Mobile

The Trump administration has added Xiaomi to the US military list under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1999. That means the US has designated the third-largest smartphone maker in the world — according to IDC, Counterpoint Research and Gartner — as a company owned by the Chinese military. As a result, American investors can’t buy Xiaomi shares or related securities anymore. Also…

Today’s Google Doodle is a cute animation celebrating Dr. James Naismith and his invention of basketball in 1891. In 1891, during his tenure as a physical education teacher at the YMCA college in Springfield, Massachusetts, James Naismith — who was not yet a doctor — was called upon to craft a game for his class to play indoors during the bitter cold winter. With less than two weeks to…

A new video published by the YouTube channel Apple Demo this week offers a really interesting look at a prototype version of the iPhone 4S. The video shows the iPhone 4S during the design validation testing phase of its development, with an interesting tie to Steve Jobs’ tenure at Apple. For background, Apple’s hardware development typically moves through stages including EVT (engineering…

The Nest brand has built up a considerable collection of smart home hardware, and starting next year, that hardware is getting a new feature. All Google Nest devices will soon be supported in the Samsung SmartThings app. Starting in January 2021, you’ll be able to link Nest devices to the Samsung SmartThings app with each device being WWST (“Works with SmartThings”) certified. With this…