

The strange phenomenon of constant instant photography and selfies seems to have got to the queen of England.

Queen Elizabeth II is said to be troubled by the idea that no one will look her in the eye anymore. It's nothing personal, of course. It's just that the world no longer revolves around her.

It revolves around the ability of her citizens and visitors to snap a picture of her and slap it onto Facebook or Twitter in the speed of a shutter. It makes them seem important. The phenomenon is called -- well, since I just named it -- Likehacking.

As the Telegraph reports, the revelations came from the US ambassador to Britain, Matthew Barzun. He tattled to Tatler magazine that Her Majesty feels it's "strange" to see all those cell phones pointed at her.

"She was essentially saying: 'I miss eye contact,'" said Barzun, a former CNET executive.

None of us gets much eye contact these days. The trouble is, I'm not sure how many people miss it.

It may well be that cell phones are the first step in sliding us away from those old human habits and toward a world where we'll all be connectors for technology's all-encompassing sweep.

Then, we'll look at old rom-coms and say to ourselves: "That staring thing used to work? Hah. I must tell my robot sex doll."

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