Latest Tech News

The live image recently discovered by Evan Blass on the website of The Wireless Power Consortium reveals a handset without a notch that might feature front-facing stereo speakers. The latest rumors mention a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, dual 16 MP main camera, a 6-inch display, 6 GB RAM, and 64 GB internal storage.

After a history of more than 16 years, the popular content discovery and advertisement engine StumbleUpon is drawing its last breath. On June 30, all user accounts and content will move to Mix.com, a similar service that offers better compatibility with today's mobile platforms and web browsers.

He may be known as the "Father of Android," but that does not look to have saved Andy Rubin's Esssential. According to Bloomberg, Rubin is actively shopping around the company he founded less than two year's ago following lackluster sales of its Android-based Essential Phone PH-1.

Apple could beat Qualcomm to market with the first consumer smartphone equipped with a 7 nm SoC. Its custom A12 processor is predicted to power the next generation of iPhone and iPad devices coming later this year. As usual, the iPhone maker is keeping quiet until its annual WWDC press event next month where refreshed MacBooks are also rumored to make an appearance.

A monthly worldwide digital games market report has been released by SuperData, and it appears to have been yet another spectacular month for Fortnite. Apparently, the battle royale title from Epic Games earned revenue of US$296 million in April, smashing March’s estimate of US$223 million. Other big winners for the month were God of War and Honour of Kings.

Epic Games has published a new State of Development post for Fortnite detailing upcoming changes for the battle royale giant. Apparently, a new Playground Limited Time Mode will be introduced that will allow players to explore the map without fear of being instantly obliterated by a hardcore Fortniter. The Playground LTM will offer gamers the chance to practice building techniques and respawn if downed by friendly fire.

It has been reported that an Amazon Echo device recorded and then sent out a husband and wife’s private conversation without their permission. The Alexa-enabled smart speaker sent the audio file to a random contact who just happened to be an employee of the husband, who then warned them about the surreptitious recording.

BlackBerry Mobile has released a new teaser clip for the KEY² smartphone. The brief video shows that the device will feature a dual-camera system and reveals a new button on the keyboard that has fuelled speculation in regard to its purpose. Full details about the KEYone’s successor are expected to be given at the June 7 launch event in New York.

Samsung wanted to prove that it is in no way behind TSMC when it comes to manufacturing process milestones. Even though TSMC is already rolling out a good chunk of 7 nm chips for various companies, it still does not use the EUV tech. Samsung will make full use of the EUV lithography by mid-2018, and then it plans to release 5 nm, 4 nm and 3 nm chips by 2022.

Chromebooks could soon get a substantial performance boost, as the Chrome OS developers are planning to support Intel's Kaby Lake-G CPUs that come with the dedicated AMD Radeon RX Vega M GPU. The first Chromebook that would include such specs is codenamed "Kidd" and it was discovered mentioned in the Chromium code commit repository.

Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, has issued a press release to announce that the Honor 10 flagship smartphone has already managed one million sales. This is an impressive feat, considering the device was only released in China on April 27 and received a limited global launch on May 16. The Honor 10 has been praised for offering high-end features for a mid-range price.

Acer's ChromeBook Tab 10 has been available since March, but Acer had one on display for us to take a quick look. It continues to be the first slate tablet in the market running Chrome OS. Convertible notebooks running Chrome OS already exist such as on the Lenovo ThinkPad 11e or HP ChromeBook x360 11. Like most newer Chromebooks, the 9.7-inch ChromeBook Tab 10 supports the Android Play Store.

Nintendo has been spotted applying for a trademark for the N64 in Japan. This has led to further speculation that the Japanese company could be developing a smaller “classic” version of the renowned console. The original Nintendo 64 was released in 1996 and sold over 32 million units worldwide. It was discontinued in 2003.

There has been a report published stating at least 500,000 networking devices around the world have been infected by malware known as VPNFilter. It has been speculated that Russian state-sponsored hackers are behind the attack due to the activity specifically aimed at devices based in the Ukraine. Apparently, VPNFilter offers both intelligence-gathering and destructive capabilities.

The popular Grammarly web app saw a UI revamp a short while ago. While the new minimalistic design does look better, that may have come at the expense of a slight hit to the user experience.

MediaTek has unveiled its new SoC, the Helio P22. The chipset is built on a 12nm manufacturing process and will offer stiff resistance to SoCs like the Snapdragon 450 and Kirin 659.

HTC has finally unveiled its new device, the U12+. The flagship sports a 6-inch QHD+ Super LCD display, a Snapdragon 845, IP68 certification, a quad camera setup, and a host of other features that make it one of the most impressive devices so far this year—on paper at least.

An official reveal trailer for Battlefield V has been released, and it certainly doesn’t skimp on drama and intensity. As expected, the action takes place in the battlegrounds of World War II and features arguably less familiar settings such as the destroyed city of Rotterdam and the frozen landscapes of Norway. The game is scheduled for general release on October 19.

The ROG Swift PG27UQ from Asus packs in almost everything anyone could want in a monitor: 4K, HDR, G-Sync, and a 144 Hz refresh rate. Asus will also sell the monitor pre-calibrated to professional-grade standards with excellent color accuracy and color space coverage. However, the ROG Swift PG27UQ will chew through wallets at USD $2,000.

During the Next@Acer event today, Acer announced new 14 and 15.6-inch versions of the Acer Swift 3. The smaller model is available in Stellar Blue, Sakura Pink, Lava Red, or Sparkly Silver while the larger model comes in gold or Sparkly Silver.

The new Acer Swift 5 15.6-inch is a larger version of the Swift 5 which uses magnesium alloys to keep the weight under 1 kg. This is an impressive feat for a laptop of this size and it puts the Swift 5 15.6-inch in competition with the LG Gram 15 in features, build, and hardware.

With the announcement of Nvidia's GeForce Partner Program, Asus thought it would be wise to differentiate its GPU brands into ROG (for Nvidia) and Arez (for AMD). Since the GPP was killed in its infancy, speculators were quick to proclaim that the Arez brand will cease to exist as well. Asus retorted promptly, dismissing any greatly exaggerated rumors.

A new paper compiled by LG and Google researchers stipulates that the human eye has a resolution of about 9600 x 9000 pixels with a FOV of 160 x 150 degrees. The new LG OLED VR screen is not there yet, but i certainly seems to be the best on the market right now, with its 4800 x 3840 resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, and a 120 x 96 degrees FOV.

Less than a month since it surfaced with Android 8.0 Oreo onboard, the upcoming Samsung SM-T835 tablet hits the GFXBench database with Android 8.1. The graphics performance is slightly lower with the new software version, so it might take a while before they launch this 10.5-inch slate.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Special Edition is a sleek limited-edition variant of the standard Helios 300. A new 144 Hz IPS display has been used, and the chassis uses an unusual all-white with gold trim design. Acer plans to discontinue this variant within a few months of sales starting.

Nintendo is now selling a cheaper Switch bundle without a TV dock or AC adapter. By sacrificing these accessories, gamers can save ¥5,000 (~$45). Unfortunately, the bundle is currently exclusive to Japan, and there's little chance Nintendo will release a stand-alone Switch in the West anytime soon.

Available for phones and tablets that run at least iOS 9 or KitKat, Google Family Link allows parents to control the content available on their children's phones and tablets that run Nougat or later. Launched in the US back in September 2017, this service is now available in no less than 38 countries worldwide.

The latest BIOS update for the Dell XPS 15 9575 convertible should take care of the fans issue, revealed Frank Azor on Twitter yesterday. In the last month, more users complained that the fans of the new XPS 2-in-1 are extremely loud even under light load, some of them even stumbling into this problem on more than just one XPS 15 9575.

First shown as a futuristic concept phone, the Vivo APEX is officially launching on June 12. The device avoids a display notch by incorporating a retractable selfie-camera that pops out of its chassis when required.

Unlike the Aorus Gaming Box, the Razer eGPU promises to work with MacBooks and is much larger in volume to support 3-slot graphics cards. The new Core X is already in stock and shipping for $300 USD sans a GPU. The announcement comes on the same day as the reveal of the first 15.6-inch Razer Blade laptop to compete with the MSI GS65.

It has been 20 years since the original Unreal first-person shooter appeared on PCs around the world. The classic game was released on May 22, 1998, and it spawned a whole franchise of best-selling titles. To celebrate Unreal’s birthday, both GOG and Steam are offering the game as a free download for a limited time.

The SiSoft Sandra benchmarks reveal that the upcoming Coffee Lake-S octa-core/16-thread CPUs will be compatible with current chipsets and the soon-to-be-released Z390 platform. The test prototype is clocked at 2.6 GHz by default, has 18+2 MB cache, and managed to score 237.032 GOPS, making it slightly faster than a 4.4 GHz i7-8700K.

Razer managed to squeeze the 15.6-inch systems inside the older 14-inch Blade chassis. This makes the new Blade gaming laptops some of the slimmest models on the market to date. The refreshed specs include Intel's gen 8 hexa-core CPUs coupled with 16 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, and, depending on the budget, users can choose among a GTX 1060 or 1070 Max-Q GPU, FHD or UHD displays and 256/512 GB SSDs.

Meizu is set to unveil its next device, the M6T, at an event in China, on May 29. The device will sport a dual rear camera setup and 18:9 device, and will go against Xiaomi's recently released Redmi S2.

CEO of Xiaomi, Lei Jun, has announced that the company's Mi Max 3 will be unveiled in July. Details of the device remain unconfirmed but it's expected to be powered by a Snapdragon 660.

Present in Google's corporate code of conduct since 2000, the "Don't be evil" motto was changed to "Do the right thing" in 2015 for use in Alphabet's code of conduct. However, Google did not drop this slogan until late April/early May, when all references to it have been apparently removed.

The Design Director of Porsche Design has slammed smartphones with notched displays. Christian Schwamkrug has said that he wouldn't allow the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS to join the bevy of smartphones with notched displays in 2018.

US customers not happy with the three color choices locally available for the Samsung Galaxy S9 lineup might want to wait for a little longer, because it looks like the Sunrise Gold option might reach them in the coming weeks. Even better, it is rumored that the Burgundy Red Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will land stateside as well.

LG has updated its popular Q6 with new Q7 models that the company is touting feature audio quality usually reserved for high-end devices, but at a mid-range price point. The new models retain the basic features of the 5.5-inch FullVision display Q6 design, but come with a number of tweaks.

The pre-launch event has proven successful in building even more hype surrounding the impending launch of the OnePlus 6. At least a couple hundred visitors were at the 4-hour event with many interested in purchasing the smartphone right away. For everyone else, the flagship phone will become available online starting May 22, 6 AM PST in two color options.

A 2016 study has high hopes for gamers even though consoles and physical discs are not anywhere near where they used to be a decade ago. Mobile gaming could rise to 68.4 billion USD in market value by the end of this year compared to 59.8 billion in 2017 with Fortnite, PUBG, Candy Crush Saga, and Pokemon Go leading the pack in terms of popularity.

A new variant of the GeForce GTX 1050 GPU has been spotted on the Nvidia website. The latest addition to the GTX 1050 series is the GeForce GTX 1050 (3 GB). The GeForce 10 series was released in 2016, and the GTX 1050 GPU originally came in the forms of a 2 GB base model and a 4 GB Ti model.

It appears the innovative RED Hydrogen One smartphone is to be made available through AT&T and Verizon. Pre-orders for the novel device that sports a holographic screen are no longer being accepted at RED’s website, whereas Verizon is allowing those interested to sign up for updates. AT&T is planning a demo for the RED Hydrogen One in Los Angeles, June 2-3.

Epic Games has published a news post announcing the company’s intention to offer US$100 million in prizes for Fortnite tournaments taking place over the 2018-2019 season. This is a massive boost to the burgeoning eSports sector, which has thoroughly embraced mobile gaming. Fortnite is expected to be released on Android in summer.

The Chinese branch of HMD Global reported that the entire stock of 700,000 Nokia X6 devices pre-sold in just 10 seconds. Another pre-sale is scheduled for May 31 and the stock is expected to be larger. Since the Nokia X6 already proved to be a hit in China, HMD Global now intends to bring it to the Western markets.

Major cities in the US and across the globe are testing 5G services throughout this year, and some areas might even get limited 5G connectivity in the second half of 2018. Tis has prompted some OEMs to pressure Qualcomm into allowing them to integrate the X50 5G modem and maybe even the upcoming Snapdragon 855 SoC in several smartphones that could launch by the end of 2018.

The rumored Samsung Galaxy S8 Lite is now official in China as the S Light Luxury. Its highlights include a 5.8-inch Infinity Display with 2,220 x 1,080 pixels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage, and a 3,000 mAh battery. The phone has no dual camera setup and can be pre-ordered for the equivalent of US$578.

Control your smart home with a compatible Acer laptop. The free update will begin rolling out today for Spin 3 and Spin 5 owners with more on store shelves beginning in June. Instead of offering the software as an option, however, owners will have one more pre-installed software application that they will have to manually uninstall if they have no interest in Alexa or if they prefer Microsoft Cortana.

Chief Product Officer at HMD, Juho Sarvikas, has confirmed that the Nokia X6 will be launched for the global market soon. The device was released in China last week, and is likely to be sold as an Android One device when it makes its way outside the country—whenever that is.

The $300 USD gift card will apply to new purchases of the MateBook X Pro made through Amazon and NewEgg in an attempt to create buzz. The promotion will end after June 10. Huawei's latest 13.9-inch laptop is thicker than its last but also significantly more powerful to justify the larger dimensions.