Mozilla’s experiment of building a smartphone operating system of its own is coming to an end. The company has officially stated that it’s going to “stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels”.

The move comes because Mozilla has realized that it wasn’t able to offer “the best user experience possible” on smartphones. So now it’s cutting its losses and simply bailing from smartphone development altogether.

The Firefox OS handsets released so far have all been incredibly low-end, and not one of them has become a great success, sales-wise. Firefox OS ran only web apps, with no native ones to speak of.

The operating system may yet live on, but only on other connected devices and Internet of Things networks. If so, it will be “a genuine open source project”, according to Ari Jaaksi, the company’s SVP of Connected…

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Back in October, users that updated their Nexus Players to Android 6.0 were having issues with video playback, complaining that locally stored videos had incorrect color reproduction, blacks looked like grays and colors looked washed-out altogether.

Users have also been experiencing similar issues with Android’s stock video player on Nexus 6P and 5X devices. The problem doesn’t seem to affect third-party video players from the Play Store.

“Hey everyone, We understand the severity of this issue. It’s a widespread problem impacting all Nexus Players on 6.0. We’re working as fast as possible to resolve it.

We also noticed similar problems on Nexus 6P and 5X, as reported in #14; however, those had a different root-cause. Those have been fixed internally, and will be included in a future MR.”

Google has acknowledged that this is an issue and stated that it’d be a high priority issue with fixes being worked on “as fast as we possibly can”. The developer team has also mentioned that the problems with the Nexus 6P and 5X are also fixed and will be rolling out in a future software release.

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Following several beta versions that have been released to developers as well as eager consumers over the past few weeks, the final version of iOS 9.2 is now out. It’s on its way to supported iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch units as an update that’s about 300MB in size (though this may vary depending on device).

iOS 9.2 comes with a very long list of bug fixes and enhancements, so it’s probably one to install as soon as you can. Apple Music, News, Mail, and iBooks have all received new functionality. And Siri now has support for Arabic in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Apple music now lets you create a new playlist when you want to add a song to a playlist, it lists your most recently changed playlist at the top when adding songs, and it shows you works, composers, and performers when browsing classical music in the catalog. You can download albums or playlists from your iCloud music library, and see which songs have been downloaded through a new indicator.

News gets a Top Stories section in the US, UK, and Australia, which gives you the most important events of the day. You can use Mail Drop in Mail to send large attachments. iBooks now supports 3D Touch for peeking at and popping up pages from the table of contents, your notes and bookmarks, or from search results inside a book. Additionally, you can listen to an audiobook while you’re browsing your library, reading other books, or just exploring the iBooks…

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Mozilla is the latest company to get into the ad blocking game on iOS, taking advantage (like so many others) of the introduction of the content-blocking API in iOS 9. Its offering is called Focus by Firefox, and it’s available now for free in the iTunes App Store.

It promises content blocking paired with tracking protection, increasing performance and possibly reducing data usage in the process. Focus by Firefox blocks the same trackers that are blocked when you use Private Browsing with Tracking Protection in Firefox for Windows, Mac, or Android, based on Disconnect’s open source blacklist. You can choose to block only certain categories of trackers, for example those used for ads, analytics, or social media.

Because Apple chose to make content blocking unavailable to third party browsers in its mobile operating system, you’ll find that ironically Focus by Firefox can only work with Safari at the moment – and not Firefox for iOS.

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Google has finally made the Pixel C tablet available to buy from its online hardware store. The Pixel C is the first tablet to have been designed and produced by the search giant – this is no Nexus partnership with another company, it’s all Google all the way.

The Pixel C was announced at the end of September alongside the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X smartphones, and it took its sweet time becoming available. But now it is, and you can grab the 32GB version for $499, or the one with double that storage for $599. The keyboard dock (to which the tablet attaches magnetically) costs $149.

The Google Pixel C comes with a 10.2-inch 2,560×1,800 LCD touchscreen with 308 ppi pixel density and 500-nit brightness, the Nvidia Tegra X1 chipset at the helm (with Maxwell GPU), 3GB of RAM, an 8 MP rear camera, a 2 MP front-facing unit, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a USB Type-C port, and a 34.2 Wh battery. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Its dimensions are 242 x 179 x 7 mm, and it weighs 517g. It’s got an anodized aluminum construction, and you’ll only find it in one color: silver.

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3D Touch is one of the big new features in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, as it allows the devices to know how hard you’re pressing on the screen. This has obviously led to many iOS apps now supporting the feature, bringing forth additional functionality when you strongly press on the display. Instagram is one of those apps, and from today it appears that it’s enabled something very similar in its Android version.

Although Instagram 7.13.0 doesn’t yet seem to be out in the Google Play Store, you can grab it in APK form if you visit the Source link below. Because there’s no official announcement on the matter, keep in mind that it might be a test version for the new feature.

This iteration of Facebook’s photo-centric app essentially lets you long press on an image thumbnail (like the ones you get when you perform a search) in order to zoom in on it. If you then drag your finger away from the center of the image it shrinks back to thumbnail size, and if you slide your finger to one of the buttons under the picture you can share or like without ever lifting it. When you hover over one of the buttons you even get some haptic feedback.

Sure, in the Android version it doesn’t really matter how hard you press on the screen, what’s important is that you press long enough for this to work. So it’s not 3D Touch per se, but it’s pretty…

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A Dutch retailer, SmartPhoneShop.nl, put both the new Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 up for pre-order on its online store. The retailer also shows the “Expected Date” of January 8 on both the A5 and A3’s pre-order pages.

These are the second iterations of the A5 and the A3. The A5 is like a bigger sibling to the smaller A3. The A5 sports a 5.2 inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, Exynos 7 1.6GHz octa-core CPU, and 2GB of RAM.

The Galaxy A3 features a smaller 4.7 inch 720p Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz CPU, and 1.5GB of RAM.

The website in question is selling dual-SIM models for both phones. Either phone comes in black and gold color options with the A5 at €429 or the A3 running at €329.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo SM-N750 was launched almost two years ago running on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. It was later updated with 4.4 KitKat, and the 5.0 Lollipop update kicked off worldwide last January.

It seems the next major update for the Note 3 Neo won’t be Marshmallow, but 5.1.1 Lollipop instead. The new firmware began seeding in South Korea since late October via OTA and Kies.

Now the update goes global and the first market to get it outside its home-country is Russia. Battery and performance improvements are expected, as are some critical bug fixes.

Oddly, the Galaxy Note 3 is still stuck on 5.0 Lollipop. There is no info if Samsung is planning to bring the Note 3 series up to Marshmallow or they will end being on Lollipop for…

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Lumigon is hard at work on what is likely going to be the T3. Effectively the fourth generation smartphone from the Danish company after the T1, T2 and T2 HD, the Lumigon T3 has just surfaced in a single leaked image.

The most intriguing bit about the photo is the dual camera setup on the back. In between the two lenses one can spot a tiny window, which could be a laser autofocus unit. There isn’t another element in the photo, which could pass for a flash though, so the window might be that instead.

Other than that, the T3 stays true to the original concept for premium build (by the looks of it), and keeps the stainless steel frame of the predecessor. The hardware shutter release button has also been carried over from previous generations.

In terms of specs, the T3 is rumored to pack a Mediatek Helio X10 chipset with an octa-core CPU and 3GB of RAM. Android 5.1 Lollipop is the OS it will be running when it launches, and that may even happen by the end of the…

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ZTE Axon mini was officially unveiled back in July, but we got the first official details last October. The phone was announced as the first pressure-sensitive display smartphone, but as it turned out its Premium edition is the one to actually support the new tech.

The standard Axon mini went on sale in China two months ago, but as of now you are able to order the Force Touch-capable Axon mini Premium edition globally. The phone will available for order on AliExpress and there is a limited time offer that will get you the phone for $299.

The Axon mini is not only special because of its Force Touch technology – its unibody is manufactured from Boeing 787 aircraft-grade aluminum-titanium alloy. There is also multiple biometric authentication options – fingerprint reader, eye scanner and voice recognition.

The Axon mini features a 5.2″ Super AMOLED 1080p display and runs on Snapdragon 616 chipset. It has a 13MP rear cam with phase-detection AF, 3GB of RAM and 32GB expandable storage. The phone utilizes skinned Android Lollipop.

The regular Axon mini is selling for $299, but on December 10 you can opt for the gold and rose gold flavored Premium editions for the same amount of cash. The offer will last until the stock is depleted. After the promo is over, the Premium Axon mini will go back to its $380+ price.

Check out the Soruce links if you are interested in getting the Axon mini.

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