As war and economic crises engulf nations around the world, migrants flee in search of a better life.

Today in London, Lenovo took the wraps off of a refresh of the entire Yoga series, starting with the new Yoga 3 Pro, then moving to the new Yoga Tablet 2, and finally, the release of a new member to the Yoga line – the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro. The key feature of the Yoga series is flexibility, hence the name, and for the Yoga products it comes down to the hinge. The Lenovo Yoga line were the first laptops to feature the fold around hinge, and then later they brought a shorter version of that hinge to their Yoga tablet lines in order to allow for multiple usage modes as well.

The Yoga 2 Pro, which we reviewed earlier this year, is a 13.3 inch convertible notebook which has a hinge that can be opened 180° to let the laptop be used in the stand mode, tablet mode, and tent mode, as well as the traditional notebook mode. It is a very well implemented feature with the Yoga 2 Pro, but Lenovo thought they could do better, and with today’s announcement of the Yoga 3 Pro, Lenovo has revealed a new “Watchband Hinge” which allows the laptop to be even thinner and lighter than the Yoga 2 Pro. The new model is 17% thinner at 12.8 mm thick, and 14% lighter than the outgoing model at 1.19 kg. The hinge now has six focus points, up from two on the Yoga 2 Pro, and the watchband hinge is constructed of more than 800 pieces of steel and aluminum. The 13.3 inch 3200x1800 QHD+ display is back, but we do not know yet if it still has a RGBW matrix or not. The display is now covered in Corning Gorilla Glass. One weak spot of the Yoga 2 Pro is the audio quality, especially when using the device in multiple modes which can have the speakers pointed away from the listener. Lenovo hopes to address this shortcoming with JBL speakers with Waves Audio which adjusts the audio depending on which mode the device is in. The Yoga 3 Pro is powered by the Intel Core-M processor, which should mean an increase in battery life (Lenovo claims 9 hours) and the possibility of it being fanless. Storage options are up to 512 GB of SSD, and Wi-Fi is now 802.11ac. There are three colors available, with Clementine Orange, Platinum Silver, and Champagne Gold. Prices start at €1,599 and the new device will be available at the end of October.

Lenovo Yoga Laptop Yoga 3 Pro CPU/GPU Intel Core M-70 (2 core, 4 thread, 1100 MHz to 2600 MHz, HD 5300 GPU, 4.5 W TDP) RAM Up to 8 GB LPDDR3L Storage Up to 512 GB SSD Display 13.3" 3200x1800 QHD+ IPS touchscreen Network 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Dimensions 330 x 228 x 12.8 (mm) Weight 1.19 kg Camera 720p Webcam Battery up to 9 hours OS Windows 8.1 Speakers JBL Stereo speakers with Waves Audio certification

Next up on the docket was the Yoga Tablet refresh. The Yoga Tablet was available in both 10 inch and 8 inch screen sizes, with Android as the operating system. The new Yoga Tablet 2 models will also come in both 10 inch and 8 inch versions, but now the Tablet 2 is available with either Android 4.4 or Windows 8.1. The original Yoga Tablet had a barrel hinge on one side, which allowed the user to use the tablet in a stand mode, tilt mode, or the hold mode, and the Tablet 2 line will feature the new “Hang Mode” which is simple a slot cut in the stand to allow it to be hung from something. The hinge barrel allowed the Yoga Tablet a larger battery than other similar sized devices, and the Tablet 2 promises the same 18 hours of battery life. The screen resolution is now 1920x1200, with dual front speakers and LTE is available on both 8 inch and 10 inch Android versions, and the 10 inch Windows version. The CPU of choice for all of the Yoga Tablet 2 models is now the Intel Atom processor, which Lenovo is claiming gives them three times the CPU performance and twice the GPU performance of the outgoing models. The 8 and 10 inch Android models will be on sale starting today at a starting price of €229 and €299, respectively. The 10 inch Windows version will be available in late October for €399, and the 8 inch Windows model will come in November starting at €249.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2   Yoga Tablet 2 8" Yoga Tablet 2 8" with Windows Yoga Tablet 2 10" Yoga Tablet 2 10" with Windows Yoga Tablet 2 Pro CPU Intel Atom Processor Z3745 (2M cache, 4 cores, up to 1.86 GHz) Display 8" 1920x1200 IPS Touchscreen 10" 1920x1200 IPS Touchscreen 13.3" 2560x1440 IPS Touchscreen Memory 2GB LP-DDR3 memory Graphics Intel HD Integrated Graphics (311 MHz Base, 778 MHz Burst) Storage 16 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 32 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 16 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 32 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0 Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets; Micro HDMI Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Speakers 2x front large-chamber speakers, Dolby Audio, Wolfson Master Hi-Fi 2x front large-chamber 1.5w speakers
5W rear JBL subwoofer
Dolby Audio, Wolfson Master Hi-Fi Dimensions 210 x 149 x 2.7-7.0 mm
8.3 x 5.9 x 0.1-0.3 inches 210 x 149 x 2.7-7.0 mm
8.3 x 5.9 x 0.1-0.3 inches 255 x 183 x 3.0-7.2 mm
10.0 x 7.2 x 0.1-0.3 inches 255 x 183 x 3.0-7.2 mm
10.0 x 7.2 x 0.1-0.3 inches 333 x 223 x 3.7-12.6 mm
13.1 x 8.8 x 0.1-0.5 inches Weight 419 g
0.92 lbs 426 g
0.94 lbs 619 g
1.36 lbs 629 g
1.39 lbs 950 g
2.09 lbs Battery Life (estimated) 18 hours 15 hours 18 hours 15 hours 15 hours

 

The final product announcement is the bigger Yoga Tablet 2 Pro. Lenovo conducted focus groups to get a better feel for what people actually do with their tablets, and they found 80% of users never take their tablet out of the home. They also found that 52% of users use the tablet to watch long form video such as television and movies, and 56% of users share the tablet with multiple users. In an effort to be “the world’s best home entertainment tablet” Lenovo has added some interesting features that have never before been seen on a tablet. As with the standard Yoga Tablet 2, the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro features a barrel hinge for the stand. Lenovo has placed a micro-projector inside of the barrel, in order to allow people to share content by projecting it. Coupled with that is a new 8 watt JBL 2.1 speaker system, which includes a 5 watt subwoofer on the back of the tablet. The final piece of the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is to address users who never take the tablet out of the home. The Pro version has a 13.3” 2560x1440 QHD IPS display. With the additional battery space allowed by the barrel hinge, Lenovo is claiming 15 hours of battery life for the Intel Atom powered tablet. Unlike the smaller tablets, Android is the only offered operating system for this model. Pricing starts at €499 with availability the end of October.

The Yoga 2 Pro is an excellent device, and it should only get better with Core M inside. The tablets offer unique features over other models, especially the hinge which houses a larger battery. We should be able to dig deeper into all of these products if we get review units.

At least 67 people have been killed in two suicide bomb attacks on a protest in Yemen's capital Sanaa and on an army checkpoint in the country's east.

Peter Kaminski

Google is asking the US Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court ruling that said Oracle's Java API's were protected by copyright.

Google told the justices in a petition [PDF] this week that assigning copyright to the code—the Application Programming Interfaces that enable programs to talk to one another—sets a dangerous precedent.

The appellate court's May ruling, Google said, allows "copyright monopolies over the basic building blocks of computer design and programming."

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

On Thursday afternoon, giant antivirus firm Symantec announced that it would split up into two separate, publicly traded companies: one focused on security and one focused on information management. Symantec is the company that produces The Norton antivirus security suite.

This is this third giant technology company to announce a split into two separate companies in ten days.

Last week, eBay announced that it would spin off its PayPal division so that the two companies could pursue different strategies. Then on Sunday, HP announced that it would separate into “Consumer” and “Enterprise” companies, with the consumer side focusing on PCs and printers and the enterprise company providing corporate hardware and services. Symantec, it seems, is adopting a similar philosophy, saying that the two sides of the company as it stands face unique challenges. “Taking this decisive step will enable each business to maximize its potential. Both businesses will have substantial operational and financial scale to thrive,” Michael A. Brown, symantec president and CEO said.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Apple

If you follow Apple news closely, at some point in the last week you've probably seen the graph above. It's from Apple's Developer Support page, and the company calculates the figure by looking at the iOS versions of devices accessing the App Store. Like Google's analogous developer dashboard for Android, it's meant to give developers a broad look at OS usage so they can use that data to determine which OSes to support with their apps.

The problem with the graph above isn't that it shows iOS 8 and iOS 7 with the same amount of share, but that the number for iOS 8 has climbed just a single percentage point since the last measurement was taken on September 21. Apple's data mirrors what a number of other independent firms have been claiming virtually since launch day—Chitika's data shows that iOS 8 had rolled out to 7.3 percent of the iOS userbase after 24 hours of availability, while iOS 7 had already hit 18.2 percent in the first 24 hours after its launch. More recent data from Fiksu shows an adoption curve closer to iOS 5 (the last version you needed iTunes to upgrade to) than to iOS 6 or iOS 7.

Fiksu's data shows iOS 8 with 40 percent of the iOS pie after 22 days, compared to nearly 60 percent for iOS 7 and iOS 6. Fiksu

Though the Ars audience is generally more tech-savvy than the general populace, our own data shows that you guys are embracing iOS 8 less enthusiastically than you picked up iOS 7. Here's data from iOS 7's first two full weeks (running from September 22 of 2013 to October 5) compared to data from iOS 8's first two full weeks (September 21 of 2014 to October 4). Around 70 percent of our site visits came from iOS 7 in that time period, compared to about 60 percent from iOS 8.

Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Steve Jurvetson

Amazon plans to open "its first brick-and-mortar store" in Manhattan, with the possibility of expanding to other cities, The Wall Street Journal reported today. The store would open in time for the holiday shopping season.

"Amazon’s space at 7 West 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building in Midtown, would function as a mini-warehouse, with limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns and exchanges, and pickups of online orders," the report said. "A customer could, for example, order a pan in the morning and pick it up that evening in time to use for dinner... Amazon also may consider using the space to showcase inventory, particularly its devices like the Kindle e-readers, Fire smartphone or Fire TV set-top box, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking."

Amazon already offers same-day delivery in New York and other big cities and has set up temporary "pop up" shops and lockers for receiving orders. Rumors of a non-temporary retail store have been floating for years. Seattle was intended to be the location of Amazon's first physical store in 2012, but those plans were scrapped.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Lex Machina

Data produced by Lex Machina shows that patent lawsuits reached a low point in September, down 40 percent from September in 2013. Last month saw fewer new patent complaints filed than any other month in recent years, going back to 2011.

The drop comes shortly after new patent rules came down from the Supreme Court. Most notably, the Alice v. CLS Bank decision made it clear that courts shouldn't accept "do it on a computer"-type patents as valid. That's resulted in nearly a dozen patents being tossed out in a short period of time, and some patent trolls with dubious patents aren't bothering to fight it out anymore.

"It is an interesting coincidence to me it lines up with Alice this way," said Brian Howard, Lex Machina's legal data scientist. "I'm not sure I can say Alice caused this, yet—but it is an interesting correlation."

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

And a good Dealmaster day to you, too, fellow Arsians! We come to you today bearing a meaty, 37 percent discount on the i3 iteration of Dell's Inspiron 23 line, along with a cool 25 percent off a 65-inch Toshiba Smart LED set, a smattering of Dell desktops and laptops, and plenty more.

Top deal:

• Dell Inspiron 23 4th-gen Core i3 23" 1080p Touch All-in-one PC for $749.99 with free shipping (list price $1,089.99 | use coupon code T$VTLCJNZ37MC8)

Desktops:

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Version:3.16.5 (stable) Released:2014-10-09 Source:linux-3.16.5.tar.xz PGP Signature:linux-3.16.5.tar.sign Patch:patch-3.16.5.xz (Incremental) ChangeLog:ChangeLog-3.16.5

Version:3.14.21 (longterm) Released:2014-10-09 Source:linux-3.14.21.tar.xz PGP Signature:linux-3.14.21.tar.sign Patch:patch-3.14.21.xz (Incremental) ChangeLog:ChangeLog-3.14.21

Version:3.10.57 (longterm) Released:2014-10-09 Source:linux-3.10.57.tar.xz PGP Signature:linux-3.10.57.tar.sign Patch:patch-3.10.57.xz (Incremental) ChangeLog:ChangeLog-3.10.57

New Jersey wants to protect the information on black boxes in cars. Chris Yarzab

New Jersey looks set to become the next state to enact privacy laws [PDF] regarding who can view the data stored on a vehicle's black box—technically called an event data recorder or an EDR. Over 90 percent of all cars and light trucks in the US are now equipped [PDF] with EDRs that can track a vehicle's technical status and operational performance, making the information particularly useful to law enforcement and insurance companies when crashes happen. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has made EDRs mandatory on all new cars.

New Jersey's potential new rules are outlined in two identical bills before state legislature—one was unanimously recommended for passage by the state's Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee last week, and the other is pending before the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. If enacted, the law would prevent access to a driver's EDR data unless law enforcement had a warrant, or EDR data could be accessed via a discovery order if the driver were involved in a civil lawsuit.

Car repair shops also sometimes use EDR data to diagnose troubles with cars—in those instances, the repair facility would have to secure the owner's consent before downloading the information.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The Z3v. It has a 5.2-inch 1080p LCD.

17 more images in gallery

.related-stories { display: none !important; }
NEW YORK CITY—Sony has typically been slow to bring its flagship devices stateside, but today the company is showing the US some love and announcing the Xperia Z3v as a Verizon exclusive.

The Z3v is basically a merger of Sony's flagship Xperia Z2 and Z3 phones, supplemented with wireless charging and a big Verizon logo on the front. You can view the device as a Z2 design with slightly upgraded Z3 specs. It has a 5.2-inch 1080p LCD, a 2.5-GHz Snapdragon 801 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 20.7MP camera, and a 3200 mAh battery. That's 16GB of extra storage and 100 mAh more battery than the Z3.

The Z3v is waterproof—it carries an IP65/68 dust/waterproof rating—and Sony even had a working model hanging out in a fishtank. The waterproofing functions in part through a series of flaps that hide the microSD slot, micro-USB port, and the SIM slot.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Learning about semiconductor physics and technology can be a daunting task. While it’s easy enough to understand what a transistor does and some of the terminology thrown around, getting into the deeper aspects of how things work is tough. A great deal of the information on the internet is simply too cryptic to understand, even for those that want to learn. If you've wanted a primer to help bridge the gap, read on as we explore the lower level details of semiconductor physics and technology.

Consumers in the United States have typically been unable to purchase Sony smartphones if their carrier is Verizon. The carrier's lineup has been devoid of any Xperia offerings for quite some time. One exception was the Xperia Play which launched exclusively on Verizon in the United States 3 years ago. Since then we haven't seen much in the way of collaboration between the two companies beyond a few tablet launches. That ends today with the launch of the Sony Xperia Z3v on Verizon.

At its core, the Z3v is the same as the Xperia Z3 that Sony unveiled earlier this year at IFA. It's Sony's flagship smartphone, with a 5.2" 1920x1080 IPS display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of NAND with 128GB MicroSDXC expansion, a 20.7MP camera, and Qualcomm's MSM8974AC with 4 Krait 400 cores at 2.5GHz.

There are a few changes with the Verizon exclusive Z3v. The design of the chassis has some alterations. The sides of the phone in particular are flatter than the international Z3, and because of this the Z3v looks more visually similar to the Xperia Z2 than the Z3. The phone also has a couple of improvements over the Z3. The first is the addition of Qi inductive charging, and the other is a small boost in battery capacity from 11.78Whr to 12.16Whr. 

The Z3v will be launching on October 23 for $199 on a 2 year term. Users who are interested in more information can check out Verizon's sign up page for the new device.

When I first heard about the iPhone 6 Plus during Apple's announcement last month, my mind immediately jumped to the 3DS XL. That 2012 update to the portable platform made 3DS games both more comfortable to look at and the system itself much more comfortable to hold in adult-sized hands. The super-sized iPhone 6 Plus does the same thing for what has become one of the most popular gaming platforms ever, giving new life to games that could feel a bit cramped on smaller iPhone screens.

Apple isn't the first to discover the mobile gaming potential of a bigger screen, of course—Android and Windows Phones have sported displays as big or bigger than the iPhone 6 Plus for years. While those platforms are slowly catching up to iOS in terms of game selection and features, the iTunes Store still has a number of important gaming exclusives and a huge back catalog of great games, which make it the platform of choice for mobile gaming.

After our own Andrew Cunningham took a deep dive into the iPhone 6 Plus' capabilities as a productivity and communications device, I put the phone through its paces as a portable gaming machine. After a week tapping, swiping, and tilting through dozens of games, I found the iPhone 6 Plus a bit unwieldy for games designed to be played with one hand—but a thorough improvement over previous iPhones for just about everything else.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

This is how I've been spending my evenings. Lee Hutchinson

It didn’t take much for me to justify $350 for an Oculus Rift DK2—after all, I told myself, the consumer version of the virtual reality headset won’t be out for a year or so, and I’ve spent far more on video cards that I’ve kept for less time before upgrading.

Don’t think about the credit card. Just hit the purchase button.

So I did, and now I’m pretty sure my eyeballs are going to fall out of my head.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Quentin Somerville reports that US-led air strikes on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane seem to have stalled an IS advance, as Kurdish sources say the militants have lost ground.

At HTC's Double Exposure event in New York we saw the launch of the Desire EYE, a smartphone with a serious focus on the camera. HTC has silently put a listing for the HTC One (M8 EYE) on their chinese web store. The HTC One (M8 EYE) is essentially the same as the HTC One (M8) that launched earlier this year, but with one major hardware difference. HTC's 4MP UltraPixel sensor has been replaced by Sony's 13MP IMX214, the same sensor used on the HTC Butterfly 2 and the HTC Desire EYE. Unlike the Desire EYE, the front-facing camera is still a 5MP sensor.

Based on the photos on the website, the HTC One (M8 EYE) also has the new HTC EYE Experience features like Face Fusion, HTC Split Capture, and advanced face tracking features for conferencing.

The fact that this is a fairly silent launch from HTC seems to suggest that this may be a device destined only for the Chinese market.