A body of text running around the Internet a few days ago put the fear of all things holy into Android users, as it froze—and sometimes crashed—applications with maximum impunity.

A press release from a strategy consulting firm has stated that voice-based shopping will enjoy incredible growth over the next four years, hitting a total of more than US$40 billion in sales across the US and UK by 2022. The market forecast, issued by OC&C, highlights how the increasing adoption of smart speakers in millions of homes will help drive growth.

With the same price as the Nokia 1, the Huawei Y3 2018 is now available for purchase in South Africa. Its specs include a 5-inch display with only 854 x 480 pixels, a quad-core MediaTek processor, 1 GB RAM, and 8 GB internal storage, 2 MP and 8 MP cameras, as well as a 2,280 mAh battery.

Trove, an MMORPG from Trion Worlds, will soon be offering a type of battle royale mode for players. A “Bomber Royale” mode has been announced for the popular game, and it will be made available in summer as part of a large expansion that has been scheduled for the title. Trove was released for Windows in 2015 and is free to play.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Apple has teamed up with investment bank Goldman Sachs to produce a joint credit card. The Cupertino-based company already has a deal with Barclaycard in regard to financing purchases of Apple products. Apparently, the upcoming card may feature the Apple Pay brand.

SIRIN Labs managed to raise US$157.8 million for Finney's launch. The first ever block-chain connected smartphone will be released at some point in H2 2018, and the list of features now includes a high-end Snapdragon 845 SoC coupled with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. It will also pack a highly secure cold storage crypto wallet and a host of hardware security features for all the virtual currency fans.

The recently unleashed Firefox 60 is the first Extended Support Release version since Firefox 52, so it brings more than a year's worth of new features for personal, mobile, and business users. The most important changes are the sponsored stories present in the New Tab page and the improved customization capabilities for IT administrators.

If the ROG Zephyrus seems too expensive for your budget, you may want to take a look at the ROG GU501GM instead. The more affordable GU501GM comes with almost the same design features, and the specs are still very solid, as it includes the i7-8750H six-core CPU, a GTX 1060 6 GB VRAM video card, 16 GB DDR4-2666 RAM, a 128 GB SSD + 1 TB Hybrid HDD, and a Thunderbolt 3 connector.

Lon Seidman recently hosted a podcast with Notebookcheck's own Douglas Black. Over the hour, Douglas discussed his work with Notebookcheck and UltrabookReview with Lon and the process behind writing reviews of laptops in the online era. The duo also discussed the laptop market at large and some interesting trends they are currently watching.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 530S is a relatively thin and light notebook compared to the screen sizes on offer and the price segment which it occupies. Equipped with a Core i7 (probably U-series), up to an MX150, and a 1440p display, this laptop will sit well with consumers who want a good looking and decently priced mid-sized computer.

Today Lenovo announced the new IdeaPad 330 and IdeaPad 320S which they claim to meet the specifications, price, and looks that most consumers want in an affordable laptop. The Lenovo IdeaPad came about in the late 2000’s as a consumer-oriented counterpart to the hugely successful business-orientated ThinkPad. Dedicated GPU options include the MX110, MX130, MX150, and GTX 1050.

Thanks to the recent introduction of six new voice choices, Google Assistant now features a total of eight such options — four female and four male voices. Even more, Sundar Pichai has confirmed at Google I/O that John Legend's voice will also reach the company's virtual assistant by the end of the year.

Motorola has been granted a patent for a foldable smartphone that unfolds into a tablet. While it is not the first patent for a foldable smartphone that has surfaced in recent times, it is the first to show how a foldable smartphone could work with a smart case design to give it even more potential usage scenarios.

Lenovo has released many ThinkPad laptops in this year already, but no models with AMD Ryzen so far. This apparently changes soon, as the new models ThinkPad A285 and A485 have been listed on the Lenovo website for the first time.

It's strange to be celebrating a two-year old product being "close" to its suggested retail price, but here we are. Nvidia is proudly reminding all its followers on Facebook that its GTX 10 graphics cards are now in stock at more reasonable prices for gamers. The GTX 1080 and GTX 1060 can be purchased directly from Nvidia for $550 USD and $250 USD, respectively. The news comes within days of existing rumors of the impending GTX 1180.

Unlike the EliteBook xx0 or ProBook xx0 series, the alternative xx5 series is equipped with AMD options that are typically less expensive than the standard Intel offerings. All of the new models will carry the same Ryzen 3 PRO 2300U to Ryzen 7 PRO 2700U APUs and integrated Vega graphics. The updated systems will succeed the poorly-received Bristol Ridge APUs as found on the EliteBooks and ProBooks of yesteryear.

American computer manufacturer System76 has offered the company’s updated Oryx Pro for pre-order. For US$1,599, the buyer would receive a 15.6-inch, Ubuntu-based laptop sporting an i7-8750H processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 8 GB RAM, and a 250 GB M.2 SSD. The official System76 website offers a generous amount of configurations for the Oryx Pro update.

It appears Lenovo may be working on a new flagship smartphone. A partial image of a bezel-less device has been published on the Weibo account for Chang Cheng, the Lenovo Group’s VP. There is seemingly no controversial notch present on the smartphone, and there is speculation that the device will be officially announced on June 14.

In a statement issued to stockholders today, ZTE said that the it was suspending all "major operating activities" due to the sales ban placed on the company by the U.S. Department of Commerce. While ZTE has enough cash on hand to fulfill its current commercial obligations, the future looks bleak for the Chinese smartphone manufacturer.

A press release from Valve has revealed that the company intends to release two new apps, one of which will allow gamers access to their Steam media libraries on smartphones. The Steam Link app is expected to be released in the week starting May 21. The second app, Steam Video, will offer movie and television content.

The next gen Kirin 980 is being manufactured at TSMC's foundries and uses the 7 nm process. Huawei will also include a new AI chip from Cambricon and an improved GPU, so the upcoming Kirin 980 will surely battle it out with Samsung's Exynos 9820 and Apple's A12 SoCs. The latest HiSilicon chip is scheduled to be launched with the Mate 20 flagships later this year.

The 7 nm manufacturing process will be superseded by the 5 nm one by 2020. Right now, TSMC is working to improve the extreme ultraviolet lithography tech that should lead to reduced power consumption and considerable performance gains for the 7+ nm chips in late 2018. TSMC estimates that the performance gains and power requirements will see minor improvements with the 5 nm stepping.

Chromebooks may become the best Android development tools later this year. Google is planning to roll out native Linux support to the Chrome OS-powered machines later this year, allowing coders to build software for Chrome OS and Android natively on Chromebooks.

Google's Android P beta is out, and the good news is you don't need a Pixel or Pixel 2 smartphone to give it a test run. Thanks to Project Treble, Google has been able to work with a select group of OEMs to bring the Android P beta to their devices from day 1.

Google has used its I/O 2018 developer conference to give Android P an early preview, and it looks impressive. It is a comprehensive update to the operating system, including its UI, bringing with it increasingly deeper implementation of machine learning.

A patent has been granted to Apple for an “electronic device having display with curved edges.” The patent was filed in January 2016 and features a number of images that could easily be described as potential smartwatch displays. Producing a circular smartwatch would be something of a design departure for the Cupertino-based company.

A representative for Epic Games has confirmed that an email inviting people to participate in a Fortnite Android beta is a phishing scam. Gamers have been warned not to share any personal information if they receive such an email. Also, Fortnite’s guest villain, Thanos, has had to be nerfed due to player feedback in regard to his destructive powers.

Based solely on our two XPS 15 9575 samples, the presence of Hyper-Threading for the Core i5 series has allowed the 65 W i5-8305G to perform much more closely to the 65 W i7-8705G than one would expect. This is in stark contrast to the older 45 W i5-7300HQ where the 45 W i7-7700HQ and even the 15 W i7-8550U can outperform it in multi-threaded workloads. Shoppers now have one less reason to buy the more expensive i7 over the i5.

Leaker Ice Universe claims that TSMC is manufacturing A12 prototypes using the new 7 nm process, and the performance gains over the current A11 are considerable, sitting at ~30%. However, the power consumption is not on par with what 7 nm chips should yield, and this could be caused by the lacking lithography. The A12 SoCs should be launched next year wit the tri-cam smartphones.

According to a Yuanta Securities report, Apple already expressed its interest in integrating rear tri-camera setups for its upcoming high-end smartphones. The future iPhones could get 5X optical zoom per lens and it looks like there will be at least a 12 MP sensor. Apple's tri-cam devices are slated to be released in 2019.

Lenovo has announced the M720 and M920 updates to the ThinkCentre tower, small form factor (SFF), and 'Tiny' models. These business orientated machines feature affordable price tags and optional Thunderbolt 3 and dGPU.

The 5.45-inch ZenFone Live L1 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, next to 1 GB or 2 GB of memory, a 13 MP main camera, and 16 GB of internal storage space. The pricing details are not official yet, but a price tag around the equivalent of US$107 is expected for India, where this handset should debut later this month.

Last week, the Taiwanese government announced that ZTE would have to take permission before embarking on any business partnerships with a Taiwanese company. That permission has been granted now, though, allow ZTE to do business with MediaTek.

HMD Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas has all but confirmed the company's plans of releasing a successor to the first-generation Nokia 5. This device will likely be the Nokia 5 (2018)—or the Nokia 5.1.

Nubia CEO Ni Fei has claimed that the company's upcoming Nubia Z18 will have a full-screen more impressive than the 90.36% screen-to-body ratio on the Nubia Z17s. There's a problem with that, though: The Nubia Z17s has an 81.5% screen-to-body ratio.

Although the company's representatives declined to comment so far, it looks like the "Secret conversation" option that was recently spotted inside the Twitter for Android application package is ready to bring encrypted messaging capabilities to this popular news and social networking service.

The WRT32X is relaunching tomorrow with a special WRT32XB edition designed for Xbox gamers. Its software will be tuned out-of-the-box to prioritize Xbox online and streaming traffic while still offering the same high-end features as the WRT32X. Linksys is citing the rapidly growing gaming market for the soft relaunch of its gaming router.

The latest solid state drives from Samsung have only just been launched, and they have already received price cuts. The tech giant announced the 970 Pro and Evo NVMe SSDs in April, with the devices being made available for purchase on May 7. It is now possible to obtain the drives at cheaper rates than the suggested retail prices listed in the April press release.

The Mate 10 Pro launched in the United States for $800 three months ago, but it can now be purchased for $150 less through major online retailers like Amazon, Newegg, and B&H. Huawei's mid-range MateBook D laptop will also be $200 cheaper for only this upcoming week. The temporary price cuts aim to bolster sales in the backdrop of U.S. surveillance and suspicion of Chinese-branded telecommunication devices.