Tech Point

  HTC just released the red version of its squeezable U11 phone in the US, and now it’s being marked down by $50. You can get it on sale for $599. The rest of the U11 color lineup is also available at the $50 discount, including the silver, black, and blue versions. The deal includes free shipping and is valid until July 1st — tomorrow. You can order an unlocked phone through HTC’s website and enter the code “AMAZINGU11” at checkout. A similar deal was initially available when the phone launched earlier this month. The U11’s most unique feature is its pressure-sensitive areas that respond to one-handed squeeze. You can configure a squeeze to launch different apps, turn on the flashlight, or access Google Assistant. It’s pretty gimmicky, but at least HTC tried to create something novel.

  Microsoft was planning to introduce a Surface Mini tablet alongside its Surface Pro 3 at an event in May 2014. While the Surface Pro 3 was announced to much surprise, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop canceled the Surface Mini project just weeks before. We’ve heard about the Surface Mini many times over the past few years, but Windows Central has now obtained images of the device. The Surface Mini was an 8-inch device with a 1440 x 1080 display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Microsoft even included its typical kickstand on the Surface Mini, alongside what appears to be a rubber-style exterior that would have shipped in a variety of colors. As the Surface Mini was powered by an ARM processor, it was designed to run Windows RT and support the same Surface Pen (with a loop on the kickstand) as the bigger Surface Pro 3 tablet. Looking at...

  I like to play a game on the subway where I look around and try to find someone not on their phone. I like seeing a person reading a book, or, in an ultimate win, someone staring into space without headphones. It’s a rare find. These check-ins remind me that we, as a society, rely on our phones to distract and entertain us. Yet still, even as a hyper-aware person, I can’t even force myself to get off my own iPhone while riding the train. I try, but always think of something I have to do immediately: reply to an email, respond to my friend’s text, double-check a date in my calendar, read an article, adjust my music. Apparently everyone has something to do, too. In the 10 years since the iPhone debuted, it’s slowly eaten our personal space. Few places exist without cell service or Wi-Fi. We’re connected in locations that once seemed far removed from the busyness of the world, like on subways, airplanes, and cruise ships. NASA even sent iPhones into space. ...

It’s easy to see how the iPhone changed the world 10 years ago — now pretty much every public place is packed with people peering into their palms in a way that would have been difficult to imagine before 2007. But as Steve Jobs pointed out during his famous introduction to the product, Apple was entering a market where the existing competitors weren’t all that great; they were either somewhat hard to use and dumb, or hard to use and somewhat dumb. What if Apple had entered a market with a complex, entrenched ecosystem based on advanced infrastructure and services, where devices offered an endless array of features that people actually made use of? And what if it actually succeeded in overturning this market and brought many of its advantages to the rest of the world? That would have been even more impressive. But that’s exactly what happened in Japan. The first iPhone to hit Japan was the 3G in 2008. At that point, Apple had answered two of the biggest cri...

It’s easy to see how the iPhone changed the world 10 years ago — now pretty much every public place is packed with people peering into their palms in a way that would have been difficult to imagine before 2007. But as Steve Jobs pointed out during his famous introduction to the product, Apple was entering a market where the existing competitors weren’t all that great; they were either somewhat hard to use and dumb, or hard to use and somewhat dumb. What if Apple had entered a market with a complex, entrenched ecosystem based on advanced infrastructure and services, where devices offered an endless array of features that people actually made use of? And what if it actually succeeded in overturning this market and brought many of its advantages to the rest of the world? That would have been even more impressive. But that’s exactly what happened in Japan. The first iPhone to hit Japan was the 3G in 2008. At that point, Apple had answered two of the biggest cri...

It’s easy to see how the iPhone changed the world 10 years ago — now pretty much every public place is packed with people peering into their palms in a way that would have been difficult to imagine before 2007. But as Steve Jobs pointed out during his famous introduction to the product, Apple was entering a market where the existing competitors weren’t all that great; they were either somewhat hard to use and dumb, or hard to use and somewhat dumb. What if Apple had entered a market with a complex, entrenched ecosystem based on advanced infrastructure and services, where devices offered an endless array of features that people actually made use of? And what if it actually succeeded in overturning this market and brought many of its advantages to the rest of the world? That would have been even more impressive. But that’s exactly what happened in Japan. The first iPhone to hit Japan was the 3G in 2008. At that point, Apple had answered two of the biggest cri...

  Twickets, a popular England-based fan-to-fan ticket resale platform, is coming to the US this fall. The platform allows fans to resell unwanted tickets, with prices capped at face value (any booking fees incurred with the original purchase can be included at the seller’s discretion). Twickets then collects a 10 percent transaction fee from the buyer for each sale. Other popular ticket resale sites, like   Ticketmaster   and   StubHub , allow sellers to set their own price, often resulting in steep markups for high-profile events. When it debuts this fall, Twickets will be the first secondary market ticket platform to require face value sale in the US. If a fan wants to sell a ticket, Twickets will first check to make sure the ticket is authentic. It can then be posted, and the platform will send alerts to interested users. Once sold, there are an array of options available for delivery, including uploading an e-ticket, meeting up before the show, mailing th...