Hardware

Thirteen suspects have been indicted in New York on a gas station skimming scheme that netted them more than $2 million, according to court documents.

The skimming devices, placed on card readers at gas station pumps throughout the southern U.S., recorded credit and debit card data, as well as PINs, which the thieves then used to withdraw more than $2 million from ATMs. They then tried to launder the money through at least 70 different bank accounts, according to the district attorney’s office in New York County.

Last year was an important one for Android. We saw the platform shift from around 50 percent market share to over 80. Meanwhile, the leading Android-based devices enjoyed big improvements to performance and functionality. Google's Nexus 5 seems to be the very embodiment of Android's progress.

Despite the many uses for Google Glass, this new class of wearable devices is inevitably meeting some growing pains (pictured above is 7'3" Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert, a Glass wearer who has experienced some growing pains) as the world gets used to them. One wearer successfully fought a traffic ticket recently and now another early adopter suffered the "embarrassing" experience of being removed from a movie theater for bringing the accessory.

Dubbed Blackphone, and featured in the video above, the handset runs a hardened version of Android called PrivatOS that has been developed by Phil Zimmermann and Jon Callas, formerly of PGP. The mobe can make standard phone calls, but will include Silent Circle's apps to encrypt messages and voice and video chat, plus secure file sharing and anonymized VPN sessions.

When Microsoft announced its intention to purchase Nokia's mobile handset division, it came away with two brands: Lumia and Asha. The Lumia line has been home to Nokia's Windows Phone efforts. The Asha line, on the other hand, is based on Nokia's Series 40 (S40) platform, which was first introduced in 1999. Nokia's mysterious Android efforts have made the rounds more than a few times since the fall.

More than one high-profile vendor showed off a curved-screen TV during their press conferences at the Consumer Electronics Show. But as soon as the show floor opened, it became clear that curved screens weren’t just the provenance of big names like Samsung and LG. Nearly every TV vendor from high to low had a curved screen to parade in its booth.

The reason for a curved screen has somewhat mystified us since last year when we first saw Samsung’s curved 4K TV. Now that these screens are everywhere, it bears sussing out what, exactly, is their purpose.

About a year and a half ago, I engaged on an admittedly quixotic project to build my own laptop. By I, I mean we, namely Sean “xobs” Cross and me, bunnie. Building your own laptop makes about as much sense as retrofitting a Honda Civic with a 1000hp motor, but the lack of practicality never stopped the latter activity, nor ours.

Helping usher in the year of the Linux (gaming) desktop, Valve announced its Steam Machine—which will compete with Xbox One and Playstation 4.

When gaming vendor Valve's co-founder Gabe Newell told the Linuxcon USA conference audience last September that Linux is the future of gaming, he also hinted that his company's future consoles would be Linux-powered.

Prices of 4K monitors have fallen to under $800, finally coming within the reach of users who didn't want to spend thousands on displays.

Dell's $699.99 28-inch Ultra HD Monitor is the cheapest of the bunch, while Lenovo and Asustek announced similar-size monitors at $799. The monitors are being previewed at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas, and are expected to ship as early as later this month.

The Ascend Mate2 has a 6.1-inch (15.5-centimeter) screen, making it more than twice as big as an iPhone 5. It's almost the size of a tablet, giving rise to the half-joking term "phablet." It's the successor to a phone of the same size launched last year.