Latest Tech News

A Linux user has discovered that Disney+, Disney's new streaming service, doesn't work on his Fedora machine. The problem lies with the DRM used by Disney, which implements the highest possible security level. However, Disney has stated that the streaming service will work with Android devices and Chromebooks, both of which are built upon Linux.

Two UK Banks, National Westminster and Royal Bank of Scotland, have removed their respective mobile banking apps from the Google Play Store for Samsung Galaxy S10 users. Citing security concerns, it's likely the banks' decisions were driven by the recent news that the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner used in the S10 could be fooled with a cheap silicone screen protector.

Qualcomm has commissioned a Signals Research Group (SRG) study of 5G performance, efficiency and general UX in those countries and cities to which the new radio bands have been rolled out. It reportedly found that 5G can achieve up to 10X performance compared to 4G/LTE. In addition, it is also capable of 5 times the download speeds than the older standard.

LG has revealed that the G8X ThinQ will be released for sale in the United States on November 1, 2019. This phone is a variant of the OEM's 2019 flagship designed to work with the new Dual Screen accessory. Both devices also have US starting prices and the scope for promotional deals already.

The upcoming Power 3 is now official and ready to become the handset with the most generous battery capacity that UMIDIGI has created so far. In addition to the 6,150 mAh battery, its specs also include a 48 MP quad camera, a 6.53-inch full HD+ FullView display, and a MediaTek Helio P60 processor.

Samsung has released a software patch to fix a security flaw in the ultrasonic fingerprint readers used in the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 device families. The patch should come as a notification to users who have registered their biometric data.

In a blog post published today, Google claims that its 54-qubit quantum computer Sycamore calculated a complex problem in 200 seconds. The company also estimates the same problem would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to solve. However, IBM (who owns the world's fastest supercomputer) says the estimate should be closer to 2.5 days. Either way, Google's achievement is a big milestone for quantum computing.

Huawei opened up pre-orders for the foldable Mate X today, but the phone will only be sold in China. Shipments and retail sales will begin on November 15th. Priced at roughly US $2400, the Mate X is an expensive piece of kit, especially considering it's unlikely to be sold in Western markets. Additionally, Huawei announced a more powerful foldable, the Mate Xs, which is set to be launched in March 2020.

The Hygon C86 is essentially an AMD EPYC Zen 1 chip with an additional cryptographic layer added by the Chinese joint venture company collaborating with AMD. The chip was manufactured by GlobalFoundries as a proof-of-concept, and future Hygon CPUs will most likely be manufactured through other foundries like TSMC.

Current qubit-based quantum computers are still too large and not really scalable, but the new laser-based approach allows for a highly-scalable model that can eventually achieve quantum supremacy just by splitting laser beams into "squeezable light."

Sony recently announced the Sony Xperia 1 Professional Edition. The new smartphone is largely the same as the standard Xperia 1, save for a better-calibrated display, support for transferring files from Sony-branded cameras, and support for Ethernet connections via the USB Type-C port. These small features come at a massive price increase: the Xperia 1 Professional Edition will sell for ~US $1300 in Japan only later this month.

A phone calling itself the "motorola moto g(8) plus" has been benchmarked as a Snapdragon 665 device with 4GB of RAM. These specs are in accordance with previous rumors surrounding this putative device. The new results also show that it runs Android 9.0, which suggests it could still launch this year.

"Joker" is a relatively new form of malware that reportedly acts to steal contacts and sign those with infected devices up for premium SMS services. Most recently, it has been detected in a heretofore-overlooked host on Android by the Pradeo security team. This lab has had the app removed from the Google Play Store, but potentially affected users are advised to uninstall it immediately.

The Snapdragon 735 will succeed the Snapdragon 730, and details of the SoC have now surfaced, giving us our first look at Qualcomm's next-gen sub-premium chipset of choice.

Meizu is slowly developing a reputation for offering good premium hardware at mid-range price points, and the newest device out of the company's stables, the Meizu 16T, continues that trend. A Snapdragon 855, Super AMOLED display, triple rear cameras, and a 4500 mAh battery. Price tag? US$280.

A device with a model number purportedly associated with Samsung's Galaxy A51 has surfaced on the Geekbench database. However, its results depict it as powered by the Exynos 9611, and not the next-gen 8 nanometer (nm) model rumored for its 2020 line of phones. In addition, it apparently has only 4GB of RAM.

Microsoft's latest Surface Laptop only started shipping last week and we're already seeing some issues with our review unit. If you're sensitive to onscreen flickering or are planning to use the Microsoft notebook for audio streaming or editing, then you may want to skip this model.

A screenshot of some of Walmart’s alleged console offers for the upcoming Black Friday event will have gamers giddy with anticipation if it ends up being the real deal. Those holding out on buying a Nintendo Switch could find themselves saving US$100 on either a neon blue or gray model. There are also impressive discounts on consoles from both Sony and Microsoft.

A press kit for the Fujifilm X-Pro3 digital camera, which includes many renders of the device, has already been shared on Twitter. The X-Pro3 is scheduled to be officially launched on October 23, but like every good piece of tech equipment nowadays, many of its details have already been leaked online or guessed at.

The Honor Band incorporates a 0.96-inch colour touchscreen display that operates at a resolution of 160 x 80. The fitness tracker supports NFC, along with heart rate, sleep patterns and Sp02 monitoring. The band is up to 5 ATM water-resistant too and launches at CNY 159 (~US$22), with a pre-sale starting today. The company has also unveiled the xSport Pro, a new pair of wireless in-ear headphones.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is on its way and will arrive before the end of the month, according to confirmation that Videocardz has received from its sources. The new GPU will sit between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti in NVIDIA's product stack, with its pricing reflecting that. Oddly, the GTX 1660 SUPER will outdo the GTX 1660 Ti in some areas, while retaining elements of the GTX 1660 too.

TSMC started sampling the A14 Bionic SoCs earlier than usual, as a recent Chinese report claims Apple already received the first engineering samples in late September. Apparently, there is also a downside to making the jump from 7 nm to 5 nm: the net die per wafer ratio gets reduced and 2020 iPhone prices could end up being even higher than the current gen.

In order to house the new modular platform, Intel's upcoming Ghost Canyon mini PCs will feature the largest NUC enclosures yet. This also allows for improved cooling, and it looks like Intel has also modified the layout to include a small backplane that houses the "Element" module and can support a discrete GPU and an NVMe SSD. The "Element" module itself can be powered by laptop-grade CPUs like the Core i9-9980HK, Core i7-9750H or Core i5-9300H models.

Samsung has posted a notice on its Korean website announcing that its One UI 2 beta built on Android 10 is coming soon. The One UI 2 beta has been available for the Galaxy S10 range since the middle of October but only in select markets.

The Boudica offers a bright visual experience with per-key RGB lighting and additional strip lighting across the edges of the keyboard. It's a lot of flash for not a lot of auxiliary ports or features considering the $120 USD asking price.

New benchmark scores of the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X seem to indicate that AMD's upcoming flagship CPU can offer performance equivalent to Intel's HEDT chips such as the Core i9-9980XE and the Core i9-10980XE while beating them in terms of performance per dollar. The Ryzen 9 3950X was benchmarked using Cinebench R20 at stock settings.

September’s Steam Hardware and Software Survey has seemingly delivered more good news for AMD. The survey has measured data in regard to PC processor usage by manufacturer, which yet again has been thoroughly dominated by Intel. However, the red team has enjoyed another month of considerable growth, which could be down to its Ryzen 3000 generation of chips.

The Steam Hardware and Software Survey for September 2019 has shown some interesting changes in terms of PC video card usage. Although Nvidia still dominates the overall percentage share with the GeForce RTX 2060 going strong and the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER making an appearance, AMD’s Radeon RX 590 Series leads an upsurge in GPUs from the red team.

The full details of the technical specifications for the Zeiss ZX1 camera have been published. The renowned German manufacturer announced the device back at the Photokina trade event in 2018 with availability originally scheduled to start with chosen dealers in early 2019. However, the camera has failed to materialize on the market thus far.

A new study into user attitudes towards wearables found that health tracking is the most popular use of this electronics category. 36% of those polled reported concerns that these functions may not live up to reality, however. 10% of the respondents also said they worried about data security on these devices.

With the PlayStation 5 being just over a year away, several websites have been polling their readers about the upcoming console. The results reveal not only what people would pay for the console but also how much they would like it to cost.

DxOMark has now published its Google Pixel 4 camera review. Going by the website's test criteria, the Pixel 4 is overall a worse camera phone than the OnePlus 7 Pro and Honor 20 Pro. On the flip side, it's somehow the the joint best phone when it comes to videos.

A group of new Sony PlayStation 5 concept renders have been produced by LetsGoDigital based on the recently leaked devkit photo. The images show off the busy front panel and also include the “prototype” label and the huge ventilation grilles. It may not thrill expectant future PS5 owners, but it is quite stylized for a developer kit.

TENAA has certified a new phone from the Vivo sub-brand iQOO. Its specifications are nearly identical to that of the Neo, a 2019 gaming phone. However, it has what appears to be a Snapdragon (SD) 855 processor rather than the older device's SD 845. Therefore, it seems the 2 phones are an original and refresh respectively.

Huawei has launched the Nova 5z today (October 21, 2019) in China. This new phone will have few surprises for this series' fans: it has the exact same form-factor and cameras as the Nova 5i Pro. However, it does have different RAM and storage SKUs that make it a budget option compared to the pre-existing phone.

The Steam Halloween sale is scheduled for October 28 - November 1. The Autumn sale is set for November 26 - December 3. The Winter sale will occur from December 19 - January 2.

Multiple users are reporting a failure of the Ultra WideBand U1 chip in their iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, or iPhone 11 Pro Max after updating to iOS 13.1.3. While restoring an affected iPhone's firmware has solved the problem for some, others have received replacement devices.

Last week, Twitch streamer and tipster Metro claimed that Blizzard would release Diablo 4 alongside Diablo 2 Remastered at BlizzCon 2019. Now, this has seemingly been indirectly confirmed by Blizzard in an advert for a new Diablo artbook.

A series of tests have shown the Google Pixel 4 XL hilariously outpacing the OnePlus 7T in real-world, resource-intensive processing tasks. The fact that the Pixel 4 XL has less RAM and a weaker SoC than the 7T makes it all the more impressive.

According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is planning on releasing its rumored AR glasses sometime in 2020. The glasses, while still in development, may eventually become a replacement product of the iPhone. However, a lot of work remains to be done, including the development of a "killer application."

The Intel Cascade Lake-X series launched earlier this month to the tune of price cuts and offering great value for money. However, not all looks rosy for the blue team, as its premier High-End Desktop (HEDT) chip has been resoundingly beaten by the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X in leaked 3DMark results. Intel may have even more competition on its hands with Zen 2-based Threadripper HEDT processors launching next month too.

The 3D TLC 2.5-inch SSDs will range from 256 GB up to 2 TB with AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption, TCG Opal 2.0, eDrive, and optional desktop installation bracket kits. The 256/512 GB capacities are now shipping while the 1/2 TB SKUs will come at a later date.

Razer is getting into the wireless earbuds market, according to news from China. The earbuds and their accompanying charging case look like a hybrid between the Apple AirPods and the Samsung Galaxy Buds but adorned with the gaming company's logo. The earbuds, which seem to be sold under Razer's Hammerhead branding, are available to buy now for CNY 799 (~US$113). There is no word yet whether they will be sold outside of China, though.

The Google Pixel 4 phones don't have support for shooting 4K60fps videos even though Android phones have been able to do that for well over a year. Google has now explained the rationale behind the decision but it's woefully unconvincing.

The Honor Play was released just over a year ago and has received one major update: Android Pie. That will apparently be the end of the road for the device, which is unfair to owners of the Kirin 970-powered phone. Even worse, though, is Huawei's justification for the decision.

Google is working on a ‘fix’ that is resulting in iPhone owners getting free unlimited storage in Photos online for full quality photos using its new default HEIC file format. HEIC is a newer compression technology than JPEG and the result is that iPhone owners are currently getting a free ride on full quality photo storage while Android, and even new Pixel 4 owners, are capped a 15 GB of full quality photo storage.

DeX is Samsung's proprietary facility that converts one of its Galaxy flagships into a desktop PC on connection to a monitor. One environment supported by the mode in Android 9.0 (Pie) is GNU/Linux. Unfortunately, its beta program will come to an end with the roll-out of Android 10.

The OnePlus 7T has undergone the JerryRigEverything test of device robustness. Unfortunately, it faltered during the last stage of this process. Therefore, it is the first in many generations from this OEM to do less than come through this veritable tech YouTube rite of passage with flying colors.

Olympus has unveiled its newest Micro Four Thirds digital camera, the OM-D E-M5 Mark III. This mirrorless unit is based on a 20.4MP Live MOS sensor and a TruePic VIII Image Processor. The OEM asserts that it also packs a wide range of features into a relatively compact form-factor.

LG's South Korean telecomms company has announced the debut of its new app, "U+ AR Shopping". It enables users to transform the content of 2 popular TV shopping channels into augmented reality (AR) experiences. Consumers can then leverage them to visualize and manipulate their potential purchases in 3D.