Hardware

On the back of the Moto X Pure is a small indentation.

Despite being on a new flagship phone, it’s a feature without function – or at least nothing to boast about. No megapixels or milliamperes, just a circular recess containing a manufacturer’s logo.

The Motorola dimple, as the little dent is affectionately known, can be found on every smartphone the company has released since 2013. On the latest models, it’s been incorporated into a strip below the rear camera and flash, drawing further attention to a seemingly useless feature.

If you think mini-ITX is too big but don't like the soldered down processor of the Intel NUC, the chip giant has come up with a new form factor that splits the difference: 5×5.

Research firm DisplayMate, which regularly offers its opinions on the quality of smartphone and tablet displays, has conducted its usual, and extensive, series of tests on the recently announced Samsung Galaxy Note 5. The final result of those tests has the firm declaring that the display on Samsung's latest phone is the best one made for any smartphone yet.

Intel is soon to introduce its 6th generation processor lineup for the mobile platform called Skylake. While the desktop processors have already been released and reviewed, there hasn't been much news for the mobile range until now.

The powerhouse processors that Intel is releasing, Skylake-H, will be divided into a few lines: 45W, 35W and 25W parts.

The Xeon mobile range will have three Xeon E3-1500M v5 processors, all of which contain 4 cores. The top of the range will include GT4e Iris Pro graphics chip while the other two will include lower powered integrated GPUs.

Dell has unveiled the Chromebook 13, the company's first premium-level business Chromebook that incorporates features and security required by enterprise users.

The new device was announced by the company on Aug. 13, featuring a 13.3-inch display, a choice of processors up to 5th generation Intel Core i5 CPUs, up to 12 hours of battery life and more. The Chromebook 13 runs on the Google Chrome operating system and provides users with manageability and security software and applications that are built for business users.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s first 256-gigabit (Gb), three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory based on 48 layers of 3-bit multi-level-cell (MLC) arrays for use in solid state drives (SSDs).

On Friday, Intel quietly announced a new line of processors: "workstation-class" mobile Xeon processors using the new Skylake core. Today, Lenovo has announced the first laptops to use the new processors, the P70 and P50. They're monsters.

Just because the Square Reader is new doesn't mean it isn't susceptible to the same scams as old school ATMs and credit card readers.

Three recent Boston University graduates are preparing to publicly present research that demonstrates how to hack Square's mobile payments hardware. The research is set to be shown off at the The Black Hat Security conference in Las Vegas this week.

On Tuesday, printer giant Epson announced its new “EcoTank” models, starting at $400. Rather than forcing customers to buy highly profitable ink cartridges over and over again, this new offering comes with an ink reserve tank.

The new business model is to simply charge more for the printer up front, which comes with two years worth of ink. If you run out, Epson offers a set of replacements for $52.

As the Wall Street Journal calculated, spending for the same volume of XL cartridges would cost “more than 10 times as much.”

 Batteries have become a new security risk for smartphone users, with a group of security researchers saying they are able to transmit personal data to hackers.

Lukasz Olejnik, Gunes Acar, Claude Castelluccia and Claudia Diaz have written a paper outlining the risks, saying a piece of software used in the HTML5 web language transmits data such as how much power is still left in a battery so websites using the code can save power while browsing.