The Mercedes-Benz S600 Guard has been officially unveiled in all of its bullet-resistant glory. With hydraulic windows and an armored undercarriage, it's ready for the world's trouble spots.
The post Mercedes-Benz releases all the bulletproof details on its grenade-proof S600 Guard appeared first on Digital Trends.
Looking to travel without leaving the house? An aggregator called Travel By Drone pulls in non-commercial videos that were shot with drones, from various world locales, and places them in an easy-to-find map.
The post You don’t need a ticket to ride with Travel by Drone’s aerial videos appeared first on Digital Trends.
We have got some sparks of inspiration to help you get the most out of your new Amazon smartphone. This varied assortment of handy Fire Phone tips and tricks is sure to set you on the path to enlightenment and satisfaction.
The post No need to use Mayday: We’ve got 11 fresh Fire Phone tips for you appeared first on Digital Trends.
Today Pebble announced some funky new limited-edition smartwatches, available in Fresh Green, Hot Pink, and Fly Blue. They're just like the Pebble you know and love, only way cooler and much bolder. The new colors arrive on top of the original Jet Black, Cherry Red, Arctic White, Grey and Orange — now giving you plenty of options to find just the right Pebble. You can grab them all right now from getpebble.com for $150 — or if you're feeling lucky — you can head over to Connectedly and enter for your chance to win one.
We're all about spreading the smartwatch love, so here's your chance to win a brand new Fresh, Hot, or Fly limited-edition Pebble smartwatch. Just swing over to Connectedly and drop a comment on the contest post. You'll be entered to win so you can show off your love of tech to the world with a new Fresh Green, Hot Pink, or Fly Blue Pebble. The contest runs until Sunday August 10th at midnight PT. Good luck!
Being the world's largest technology company has its perks, including a stream of almost limitless cash. But the law of large numbers also starts to kick in, and a company of Apple's size doesn't seem capable of doing super productive things with all this money.
Tim Cook seems to be implementing an intelligent two-pronged strategy to use the cash. Part one is to return some of the cash to shareholders. Apple now pays a healthy dividend of about 2%, or $1.88 per year. They've also bought back a bunch of stock. Buying back your own stock is effectively the same as returning money to shareholders because the buyback decreases the number of shares outstanding. The reduced share count means that earnings per share (EPS) goes up. When EPS goes up the share price usually follows.
But Apple's stock price is up 77% in the last 15 months, as explained by Bloomberg. Apple seems to have great timing. The stock climbed more than 25% after the early 2012 share buyback, and another 32% following the 2013 buyback.
We should have expected at least a small percentage gain driven by the mechanics of the buyback (and the resulting EPS increase), but Apple actually seems to have a really good handle on when its stock is worth buying. Investors often look at stock buybacks as a signal of confidence from management. But sometimes management holds onto unrealistic, unsupported confidence. Not all C-level management teams know how to time their own stock. Cook and team certainly don't seem to have this problem.
The second strategy seems to be vertical integration. As Fortune explain , Apple is continuing to act in keeping with Steve Jobs' desire to control the primary technology behind everything they do. Over the past few years Apple got a lot of attention for its successful use of ARM-based chips in iOS devices. And now this week … Apple has flipped the switch on its own gigantic content delivery network (CDN).
What does it mean, long term, for Apple to have its own delivery mechanism for content? Could it be meaningful for Apple to escape its past reliance upon Akamai and Level 3? I'm honestly not sure. But I think if Apple feels it needs to spend $100 million (so far) building this network, there must be a bigger picture reason beyond the distribution of iOS and MacOS updates. Otherwise they could equally well argue that they need to own Tesla Motors so their employees can safely get to and from work. There has to be something more to this … something that is expected to scale to such a degree that Apple really wants to control the technology all by itself. Let the speculation begin.
Apple is a giant, and it's nice to see that the company is making good strategic use of its capital.
News recently broke that the Department of Transportation is revving up to try to officially ban in-flight phone calls. That's right; the singular, obscene act of yelling into your hand while careening through the air in a metal tube full of strangers could soon be verboten. Good. It should. It's time to kill the in-flight phone call before it starts.
Google has quietly released a version of its Chrome web browser for OS X that finally supports the 64-bit version of the OS, just a few days after it released a version for Windows 7 and 8 PCs.
Google has yet to officially announce the launch of its OS X 64-bit beta test, but the company has apparently put in the updated build in its Canary and Dev Channels. In theory, the browser should offer users with 64-bit Mac systems better performance along with more multi-tasking support. However, since it's still in beta it may be a while before users will be able to get the full benefits of the improvements as Google updates the browser.
What do you think of Google allowing Mac 64-bit PC owners a chance to try out an early version of its Chrome 64-bit browser?
Acer just lifted the veil on a new 4K monitor, which is quite affordable compared to what 4K displays cost less than a year ago.
The post This 28-inch 4K Acer monitor only costs a handful of Benjamins appeared first on Digital Trends.
The Chronicle writer will script a TV series based on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams' popular novels about a quirky detective.
The post Chronicle writer to adapt Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels for TV appeared first on Digital Trends.
While Bentley's next model will be an SUV, Rolls-Royce will go the more traditional route with a "drophead" convertible. This as-yet-unamed model will appear in 2016, and could be based on the Wraith.
The post Rolls-Royce announces a new model and, no, it’s not an SUV appeared first on Digital Trends.
