Latest Tech News

The second-generation Spectacles camera glasses by Snapchat no longer feature a yellow ring that alerts people and can also shoot images, not just video. Capable of shooting underwater, this new accessory also comes with faster syncing, a slimmer frame and charging case, prescription options, and a price of US$149.99.

An impressive reveal trailer has been released for the upcoming game Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The latest title in the famous franchise is scheduled for September 14 and will be available on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One platforms. The action adventure has been developed by Eidos-Montréal and Crystal Dynamics and will be published by Square Enix.

American technology company Essential has opened up its online store to customers from a number of other countries. Previously, only US residents could get their hands on the Essential Phone (PH-1), but now the company’s products will be available to people in the UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan. The California-based firm is believed to be currently working on the PH-1’s successor.

In the recently announced Q1 2018 earnings report, AMD's CEO Lisa Su mentions that the company is already testing 7 nm Radeon Instinct GPUs, which should be sampling later this year. This GPU series is most likely part of the Vega 20 family that appeared in previously leaked roadmap slides. Spec-wise, the Instinct looks to be a solid competitor for Nvidia's Volta AI GPUs.

Oppo's A3 smartphone is among the first mid-rangers to feature the trendy notched display, which usually comes with high-end models. Also included are a large 6.2-inch FHD+ LCD and the MediTek Helio P60 octa-core SoC clocked at 2.0 GHz coupled with 4 GB of RAM and an impressive 128 GB storage capacity. The rear cam gets a 16 MP sensor, while the selfie shooter gets only 8 MP.

Although there are supposed to be no Samsung phones in North Korea and the country is well-known as a totalitarian dictatorship, smuggled Samsung smartphones are very popular in the country. According to a South Korean news outlet, the number of mobile subscribers in North Korea reached 5 million this year.

Meizu launched the Meizu 15 Plus a few days ago. The device offers a lot of features that would thrill Android enthusiasts—a 16:9 display, slim bezels, no notch, etc—but is ultimately let down by its less than spectacular software.

Renders of Motorola's upcoming Z3 Play mid-ranger have surfaced. The images show the device with a dual rear camera setup, a side-mounted fingerprint reader, and no headphone jack.

The HTC U12 has appeared on Verizon's Open Development page. The listing claims the device will sport a 6-inch Super WQHD LCD display, a 3500 mAh battery, and IP68 certification.

Although it was initially supposed to become available via the Microsoft Store before the end of 2017, Apple needed some additional to make iTunes ready for the Windows platform. When installing from the Microsoft Store, the iTunes app removes its desktop variant — if installed already — and uses its settings.

The annual Amazon Prime fee will rise to US$119 in two weeks. The annual subscription cost for this service of US$99 has been around since 2014 when Amazon had increased it from the initial value of US$79. However, the benefits of a Prime membership now include ad-free movies, Kindle eBook loans, and even in-car delivery.

The new Alcatel A3 10 Android tablet has the same US$149 price tag of last year's model and features an IPS display, 4G LTE, a quad-core MediaTek processor, 3 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage, as well as a 4,600 mAh battery. Sadly, this slate will ship with Android 7.0 Nougat onboard and there is little hope for an Oreo update.

Nintendo has announced a partnership with Cygames, Inc. to develop a new game for smart devices. The jointly developed title will be called Dragalia Lost and is scheduled for release in the summer of this year. The Japanese video-game giant held out on introducing its popular franchises to iOS or Android for many years because of concerns about losing unique gameplay elements.

Dell has introduced a new SKU to its lineup that halves the storage capacity for a cheaper introductory price of $1300 USD. Core specifications are otherwise untouched from the Core i5-8305G CPU, FHD touchscreen, Radeon Vega M GL GPU, and 8 GB of DDR4 RAM. The new SKU is a smart move since the SSD in the XPS 15 9575 is easy to upgrade if necessary.

The Samsung handset that surfaced on Geekbench using the SM-J260G model name is expected to hit the market as the Galaxy J2 Core, the brand's first Android Go-driven device. Although nothing is official for now, we expect to see this smartphone launching in the coming weeks.

Google has not had much to say about the Fuchsia OS, its new operating system currently under development, but little hints have popped up here and there — the latest clue is apparent support for Android Runtime. If Fuchsia OS gains Android app support, it could signal the unification of its Pixel hardware efforts under a single "Pixel OS" operating system.

Apple is taking flak for its current-gen MacBook Pro keyboards from its usually loyal community. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has labeled it “one of the biggest design screw ups in Apple history,” while others are calling it “defective” and suggesting it should be recalled.

Amazon, Intel, and Microsoft have all published quarterly financial reports showing better than expected results. Microsoft revealed revenue of US$26.8 billion while fellow tech giant Intel managed revenue of US$16.1 billion for the quarter. However, Amazon trumped both of the other companies thanks to recorded sales of US$51.0 billion.

The successor of the Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 tablet is expected to become the first slate of this popular Chinese brand to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, although it might take a while for it to finally reach the market. According to XDA Developers, the Snapdragon 660 is the chip that will power the Mi Pad 4.

According to research by SuperData, Fortnite managed to earn an incredible US$223 million in March. The smash hit from Epic Games was already a success even before the battle royale mode was introduced. Far Cry 5 was also a winner in March, with the Ubisoft title apparently racking up digital sales in the region of 2.5 million units.

To enthusiasts, a primary SSD may seem like a no-brainer for new PCs. Unfortunately, everyday shoppers at most retailers are still drawn in by the higher capacities and lower price points that HDDs offer and not realize the immense performance benefits of SSDs. Two of the largest PC manufacturers in the world will purportedly push primary SSDs onto more budget and mainstream laptops in lieu of HDDs should NAND prices continue to decline.

The graphics card demand drop is certainly a serious profitability issue for the Taiwanese suppliers, but this also means that gamers can now get the graphics cards they need for prices close to the original MSRP. Crypto miners are waiting to see if Bitmain's Ethereum ASICs are indeed worth it over GPU cards, however, if the upcoming GTX 11xx and AMD Navi cards would prove even better, we might see the price inflation scenario all over again.

Although we recently heard that the upcoming iPhone SE 2 would drop the audio jack, a set of leaked images shows that the refreshed version of Apple's compact handset will keep this traditional jack around. These photos also reveal a design with a glass back, apparently inspired by the classic iPhone 5.

Intel is putting together a team of industry visionaries to help counterattack AMD's Ryzen offensive. Ironically, most of the industry veterans recently coopted by Intel include veterans who used to work for AMD. Raja Koduri and possibly Chris Hook could focus on the development of discrete GPUs, while the latest addition, Jim Keller - one of AMD's prominent CPU engineers, would work his magic on upcoming innovative microprocessors.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" is here and brings quite a few changes to the OS. Users upgrading from 16.04 LTS will notice quite a few aesthetic changes; 18.04 LTS brings the switch back to the GNOME desktop to the long-term support version of the most popular Linux distro. Some other tweaks under the hood bring support for modern hardware features as well.

Freely available for both Android and iOS devices, the brand-new Google Tasks mobile app simply provides another way of adding tasks from the other G Suite apps without using the task management features of Google Calendar or Gmail. For now, this app is quite basic and lacks many of the features found in products like Evernote, Todoist, or Google Keep.

The ZTE Iceberg concept that surfaced on the iF World Design Guide might have seemed nothing more but another over-the-top design, but now a patent showing a similar device has been spotted online. Now, it only remains to see if ZTE can still launch a dual-notch phone, since the Chinese company has been sailing some rough waters lately.

The Huawei P20 Pro rocked the smartphone world when it was launched a month ago. The device's tri-rear cameras and impressive image processing has seen critics hail it as debatably the best camera smartphone on the planet. However, some end users seem to think otherwise, and actually provide evidence pleading their cases. Updated.

The OnePlus 6 mightn't be hitting the market until the middle of next month, but OnePlus hasn't missed the opportunity cash in on the publicity being generated by the new Avengers movie in cinemas now. The Chinese smartphone maker has teamed with Marvel to tease a OnePlus 6 Avengers Limited Edition variant of its forthcoming flagship, and like the movie, it looks like to be a winner too.

Nintendo has racked up nearly 18 million sales of its Switch console. The hybrid handheld / desktop gaming console has helped drive the Japanese gaming giant to a whopping US$1.6 billion profit for its fiscal year just ended.

After failing to turn a profit for the best part of the last decade, AMD has reported a net profit of US$81 million for the first quarter of 2018. The company can pin its turnaround on the success of its Ryzen chip family, which is putting pressure on Intel for the first time in years.

Unveiled back at CES 2018, the Intel Kaby Lake-powered Asus Chromebox 3 is now available for pre-order via TigerDirect and NextWarehouse. Although it is also listed as out of stock and there is no release date public yet, those interested can place their orders to be sure they get their devices as soon as they become available.

Prices for the Galaxy S9 series continue to fall to as low as 600 Euros in some regions like Spain. An independent study from a market analytical firm has revealed that Samsung's latest flagship is tracking slower than the Galaxy S7 but faster than the Galaxy S8 due to more aggressive pricing and promotional deals. The Galaxy S9 has been widely available for over a month in most markets around the world.

While it is still not clear if Samsung is going to release any foldable phones in 2018 or 2019, sleek 3D renders of a rumored Galaxy X model make an appearance in the wild, depicting a device with 1 external display and 2 other internal ones. The Smartphone can open up and act as a laptop powered by a light version of Windows 10, just like Microsoft's Surface Phone.

Xiaomi has announced the launch of its new mid-range device, the Mi 6X. The Mi 6X will succeed the Mi 5X that was released last year and could very well be repackaged as an Android One Mi A2 later in the year.

Rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S9 Mini have been rife of recent but a new source has claimed that the device is, in fact, the S8 Lite—a mid-range device exclusive to the Chinese market. It will be joined by the A8 Star.

Samsung is refreshing its mid-range NVMe SSD lineup with the 970 Evo and Pro models that are using the latest version of the company's 64-layer 3D V-NAND memory chips. The Pro version is slightly faster but comes only in 512 GB and 1 TB capacities, while the Evo model has capacities ranging from 256 GB up to 2 TB.

Opera Touch is a new mobile browser from Opera Software that is only available for Android now, but an iOS version will arrive later this year as well. Its main highlight is Flow, a feature that syncs the desktop Opera browser with Opera Touch without requiring logins or authentication.

A launch event date for the OnePlus 6 flagship smartphone has finally been announced. The new device will be unveiled at a large arena in London, UK, on May 16. The Shenzhen-based manufacturer has also revealed another launch event that will take place in Beijing, China, on May 17. Tickets for the London launch event went on sale today.

According to Dell, Kaby Lake-G caters better to casual mainstream gamers while the Alienware brand will stick to hardcore gamers and enthusiasts with the familiar Intel H-series and Nvidia GTX GPUs. The Intel-AMD processors will instead be used for Dell's mainstream families like the XPS line to provide GTX 1050-level graphics.

The Nokia X6 has just been leaked in fresh renders and if you were hoping that it would feature a notched display, your wishes have been granted. It will be the first device from the reborn brand to feature a notched display, but it will be among the more affordable Android designs like this on the market.

AMD has coupled first-generation Ryzen CPUs along with an MSI variant of Radeon RX 580 GPU and a compatible MSI motherboard in a bundle named 'Combat Crate'. The combat crates target gamers by providing them with the essentials for a new build in a single package for US$40 less compared to buying the components individually.

The developer channel for Google's Chrome browser ("Canary") is sport a new coat of paint as well as some useful features. While all of these changes may not make their way to the Stable channel, the new design language echoes what we've already seen in early builds of Android P and the leaked Gmail design refresh.

The forthcoming LG G7 ThinQ will be fighting an uphill battle as one of the handful of flagship Android smartphones still using an LCD display. However, its IPS LCD display will be armed with super brightness and high color accuracy.

The question “What is Fire TV Cube?” has been posted on a splash page on the Amazon website. Amazon Fire TV is a digital media player and microconsole created by the Seattle-based online shopping giant. Rumors of a cube-shaped device appeared before Amazon released the third-generation “pendant-style” Fire TV, and now it seems the Fire TV Cube is soon going to be a reality.

Fans of the strategy genre will be pleased to learn that the games BattleTech and Frostpunk have been released today. The former, developed by Harebrained Schemes, gives the player the opportunity to control enormous BattleMechs on a futuristic battlefield. The latter is a city-building title from 11 bit studios and is based in the past where civilization has been devastated by the extreme cold weather.

The Nokia X6 will be Nokia's next device. The device is reportedly billed for an April 27 launch and is positioned between the Nokia 6 (2018) and the Nokia 7 Plus in the company's hierarchy of smartphones.

A report by Canalys has disclosed the current standings in the Indian smartphone market. The world's second-largest smartphone market belongs to Xiaomi, with the company boosting its stock over the first quarter of 2018 to reach an outstanding 31% market share.

Meizu, a while ago, launched its new 15-series devices. The devices offer fine hardware while sticking with some of the traditional features of Android phones—16:9 display, 3.5mm headphone jack, and no notch.

Thanks to a collaboration between Purism and UBports, the upcoming crowd-funded Librem 5 smartphone now officially supports Purism's own PureOS and Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Touch, which was abandoned by Canonical last year, was picked up by the UBports team for further development and may finally find a more permanent home on the Librem 5.