Hot on the heels of the official launch of the Snapdragon 855 is a leak suggesting that the Sony Xperia XZ4 will be the first smartphone to ship with Qualcomm’s freshest silicon. If the rumor is accurate, it could be just what Sony needs to help lift the sales of its latest flagship.

During the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, Qualcomm officially announced the new Snapdragon 855 high-end mobile platform. Details are still sparse, but the main focus lies on an improved AI engine, the first computer vision hardware in an ISP and the possibility to attach the dedicated X50 5G modem.

Lenovo is planning on launching its Z5s smartphone in China on December 6, and it could end up being the first smartphone on the market to have a punch-hole design for the selfie camera. The Z5s is expected to feature a rear-facing triple camera setup while the front-facing camera is located in the top center. Both Samsung and Huawei are expected to release products with similar design features very soon.

Huawei has posted a promotional image on the company’s Weibo page to announce the release date in China for the Nova 4 smartphone: December 17. The successor of the Nova 3 device comes with the latest alternative to the notch/teardrop solutions. The Huawei Nova 4 will feature a punch-hole cut-out, with the selfie camera located in the top left-hand corner.

Reported specifications for the rumored Sony Xperia XZ4 have been leaked on a Chinese blogging site. Prolific leaker Ice universe has posted details about the possible flagship device that include mention of a Snapdragon 855 processor, a 6.55-inch FHD+ screen, 3,900 mAh battery, 6 GB RAM and up to 256 GB storage. However, the Japanese company has only just released its XZ3 smartphone.

AMD CEO Lisa Su already expressed the intent to bring back high-end GPUs into the game in the Q3 financial report from last month, and now Su is reiterating these plans, saying that AMD is ready to dominate all GPU sectors once again. Navi would be AMD's answer to Nvidia's mid-range RTX 2070 cards, while Arcturus (expected in late 2019) would take on the RTX 2080 Ti and beyond.

Epic has announced plans to create its own game platform, which will be known as the Epic Games Store. Fueled by the incredible success of Fortnite, Epic is hoping to take on big names in the video-game digital distribution world such as Steam and Google Play. The company is offering 88% of store revenue to developers, with no tier system being incorporated.

Microsoft has launched a new Surface Go advert aimed at families buying the device for their children for the holiday season. Naturally, the company had a dig at Apple and the iPad too.

The official Android 9.0 (Pie) beta ROM for the Galaxy Note 9 is now available. Not only does this software contain the latest OS update, it also replaces Experience with One UI, the revamped interface for Samsung mobile devices. So far, this beta is available in certain countries.

Quora's CEO Adam D'Angelo has just revealed that the personal data of more than 100 million of the question-and-answer portal's users has been stolen in a recent attack. The data affected includes names/passwords/email addresses, public content/actions, as well as non-public content/actions, including direct messages.

Two separate app developers, Kika Tech and Cheetah Mobile, have had 1 app each blocked from Google's Play Store following a BuzzFeed article detailing an 'investigation' of fraudulent activity on the part of both companies. The site, alongside the tech analyst firm Kochava, claims to have uncovered evidence of click injection and click flooding in the code of the 2 apps.

To say the Vivo Nex was a unique device would be an understatement. It was the first smartphone to include a motorized front camera module, thus saving screen real estate. Nevertheless, the OEM has announced that 2 million units of the Nex have been sold since its release in June 2018.

Since the research team who discovered the SplitSpectre attack used SpiderMonkey 52.7.4 — the JavaScript engine in Firefox — to target both Intel and AMD chips nobody seems to be safe anymore. The attack has been successfully carried out against Intel Haswell, Intel Skylake, and AMD Ryzen processors.

A new report on the wearables market shows that Xiaomi was the single biggest company in this space in the third quarter of 2018, keeping Apple as the runner-up in terms of market share. The market also grew by 21.7% in general compared to last year. This was attributed to the release of new products and increased uptake in the Asia-Pacific region.

The 4.9 mm bezels are 60 percent thinner than the last generation with a "retina-shattering" 13.3-inch 4K UHD display. Razer is promising 100 percent sRGB coverage, Whiskey Lake-U CPUs, and optional full-power GeForce MX150 graphics for a starting price of $1400 USD.

Razer’s first major laptop was the 14-inch Blade over five years ago in 2013. Ever since then, the Blade family has expanded to include 12.5-inch, 13.3-inch, 15.6-inch, and 17.3-inch models. The central 14-inch series, however, will be on hiatus for the time being.

New details about the Vivo NEX 2 have emerged online. Vivo has now updated its website with marketing material hinting at what features the device may have. The company will supposedly unveil its latest NEX smartphone on December 11.

The upcoming flagship SoC from Qualcomm was believed to be called Snapdragon 8150 due to its SM8150 denomination found in early benchmarks, but the official name will be Snapdragon 855. Details on the modem, NPU, GPU, CPU clusters and imaging features were also leaked ahead of the official announcement that is scheduled to take place later today at Qualcomm's Technology Summit.

The Korean electronics giant Samsung will reportedly debut a line of notebooks with 4K OLED panels at CES 2019. These devices will come in 13.3 inch, 14 inch, and 15.6 inch variants. However, don't expect the consumer models of these new machines to come cheap.

The most affordable slate by Barnes & Noble has just received a refresh without jumping over the US$50 sweet spot. Its specs now include 16 GB of storage space, a "vivid and bright" 7-inch IPS display, as well as up to 7 hours of battery life while reading, watching videos, and browsing the web.

Months after getting caught using DSLR shots as camera samples for the Galaxy A8, Samsung has been nabbed doing the exact same thing with the Galaxy A8 Star. Companies like Huawei and Xiaomi have also been caught in similar acts of crookery in the past.

The Moto G7 Plus will be the most powerful and expensive of the upcoming Moto G7 phones, and its specifications sheet says as much, as it's set to feature a Snapdragon 660, and maybe, just maybe, wireless charging support.

Huawei ambassador Gal Gadot was revealed to have been tweeting with an iPhone a long while ago and if you thought that was bad, you'd be shocked, as an official Samsung account was caught parading the streets of Twitter with an iPhone in tow.

Honor's current-gen mainstream premium phones are the Honor V10 and Honor 10. The successors to the duo are expected to be the Honor V20 and Honor 11, but while the former should be out by now, it would appear that it is still in development.

New data from market research company Gartner depicts a strong third quarter 2018 for Chinese manufacturers Huawei and Xiaomi. Both companies managed to increase their global smartphone market share from 3Q17, whilst the big hitters Apple and Samsung have experienced flat growth and considerably diminished market share, respectively. Overall worldwide smartphone sales have risen by 1.4%.

A report from Windows Central claims that Microsoft and Intel are working on a device with the codename “Centaurus.” The device is believed to be a foldable dual-screen version of the Surface PC that will operate on an edition of Windows 10 known as Core. Centaurus is not a new name for the Andromeda device project, which is believed to involve the long-rumored Surface Phone.

Two new potential names for Samsung’s foldable flagship device have been spotted: Rize and Fold. The first name was found in trademark applications made with the Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (UKIPO) and the USPTO. “Fold” has surfaced in another trademark filing, this time associated with the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (Turkpatent).

A new article in Bloomberg substantiates earlier claims that Apple will not adopt 5G in its next-generation iPhones. In fact, the outlet's sources have suggested that this may not happen until after 2020. The company's current enmity to Qualcomm may be a factor in the apparent delay.

The latest ray trace-supporting and Turing-powered card, the Titan RTX, was launched at today's (December 3, 2018) Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. With its 24GB in GDDR6 memory, 576 multi-precision Tensor Cores and 72 RT Cores, it is clearly aimed at deep-learning professionals.

OPPO has announced that it has been successful in a test involving using WeChat for a video call over 5G. It was made using a phone customized with 5G-compatible hardware. This breakthrough puts the Chinese OEM one step closer to commercializing hardware based on the new radio standard.

OnLeaks and 91Mobile have compiled a new image and video series purported to show CAD renders for the Galaxy S10. It shows a virtually bezel-less phone that, in fairness, closely resembles the Note 9. However, the Note does not have a dual camera integrated into the screen, a clear lack of a hardware fingerprint scanner, or triple rear cameras.

Scott Johnson, the Google manager in charge of the app Hangouts, has taken to Twitter in order to refute a report that the same app is to shut down shortly. Instead, Johnson asserts, its functions are to be split across two new services: Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meets. Those who still use "Hangouts Classic" will be "upgraded" to these new apps as they roll out.

A new report from a Korean media outlet details Huawei's plans to introduce an in-house OS for its mobile devices. Should this prospect be realized, the Chinese company may drop its Android skin (EMUI) for completely separate software along the lines of Tizen or, well...iOS. This suggests that Huawei wants to build its own ecosystem for the use of its hardware.

LG's next Gram laptop could come in at under 1.18 kg to be lighter than the Lenovo Yoga C930 and even the Dell XPS 13 9365 2-in-1 while offering a bigger display than both. More official details will likely be unveiled at CES 2019 where the South Korean OEM will be on the show floor.

Epic Games has silently enabled 60 FPS for the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max in its latest update for Fortnite on iOS, according to the Senior PR Manager at the company. The update (v. 6.31) is live now on the App Store.

The well-regarded leaker IceUniverse has posted an image showing a phone with Samsung flagship-like design hallmarks. The tipster asserts that it is a Galaxy S10 clone. If so, it suggests that the makers of fake phones think that the device will strongly resemble the Note 9.

Google has filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) that depicts motion sensors built into a smartwatch. They expand the wearable's range of user interface feedback to the device's immediate surroundings. In practice, this means the watch can turn part of the user's arm into a 'mousepad' to select letters while typing and for other similar actions.

The EPYC CPU line, based on AMD's Zen 2 platform, was released recently in order to compete with Intel's x86-based processors for server-grade applications. DRAMeXchange has reported that the new alternative has already managed to reduce Intel's market share by 2%. This may not sound impressive, but it is also significantly better compared to the 0% they commanded prior to the release of EPYC Naples.

Recently, the news of a theft of Samsung tech secrets by a supplier to the company has come to light. As a result, more than one Chinese company may have gotten its hands on the ability to make folding screens of its own. Samsung now estimates that the damage done to its revenues as a result could easily exceed US$5 billion dollars.

Several influencers and YouTube personalities were seen teasing the NVIDIA RTX Titan GPUs. We're not sure what the new Titan card will be officially called as but from the pictures posted, we see a blue TITAN logo, two 8-pin power connectors, and an NVLink connector. The card seems to be sporting a golden shroud similar to the earlier Titan V card and is expected to feature a full Turing TU102 GPU with 4,608 CUDA Cores.

AMD might not be doing that great on the stock market, but the data provided by Germany's largest e-tailer shows that this brand is actually doing great. In November, Mindfactory has sold two AMD processors for each Intel processor. The best seller was the Ryzen 5 2600, followed by the 2700X and the 2600X.

Bootloops may as well be LG's calling card at this point, as the company has a long line of devices that have displayed that behavior at certain points. The G7 ThinQ may join that special group if recent reports are anything to go by, but it would appear that it mostly isn't even LG's fault this time out.

MediaTek has been conservative with its SoC releases of recent but could be set to release something truly competitive in the sub-premium market in the near future, with reports of a looming Helio P90 launch surfacing.

HMD Global is set to launch the Nokia 8.1 on December 4. The device is a slightly modified version of the China-specific Nokia X7, so most of its specifications are already known, with a Snapdragon 710 and a capable dual rear camera setup being the biggest talking points.

Lenovo tends to release a number of devices that fly under the radar in the western market, and the upcoming Lenovo K5X will likely be one such phone. The mid-ranger is expected to feature a Snapdragon 636, dual selfie cameras, and a 4050 mAh battery.

Huawei has announced that full-screen gesture controls shown on its Mate 20 Pro — and in beta on the Mate 10 Pro — are now coming to the Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro with the full release of EMUI 9.0 in China.

With 2019 looking like it will be the year of the foldable smartphones, you might be wondering what’s next. A new patent from Sony might give us a clue. How does a foldable smartphone with a transparent display sound like to you?

One area that Google holds a clear lead over the competition is the way it deploys its algorithm and machine learning nous to enhance the capabilities of its Pixel smartphones. In a new blog, the company explains how it has developed this technology to improve the quality of the portrait photos that are taken by the new Pixel 3.