Fitbit Blaze and Alta shipments cross 1 million mark in first month of availability

Fitbit has announced that it has shipped more than a million units of its Blaze smartwatch in the first month of the device's availability. The timepiece, which went on sale in the first week of March, has also become an Amazon best-seller both in the smart watch and heart monitor categories.

Fitbit Blaze

In addition, the company also announced that shipments of its Alta fitness tracker have also crossed the one million mark, something which happened in the first three weeks of the device's retail availability.

Fitbit Alta

"At Fitbit, we continue to focus on developing innovative and motivating fitness-first products that our customers love and that help them achieve their health and fitness goals," said the company's CBO Woody Scal. "The positive response we’ve received to Blaze and Alta demonstrates our continued ability to innovate and drive strong demand for Fitbit products, which is what has made and kept us the leader in the global wearables category."

AT&T will give you a free 48-inch Samsung smart TV when you buy a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge

Here's yet another deal you can take advantage of if you're interested in purchasing one of Samsung's latest flagships from a US carrier. AT&T is, under certain conditions, going to give you a free 48-inch Samsung smart TV if you buy either a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, starting tomorrow.

You do need to get the phone using AT&T's Next installment plans, and in order to qualify you must have both AT&T wireless and DIRECTV service (of which at least one must be new). The following table explains in detail what you need in order to be eligible.

So you're not eligible only if you upgrade an existing AT&T line and already have DIRECTV. Otherwise, you're set. If you do qualify make sure you visit this website (from tomorrow) and claim your free TV, you won't automatically get it. The offer ends on April 30. You can claim the TV within 60 days of having bought the phone.

The TV in question is the 48-inch J5200 series LED-backlit LCD, which Samsung is currently selling for $479.99 through its own online store.

Microsoft Office now has 1.2 billion users, 340 million mobile app downloads

Microsoft's Build conference has entered its second day today, and the company is busy boasting about the reach of its Office applications. According to Microsoft, there are now 1.2 billion Office users in the world, who spend an average of 3-4 hours per day using the suite.

And before you think that those are all work computers, consider this: the Office mobile apps for Android and iOS have so far been downloaded no less than 340 million times. Things are going pretty well for Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service too, with more than 50,000 new small business customers opting for this solution every month.

What's more, 85% of Fortune 500 companies are using at least one Microsoft cloud offering, so clearly the enterprise sector is still very important for the software giant. While the company may now be giving away Windows upgrades for free, Office is a cash cow that it obviously plans on milking for a long time to come.

Guess the smartphone that may trump the Samsung Galaxy S7 in 4K video quality

We're working on a smartphone review for you, one you're not really expecting, and it's due to be out tomorrow. While examining its camera performance, video quality in particular, we realized we had stumbled upon a true gem, and it couldn't wait - not for another minute, let alone tomorrow.

So we figured we'd do an improvised comparison between this phone and the SamsungGalaxy S7. We ran out and shot a video on each. The two videos were captured within 60 seconds of each other, so the test was kept as fair as possible.

Below we're showing you a few 1:1 crops from both camcorders and there's no "guess which is which" type of question - Galaxy S7 on the left, mystery phone on the right.

There's no arguing which are the more detailed crops. The Galaxy S7 loses rather miserably in terms of resolved detail - mystery phone's frame grabs are as sharp as still images, and the Galaxy S7 just isn't quite there. Samsung's flagship does have wider dynamic range going for it, just barely, but we're voting this one in mystery phone's favor.

Stay tuned for the reveal, coming your way in a day. In the meantime, hit us in the comments and try to guess the phone or at least the manufacturer. We'll give you two hints - it's not a Chinese brand and it's not the LG G5 (we have yet to compare these two).

Diamond-clad Samsung Gear S2 by de Grisogono will cost $15,000

A couple of weeks ago Samsung announced a heavily blinged up special edition of its latest smartwatch, the Gear S2 by de Grisogono. The Korean wearable maker teamed up with the renowned jewelry company in order to produce a smartwatch that looks more like a piece of jewelry than an electronic device.

During the official announcement pricing wasn't revealed, but we did expect it to be through the roof. Well, according to a new report that is just the case. It turns out that the Gear S2 by de Grisogono is set to cost a whopping $15,000 when it becomes available this summer. You'll find it in Samsung's and de Grisogono's retail outlets.

The watch has no less than 127 white and black diamonds on it, a rose gold rotating bezel, and a black galuchat bracelet. On the inside however it's identical to a vanilla Gear S2, sporting the same specs.

We're talking about a 1.2-inch 360x360 Super AMOLED touchscreen, the Exynos 3250 Dual chipset with a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A7 CPU, 512 MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, a heart rate monitor, and a 250 mAh battery. It runs the Tizen wearable platform. The de Grisogono edition gets a special watch face though.

Oculus Rift's teardown exposes an easy to fix VR headset

The Oculus Rift orders are shipping now, and the long awaited VR headset is already in use by the most eager fans around the world. As it happens these days, the guys over iFixit were in a hurry to tear down the thing and check out its internals.

So, the first and most important conclusion iFixit has drawn is that the Rift is quite easy to repair of something happens to it.

Unlike the developer's version, which used a 1080p Galaxy Note 3 display, the retail one uses two separate OLED 90mm pieces behind the two lenses, each with a display of 456ppi.

Thanks to those big lenses you are seeing, the display looks further away when compared to the Oculus-powered Gear VR headset (with any compatible Galaxy smartphone).

You can also learn about its chip, boards, among other things over the iFixit post.

Or you can check the teardown video below.

iPhone SE teardown shows hardware ranging from iPhone 5 to 6s

The Apple iPhone SE is a 6s in a 5s body, but Chipworks dug into the internals and it turns out the story is more complicated than that. It straddles multiple generations - from the iPhone 5 selfie camera to the iPhone 6s chipset, a whopping four generations.

The Apple A9 chipset is brand new and the SK Hynix-made LPDDR4 2GB memory matches the 6s as well. The NFC, audio chips and motion sensor are from that generation as well. The storage appears to be from the 6s as well, but an earlier 19nm chip instead of the 15nm being shipped now.

The Qualcomm modem from the earlier iPhone 6 model while the touchscreen controller goes back to the iPhone 5s.

Using the images and info from Chipworks, I labeled the parts on the motherboard with the iPhone generation they come from.

Deal: Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (32GB) in the UK for £570

A Samsung Galaxy S7 edge can be had for around £600 in the UK without a carrier contract (if you do want a contract, here's more info on the offers).

You can head to eBay for some cost cutting - currently, the Galaxy S7 edge 32GB (Black or Gold) is available for £580 but should soon drop another tenner to £570. Shipping to the UK is free.

By the way, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are available on promotion too - a 500GB Xboxplus The Division are £240, a white 500GB PS4 is £225.

A 400-ton hydraulic press crushes the Galaxy S7 Edge in a dramatic video

There's a plethora of videos on YouTube showing the Galaxy S7 edge being abused. But this is the first time we witness a 400-ton hydraulic press crushing Samsung's latest smartphone.

The result is exactly what you think it is. The Galaxy S7 edge becomes a whole lot thinner. Happily, there's a lot of visual effects, including smoke, flames and sparks thanks to the phone's battery. Check out the video below to see exactly how much.

What are your favorite Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge torture videos?

BlackBerry Priv caught running Android Marshmallow in a video

Last we heard about BlackBerry Priv's Marshmallow update, was in January and the word was that the update isn't coming anytime soon - the company had said that roll-out details will be revealed sometime during the ongoing quarter.

It's March 31 today, which means the quarter has almost ended, and sadly, there has been no official heads-up from BlackBerry on this front until now. However, here's something that'll surely bring a smile on your face and should reassure that the update is nevertheless coming - a video featuring Marshmallow-powered Priv.

There's currently no information on exactly what changes the update will bring, but hopefully we'll know more soon.

Samsung Galaxy Amp Prime with 5-inch display and Android 6.0 launched on Cricket for $150

US carrier Cricket Wireless has launched a new Samsung smartphone. Dubbed Galaxy Amp Prime, the device - the carrier says - offers "premium features" and is aimed at "social media power users and value seekers."

Specs-wise, the 4G LTE handset sports a 5-inch super AMOLED display, features a 5 MP main camera, and runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Other features include Ultra Power Savings Mode to extend the standby time, Easy Mode for beginners and elderly, as well as support for one-handed operation.

The device carries a price tag of $149.99, and is available both online and in stores.

In addition, Cricket will also be launching the Samsung Galaxy Amp 2, an entry-level 4G LTE smartphone with a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED display. Aside from signature Samsung features like Quick Launch camera and Ultra Power Savings Mode, the phone comes with an outdoor mode, which the carrier says lets users increase the screen brightness for 15 minutes for better visibility in sunlight.

The Galaxy Amp 2 will carry a price tag of $99.99, and will be launched on April 15. Like the Amp Prime, it'll also be available both online and in stores.

iOS 9.3 most stable release from Apple, more stable than Android 6.0

According to a new report by app analytics firm Apteligent, Apple's latest iOS 9.3 build is the most stable new release by the Cupertino-based company in years. The report revealed a 2.2% crash rate for iOS 9.3 in the past eight days.

Other major releases, including iOS 8, 9, and 9.2, had their crash rate cross the 3.2% mark in the same time-period. In addition, the report revealed that iOS 9.3's rate of crash was also better than that of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which saw a crash rate of 2.6%.

It's worth mentioning that iOS 9.3 has also had its own share of problems - it's roll-out was temporarily put on hold for some older models due to an issue with the update procedure.