Boy Genius Report

Last updated
Boy Genius Report (BGR)
Boy Genius Report Logo.svg
Type of site
Technology news
Available in English
OwnerBGR Media LLC.(Penske Media Corporation)
Created byJonathan S. Geller
URL bgr.com
CommercialYes
LaunchedOctober 20, 2006;17 years ago (2006-10-20)
Current statusOnline

Boy Genius Report (also referred to as BGR) is a technology-influenced website and covers topics ranging from consumer gadgets, to entertainment, gaming, and science. Founded in October 2006 by anonymous web personality Boy Genius (also referred to as BG/BGR), the site was previously based on offering the public an early look at upcoming mobile phones and devices before anyone else. On April 27, 2010, BGR was acquired by Penske Media Corporation. [1]

Contents

Reception

BGR has been mentioned in many major news sources such as the Wall Street Journal blog Digits, [2] ABC News, [3] Reuters, [4] The Huffington Post , [5] and CNBC. [6] Examples of BGR's ability to be the first to report news about a gadget include the first pictures of the Android 2.0 mobile operating system in 2009 [7] and the first reported picture of the Amazon Kindle 2 in 2008. [8]

As of August 2017, BGR reaches over 11 million unique visitors a month. [9]

Boy Genius

While running BGR, Boy Genius kept his identity concealed. On April 27, 2010, Boy Genius revealed himself as Jonathan Geller, a 23-year-old Greenwich, Connecticut, high school dropout who never attended college. [10] [11] Geller chose to remain anonymous at first due to the marketing opportunities that being anonymous afforded him and his site (despite his identity being widely known by many of the organizations whose information he was disclosing). When BGR joined Penske Media Corporation, Geller decided it was best for both him and his site that he reveal himself as the site's founder and editor-in-chief. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola Mobility</span> American consumer electronics company

Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones and other mobile devices running Android. Headquartered at Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, it is a subsidiary of the Chinese technology company Lenovo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlackBerry Storm</span> Defunct touchscreen smartphone

The BlackBerry Storm is a touchscreen smartphone developed by Research In Motion. A part of the BlackBerry 9500 series of phones, it was RIM's first touchscreen device, and its first without a physical keyboard. It featured a touchscreen that responded like a button via SurePress, Research In Motion's haptic feedback technology. Its competitors included Apple's iPhone, the Palm Pre, the T-Mobile G1 by HTC and the HTC Touch family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Dream</span> Android smartphone designed by HTC introduced in 2008

The HTC Dream is a smartphone developed by HTC. First released in October 2008 for $179 with a 2-year contract to T-Mobile, the Dream was the first commercially released device to use the Linux-based Android operating system, which was purchased and further developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance to create an open competitor to other major smartphone platforms of the time, such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, and iPhone OS. The operating system offers a customizable graphical user interface, integration with Google services such as Gmail, a notification system that shows a list of recent messages pushed from apps, and Android Market for downloading additional apps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Hero</span> Smartphone developed by HTC

HTC Hero is the third phone manufactured by HTC running the Android platform, announced on June 24, 2009 in London.

Penske Media Corporation is an American mass media, publishing, and information services company based in Los Angeles and New York City. It publishes more than 20 digital and print brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Women's Wear Daily, Deadline Hollywood, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Boy Genius Report, Robb Report, Artforum, ARTNews, and others. PMC's Chairman and CEO since founding is Jay Penske.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola Droid</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

The Motorola Droid is an Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google's Android operating system. The Droid had been publicized under the codenames Sholes and Tao and the model number A855. In Latin America and Europe, the model number is A853 (Milestone), and in Mexico, the model number is A854 (Motorola). Due to the ambiguity with newer phones with similar names, it is also commonly known as the DROID 1. The brand name Droid is a trademark of Lucasfilm licensed to Verizon Wireless.

The Motorola Devour is an Internet and multimedia enabled smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google's Android operating system. In the United States, the handset is distributed exclusively by Verizon Wireless. The Devour has a Hearing Aid Compatibility (HAC) rating of M4/T4. Although it runs Android, the Devour was not branded or marketed as part of Verizon's "DROID" series of Android smartphones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid Incredible</span> Android-based smartphone

The HTC Droid Incredible (ADR6300) is a smartphone manufactured by HTC Corporation using the Android operating system. It was released on April 29, 2010, and is available through Verizon Wireless only. The device is similar to the Sprint HTC Evo 4G. The device has been succeeded by the HTC Incredible S and the HTC ThunderBolt. The device was discontinued in March 30, 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid X</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

The Droid X is a smartphone released by Motorola on July 2010. The smartphone was renamed Motoroi X for its release in Mexico on November 9, 2013. The Droid X runs on the Android operating system, and the latest version supported was 2.3 Gingerbread. It was distributed by Verizon Wireless in the United States and Iusacell in Mexico.

Rooting is the process by which users of Android devices can attain privileged control over various subsystems of the device, usually smartphones and tablets. Because Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device gives similar access to administrative (superuser) permissions as on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or macOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid 2</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

The Motorola Droid 2 is the fifth mobile phone in Verizon's Droid line. In the U.S., it is available exclusively on Verizon Wireless, and was released August 12, 2010. It runs the Android operating system by Google, and can run Flash Player 10.1. It comes with 8 GB of internal memory and is shipped with an additional 8 GB SDHC card, upgradable to 32 GB. It has a 3.7 in display and a 5-megapixel camera. Unlike the Droid X, the Motorola Droid 2 features a redesigned slide-out QWERTY keyboard, but still features the Swype keyboard found on the Droid X. A limited edition version featuring the Star Wars droid character R2-D2 with exclusive apps and content was announced by Verizon for September 30, 2010, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary for The Empire Strikes Back.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid 4</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

The Motorola Droid 4 (XT894) is a smartphone made by Motorola Mobility. It was released with Android 2.3 and can be upgraded to Android 4.1. It was released on Verizon Wireless's network on February 10, 2012. It is the successor to Motorola's Droid 3, and is one of the first smartphones to support GLONASS in addition to GPS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phablet</span> Electronic device with features of both a smartphone and a tablet

A phablet is a mobile device combining or straddling the size formats of smartphones and tablets. The word is a blend word of phone and tablet. The term is largely unused by the late 2010s, since average phone sizes eventually morphed into small tablet sizes, up to 6.9 inches (180 mm), with wider aspect ratios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AOKP</span> Mobile operating system

AOKP, short for Android Open Kang Project, is an open-source replacement distribution for smartphones and tablet computers based on the Android mobile operating system. The name is a play on the word kang and AOSP. The name was a joke, but it stuck. It was started as free and open-source software by Roman Birg based on the official releases of Android Open Source Project by Google, with added original and third-party code, features, and control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nokia X family</span> Range of smartphones

The Nokia X family was a range of budget smartphones that was produced and marketed by Microsoft Mobile, originally introduced in February 2014 by Nokia. The smartphones run on the Nokia X platform, a Linux-based operating system which was a fork of Android. Nokia X is also known generally as the Nokia Normandy. It is regarded as Nokia's first Android device during the company's Microsoft partnership and was in the process of selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft, which eventually happened two months later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Blass</span>

Evan Blass, once known solely by his pen name @evleaks, is an American blogger, editor, and phone leaker. He gained international notoriety for a series of numerous smartphone and tablet leaks on Twitter, spanning the period July 2012 through August 2014, that made him a trusted source for many technology journalists. Blass announced his retirement from leaking devices in a tweet on August 3, 2014, although he soon returned to leaking under his pen name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid Turbo</span> Android smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility

The Droid Turbo was a high-end smartphone developed by Motorola Mobility. It is part of the Verizon Droid line, and was announced on October 28, 2014, on the Verizon Droid Does website. The Droid Turbo maintains a similar design shape to its predecessor, the Droid Maxx, with new durable ballistic nylon or metallized glass fiber reinforced with Kevlar as the materials offered. The on-screen buttons for back, home, and multitask functions were kept off-screen as capacitive soft-keys below the display. Due to Lenovo closing its acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, the Droid Turbo was the first phone released by Motorola Mobility under Lenovo ownership, as it was released through Verizon Wireless first on the same day the Lenovo sale closed, October 30, 2014.

The Nokia 3-digit series are a series of feature and smartphones by HMD Global and previously by Microsoft Mobile and Nokia, generally aimed at developing markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung Galaxy S8</span> Android smartphone

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ are Android smartphones produced by Samsung Electronics as the eighth generation of the Samsung Galaxy S series. The S8 and S8+ were unveiled on 29 March 2017 and directly succeeded the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, with a North American release on 21 April 2017 and international rollout throughout April and May. The Samsung Galaxy S8 Active was announced on 8 August 2017 and is exclusive to certain US cellular carriers.

References

  1. Jonathan S. Geller (2010-04-26). "Taking BGR to the next level—MMC acquires BGR". Boy Genius Report. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  2. LaVallee, Andrew (2009-10-19). "Verizon Droid Ad Aims for iPhone". Digits. The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  3. Heussner, Mae Ki (2009-10-21). "Verizon's Mystery Droid Takes Aim at Apple's iPhone". ABC News . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  4. Carew, Sinead (2009-10-19). "Motorola rises ahead of next Android phone launch". Reuters . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  5. "Black Friday: Apple's Sales Leaked?". The Huffington Post . 2009-11-16. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  6. Jim Goldman (2009-06-15). "Apple iPhone 3GS Sold Out? Nope!". CNBC . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  7. Jonathan S. Geller (2009-10-16). "Android 2.0 screenshot walkthrough". Boy Genius Report. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  8. Jonathan S. Geller (2008-10-03). "Amazon Kindle 2 e-books its way to BGR". Boy Genius Report. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  9. "Advertising" . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  10. Kafka, Peter (2010-04-26). "Mobile Blogger "Boy Genius" Unmasked, Acquired". All Things Digital . Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  11. Benkovic, Andrew (2014-04-01). "Jonathan Geller: The 'Boy Genius' Behind BGR.com". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-08-13.
  12. Fernando, Aneya (2014-07-02). "Boy Genius Report's Jonathan Geller on the Benefits on Anonymity". Adweek . Retrieved 2017-08-13.