Romdhane Marble

We're less than weeks away from the end of the year and many companies have decided to share their future plans with their fans. Twitch is among those companies that want to offer their customers a sneak peek at what's to come. As far as the mobile app goes, Twitch has major plans for next year. The company announced that it will launch a native streaming service from the Twitch mobile application. The functionality will be especially created to allow streamers to stay in touch with their community even when they're on the move. Basically, Twitch users will be able to stream live from their smartphones as much as they want, whenever they want. According to Twitch, when the new service will be launched, it will default to the IRL category. Even though streaming from the Twitch mobile app is not yet available, those who want can sign up to take part in a closed beta if they want to test it before it goes live for everyone. Along with mob

Super Mario Run is a phenomenon. We're still not totally sure if it's a great game or not, but people have obviously been starved for Nintendo and Mario games on smartphones, so the game is hugely popular and generating a ton of cash for Nintendo. However, the server problems may be causing the game to eat through data. Testing has shown that Super Mario Run can use up anywhere from 40 to 60 megabytes of data per hour which can add up fast. If you were to play the game for a couple hours a day, it would only take about two weeks to use up 5 gigabytes of data. So, users have to be careful about when and where they play. Of course, Super Mario Run has a controversial policy requiring an internet connection in order to play, which is an anti-piracy measure, but at least for now it can use a lot of data.  It looks like the issue stems from server problems. Nintendo can't quite keep up with the demand for the game, so connections to the game servers are crashing and

Ugly holiday sweaters have had a renaissance recently for ... odd reasons (mostly comedy or irony) and Google apparently feels that smartphones have been left out in the cold for too long, so it has taken it upon itself to bring ugly sweaters to the smartphone crowd, at least in a small way and only for those in the New York City area. Starting tomorrow, December 17th, through December 23rd the NYC Made by Google pop-up store is running a promotion that sounds pretty cool. If you visit the store any one of those days between noon and 6pm, Google says "you'll have the opportunity to take home a sweater-shaped cookie, a Pixel-sized sweater, a human-sized sweater, a Pixel phone, or a combo of all these items." It appears as though the promotion is only open to those who own Pixel phones, but the fact that Google is also giving away Pixel phones makes that part of it a bit murky.  The store has a knitting machine on hand to make the phone-sized ugly sweaters (tho

Confirming a  recent rumor , Verizon Wireless today released the  Kyocera DuraForce Pro , a rugged smartphone that's been available on AT&T and Sprint since earlier this year.  Made for customers in need of a tough handset, the Kyocera DuraForce Pro can survive drops from up to 5 feet (1.5 meters), while also being dust- and water-resistant (IP68-certified). Interestingly, this is the world's first rugged smartphone to feature a wide-angle action camera, which sits next to a regular 13 MP rear camera and lets you shoot full HD video underwater.  Sporting a 5-inch 1080p Sapphire Shield display, the Kyocera DuraForce Pro is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, further offering features like LTE connectivity, a fingerprint scanner (embedded in the power button), 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of expandable storage space, and a 3240 mAh battery. A dedicated Push-to-Talk button is also on board. The Kyocera DuraForce Pro currently runs Android 6.0.1 Mar

A few days ago, we told you that  Google Keyboard had been renamed Gboard  and would soon be available for your Android powered device. Today, we have some good news. The Gboard app can now be downloaded and installed directly from the Google Play Store. The keyboard has a number of features built right in such as Glide typing (that's when you spell out words by swiping your finger along the screen. Google Search is also integrated into the keyboard, although you will need to turn on the feature inside the keyboard settings. Other features include emoji and GIF search, and multilingual typing allows you to quickly change the language you're typing in. With the app, voice typing allows you to dictate your emails and texts; if you have a large-screened device, the one-handed mode allows you to pin the QWERTY to the left or right of the screen.With support for 36 new languages, Gboard now works with 120 different languages overall. To install Gboard on your Android h

The other day, we told you that TCL was going to be designing, manufacturing, selling, promoting and handling customer service for BlackBerry's new handsets. Considering that the BlackBerry DTEK50 and BlackBerry DTEK60 are both actually re-branded TCL related phones (the former is the Alcatel Idol 4 and the latter is the TCL 950. Alcatel is a joint venture between TCL and Alcatel-Lucent), this is a process that has already begun. BlackBerry CEO John Chen has said that he would honor his promise to release one last home-grown model sporting a physical QWERTY keyboard. And while images of a phone called the BlackBerry Mercury have been disseminated, something more exciting appears to be on the way. First of all, some of TCL's Twitter accounts have been using the hashtag #TheNewBlackBerry along with the image that you'll find in the slideshow. And secondly, a cryptic tweet from Steve Cistulli, the President and GM of TCL Communication in North America, has plenty to s