Latest Tech News

The direct successor of the original Chromebook Flip by Asus, namely the Chromebook Flip C434, was unveiled back in January, at the CES 2019 trade show in Las Vegas. Now, this Chrome OS convertible is finally available for purchase directly from Asus at US$569.99 (Intel Core m3-8100Y inside, with i5 and i7 variants to follow).

The supposed specifications for a Samsung Exynos 9710 SoC have been leaked. According to the new information, the chip will be manufactured on an 8nm process, just like the high-end Exynos 9820 found in the international variants of the Samsung Galaxy S10. It’s likely this potential successor to 2018’s Exynos 9610 SoC will be used in midrange smartphones.

Daedalic Entertainment has just announced its development of the game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. However, a seemingly innocuous comment by the CEO of the company to The Hollywood Reporter has sparked some speculation that this action-adventure game could end up being one of the first titles to appear on the next-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

There is a rumor that AMD has been working on its own version of ray-tracing technology that could be incorporated into the red team’s expected Navi 20 series. The same source speculates that this high-end lineup could challenge or even surpass the ray-tracing capabilities of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards.

A report out of Korea has suggested that the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 could end up being a button-less phablet. It appears the South Korean manufacturer has been considering a partnership with a Chinese company called NDT that specializes in “force touch solutions”, so the eagerly anticipated flagship might come with a pressure-sensitive display or frame.

The project made $10000 USD in 10 minutes. The manufacturer is promising an E-Ink Android tablet that can do it all including note-taking, web browsing, e-reading, and more for a price of $400.

Huawei also introduced some new products to complement its latest flagships, the P30 and P30 Pro. They include the FreeLaces, a pair of 'neckbuds' with an innovative design. The OEM also now offers a power bank with its SuperCharge technology, which can charge at 40 watts: enough for laptops as well as smartphones.

In response to the massive media attention around Operation ShadowHammer yesterday, Asus has released a fix for the affected software (Asus Live Update Utility) to patch the security holes used in the attack. The company also released a tool that allows users to check their systems for any traces of the malware. Links to both the online tool and instructions on updating the Live Update Utility are included below.

MSI will be running 3v3 tournaments all week from their booth and livestreaming your games on an 85-inch television for all passersby to see.

OnePlus is among the latest smartphone makers to adopt the pop-up selfie cam design for its upcoming flagship model. The latest leaked renders also show the rear triple-cam setup and three gradient color options, while the rumored specs include a Snapdragon 855 SoC coupled with up to 12 GB RAM, up to 256 GB storage and a thin bezel 6.5-inch AMOLED display.

Microsoft plans to implement the new Fluent Design framework across the entire Windows 10 OS, and File Explorer appears to be the next part to get the new look. Apart from new transparent and reworked visuals, File Explorer will finally support tabbed windows and sets. This revamp is scheduled to be introduced with the 2020 major update.

Funcom, the name behind Conan Exiles, has teamed up with Rock Pocket Games to deliver a new horror title for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Its name is "Moons of Madness" and should arrive during this year's Halloween season and shares the same thematic universe with Funcom's Secret World Legends.

A year after the P20 Pro stunned the world with its cameras and snatched the top place on DxOMark's leaderboards, Huawei is back with a successor. The P30 Pro is better than all other smartphones in the still photography department, and holds an almost ridiculous advantage in zoom quality due to its 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and 50x digital zoom. Selfies also see a huge improvement.

Huawei also revealed the existence of some new wearables at its early-2019 launch event in Paris. The least expected of these are the new 'smart' glasses the OEM has developed with the eyewear company Gentle Monster. Their main function is in fact to deliver audio via Bluetooth, and also charge via a new and interesting route.

Huawei has just released its new P30 flagship series in Paris. Its specs line up pretty well with the various leaks that have already been spilled about the 2 phones in question. They are available from today (March 26, 2019) and start at €799 (about US$900).

Samsung is currently sending out the Android Pie update to users of the Galaxy Note FE. The Note FE wasn't included in the company's Pie update roadmap, so this is a pleasant surprise. The update doubles up as the March security patch and also brings Samsung's new One UI.

The Mi 9 SE has been spotted on Xiaomi's Global Compliance page, which alludes heavily to the device being set for a global launch. On the flip side, Redmi has confirmed that the Redmi Note 7 Pro will not join the regular Redmi Note 7 on the global stage, and will instead remain exclusive to India and China.

Sony has revealed in a PlayStation blog post that 4.2 million PlayStation VR headsets have been sold worldwide up to March 3. The PlayStation VR device was released in October 2016 and had passed one million sales by June 2017. A new Iron Man VR game has also been announced, which should help Sony shift a few more PSVR units.

Samsung goes big with the latest member of the Galaxy A family, which has a generous 6.7-inch display with a 21:9 aspect ratio. The Galaxy A70 comes with a 32 MP triple camera setup on the back, an octa-core processor, 6/8 GB of memory, 128 GB of internal storage space, as well as a 4,500 mAh battery with fast charging.

Researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research have successfully demonstrated a large scale random retrieval of data from a DNA molecule in the quest towards exploiting the properties of DNA for massive capacities and long term storage. The researchers used short molecules called DNA primers for random access of data at specific sites. The technology is still restricted to the lab for now but this proof-of-concept shows immense potential and prospects for the future of data storage and retrieval.

Samsung Galaxy S10 customers fitted with the company’s semi-custom Exynos 9820 SoCs are reporting some highly disruptive bugs. The first causes the device to wake up in a pocket or bag while the second is causing the battery to drain fast after a VoiP app has been used to make a phone call.

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold has been given a European pre-order go live date of April 26 with availability from May 3. This means the vaunted 2,000 euro device will hit the hands of customers in the US and home market of Korea leaving continental mainland customers looking on in envy.

Lenovo has surprisingly announced that the Z6 Pro device will be revealed on March 27. Few confirmed details are known about the upcoming flagship smartphone from the Chinese manufacturer, although it apparently features a HyperVision camera for creating Hyper Videos. It is also expected to come with 5G capability.

UDOO recently ran a campaign on Kickstarter for the UDOO BOLT single-board computer, and the developers of the device managed to secure US$635,769 in crowd-sourced funding. It’s likely many investors were attracted by the claim that the BOLT is “almost twice as fast as the MacBook Pro 13”. The Ryzen-powered board should start shipping by the end of the month.

Nvidia has announced the availability of the GeForce Game Ready 419.67 WHQL drivers that bring optimizations to several games, including Battlefield V’s new battle royale mode, Firestorm. Gamers can download the latest drivers through the GeForce Experience application or directly from the company’s website.

Apple subsidiary Beats will be launching its first pair of truly wireless earphones imminently. The discovery of the name PowerBeats Pro and black and white versions was uncovered by 9to5 Mac in the code for iOS 12.2 which went live today.

Apple's latest release event debuted Arcade, a new elaboration on the App Store's gaming experience. The company claims that over 100 new and original games have been developed for this new subscription-based service. It is also ad-free and allows offline play.

Kaspersky Labs earlier today wrote about an attack they discovered in January that compromised Asus' Live Update Utility. The attack affected 57,000 Kaspersky customers and may have hit as many as 500,000 computers around the world. Dubbed "Operation ShadowHammer," the attack injected a Trojan into the Live Update Utility and used authentic Asus software certificates to install itself onto targeted systems.

The Aero 15-Y9 is over $1000 more expensive than the Aero 15-X9 and yet both configurations perform about the same in all of our tests. Is there really a reason to get the pricier version? Based on our numbers, the less expensive Aero 15-X9 is the better option by a very wide margin.

Apple Card brings together hardware, software, and services to deliver a complete financial management and payment experience focused on providing "a healthier financial life" to its customers. This solution comes with a rewards program called Daily Cash, no fees, low interest, a physical titanium card for payments at locations without Apple Pay support, and more.

HMD Global may have come out of the storm of the Nokia 7 Plus's case with data violations relatively unscathed but the company will not be able to breathe a sigh of relief, as yet another Nokia device has been caught up in an unfortunate incident. According to reports, a Nokia 3.1 has exploded in the hands of a user in Europe.

The Cupertino giant has unveiled the next generation of its TV arm. However, it is not a device; rather, it is a software- and content-based upgrade. The new Apple TV app allows users to cherry-pick channels or streaming providers at need. They could also add Apple TV Plus: the company's new panel of original shows available via subscription.

Warner Music Group has signed Endel, the stress-reducing sound app, in what is the first algorithm to sign with a major label. Endel promises to release a total of 20 albums by the end of the year and has launched an Amazon Alexa skill that is the first to use predictive mechanics.

Apple News just got a spinoff that includes 300 magazine subscriptions and is simply called News+. Available for US$9.99 a month (the first month is free), this service is also rolling out in Canada in both French and English. Australia and the UK will follow later this year as well.

Transparency Market Research's latest report is based on the observation that the demand for a 'smart' or 'connected' living room is growing steadily these days. It may consist of entertainment or media hardware that works seamlessly together via wireless controls. Currently, the market that underpins this idea is worth about US$500 billion; however, this is estimated to nearly double over the next 5 years.

Although it might take a while for it to hit the market, Xiaomi's latest battery charging tech — dubbed "Super Charge Turbo" — puts all other fast charging solutions currently available to shame. In a Weibo video shared by Xiaomi's co-founder Lin Bin, this 100 W charging solution is shown fully charging a 4,000 mAh battery in just 17 minutes.

The months of December 2017 through to January 2019 have been associated with declining smartphone sale numbers in the United States on a year-on-year basis. Counterpoint, a market analysis firm, cited the lack of deals on flagships and the government shutdown as factors in the trend as it applied to January.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 625-powered Motorola One is now finally reaching India alongside the Moto G7, which has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 inside. Both handsets have been around for a while in other areas, but Indian customers now get both of them running Android Pie out of the box.

The blog TechPowerUp claims to have accessed the new Intel Graphics Command Center's INF file. It apparently lists the various sub-types of the new, particularly powerful Gen11 integrated GPUs. They may also pertain to Ice Lake and Lakefield CPUs.

Vivo has announced that it will partner with Tencent Games in order to sponsor the annual PUBG Mobile Club Open 2019. This involves competitive battles of the game in question in 10 regions worldwide for an ultimate prize of US$2.5 million. These players will be provided with Vivo hardware in order to play in this tournament.

Samsung's first flexible device, the Galaxy Fold, is now officially displayed on its website as a saleable product. These pages describe the Fold's SoC as a "7nm 64-bit Octa-Core Processor", leading to worries that it may not necessarily be the Snapdragon 855 processor in all markets. However, an analysis of its firmware appears to confirm that this is in fact the case

Mozilla's Firefox for iOS has finally received an update with a set of features tailored for the iPad tablet, such as tab management, split-screen support, single-click private browsing, a comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts (for those using an external keyboard with their iPad), and more.

Dell Support has informed a customer that any non-factory settings to the processor, such as undervolting, are not covered under warranty. This seems a bit contrary on their own policy, which clearly mentions that the warranty becomes void only if component damage occurs during this process and not by mere change of voltage settings.

Recently introduced in Russia, the Samsung Galaxy A20 will apparently come to other regions with a few minor hardware changes and a slightly different name. Powered by a Samsung Exynos 7885 processor, the Galaxy A20e has been certified by both the Wi-Fi Alliance and Bluetooth SIG. This handset will probably launch globally on April 10.

Described as "the ultimate digital board game," the 21.5-inch Archos Play Tab is a tablet that runs Android Pie and promises to hit the European market for a sub-US$300 price tag just in time for this year's "Back to School" period. The processor brand and model are not public yet, but we should expect a MediaTek Helio P-series chip.

Alleged laptop data has been leaked that mentions an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q design. Although a mobile version of the Turing-based graphics card has been expected for some time now, a Max-Q variant is a new development. Max-Q technology aims to improve energy efficiency but at the cost of performance.

Google’s Stadia cloud-powered streaming gaming service looks to be a technological marvel. However, in order to deliver its full potential gamers will need a robust internet connection.

Nintendo has two new Switch gaming consoles in the works for launch this year. According to the Wall Street Journal, one will be a cheaper entry-level model and the other targeted at more serious gamers.

Codenamed Robusta2 and also known as the Motorola P40 in China, the upcoming — but yet to be confirmed — Motorola One Vision was recently spotted on Geekbench with Exynos 9610 onboard and loaded with Android Pie. Now, what appears to be the first press render is out, and it suggests that the handset will launch in April.

Leaked information about some potential upcoming laptops from Asus suggests that the Taiwanese manufacturer is preparing to reveal devices that feature both Picasso and Turing technology. Three different models are mentioned that combine two different AMD Ryzen APUs with seemingly three Nvidia GeForce GPUs. Asus has already released gaming laptops with the new Picasso chips but not with an Nvidia GPU.