Latest Tech News

A filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the Samsung Galaxy M10 smartphone has thrown up a couple of new details about the device. The M10’s measurements have been specified at a length of 155.7 mm and a width of 75.88 mm, and the display diagonal has been confirmed as 153.2 mm, which is equivalent to 6.03 inches.

Motorola has officially confirmed the start of the Android Pie update rollout to its Moto G6 Plus mid-ranger. There’s no word on when the cheaper G6 phones, the G6 and G6 Play, will receive their own updates, though.

A certificate granted by the Wi-Fi Alliance for the LG Q9 has been spotted by Droid Shout. The certification listing offers a little bit more information about the upcoming smartphone, such as that it will operate on Android 9 Pie and will support the 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi standards. The mid-range device is expected to come with a Snapdragon 660.

A recent study by Privacy International found that at least 20 Android apps with install bases in excess of 10 million users automatically send user data to Facebook within one second of opening. This data is sent without user knowledge or user consent and ranges from innocuous to personal. This practice obviously raises some questions of legality, although it is difficult to say who is to blame for the violation of user privacy.

A dedicated fan of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has spent the past few years working on a remake of the classic title in Unreal Engine 4. He recently released a demo of the first village and dungeon, and the results are stunning. The fan, known as CryZENx, has said that he will continue working on the project throughout 2019.

Royole is an OEM whose main claim to fame is that it released the first ever flexible smartphone. It is bringing this product to CES, alongside others that, as the company claims, include electronics-enhanced clothing, a "smart writing pad" and more flexible displays. Royole asserts that the latter are ready for production.

Under normal circumstances, the most up-to-date version of Windows begins to drag in a majority of market share (defined as the percentage of PCs that run it) in the year of its release. Windows 10 1809 has not enjoyed this level of success so far. In fact, according to a new report by AdDuplex, it has only attained 6.6% of the total market share from 2016 to 2018.

The second-generation Vivo Nex was received with a distinct amount of interest, particularly due to the way in which its dual-screen design addressed the need to use its single compound camera module for selfies. Now, a new TENAA page for the OEM suggests that a version of the phone with the mid-tier Snapdragon 710 processor is on the way.

A new leak has surfaced, giving us our closest look so far at the Nokia 9 Pureview. Notable features include a massive penta-lens setup at the back, what appears to be a dual selfie setup at the front, an under-display fingerprint sensor, and the absence of a notch.

After Essential officially declared that it would no longer be selling the PH-1, a cryptic tweet by the company's Head of Research and Development has once again stoked the flames, and fans of the company may now share a lingering hope in the existence of an Essential PH-2.

Listings on Newegg, Data-Systems.fi, and Synnex (now taken down) detailed new Coffee Lake Refresh CPUs. Intel has yet to officially announce any new 9th-gen CPUs, but these listings give a good idea of what to expect from the Core i9-9900KF, Core i7-9700KF, Core i5-9600KF, and Core i5-9400F.

With its Surface series, Microsoft has released a very popular series of mobile devices in recent years. However, this line up has had a big disadvantage so far: Except for the Surface Go, none of the devices has USB Type C. This could change in the future, as a new patent from Microsoft shows.

Citing predictions that the 2018 iPhone line may soon enter a destocking phase, Citi Research cut production estimates for the iPhone XR, iPhone Xs, and iPhone Xs Max by a collective 10% (50 million to 45 million). Most of this cut was driven by lowered expectations of the iPhone Xs Max; Citi Research estimates Apple will produce only half as many iPhone Xs Max units as previously predicted.

An article published by iDrop News reports than an Ohio man has suffered injury from his iPhone XS Max catching fire whilst in the back pocket of his pants. Apparently, the device was completely destroyed in the incident, and the blaze also damaged his pants and burned the skin of his buttocks. It seems the individual is now considering legal action against Apple.

The Android One program is becoming increasingly popular due to the apparent certainty of two years' worth of regular updates for the phones sold under it. Recently, however, Google has removed the text to this effect from the Android website, leading to user fears that this pledge was being rescinded. However, the company has asserted that this is not the case.

The Snapdragon Wear 3100 release event included announcements that Louis Vuitton would be one of the first OEMs to launch a smartwatch including this next-gen processor. It seems the fashion house has finally delivered with a new version of its Tambour Horizon device. This model may have improved battery life and ambient mode features.

As a sort of early holiday present, Samsung announced that the Galaxy S9 and S9+ would be updated to Android 9.0 (Pie) from December 24 onwards. However, few regions have actually seen the upgrade for these devices as yet. Some users who have managed to install it may face more battery drain than usual.

Competition in the smartphone industry has led to sketchy advertising practices, especially in China where such shenanigans are almost encouraged. Fake camera samples, technically correct claims, and a circus of intentional crookery.

More renders of the Huawei P30 Pro have surfaced, revealing its vertically stacked quad rear camera setup that is touted to be capable of 10x zoom, an industry first. The P30 Pro will likely be launched in Q2 2019 and will be powered by the company's top of the line SoC.

Months after sending out the Pie beta update, Huawei has finally begun the rollout of the stable Android Pie update. There’s a slight issue with that, though: Honor flagships aren’t part of the initial rollout.

Xiaomi 2019 flagships are touted to be the Mi 9 and Mi Mix 4. Both devices will be powered by the Snapdragon 855. They will also both sport three rear cameras, with the Mi 9 expected to be the first Xiaomi device with that feature. The Mi Mix 4 could also feature a unique lens technology.

Sony has released a new wall charger. The brick is USB-PD-compliant and supplies just under 40 W at its peak, and a total power output of 46.5 W. The fast charger will work on all devices with USB-PD support, which makes for a rather long list.

The RTX 2060's previously rumored specs are now confirmed, as well as pricing. Starting January 15th, the RTX 2060 can be purchased for $350 and offers 1070 like performance as well as support for ray tracing.

Google has updated its Messages app to help identify and block spam. The new feature is starting to find its way to users, although it isn’t clear how far and wide the rollout is at this stage.

Samsung’s first Galaxy Unpacked event for 2019 is only a couple of months away now and the leaks continue to trickle out. The latest is a case maker’s render obtained by serial leakster Ice Universe that shows what it expects the Galaxy S10 Lite to look like. Based on the information that has leaked out about the device so far, we have no reason to doubt its general accuracy.

Samsung has already announced the Galaxy Home smart speaker, and it appears the South Korean tech giant could already be working on another device in the new series. The Galaxy Home is expected to be a premium-level device, but in a market saturated with budget-accessible speakers, it seems Samsung has taken note and is preparing a “mini” version of its upcoming smart speaker.

The LG G7 ThinQ will reportedly have access to an official, stable update to Pie (Android 9.0) in the first quarter of 2019. This is according to a Korean-language document that appears to be a company roadmap for the software updates to come for the OEM's most recent flagships in 2019.

Microsoft has reportedly begun to induce PCs to download and install the latest Windows 10 update, whether the user seeks for it or not. The company claims that this is necessary to protect devices against security threats. However, there are a number of workarounds for this situation.

Sound on Display is a technology by which the audio associated with a display emanates from the screen itself, thus eliminating the need for inbuilt speakers. LG has demonstrated this innovation in TVs; now, Samsung appears poised to integrate it into smartphones. The OEM's take on this breakthrough may be showcased at CES 2019.

According to word on the grapevine, Samsung could be testing out Android Pie on the Galaxy A5 (2017). Not particularly noteworthy until you realize that the A5 was released on Marshmallow, and a Pie update would be the third major OS it receives.

More renders of the upcoming Nokia 9 have surfaced, revealing a device without a notch on its front, and with a massive penta-lens array on its back. The Nokia 9 is expected to be unveiled next month.

Turbo Boost becomes the deciding factor that gives the Dell laptop a slight edge in CPU performance even though the Asus uses a newer Intel processor. Even so, the ZenBook carries a few other advantages to make it worth considering especially in regards to price and storage.

Samsung is finally set to bring Android 9 Pie to the Galaxy Note 9 from January 15. Currently in closed beta testing, the upgrade will bring Samsung’s vaunted new One UI overlay designed to declutter and streamline the user experience.

Essential Products has revealed that there are no plans to add “new inventory” to its stock of Essential Phones, which basically means the device is being discontinued. The smartphone was released in August 2017 and was widely commended for its design and performance. It’s believed around 150,000 of the PH-1 devices were sold.

A new variant of the AMD Radeon RX 590 has been spotted by HEXUS. The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 8GD5 OC has been listed on the Sapphire Technologies website. However, it seems the only difference between the latest addition and the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 8GD5 Special Edition is the color. The new version of the GPU comes in a black shroud.

Epic Games is now sitting on US$3 billion in gross profits this year. According to a new article in TechCrunch based on the claims of a 'knowledgeable' source. This level of success is (somewhat obviously) made off the back of Epic's flagship, Fortnite. It is a particularly impressive claim, considering that this title's revenue is largely derived from in-game purchases.

Michael Gartenberg describes himself as "Former Sr. Marketing Director @Apple, ex Jupiter Research, Gartner & other stuff" on his Twitter bio. He also now implies that he is unhappy with the iPad Pro 2018's build quality on this platform, as he documented his return of this product in a Tweet.

Apparently the 11 series of GeForce GPUs actually do exist, with the 1160 coming soon to a Lenovo laptop. These GPUs will allegedly be based on the current Turing architecture but without RTX support, meaning prices should be much lower than the RTX series.

A new LG patent has surfaced showing a device that features rollable OLED display technology. Similar to the foldable smartphones that are headed our way in 2019, this is a much more radical approach that will yield devices that can be both incredibly compact yet can be unrolled to reveal a large display.

With already half the smartphone camera market cornered, Sony has unveiled what it thinks will continue to drive OEM interest in its camera sensor technology. It’s new 3D-capable rear camera sensor features the same type of Time of Flight technology found in the front-facing Face ID camera in Apple iPhones with Face ID and it has got Apple interested, reports Bloomberg.

Google’s upcoming mid-range phones have leaked extensively over the past few months. A new report claims that the two devices, the Pixel 3 Lite and Pixel 3 XL Lite, are billed to be launched in spring 2019.

George Zhao, President of Huawei’s Honor sub-brand has revealed that the company saw a 27% year-on-year rise in shipment numbers across the first three quarters of the year, a figure that was likely helped along by the releases of popular devices like the Honor 7X and Honor 10 this year.

Reuters has reported that President Donald Trump might issue an executive order that would effectively ban US companies from using telecommunications hardware from either Huawei or ZTE. Both Chinese companies have faced accusations of sanction-breaking and national concerns over privacy and the possibility of being utilized for state-sponsored espionage. ZTE recently paid a huge fine of US$1.4 billion for not complying with US trade restrictions.

A test feature rolled-out by Instagram has been met with the apparent universal disapproval of the social network’s army of fans. The updated software meant Instagram users had to swipe through feeds in a horizontal manner rather than via the tried and tested vertical scrolling method. Unsurprisingly, the update was rapidly rolled back.

A zero-day security patch for Internet Explorer versions 9 to 11 is reportedly bricking Lenovo laptops. This patch, known as KB4467691, is apparently preventing mobile PCs of this brand with less than 8GB of RAM from starting Windows. There is no official fix for this issue at the time of writing.

Leaked renders of a Motorola phone are believed to be of an upcoming entry to the company’s P series, most likely the P40. The images show the device with a punch-hole camera, which is becoming increasingly more popular with major smartphone manufacturers. On the rear of the phone there is a vertically aligned dual-camera setup, with a 48 MP sensor present.

A Twitter-based leaker claims to have found a Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) certification for the full list of Gigabyte/AORUS graphics cards to incorporate the RTX 2060 GPU. According to this extensive listing, the two brands are making no less than 40 separate SKUs of this line. They range from 3 to 6GB in capacity, are either GDDR5 or GDDR6 and cover many form-factors and editions, from Mini ITX to AORUS Extreme.

The new Google ad featuring Macauley Culkin reprising his role as Kevin McCallister has been a smash hit racking up over 31 million views on YouTube since it was published on December 19. However, it appears that there might be two versions of the clip circulating; one with the standard Pixel 3 XL as we know it with a notch, and one with what could be an Easter Egg showing a variation of the same device, but with the notch hidden (or absent altogether) but with an edge-to-edge screen.

Amazon has revealed in a press release that the company has had a record-breaking holiday season, with products such as the updated Echo Dot and the Fire TV Stick 4K helping drive sales. The press release also described how Alexa has been utilized hundreds of millions of times during the festive period. The major American tech giants have finally had a reprieve at the stock market, making gains as consumer spending turns positive.

Some retailers have started offering Sony’s PlayStation Classic console at a much reduced price. In the USA, potential buyers can find the device for US$59.99, whilst those interested in the UK can get their hands on the mini console for £49.99. Sony released the PlayStation Classic on December 3, and it has been met with a generally lukewarm response.