Latest Tech News

Two devices with the brand Google have recently secured FCC approval. They are most likely to be the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, which are estimated to be released in October. Interestingly, there is no similar certification for the Pixel Watch.

After a highly public campaign to pass the bill SB822, which will serve as a replacement for the FCC's Net Neutrality rules, the legislative branch of California has approved the bill. Assuming the Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signs the SB822, California will be yet another state that has its own Net Neutrality laws.

Details of the upcoming Pixel 3 have been sparse but we finally get a look at Google’s next compact flagship, with all available information giving it the appearance of a more compelling offering than the Pixel 3 XL that leaked earlier this week.

Word of the Mi Mix 3 has been scarce but there's a chance we get it sometime next month. There's also been word of another Snapdragon 710-powered Xiaomi device in the works.

Huawei ended support for bootloader unlocks a few months ago but, apparently, that isn't where the company ends its battle against community development.

Xiaomi’s new Poco F1 may be a great device but the company has gone the extra mile to make us all appreciate that fact, by advertising the F1 using pictures taken by the flagship Mi Mix 2S.

The Huawei Mate 20 has been spotted in the wild by a keen observer during IFA in Berlin. The device features a distinctive square rear camera arrangement, so the photo looks legitimate. That said, it is not especially surprising a Huawei representative would have the device in hand given its official launch in London next month.

Bloomberg sources have alleged that Google and Mastercard have signed a deal in which the former gets access to the latter's users' data. This partnership has apparently been in effect throughout 2018, and lets advertisers track spending in order to analyze the success of their online campaigns.

The upcoming Windows 10 feature update for this year will be called the October 2018 Update. This update focuses on stability, overall polish, and under the hood improvements so not too many groundbreaking features are being planned. As usual, the rollout will be staggered and eligible devices will receive it first followed by others pending any major issues.

Huawei has officially announced the long-awaited Kirin 980 at IFA 2018. As expected, the chipset has a new die-size, as well as a new ARM core in some of its clusters. Huawei also claims that it outdoes its predecessors in terms of graphics and AI performance.

devolo's new home networking solution, Magic, is a form of mesh WiFi that also uses Powerline technology. It does so using next-generation G.hn chips and new, AC-adapter mesh points. devolo claims that this combination can drastically increase domestic WiFi speeds.

Apple has announced that it is offering free logic board replacements for affected iPhone 8 devices purchased between September 2017 and March 2018 in select markets. Apple said that a small percentage of iPhone 8 devices had a defective logic board that resulted in unexpected restarts and frozen screens.

Google is apparently working on a credential provider that allows users of G Suite to logon to Windows 10 PCs using a Google account. A Google administrator can create a Google Accounts and ID Administration (GAIA) account that allows enterprise users to logon to their Windows 10 PC and access Google services. This feature is still in code review stage and a possible rollout date is not yet known.

At its TechLife event at IFA 2018, Lenovo unveiled the world's first Qualcomm Snapdragon 850-powered 2-in-1 — the Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS. The Yoga C630 has an integrated Snapdragon X20 LTE modem and promises a 30% performance increase compared to the previous generation while still claiming to offer battery life north of 25 hours.

We’re massive fans of the Meizu 16 devices and the company has something even more interesting in the works. The Meizu 16X is billed to be a slightly less powerful version of the Meizu 16, while being offered with a mid-range price tag.

ZTE has unveiled its new Axon 9 Pro at IFA. The device isn’t a particularly bad offering by the embattled OEM but certain details on its specifications sheet are sure to leave fans of its predecessor, the Axon 7, underwhelmed.

Blackberry has launched a cheaper model of the Blackberry KEY2 that was released a few months ago. The KEY2 LE features a weaker SoC, smaller battery, worse cameras, and less memory than its pricier sibling.

Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, has launched its Honor Play gaming phone for the European market. The device is the cheapest Kirin 970-powered smartphone on the market and its price tag puts it directly against Xiaomi’s new Poco F1.

Huawei is set to unveil the new Honor 8X next week, The device will be launched alongside a bigger Honor 8X Max, a direct competitor to Xiaomi’s Mi Max 3.

Asked about the raw gaming performance in current games, Nvidia’s Director of Technical Marketing Tom Petersen stated that the new RTX 2000 GPUs are between 35% and 45% faster than the Pascal cards. However, upcoming games may perform better if they are specifically coded to take advantage of the new Turing Tensor cores that facilitate the DLSS tech.

It was a rough H1 for ZTE, but the Chinese company is now rising from what looked like a "half past dead" situation. Latest financial report presents losses cumulating US$1.1 due to the US trade bans and fines, and ZTE does not look too affected by this outcome, as its production capacity is back on track. ZTE is also planning to be among the first OEMs to launch 5G handsets next year.

The 15-inch Zephyrus S GX531 will launch in late September with the 17-inch ROG GL704 Scar II to follow a few days later. The new Zephyrus will be thinner and leaner than the GX501 at just $1900 compared to almost $3000 when the GX501 launched last year.

Although some details are still lacking from the official announcement, the Motorola One and Motorola One Power are now almost ready to hit the market. While the Snapdragon 625-powered Motorola One will be available in Europe, Asia, and the Latin America, the larger and more powerful One Power will only launch in India.

There are good reasons to settle for a less expensive configuration other than cost. Systems with less powerful components have less heat to dissipate and are therefore more likely to run cooler and quieter than their more powerful alternatives. The ROG GL504 series is the latest example of two visually identical SKUs with very different performance profiles.

Although this Chinese brand is premiering multiple 5G technologies in Berlin this week, it looks like ZTE will not be able to deliver its first 5G phone on time. Previously announced to arrive in early 2019, the device has been now pushed to the last part of the year for undisclosed reasons.

No-one in your video-conference session can see what you're doing with your own screen, right? Wrong, say a team of cybersecurity researchers. They have developed a new system, Synesthesia, to convert audio from your mic into the website you're looking at.

Three years since it surfaced as a Kickstarter project and over a year since it became available for purchase in Japan, the Sony FES Watch U finally gets an official introduction in Europe. This "fashion watch" will go on sale in the region mid-September starting at 599 EUR.

When Lenovo released this years lineup of Legion gaming laptops, they were a downgrade in terms of GPU performance. A few months after launch, Lenovo will rectify this – at least when it comes to the less expensive Legion Y530.

Acer talked about the upcoming Swift 7 notebook during its IFA 2018 keynote and while there was only a dummy product on display, the company notes that the notebook will slim down even further and feature ultra-narrow bezels yielding a 92% screen-to-body ratio and a passively cooled Intel 'Amber Lake-Y' Core i7 processor.

We had an opportunity to play around with the new Dell Inspiron 7000 2-in-1 notebooks at IFA 2018 and were glad to see that the 15 and 17-inch versions sport the '1D10' version of the NVIDIA GeForce MX150 GPU. The '1D10' version of the MX150 can operate in a 25W TDP envelope, which should allow better performance in games and demanding applications.

Apple's next-generation iPhone and Watch have been leaked in press renders. Said to be called the iPhone XS, the new iPhone is depicted in Gold while the new Apple Watch Series 4 confirms rumors it would pick up a larger display.

Ever wonder what the GS65 could look like in white? The gaming laptop will be getting a new coat of paint with tons of free editing software to attract business users and editors alike. The rest of the chassis is the familiar MSI gaming laptop we've come to know.

Polaroid has updated the instant camera for the 21st century in the past. Now, it is continuing in this vein with the new Mint digital camera/printer combo device. For those not in need of a camera, Polaroid also now offers the Mint compact digital photo printer.

Ticwatch is the increasingly familiar smartwatch-related brand of Mobvoi. Its latest model is the Ticwatch Pro, a watch with premium materials. In addition, it has both LCD and AMOLED displays. The company claims that this will help the Pro's battery last longer.

Huawei is ready to launch its premium mid-range Honor 8X lineup on September 5. The Max version will feature the Snapdragon 660 SoC and a 7.12-inch IPS LCD screen with a more discrete notch plus slim bezels. For now, only the 4 GB RAM / 64 GB storage version has been confirmed, but a 6 GB / 128 GB storage should also be available at launch.

With its single-sided M.2 2280 package, the XPG SX6000 Pro NVMe SSD can fit PCs, as well as compact laptops and mini PCs. The new Realtek PCIe Gen3x4 controller coupled with second gen 64-layer 3D TLC NAND memory chips can deliver sequential read speeds of up to 2,100 MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,500 MB/s. Capacities range from 256 GB up to 1 TB.

At IFA 2018, we managed to have a brief hands-on with the HTC U12 Life. The U12 Life is a mid-range smartphone sporting the same 6-inch display as the flagship U12+. The U12 Life offers 16 MP + 5 MP dual rear cameras and a 13 MP front camera with LED flash.

The quad-core Whiskey Lake i5-8265U and i7-8565U CPUs are both coming just in time for the Holiday season. The slim Lenovo Yoga S730 will be one of the first to carry the processors when it launches this November for $1000 USD.

Lenovo is carving itself a niche in the Chromebooks space by offering a large convertible in contrast to the sea of smaller and cheaper alternatives. The extra girth has allowed for higher-end specifications and a potentially smoother experience when multitasking and running Android applications on Chrome OS. Still no built-in stylus, unfortunately.

Why use a boring ol' physical keyboard when you can use a 1080p E-ink touchscreen instead? The second generation Yoga Book is as unique as a netbook can get with its combination of a primary 10.8-inch 1600p IPS display and a secondary 10.8-inch 1080p E-ink display for a launch price of $999 USD.

It's not easy categorizing a growing lineup of products for consumers to understand when new models are constantly being introduced. Lenovo will be changing its Yoga branding to something more self-explanatory for shoppers and the general consumer starting with the new IFA 2018 lineup.

The new 15-inch model will be significantly more powerful than its smaller 14-inch sibling, but it will also be dropping specific features including WQHD HDR and the proprietary Side-Dock. A NumPad will be omitted despite the size increase. Expect the ThinkPad X1 Extreme and its ThinkPad P1 workstation equivalent to retail for close to $2000.

The intricate and unique watchband hinge of previous Yoga 900 models will be dropped in favor of more powerful Dolby Atmos speakers starting with the Yoga C930. Much of the core hardware and processor features remain identical to the outgoing Yoga 920.

The MediaTek-powered Chromebooks were "built for Android Play Store Apps" with USB Type-C video-out and charging for added versatility. Lenovo will soon have Chromebooks from as small as 11.6-inch in screen size to as large as 15.6-inch.

Intel is announcing new 'Whiskey Lake-U' and 'Amber Lake-Y'-series processors as successors to last year's 8th gen 'Kaby Lake-R' U-series and 7th gen 'Kaby Lake-Y' CPUs. These new CPUs will continue to be a part of the 8th generation family and feature improvements to connectivity and battery life. The 15W 'Whiskey Lake-U' series starts with the Core i3-8145U and goes all the way till the Core i7-8565U while the 5W 'Amber Lake-Y' series starts with the Core m3-8100Y and tops out with the Core i7-8500Y. All processors feature support for Hyperthreading and the Whiskey Lake PCHs sport integrated USB 3.1 and Gigabit Wi-Fi controllers (partly). Update: Process and PCH updates

At IFA 2018, Honor took to stage to give us a glimpse of the Honor Magic 2 smartphone. The Magic 2 sports an all-screen design with slide out cameras and is powered by HiSilicon's 7nm Kirin 980 SoC. Not many details were divulged by Honor apart from the fact that the smartphone comes with a 40W charging mode.

Sony has finally launched its first smartphone with an OLED display. The new XZ3 is also its most contemporary flagship design in some time, which should go a long way to giving the Japanese tech giant its first smartphone hit in years.

Skagen has released its second-generation smartwatch. The new Skagen Falster 2 maintains the style of the original, but adds more functionality so that it can compete with the best on the market.

Alongside the ZenBook Flip convertibles, Asus has also announced new ZenBook ultrabooks in 13, 14, and 15-inch form factors. All ZenBook models come with a high screen-to-body ratio of 95% and the smaller variants use the trackpad area as a virtual NumberPad. Internally, all the new ZenBooks include the new Intel 'Whiskey Lake-U' CPUs with the ZenBook 15 offering graphics options up to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q.

Asus has unveiled updates to its ZenBook Flip lineup of convertibles. Both the ZenBook Flip 13 and Flip 15 sport even more slimmer bezels than their predecessors and come upgraded with the latest Intel 'Whiskey Lake-U' CPUs. The ZenBook Flip 13 features a unique Precision touchpad that doubles up as the Numpad while the ZenBook Flip 15 offers a PANTONE-certified display with NVIDIA discrete graphics.