Latest Tech News

Lasso is a new short video sharing platform from Facebook designed to compete with TikTok. The new app, available now on iOS and Android, "makes it easy for anyone to create and share short videos with fun effects." Marketed at teens and young people, Lasso looks like the latest effort by Facebook to retain young users.

It appears Samsung already has grand plans for the future of the Galaxy F foldable flagship. A report from the South Korean Yonhap News Agency has stated that the tech giant intends to keep releasing new foldable phones each year in selected markets. This will be alongside the usual yearly updates to the Galaxy S series and the Galaxy Note series.

The 5G market is going to explode in 2019 and Huawei plans to be prepared for the event with the upcoming Kirin 990. This would be the company's first 5G-ready SoC manufactured on the 7 nm+ node, so it would also get a 10% performance bump over the newly launched Kirin 980 SoC. First smartphones to integrate the Kirin 990 chip are rumored to hit the market in late 2019.

Only available in a 6 GB/128 GB memory/storage configuration, the Vivo X21s can be acquired in China for around US$360 and sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, a 12 + 5 MP dual camera setup on the back with AI-driven scene detection, as well as a generous 6.41-inch display with a small notch.

Microsoft has announced that it is taking pre-orders for LTE versions of the Surface Go in selected markets. The LTE Advanced models will ship from November 20 in the US and will start at US $679 (£619) for the 128 GB SSD/8 GB RAM version.

A report from TrendForce has been published that forecasts the state of the tablet industry in 2019. Apple is expected to remain the leader in terms of market share, followed by Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo. However, it is the Chinese manufacturer Huawei that is expected to enjoy the most growth in the sector.

Stock prices for Apple have fallen again today, reaching a low of US$193.79 in the late morning. The price stood at US$204.47 at the previous close, meaning the Cupertino-based company has seen more billions of dollars wiped off its market cap. The new plunge has been attributed to an updated business outlook statement from Lumentum.

11.11 was a major sales event for Chinese and international e-sellers that took place (accordingly enough) on November 11. Xiaomi has reportedly had a marked success for the day, making US$747 million by the end of the promotional period. It was also the most popular brand in various price brackets.

The OnePlus 7 (or whatever it'll be called) will not be the company's first 5G phone keeping in mind the high costs of the technology. However, OnePlus is indeed testing 5G in Qualcomm's labs for incorporation in a possible new premium lineup. This could mean that we might see three smartphones from OnePlus next year.

Although Sony promised to deliver Android Pie on October 26 to quite a few supported Xperia handsets, the update was a bit delayed. Fortunately, the Xperia XZ Premium, XZ1, and XZ1 Compact are now finally receiving the Android 9.0 firmware. Obviously, the other supported Xperia devices should get the update in the coming months as well.

Google said that it will now allow developers to keep apps in multiple windows in a resumed state simultaneously in Android 9 Pie. Developers just need to add the required meta-data to their app's manifest to opt-in. Multi-resume is part of a series of developments to make Android more friendly to foldable screens. Although this feature cannot be tested in current devices, OEMs are expected to push out OS updates that will enable developers to test out this functionality for their apps soon.

The first press render of the upcoming mid-range LG Q9 shows a notched display with a rather wide chin, as well as a noticeable forehead. The list of specs and features includes 4 GB of memory, NFC connectivity, 32 GB or 64 GB storage, as well as a Snapdragon 660 processor. Sadly, there is no info about the launch date and pricing yet.

Sony's PlayStation Now video game subscription service is leading the market by 52% followed by EA Access at 16% and Xbox Game Pass at 15%, according to a report by analyst firm SuperData. The firm also found that the price of subscription plays a major role in consideration for gamers and that subscribers tend to spend twice as much on in-game purchases compared to other gamers.

Although the recent teaser that Samsung has posted on Twitter only says "Intelligence from within" and contains the date of November 14, it is almost certain that this is all about the launch of the Exynos 9820 processor. This chip would make Samsung the third brand to enter the 7 nm realm, after Apple and Huawei.

The upcoming foldable Galaxy phone is going to be a dear proposition for a lot of people, according to a report by The Korea Times. The Galaxy F (or X) is estimated to cost around 2 million won or approximately US$1,770. The outlets quotes analysts who say that Samsung will be getting deliveries from parts suppliers this month and the company will be ready for a launch sometime early next year.

Want to play Fallout 76 when it comes out later this week? Be prepared to stare at a loading bar. The game comes with a mandatory day-one patch that is a massive 56 GB in size. This is in addition to the 45 GB base game, meaning that gamers will need about 100 GB of free space. This patch has only been confirmed for the PS4, but considering the game's buggy beta, the PC and Xbox One versions are likely to have similar day-one patches.

A feature in the latest Pokemon game, Pokemon Let's GO, may get you to load up your game of Pokemon GO on your smartphone. Pokemon that trainers have captured in Pokemon GO can be transferred to Pokemon Let's GO on the Switch. There are a few caveats, but almost every pokemon in Pokemon GO can be transferred.

CloudFlare has released a new app that will route your Android device's internet traffic through its local services, effectively changing your phone's DNS. While this may be a boon for privacy advocates that bemoan the lack of DNS server choice in Android 8.1 (and below), there are a few caveats. The biggest is that the app acts as a VPN, preventing users from accessing any other VPN at the same time.

Bargain-hunters have spent a record US$30.8 billion via Alibaba in a single 24-hour period to celebrate Singles’ Day. The company managed to rake in US$1 billion worth of sales in just the first 85 seconds of the special shopping day. Singles’ Day is mostly celebrated in China by young single individuals, who take the opportunity to treat themselves to some famous brand-name goods.

Microsoft Studios has revealed a release date for the much-delayed third installment in the Crackdown series. Crackdown 3 will be launched on February 15, 2019, and it is currently available to pre-order for Xbox One or PC gamers. The action-adventure title offers single-player and multi-player modes in a huge futuristic world created by Unreal Engine 4.

Unbeknown to most users, other resellers have been offering the same Walmart design for months. Walmart, however, has the clear advantage in price and volume and is able to offer the same exact chassis and specifications for hundreds of dollars less.

Looking for a laptop with the Core i9-8950HK CPU? Then either Aorus or MSI would be your best bet if you want to get the most that the pricey Intel CPU can offer. We compare 9 different laptops equipped with the same Core i9 CPU to see which comes out on top or bottom.

LaCie, a subsidiary of Seagate, has released its latest portable SSD with USB type C. The company claims that it can transfer data at up to 540 MB/s and support up to USB 3.0 standards. The LaCie type C portable SSD is also supposedly shock-proof, despite its carefully styled 9mm-thick chassis.

The Black Shark is Xiaomi's take on a gaming phone. It is powered by up-to-date hardware, although it lacks a headphone jack. Xiaomi has announced that it will release this phone into the European market on November 16.

The 6T is the late-year refresh of the OnePlus 6T. XDA-Developers has reported that the company has sold 86% more 6T units compared to those of the 6 on its first day on sale in the United States. This is almost undoubtedly due to OnePlus' new partnership with T-Mobile.

Get the Blade 15 in light gray for the same price as the standard black at $2200 USD. Razer has been pushing its line of Blade laptops harder than ever these past two years with the refreshed Blade Pro and introduction of the Blade 15.

In a deal struck with Apple to begin selling the newest Apple products, Amazon has announced it will ban unauthorized third-party sellers from listing or selling Apple products through Amazon. While sellers can become an authorized Apple reseller, the qualifications are far out of reach for most small businesses. This move will inevitably kill many small businesses and Apple resellers that rely on Amazon as a storefront.

Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring both Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment today at X018, Microsoft's Xbox conference. Obsidian is perhaps best known for titles like Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Microsoft may be acquiring these studios to prop up the Xbox One's library of console exclusives.

Samsung has officially unveiled the W2019 luxury flip-phone, which will be available for pre-order from November 11. The rather striking device with a clamshell design features a high-end Snapdragon 845 SoC, two 4.2-inch S-AMOLED displays, and it comes in a choice of either Platinum or Rose Gold. It will only be available for pre-order for the Chinese market through the state-owned telecommunications provider China Unicom.

The LG G7 Fit is a sort of 'mini' (albeit mainly in terms of specs) variant of the flagship G7 ThinQ. It was announced at IFA 2018, but was not made available in certain markets on release. However, LG has stated that it will go on sale in more regions from now on.

The 2018 Macbook Air comes with a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8210Y processor and 16GB of RAM at best. A suspicious new listing on Geekbench 4 details an Apple laptop with the same motherboard as the Macbook Air, but with a faster i7 chipset. Could this have been an early prototype, or is there a better class of affordable MacBook coming soon?

The Nintendo Switch finally got a YouTube app yesterday, bringing the world's most popular video streaming service to the console. However, Netflix and Amazon are still absent. The lack of video streaming services on the console is becoming a sticking point for some, especially considering that the Nintendo Wii, which is 12 years old, offers Netflix, Hulu, Amazon video, and YouTube.

While TSMC's new 7nm is already quite popular, being the basis for several processors from companies AMD, Apple, and Huawei, even more are announcing that they too will be fabricating their products at TSMC using their new process. Nvidia, Qualcomm, and more will be ordering chips from TSMC in 2019.

The upcoming PlayStation Classic has been found to use the open-source PCSX ReARMed emulator to run its games. The emulator has been developed by retro gaming enthusiasts, not Sony. It's curious that Sony opted to use an emulator rather than develop their own system for the retro console.

The team over at iFixIt has published a complete teardown of the new MacBook Air Retina. While soldered storage and an integrated keyboard count heavily against the device, new pull tabs under the battery and a separate logic board for the dual Thunderbolt 3 ports make some components easy (well, easier) to repair. Overall, the MacBook Air Retina scored a 3 out of 10 for repairability.

Panasonic has revealed a cluster of upgrades for its Toughbook 31 device. The newly enhanced version of the fully ruggedized notebook will now come with an Intel Core i5-7300U and 16 GB RAM as standard, and it will also feature improved communication equipment and a second battery option. The device will be available in the US in December, at a price starting from around US$3,699.

Nvidia's entire mobile Pascal GeForce lineup has been Max-Q-ified conveniently before CES 2019. With seemingly no other major Pascal or Max-Q products to release for laptops, the time looks ripe for an official announcement about mobile Turing in the coming months.

Remember Samsung's DeX? While that program has so far been a failure, it had led to Linux on DeX, an exciting new feature for select Samsung Galaxy devices. Linux on DeX will allow users to load a full desktop Linux environment within an app container on their Android phone. After connecting their phone to an external monitor, users will be able to enjoy a full desktop Linux experience, all running off their Samsung Galaxy device.

Final Fantasy XV, particularly its benchmarking tool, has been a source of excitement for several months due to Turing performance leaks and DLSS support. However, Square Enix reports that they have now cancelled all future development for the game and will no longer deliver content they promised, including DLC, and perhaps DLSS support, modding tools, and a Vulkan API implementation.

The EverythingApplePro YouTube channel's drop and bend test is an increasingly common staple of each new iPad release. This year, its host Filip Koroy found his optimism about the iPad Pro 2018's durability daunted as he put the 11-inch variant of this new tablet through the procedure.

The Pixel 3 series of phones is now linked to overheating, leading to complete shutdown. Numerous users claim that their units do this while charging, whereas one or two assert that it happens while doing tasks such as using the camera. Google has yet to act on this new issue with its latest smartphones.

A new leak detailing Xiaomi's plans for the release of Android Pie has surfaced. According to the sources, devices like the Mi Mix 2 and Mi 8 phones are all set to receive the Pie update before the year runs out, while offerings like the Mi Note 3 will have to wait till Q3 2019 next year.

Huawei will begin sending out the stable Android Pie update to its current-gen flagships tomorrow. The update comes in the guise of an EMUI 9.0 update, the same software on the newly launched Mate 20 phones.

Micron has announced that it has commenced mass production of the industry's highest capacity monolithic 12 Gb LPDDR4x DRAM for mobile devices. The latest LPDDR4x chips aim to offer double the memory capacity while consuming lesser power and still retaining the same footprint as the previous generation.

A teardown of the newly launched OnePlus 6T reveals that the company is using an optical in-display fingerprint sensor. The camera that recognizes the fingerprint gets light from the AMOLED display that shines the light only in one direction (towards the camera). Overall, the implementation is well done and this could pave the way for in-display selfie cameras in future phones.

At the ongoing Android Dev Summit, Google talked about how Dark Mode can have a positive impact on battery life, especially when it comes to OLED screens. Google happened to look at various parameters that affect power draw such as brightness and color. Hopefully, this means future Android versions will have an option for a native OS-level Dark Mode.

Intel has released a new graphics driver for 6th Generation Core processors onwards that is available now to download for Windows 10 devices. The driver has been optimised for the release of Football Manager 2019, and brings performance improvements and fixes for several other games including Warhammer Vermintide 2 and Assassins Creed Odyssey among others.

AMD hinted during its recently concluded Next Horizon Event that the Zen 4 microarchitecture is in the design phase. No further details were revealed but chances are that it will be using an advanced node for this architecture that could debut in 2021 or later.

Asus and AUO are leading the charge when it comes to narrow bezel 17.3-inch laptops. With the ROG GL704 and TUF FX705 now shipping, we can expect competing OEMs to expand their respective lineup of 17-inch laptops by next year at the earliest.

Sony has discretely launched its quietest PlayStation 4 Pro yet with the CUH-7200 that is only available as part of the Red Dead Redemption 2 bundle (CUH-7216B). The CUH-7200 brings a revised power supply and better acoustics with almost no cooling system whine or fan noise during gaming.