Latest Tech News

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.

After spending a bit over a month in the Beta stage, Microsoft Launcher 5.0 is finally available for everyone as a stable release. The most important changes are the introduction of an updated Your Feed page and Windows Timeline support, but there are various other goodies in store as well.

Amazon's voice assistant Alexa is now available for all Windows 10 devices via the Microsoft Store. The Alexa app offers almost all features of the assistant but does miss out on some features such as Spotify integration. Alexa is also slated to get PC-specific capabilities in early 2019.

The Honor Magic 2 stands out among new smartphones, as it is only the 2nd device in the world to be equipped with a slide-down display for a completely bezel-less screen. It was released in China on November 6, 2018. Now - only 2 days later - it is reported as completely sold out in the country's main outlets.

A strange bug in Microsoft's activation servers is causing deactivation of several Windows 10 Pro licenses and prompting users to install Windows 10 Home. Trying to purchase a Pro key from the Store is apparently not solving the problem. Fortunately, Microsoft is aware of this issue and said that it is working to resolve it at the earliest.

This year's Samsung Developer's Conference (SDC) has been interesting already. This is mainly due to the Infinity Flex Display that had finally been confirmed during the event's first day. However, other SDC presenters made announcements that indicate that Samsung also has non-foldable displays in the works - with notches.

Korean media outlet ETNews reports that the Exynos 9820 SoC will feature two neural processing units (NPUs) for aiding in AI and deep learning operations. The Exynos 9820 is a 7 nm part made using the new EUV process and is expected to power the next generation of Galaxy phones including the Galaxy S10.

The Fossil Sport smartwatch is now available for order as of today (November 8, 2018). This is the first smartwatch from this brand with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. The Fossil Sport also comes with 6 colors of interchangeable silicone strap.

Frank Azor has just confirmed that the new top end hardware configurations for the Alienware m15 gaming notebook will arrive in about 60 days if everything goes as expected. This means that both the high- and low-end configurations will probably arrive at the same time, most likely by mid-January.

The new Huawei Matebook 13 has the camera (finally!) placed above the display and is powered by an Intel Whiskey Lake-U processor. With a screen-to-body ratio of 88 percent, this compact notebook also features NFC connectivity and will be available — most likely next month — in gray, silver, and rose gold.

Xiaomi's upcoming flagship, the Mi 9 could be the first smartphone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8150 according to supply chain sources. The Mi 9 will also sport the latest Sony IMX586 48 MP sensor for its main camera, up to 10 GB RAM, and an in-display fingerprint sensor making for an impressive spec sheet.

Samsung's new One UI based on Android 9 Pie will be released sometime next year but apparently, that includes only the latest Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9 devices. According to a Samsung representative at the ongoing SDC 2018, the Galaxy S8, S8+, and the Note 8 will not be getting the new One UI user experience. However, it is not clear at this stage whether these devices will be getting the Android 9 Pie update separately or not.

Google has announced that it is bringing official support to Android for devices with foldable screens. The news coincides with the launch of Samsung’s new Infinity Flex display that will feature on its forthcoming foldable Galaxy F. ​

Samsung has used its Developer Conference 2018 to introduce its next generation custom Android 9 Pie-based user interface design. Dubbed One UI, the new interface has been designed to simplify the user experience by reducing clutter. ​

New renders of the Nokia 9 seem to confirm Nokia's plans of a penta-lens camera setup. The Nokia 9 is expected to be HMD Global's first PureView-branded Nokia phone, wherein the special emphasis will be on the imaging prowess of the device. The Nokia 9 is also likely to sport a 5.9-inch QHD display and possibly an in-display fingerprint sensor.

At the Samsung Developer Conference 2018 (SDC 2018), Samsung showed off their first working foldable display smartphone. The actual details about the device itself was kept under wraps but Samsung is calling this display 'Infinity Flex'. Samsung said that this foldable AMOLED display is designed to be folded hundreds of thousands of times and is also making an emulator SDK along with guidelines available for developers for testing their apps. Some of the specifications of the foldable display are also now available.

Oppo sub-brand Realme will be first brand to launch MediaTek Helio P70-powered smartphones globally. This was confirmed by Realme CEO Madhav Sheth. The MediaTek Helio P70 octa-core SoC is being built on TSMC's 12nm FinFET process and is designed for enhanced AI functionality. Additionally, Sheth also confirmed on Twitter that upcoming Realme phones will also feature Oppo's Super VOOC fast charging technology.

Not a fan of carbon fiber? Dell will begin offering brushed aluminum options for its top Latitude laptops later this month. The unexpected cosmetic feature is a tease for more Latitude announcements to come in January.

8BitDo has just released a wireless controller adapter for the Switch and Windows PCs. The GBros. Wireless Adapter for Switch allows gamers to connect Gamecube controllers, NES and SNES Classic controllers, and the Wii Classic controller to either the Nintendo Switch or a Windows device (running compatible software) wirelessly.

The new design language allows for a screen-to-body ratio as high as 95 percent without sacrificing the original positioning of the webcam. The new series will carry Whiskey Lake Core i5-8265U or i7-8565U options with a starting price of $850 USD for the 13.3-inch model.

Today marks the last official update for the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, the last phones in Google's storied Nexus line. While the phones haven't seen a software update since getting Android 8.1 Oreo in February 2018, the Nexus handsets have been receiving security updates every month, the last of which was pushed out today.

A new set of leaks from Weibo suggests that the upcoming OPPO R19 will have not 1 but 2 selfie cameras embedded directly into the display. This putative new step in smartphone design would result in a near-100% screen-to-body ratio. The new leak also alleges that the R19 will have 6GB of RAM.

A new report by Kantar World Panel indicates that the number of iPhones sold in Europe in the third quarter of 2018 fell by 1.6%. This may have been driven by increased competition from Xiaomi and Huawei. These brands are also now contending with more established brands such as Samsung in the region.

AMD's Next Horizon event held yesterday was important for not only AMD's datacenter business but also for the company as a whole. AMD finally has revealed key information on Zen 2, Rome, the 7nm, new Vega GPUs, and what it means for AMD's business.

Pictures of the Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ Special Edition have surfaced online. The exact specs of the card are still unavailable but we should be knowing more information close to the official announcement on November 15. The RX 590 is based on the new Polaris 30 architecture, which is being made in a 12nm process. Sapphire and other AIBs have retained the existing RX 580 designs for this refresh.

LG has filed patents with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) for a few smartphone designs sporting borderless screens and in-display front cameras. The patents seem to show that LG could be using a flexible display with either a slanted screen or a straight screen with rounded corners sporting an oval hole at the top for housing the selfie camera (or two) thus yielding a virtually 100% borderless screen with no notch.

New images and a video of another prototype of the upcoming Asus ZenFone 6 have leaked online. These images confirm the presence of a right side lateral notch that was first revealed in earlier leaks. There are some differences between the current leaks and the images leaked earlier indicating that we could be looking at multiple ZenFone 6 variants. That said, MWC 2019 is still some time away so expect further changes in design and software features before launch.

During Christmas time, Amazon traditionally hires thousands of seasonal workers to meet the sharp rise in demand. However, the number of these workers is said to be declining by almost 20,000 this year. The reason for this is the ongoing automation.

Google’s first Chrome OS tablet is now up for pre-order following its unveiling early last month. The new Pixel Slate follows is the company’s latest attempt to crack the tablet computing market dominated by Apple’s iPad.

The plan was to show a short video presentation on the state of the Diablo 4 project right after the Diablo Immortal unveil, but Blizzard feared that fans would be disappointed even more. Diablo 4 is said to have been in development for 4 years, still the project has changed direction a few times and the current state is not entirely clear either.

Intel may look like it is doing well right now, but the production problems will hit it hard in 2019. AMD ill not cut it any slack and will hit hard with the new 7 nm CPUs, but Intel has some retaliation plans, at least on the server side of things. The upcoming Xeon Scalable CPUs slated for late 2019 will integrate Multi-Chip Packaging technology that allows to fit 48 cores on a single chip, plus 12-channel DDR4 support.

OPPO and Pokemon have teamed up so that the OEM can offer its newest power bank with a trademark yellow-and-black Pikachu theme. Appropriately enough, this device has the next generation of OPPO's impressively fast VOOC charging system.

SK Hynix managed to beat Samsung and Toshiba once again in being the first one to unveil a flash memory product. This time, it is the world's first 96-layer 512 Gb 4D NAND flash chip. Mass production will start before the end of the year and the first products to use the new chips should show up in the first quarter of 2019.

DJI is putting a number of its drones, including the Mavic Air and Spark, on sale for the Black Friday season. This sale also includes the Osmo 2 Mobile and Racing Edition Goggles. This promotion is starting later this month.

Available for Microsoft Windows since October 2013, Path of Exile finally became available on Xbox One consoles in August 2017. Now, the PlayStation 4 version is finally (almost) ready to roll out, as it should arrive — if everything works as expected — by the end of next month. Sadly, cross-platform support is not in the cards yet.

The first Lenovo Lecoo Unmanned Store is located in Beijing, at the company's tech campus. Its goal is to help Lenovo test its facial recognition, electronic payment, IoT, AI, and AR technologies. The catch is that Lenovo tablets are being used instead of the human staff one would expect to see in a store.

Aside from the flagship Snapdragon 8150, Qualcomm is also working on two mid-range SoCs — the Snapdragon 6150 and Snapdragon 7150. All that is known so far is that these are octa-core SoCs and are based on the updated 'Kryo' cores. Further details of the chips and probable launch dates are still elusive.

Powered by an unspecified processor — most likely a low-end MediaTek chip — the 10.1-inch NOOK Tablet 10.1 comes with 32 GB of internal storage space and promises more than 8 hours of autonomy. Those interested will find this US$129.99 slate in Barnes & Noble stores starting on Wednesday, November 14.

Design consultancy Special Projects has unveiled a new user interface approach to multitasking that uses AR technology. Seeking to emulate a physical real world work flow, the interface allows users to switch naturally between applications and move between tasks on a smartphone as though they were working naturally on multiple tasks at a desk.

More than three years since Adobe Systems completed the acquisition of the Fotolia microstock agency, this service that provides more than 57 million high-resolution royalty-free images and videos has finally been integrated into Adobe Stock.

Apple has instructed its smartphone assemblers Foxconn and Pegatron to halt plans for allocating additional production lines to the new iPhone XR model sensing low product demand. Another iPhone assembler, Wistron, has been ordered to standby for any rush orders. Interestingly, Apple has ordered increased production of the year-old iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus from its suppliers.

A recent posting on Geekbench's benchmark site shows a Razer Phone 2 running Android 9.0 Pie. This could mean that Razer is testing Android 9 on their latest handset and may be releasing an update soon. This would put the Razer Phone 2 in an elite class, as only a handful of other phones are running Android 9.

Samsung Mobile has uploaded an image of a folding Samsung logo to its official Facebook page hinting at some possible news this week about the much awaited foldable smartphone. This could be an indication of Samsung announcing new details about the foldable Galaxy, or Galaxy X as we know it, at the upcoming Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco. Details such as a new UI that Samsung has exclusively developed for the foldable Galaxy are expected to be revealed at this event.

Apple has raised the prices for the repair of the iPad Pro 2018. Repairing one of those devices will now cost 40 euros more compared to the previous generation. The prices without Apple Care+ are now so high that for many people it would probably make sense to just buy a new iPad.

Some Huawei Mate 20 Pro owners have been complaining about the display of their brand-new flagship device. A green hue has been seen on faulty handsets, to the extent that it becomes quite visible under certain conditions. The cause of the verdant tint has yet to be fully explained; affected consumers have been offered replacements in some countries.

Apple’s share price fell below the US$200.00 mark today, reaching a low of US$198.17 at the time of writing. The continued stock plunge has devalued the company from its previous trillion-dollar valuation; market capitalization currently stands at US$950.8 billion. In early October, the share price stood at just over US$230.

The OnePlus 6T will soon be available in a Thunder Purple variant as spotted by a leakster on the OnePlus India support page. The new variant was briefly listed on Amazon Germany as well before it was taken down. The Thunder Purple variant will have a gradient color with various shades and will likely sport a glass back. It is not known when this variant would be made official but the current leaks seem to suggest a possible launch by the end of this month.

Motorola has announced that it is bringing one of the two Android handsets that it currently has in its lineup. The new Motorola One will land in the US on November 11 for US$399.

Till now, WhatsApp has remained mostly free of the advertorial trappings of its parent company Facebook. All of that is set to come to an end, though, as a WhatsApp executive has confirmed that the messaging app will soon start displaying ads. How the data needed for such targeted ads will be collected remains a mystery.

Xiaomi's Poco F1, a few days ago, received the stable update to Android Pie. The company has also confirmed that the device will, at least, also receive the Android Q update next year. The F1 is marketed as a enthusiast-focused phone, so this is a welcome piece of information.