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Google's Project Fi Now Supports Tablets Tablet owners can now add their iPad, Nexus, or Galaxy tablet to Google's Project Fi wireless service for 4G LTE Web surfing. Google just upgraded the appeal of its  Project Fi  wireless service in a big way: Google is now allowing people to add tablets to their account. Google isn't asking for upgrade fees or device access charges; instead, tablet owners need only pay for the data they consume each month. Support for data-only devices is a welcome step for Project Fi. With the expanded hardware compatibility users can access cellular connections while on the go through a tablet or other device. Existing Fi customers must request a data-only SIM card from Google through the Project Fi website. Once the card arrives, subscribers need only follow a few steps to activate the SIM card in their tablet. (Image: hocus-focus/iStockphoto) The list of compatible tablets is rather limited, but at least it's a start. Project Fi will work wit...

Microsoft Acquires Analytics Insights Startup Metanautix Microsoft is acquiring an analytics SQL query startup founded by an ex-Google engineer and an ex-Facebook engineer. Metanautix enables the creation of software-defined data marts. Microsoft  (MSFT) has acquired  Metanautix , a company that has created a tool called Quest that enables SQL queries against all kinds of data, regardless of where the data lives. Terms of the deal were not available. Metanautix is a startup company founded by former Google engineer Theo Vassilakis. While at Google he spearheaded an effort to create a similar tool called Dremel  for drilling into all different types of data across different locations using SQL queries. That tool was intended for internal use at Google, but Vassilakis wondered about all the companies without Google's resources and how they could perform such searches. Consequently he founded Metanautix and created Quest. Quest's tagline encapsulates the idea of what it does...

Apple, Samsung Bring Mobile Payment Face-Off To China Apple and Samsung have struck separate deals with China's UnionPay bank to bring their mobile payment services to the Chinese market in 2016. Apple has announced a partnership with UnionPay to bring its mobile payment service to China.  Apple Pay  will be available in the Chinese market in early 2016, following testing and certification by Chinese regulators. The partnership was necessary for market entry, as state-run UnionPay has a monopoly on all yuan bank cards throughout China. The payment firm will give its cardholders the option to add their cards to Apple Pay on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Apple Pay also has support from 15 banks across China, which is the world's largest smartphone market. iPhone growth  has skyrocketed  throughout the country, which generated $12.5 billion in revenue for Apple during its fiscal fourth quarter of 2015. "China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China Un...

Microsoft Delays Windows 10 Mobile For Older Smartphones Microsoft will not deliver Windows 10 Mobile to older smartphones this month as promised. Microsoft committed to bringing Windows 10 to existing handsets before the end of the year, but is now breaking that commitment. The company has, for reasons unknown, delayed the system update until some point in the next year. Microsoft delivered the RTM build of Windows 10 in November. The RTM coincided with the then-latest Technical Preview build 10586. Microsoft has allowed existing owners of Windows Phones to test the new platform through the Windows Insider program. The company pushed out  new builds about once a month , each time stamping out bugs and adding in features. The  Lumia 950 and 950 XL , the first Windows 10 smartphones, shipped with build 10586. Since November Microsoft has released several updates to the Lumia 950 and 950 XL that coincide with updates given to Windows 10 tablets and PCs. Most recently, it seeded ...

Windows 10 Now Ready For Chinese Market Microsoft and the government of China have come to a new agreement that will bring Windows 10 to the Chinese market. However, this version of Windows will conform to certain state demands. Microsoft announced Dec. 17 that it has finally reached a deal with the Chinese government to provide Windows 10 to users in that country. In a blog post Thursday , Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group, wrote: "We're announcing a new joint venture that will license, deploy, manage and optimize Windows 10 for China's government agencies and certain state owned enterprises and provide ongoing support and services for these customers." Microsoft will partner with  China Electronics Technology Group  (CETC) to create C&M Information Technologies, though the name of the joint venture may change. The joint venture will control the licensing of Windows 10 to government agencies and to some major stat...

Facebook Open Sources Its 'Big Sur' AI Server Designs Facebook is open sourcing the hardware design for the servers it uses to train artificial intelligence software. Facebook announced Thursday that it will open source its latest  artificial intelligence (AI) server designs . The move continues a course the company began in 2011 when it launched the  Open Compute Project  to let companies share designs for new hardware. The server, codenamed Big Sur, is designed specifically to train the newest class of AI algorithms, called deep learning, which mimic the neural pathways found in the human brain. Google uses this kind of AI technique to recognize spoken words, translate from one language to another, improve Internet search results, and other tasks. Not coincidentally, last month Google released its machine learning library TensorFlow under the open source Apache 2.0 license . According to the TensorFlow  website , it is an "open source software library for numerical...

Microsoft, NASA Send HoloLens Into Space Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, two astronauts working on the International Space Station, explain how they use Microsoft's HoloLens in space. Microsoft's HoloLens can offer out-of-this-world experiences to users. And now it's taken its own journey -- to space. Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), are set to put the augmented reality headset to use. A couple of HoloLens devices arrived on the ISS this week, along with over 7,700 pounds of supplies including food and science experiments,  reported Popular Science . The publication had the chance to interview Kelly and Kornienko, who are spending over a year on the ISS as part of a larger experiment to discover how long periods of time in outer space affect the human body. As of the interview's publication, they had been in orbit 257 days. The use of HoloLens aboard the ISS is part of a partnership between Microsoft and ...

IBM's Swift Sandbox Lets Coders Try Apple's Programming Language Easily IBM announced its free, browser-based Swift Sandbox, which lets developers write in Apple's programming language and execute their code in a server environment -- on top of Linux. Shortly after Apple open sourced its  Swift programming language last Thursday, IBM launched  a free browser-based online sandbox  to help developers get started writing code. Swift has already been ported to Linux , and Apple has said it will not object to other OS ports. In fact, this Linux port is what enabled IBM to create this sandbox. The  IBM Swift Sandbox  uses a Docker container for the runtime environment, which allows Swift to live in the cloud just fine. This means developers can run Swift code snippets on any browser over the Internet, not just a specific IDE. This is the kind of accessibility that encourages learners such as students to dabble in a language before making a commitment to deep...

Verizon WiFi Calling Coming To Galaxy S6, S6 Edge Verizon Wireless is the last major carrier to offer customers WiFi calling. The company is starting with just two phones, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. Verizon Wireless customers will soon be able to make phone calls via WiFi.  On December 4, the company said  that an update to its Advanced Calling 1.0 application will add the feature and make it possible to call from hotspots for free. The rollout is proceeding slowly, however, and the bulk of Verizon subscribers will have to sit tight and wait. Before  Verizon's Advanced Calling 1.0 application  arrived in September 2014, the carrier connected all calls through its legacy CDMA network. Verizon takes great pride in the quality of its CDMA voice network. Even so, Advanced Calling 1.0 heralded the arrival of HD Voice for Verizon customers. HD Voice calls, made using VoLTE technology, are clearer and higher in fidelity than calls placed over Verizon's CDMA network. Moreove...