Gadgetory

prepare to be assimilated into the glass collective I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update how big is too big for a smartphone well Samsung is pushing pocket limits with a new line of phones called the galaxy mega and the high-end model measures in at six point three inches for the screen to compare that's a bigger screen than the Amazon Kindle paperwhite e-reader it's larger than the awkwardly large galaxy notes which are called phablets for being part phone in part tablet but for now America is safe from this monster of a phone it's only scheduled to come out in Europe and Russia next month if you watch the show you shouldn't be too surprised there were clues in an update last month about a new Samsung gamepad controller that works with a mysterious 6.3 inch device it seems getting near 7 inches is the trendy sweet spot Samsung continues to grow its phones but Microsoft is shrinking the surface we've seen the signs that Microsoft might want to make a mini version of the surface and the wall street journal is adding to that with a report that it's working on a 7 inch model to compete with the ipad mini and Google's Nexus 7 and while we get giddy about new smartphones and tablets the market for desktop and laptop computers is in the pits this is nearing the worst it's ever been for the PC market as research firms report that shipments are at a sharp decline some are putting blame on Windows 8 because the new touchscreen devices are expensive and are facing shortages customers may now be thinking it's more worth it to just get a snazzy new tablet and throw on a keyboard accessory as for the category of computers that go on your face Google is sending out the first Google glass units to developers within the next month developers paid fifteen hundred dollars for each glass unit just so they could be among the first to tinker with it along with this news a group of investment firms have joined forces to fund companies that want to invent products that work with Google glass the group is called the glass collective isn't the board referred to as the Borg collective well it's not like Google wants to put tech on our faces and know our location I mean oh right so when that time comes when you no longer need your google account like when you die you can now tell google exactly what you wanted to do with your data there's a new option in settings for inactivity and if you want you can pass on an account to another person if it's been an active for too long or Google can just delete the account on your behalf before it times out and thinks you're dead it will send you an email or text message just to check in and make sure you're still alive that's your tech news update you can find more details on these stories at cnet com / update from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey