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Mostly thanks to the release of the iPhone X in November, iOS handsets managed to grab the first spot in Australia during the last quarter of 2017. During the given period, Apple shipped 1.76 million handsets in Australia, which accounted for a market share of 56.2 percent. On the other hand, 1.37 million Android handsets managed to reach the continent in the final quarter of last year, grabbing 43.8 percent of the market.

A report by a Korean outlet has estimated the S9 day-one pre-order sales numbers to stand at 180,000, down 31% from the S8's 260,000 figure. It's about expected, though, as the S9 doesn't actually offer a substantial upgrade over its predecessor.

A while ago, a report by XDA-Developers detailed the Mi 7 using information gleaned from a new firmware file. According to a new report, though, the Mi 7 may have gone through significant changes over the past few weeks, with alterations to its battery capacity and a wild appearance of what seems to be a notch.

If the latest rumors turn into reality, Android Wear will change its name around 4 years after its release. In addition to the new name, Google's upcoming Wear OS should also feature a new, colorful logo similar to the one currently used by Google Assistant. However, this change was spotted in the latest 12.5 beta for Play Services, so nothing is official yet, but we will probably see it happening in May at Google I/O.

Samsung Canada has released a roadmap for the rollout of Android Oreo. The S8 and S8+ will receive their updates on March 19, and the Note 8 about a week later. Users of other new Samsung devices will, of course, have to wait till much later in the year.

Fortnite Battle Royale's popularity has skyrocketed of recent, and it's sure to grow even further, with Epic Games confirming that the battle royale shooter is coming to both iOS and Android, and with cross-play support across all platforms.

The update to firmware 5.50 on the PS4 is finally open to the general public. The update brings supersampling mode to owners of the PS4 Pro, and parental controls that allow you to monitor hours logged by your kid on their console.

Huawei has released the Mate SE, a rebrand of the hugely popular Honor 7X. The Mate SE is identical to the Honor 7X but features a slightly tweaked camera design, an extra GB of RAM, and 32 more GBs of storage. It comes with a price tag of US$229.99.

A teaser for an upcoming platform game called Planet Alpha has been released, and it looks mighty impressive. The game has been developed by Planet Alpha ApS, who are based in Copenhagen, Denmark. The creative director behind the visually breathtaking game, Adrian Lazar, previously worked on the game Hitman with IO Interactive. Planet Alpha will be published by Team 17.

Press renders and live images of the Huawei P20, P20 Lite, and P20 Pro have shown them all sporting vertically aligned rear cameras—tri-rear cameras in the case of the P20 Pro. This comes after a video by Huawei teased a horizontal alignment on the devices a week ago.

A report created by Kyle Bennett of HardOCP will likely not go down well with executives at Nvidia. Bennett’s article focuses on the GPU-maker’s GeForce Partner Program (GPP), which has been introduced to “better serve gamers.” Concerns have been raised over the alleged requirement of partners having their “gaming brand aligned exclusively with GeForce.” Some commentators have suggested this could be considered an anti-consumer practice.

Essential has filed a patent with the USPTO for “image capture with a camera integrated display.” Could this mean the American technology company is working on a method to remove the selfie camera from the polarizing top notch position that many manufacturers have currently adopted? Would new sensor-positioning technology be introduced in a future Essential smartphone release?

The value proposition for the 6-inch FullView Android will be one of the best when it launches late next week with pre-orders already open through major online retailers. It will be the most powerful smartphone in the Honor family by far, but also the priciest at over twice the MSRP of the popular Honor 7X.

We could very well see a Nokia 9 this year sporting an in-display fingerprint sensor. The information comes from a source close to NokiaPowerUser and goes on to say that 2018 flagships from HMD Global are also likely to sport a notch to maximize the display area given the native notch support in the upcoming Android 9.0 P OS.

RMIT researchers claim that the proton batteries could be mass produced by 2023. This new breed of batteries is carbon-based, but the energy storing process is totally eco-friendly and also has reduced production costs. The Australian researchers are currently trying to increase the overall efficiency above what Lithium-ion batteries can offer.

The new Huawei Y9 (2018) that was unveiled in Thailand shares many specs and features with the existing Mate 10 Lite and Honor 9 Lite. Its main selling points are the large 2:1 IPS display, the four cameras, and the capable HiSilicon Kirin 659 mid-range processor. Powered by a generous 4,000 mAh battery and loaded with Android 8.0 Oreo, the Y9 (2018) will hit the market in black, blue, and gold.

The latest patent that could be integrated in Microsoft's upcoming Surface Phone involves a secondary touchscreen that could improve they way users control what happens on the main display. Some of the basic gestures that could be performed on the back screen include swipe, scroll and zoom.

The Sony tablet with an E-Ink display that was recently spotted on the FCC website has the model name DPT-CP1, so it is probably a successor to last year's DPT-RP1. Made by Netonix, this slate features WiFi, Bluetooth, and NFC, but the FCC listing does not reveal any of the main technical details. However, the document confirms that this device has reached the mass production stage, so its launch is imminent.

Leaked slides pertaining to AMD's Next-Gen High-End Desktop (NG HEDT) platform reveal that AMD is bullish with regards to continuing and refining its Threadripper lineage. The slides reveal three Ryzen Threadripper families starting with the Threadripper 2000 set to launch in 2018, the Threadripper 3000 set for 2019, and culminating in the Threadripper 4000 set for 2020.

Google has released its AI and ML tools that helped NASA discover new exoplanets such as the Kepler-90 i and the Kepler-80 g. Google's model helped search 670 stars out of the 200,000 stars observed by NASA's Kepler mission and hopes to discover more such exoplanets by open sourcing the tools to anyone interested in analyzing Kepler data.

The upcoming OnePlus flagship, OnePlus 6, looks like the phone to watch out for in 2018 as it posted impressive scores in the AnTuTu benchmark beating contenders such as the Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ and even the iPhone X. The benchmark app also lends further credence to the fact that the OnePlus 6 will sport an iPhone X-esque notch.

Microsoft is readying a major update for its Xbox One S and Xbox One X consoles. Among the new features includes the ability to play nicely with monitors and displays that support AMD FreeSync.

This week Samsung was showcasing their 2018 Smart TV lineup including a new ambient mode that displays relevant information, models with local lighting zones to improve dark and light parts of a scene, specialised power and data cables, and Bixby integration.

Intel is apparently viewing the possible acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom as a potential threat to its communications semiconductor business according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company is also reportedly exploring various fallback options in the event the Qualcomm takeover materializes.

Bose has launched a new type of AR technology that it is calling Audio AR. The prototype sunglasses on show at SXSW use an audio layer to supplement a user's interaction with their surrounds to provide more information and context.

Motorola looks set to release a new VR-based headset as a MotoMod for its Z series smartphones. The new headset also looks like it might have the backing of Oculus, if its headstrap is any indication.

Motorola may have scrapped its plans to launch a successor to the Moto X4. According to a new report, the Lenovo-owned company is making cutbacks in a number of areas to try turn around its fortunes.

Microsoft has announced that it is working on a successor to its surprisingly hot-selling Surface Hub for Enterprise. Although details are scant at this stage, the Surface Hub 2 will bring with it additional features like Microsoft Teams integration.

Estimated to begin reaching its first owners in about a month, the US$749.99 Garmin tactix Charlie is a premium GPS watch that features a 1.2-inch sunlight-readable display with domed sapphire lens, GPS with GLONASS support, as well a rugged design. Its battery can provide up to 12 days of autonomy in smartwatch mode, 20 hours in GPS mode, and 35 hours in UltraTrac battery saving mode.

Microsoft is now offering the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ for pre-order through its store. There have been reports that these are "Microsoft Editions" of the smartphones, which will operate on Android OS and will look identical to the flagship devices sold on Samsung’s website. Microsoft’s supposed customizations will come in the form of software additions, such as Cortana, Skype, Microsoft Launcher and apps from Office 365. However, it appears there is no such thing as a "Microsoft Edition" Galaxy flagship.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has published a patent application made by Apple Inc. titled “ingress prevention for keyboards.” The wordy document features a number of technical drawings showing alternative examples of key assembly. The general idea of the patent is to “block contaminant ingress,” so could this mean future MacBooks will have crumb-resistant spill-proof keyboards?

French video-game developer Ubisoft has announced that a sequel to the hit action RPG Tom Clancy’s The Division is in the works. The Division was released in 2016 and performed very well for the publisher, so a sequel was practically inevitable. The follow-up is being developed by a group of Ubisoft’s subsidiaries, headed by Massive Entertainment.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 made its debut as an improved version of the Xperia XZ1, sporting the same 19 MP main camera with a Motion Eye sensor, but being capable of shooting both full HD 960 fps videos and 4K HDR content. Although its predecessor is still missing these features, the Xperia XZ2 comes with Night Light mode and one-hand operation out of the box. Sadly, it also sports a low-end front camera and an outdated design.

PlayStation 5 is most likely not going to be released this year, but dev kits being distributed this early could mean that the next version could be launched in 2019 at the soonest. Sony might also be concerned that the XBox One X is taking over the PS4 Pro sales and the company might want to release a new system as soon as possible.

ASRock is more likely to produce MXM graphics cards for its own mini PC lineups rather than get into discrete gaming and mining card production. However, considering the AMD partnership and the current GPU crisis, ASRock could help ramp up the graphics card production and bring down GPU prices.

As revealed by the images that recently surfaced on Weibo, the upcoming ZTE Nubia N3 is a rather peculiar Android handset. Although it features a quite capable mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and a 5.99-inch display with a 2:1 aspect ratio, it comes with large bezels and only features a micro USB port for charging and data transfer. At last, we should also mention the stock Android 8.0 Oreo firmware.

Intel has launched the latest edition to its expanding range of Optane SSDs for both notebooks and desktops. The new SSDs require just 2 PCIe 3.0 lanes, offering users more flexibility with their system configurations.

The HP convertible could be one of the very first notebooks shipping with Kaby Lake-G as early as March 26. The Core i7-8705G is expected to be significantly faster than any Intel iGPU solution thus far and rival the discrete GeForce GTX 1050 in gaming performance. The suggested launch price of 2100 Euros, however, could be tough to swallow even for the highly anticipated Intel-AMD platform.

Chuwi's upcoming Hi 9 Air will push the limits of the gaming tablet space, with the device to feature the deca-core Helio X20 SoC, Mali-T880 MP4 GPU, 4 GB of RAM, and 64 GB of storage, all packed into a slim 8.2mm-thick frame.

Venezuela’s Petro cryptocurrency has been called “illegal” and “unconstitutional” by the country’s National Assembly. Bitcoin has suffered another fall in its current exchange value, with the virtual currency's latest closing price standing at US$9434. In Japan, the Financial Services Agency has been throwing its weight around and has issued business suspension orders to two cryptocurrency exchanges.

Reports claim that the next batch of ZTE Nubia devices will ditch the company's Nubia UI for good and make the switch to stock Android. There's a chance both the Axon and Nubia lines share the same "Stock UI" that has been reported.

The Kirin 670 will be Huawei's response to the new Snapdragon 636 and Exynos 7872 SoCs. The hexa-core chipset will feature a Neural Processing Unit for AI capabilities and a Mali-G72 MP4 GPU. It will also be built on a 12nm manufacturing process.

A report published by the highly respected journal Science has estimated that fake news is 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news. The study found that false information which was rapidly shared online through social media reached more people than the truth did. The research also pointed out that fake news travels much faster than real news.

Activision has announced the latest edition to the highly successful Call of Duty series of games. The next release will be Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and it is being created by the game developer Treyarch. A teaser clip for this fourth edition of the Black Ops range has been released and the game itself is scheduled for launch on October 12. Activision will hold a community reveal event on May 17.

This year's MWC may have marked a turn in the smartphone market. While the latest flagships were generally iterative improvements on last year's models, the budget and mid-tier segments have begun to explode. The best phones may not be getting cheaper, but cheap phones are definitely getting better.

"Castle Peak" will be based on the upcoming Zen 2 core, while this year's Threadripper gen 2 will feature a slightly improved 12 nm Zen+ core. The first Zen 3 cores are expected to arrive with the 2020 APUs.

Final Fantasy XV arrived on Xbox One more than a year ago, and now the time has finally arrived for Windows PC gamers to get this title as well. Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition comes with 4K HDR support and can run at up to 120 frames per second, but it also has full Windows Sonic support for an improved audio experience. The game is priced at US$49.99, but various in-app purchases are also available.

There are two new mid-range and two high-end CPUs. The Ryzen 5 2600/2600X models are set to compete with Intel's i5-8600/8600K processors for a slightly lower price, while the Ryzen 7 2700/2700K CPUs should offer similar performance and pricing to Intel's i7-8700/8700K models.

Although its name is still unknown, many websites call it "Pie" already, but the certain thing is that Android 9.0 is already available for testing. The first Developer Preview build of Google's upcoming major Android version comes with many improvements under the hood (support for HEIC images, WiFi Location with WiFi RTT), as well as support for edge-to-edge displays with cutouts and multiple interface changes.

Debian and Kali Linux are the latest distros to join the Microsoft Store and can be tried out by anyone with Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) enabled on Windows 10. The availability of Debian and Kali underscores the importance of WSL in enabling seamless cross platform development and testing without the need to deploy separate installations or virtual machines.