Have you seen a Fire Phone in the wild yet? Photo: Amazon

During its earnings call yesterday Amazon gave some clues about just how spectacularly its Fire Phone business is tanking — making it seem one of the worst tech ideas since the RMS Titanic shipped without lifeboats.

How bad are we talking? At the end of its disappointing third-quarter the company still has a massive $83 million worth of unsold inventory sitting around.

It’s now taking a $170 million charge “primarily related to Fire phone inventory valuation and supplier commitment costs.”

Who will you wind up sitting with? Photo: James Vaughan/Flickr CC

Have you ever wished for an app that lets you know exactly who you’ll be sitting next to on a flight — right down to perusing your would-be neighbor’s Facebook profile to see what you have in common?

A new social check-in feature for airline app Quicket lets you choose a seat on an airplane, then immediately check who you’ll be paired with, complete with an optional link to their social media page.

Yes, it’s possibly the year’s creepiest app feature, and one that’s not even trying to hide its reason for existing. Check out this excerpt from its press release:

Photo: Killian Bell

Having previously taken a crack at the smartwatch market with its now-discontinued SPOT technology, Microsoft is looking to get back into the wearables space according to a report from Forbes, citing anonymous sources.

The watch will apparently be launched in the next few weeks and will work across a variety of platforms, which makes perfect sense since Windows Phone is a distant third compared to Android and iPhone handsets.

Its timing is an effort to capture the potentially-lucrative holiday market.

The real Bendgate? Photo: Tizenindonesia

Although we’ve yet to see a truly mass-market wearable device sweep the world, most people working in high tech believe that devices like smartwatches represent the next big frontier.

With that in mind, Samsung has debuted a potentially transformative creation at the ongoing InterBattery 2014 exhibition being held in Seoul, Korea: a rollable, flexible battery.

Although not too many details are known yet about the exact materials and structural design advances used to create it, it is reported that the battery can function even when bent in half, or rolled up into the shape of a paper cup.

Photo: Tenaa.com.cn

Lenovo’s new Sisley handset may not feature the protruding camera and unsightly antenna bands that were criticized in some corners about the iPhone, but don’t let it be said that this is entirely an iPhone 6 carbon copy without the compromises.

Having had its hardware capabilities revealed, it’s clear exactly where the sacrifices have been made: and they’re entirely related to the specs.

Read on to find out why this is no iPhone beater.