Latest Tech News

The Light Phone 2 has just been announced on crowdfunding website Indiegogo. This is the second-generation “anti-smartphone” device created by the developer Light. The 4G LTE phone uses a black & white matte E-ink display and is aimed at being a basic alternative to a high-end smartphone. Unlike the first-generation Light Phone, the Light Phone 2 will offer support for text messaging.

It appears the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued dozens of subpoenas to cryptocurrency companies in regard to the number of token sales and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that have been made recently. The SEC is looking for these cryptocurrency issuers to provide more information about their business practices and to dig out fraudulent activity.

Samsung now supports 960 fps Super-SloMo, so it is time to compare all the video modes of the two competitors. Sony, for example, expands Super-SloMo to FullHD and supports 4K HDR recordings, but what about Samsung?

It seems Apple is now ready to dominate the global wearables market after the company claimed top spot in market share for the fourth quarter in 2017. According to data analysts IDC, Apple also led in market share and shipment volumes for the year, improving on figures for 2016. Fitbit and Xiaomi also managed considerable shares of the worldwide wearables market.

Thanks to the powerful Ryzen processors, AMD has experienced a renaissance. Despite this positive trend, most PCs continue to be based on Intel-CPUs. In an interview, a manager of the big PC manufacturer Dell has now explained why he believes that Intel will continue to dominate the PC sector.

Fitbit has announced a special Adidas Edition of its recently released Ionic smartwatch. This is the first result of a collaboration between both companies. The Ionic Adidas Edition features a watch face designed by Adidas, a unique band, and a built-in Adidas Train application.

Due to the current market conditions created by the cryptominers and their great demand for GPUs, Nvidia's next gen GTX 2080 and 2070 will probably launch with MSRPs above US$1,000.

DisplayMate had a lot of good things to say about the newly launched Samsung Galaxy S9's display. The firm says that the Galaxy S9's OLED display sets new performance records that makes it better than most high-end displays available across form factors and gives it an all time high A+ rating.

The new BRIX versions feature Intel's Core i5-8250U or i7-8850U CPUs with low TDPs. These are considered barebone solutions, as Gigabyte lets users choose their own storage and RAM solutions.

The rumor that we might see the legendary Motorola Razr series coming back to life is not new, but this time it comes from a Lenovo official. One year after making a similar statement at MWC 2017, Yang Yuanqing said that the Motorola Razr "will be developed or realized very soon." Sadly, Lenovo's CEO did not mention any technical details or a possible launch date for now.

A recently published Apple patent describes a "Dual display equipment with enhanced visibility and suppressed reflections" and the device pictured in it looks like a MacBook with an OLED touchscreen area that replaces the traditional keyboard and trackpad combination. Lenovo tried this with the Yoga Book and it apparently failed, so it remains to see if an Apple MacBook with a touchscreen keyboard hits the market or not.

A new co-op horror game will be winging its way to the PC in early 2019. A teaser for The Blackout Club has been released by game developer Question Games, and it shows off the type of atmospheric visuals you would expect from a team that has members who previously worked on BioShock and Dishonored. Question Games was the company behind the 2015 innovative video game The Magic Circle.

VeganCoin and Sovereign have become two of the latest additions to the ever growing cryptocurrency world. VeganCoin was founded by the people behind VeganNation, who claim the currency will be “cruelty free”. The Sovereign is a virtual currency that will be launched by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a country in the Pacific Ocean. The Sovereign will be accepted as legal tender in the island nation.

Next to the alleged Galaxy J4 and Galaxy J6, as well as the US variant of the updated Galaxy J3, an Exynos 7870-powered Samsung handset was spotted on Geekbench. Codenamed SM-J800FN, this one is expected to launch as the Galaxy J8 and runs Android 8.0 Oreo. Older rumors mentioned it would feature 4 GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage, and a 5.5-inch 720p display, but nothing is official yet.

Sikur is a smartphone maker that likes to put an emphasis on security. In 2015, the company released the GranitePhone, which offered users multiple layers of data privacy protection. In the meantime, Sikur has been working on a new device, which was announced at the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The SikurPhone includes an app called SikurWallet, which according to the makers is designed to be the “digital marketplace’s safest wallet.”

The new Asus ZenFone Max M1 comes with a 2:1 display with only 1,440 x 720 pixels and a rather slow Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, but also features a 13 MP + 8 MP dual camera setup on the back, an 8 MP selfie snapper, and a high-capacity 4,000 mAh battery that can provide up to 41 days of 4G standby, 36 hours of 3G calls, and an impressive autonomy of 23 hours of WiFi web browsing.

The i5 and Xeon Cintiq Pro Engine upgrade modules come with additional processing power that practically transform the graphics tablets into standalone PCs. Users can choose between Intel i5 HQ or Xeon CPUs, 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM and 256 GB or 512 GB NVMe SSDs. Both modules integrate the same NVIDIA Quadro P3200 GPU with 6 GB GDDR5.

A few weeks after its launch in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and South East Asia, Tekken Mobile for Android hits the US market two days sooner than scheduled. This freemium game comes with loot boxes, healing items, and resources for character upgrade that can all be purchased using real-world money. Tekken Mobile is already quite popular on Google Play, with over one million installs so far.

The proof of concept demoed at MWC 2018 delivers sequential reads of up to 880 MB/s and sequential writes of 430 MB/s, which are significantly better than what the current UHS-III standard ofers. However, WD says that PCIe SD cards will not see commercial use any time soon.

According to Reuters, Amazon has acquired the smart video doorbell maker Ring for more than US$ 1 billion. The current Ring doorbells can integrate with Amazon Alexa and it's likely that the company wants to expand in the home security market. This would be Amazon's second acquisition of smart doorbell companies after purchasing Blink last year.

Surprisingly enough, Huawei is not present at MWC 2018 with any Android Go handset. However, it seems that such a device is almost ready to hit the market. References to the Huawei Y5 Lite (2018) with Android Oreo Go edition onboard were recently spotted in some firmware files. Shortly after that happened, this MediaTek-powered handset apparently arrived at the FCC as well.

A group of German scientists belonging to PTScientists are looking forward to launch the first privately funded unmanned lunar rover mission in 2019. Telecom heavyweights Vodafone and Nokia are helping to devise the first 4G communications network on the Moon to aid in transmission of scientific data and HD video of the abandoned NASA Apollo 17 rover and the lunar surface.

Introduced in Barcelona during MWC as the ZenFone 5 Lite, this 6-inch phablet with a 2:1 ratio display will arrive in the US as the Asus ZenFone 5Q. Its list of technical specs includes a dual camera setup on each side, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor, 4 GB RAM, and 64 GB internal storage. The three colors available are known as Rouge Red, Moonlight White, and Midnight Black.

LG could be set to reveal its most cutting-edge smartphone design yet if a patent for a new full-screen display module is any guide. The new panel is almost all-display with just a small cutout for what would likely house a speaker and tiny front-facing camera.

Start computing in the rain with Panasonics new ToughPad FZ-M1 ruggedised Windows 10 Pro tablet. As is common with ruggedised devices, it is equipped with an older generation SoC — Intel 6th generation in this case. The integrated FLIR thermal imaging camera indicates the type of use that Panasonic is targeting.

Loot boxes and microtransactions have been more present than ever in today's games, and some titles even managed to create quite the controversy by adding these in-game purchases to a full-priced game. The ESRB will now give a special label to all games with in-game purchases that will be visible on the box.

The Asus ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 5Z have been unveiled at MWC 2018 in Barcelona tonight, just as expected. Although both feature a dual camera setup with a flagship Sony IMX363 sensor with 1.4 µm pixels and a 6.2-inch display, the ZenFone 5 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor inside, while the ZenFone 5Z is powered by the top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session held today, Bill Gates made a comment about cryptocurrencies that suggests he is not currently a huge advocate of the decentralized and unregulated digital payment systems. In contrast, Steve Wozniak has offered a more favorable view of virtual currency, even though he has actually been subject to Bitcoin-trading fraud himself.

The classic Japanese role-playing game Chrono Trigger has just been released for Microsoft Windows. A surprise announcement in regard to the game's launch was made on Steam today. The popular game was originally released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and has previously been ported to the PlayStation, the Nintendo DS and to mobile platforms (Android, iOS), but there has never been a PC version before.

The two images that allegedly show the upcoming OnePlus 6 flagship surfaced on a WhatsApp group, where it was posted by someone claiming to be an insider familiar with the matter. One of these images confirms a previous rumor that mentioned a front with a notch similar to that of Apple's iPhone X. The other one shows a back with a vertical dual camera setup and an oval-shaped fingerprint reader.

A report created by research company Jon Peddie has shown that AMD has been making decent inroads into Nvidia’s overall dominance of the discrete graphics card market. Figures for the fourth quarter of 2017 show AMD with a market share of 33.7% while Nvidia has 66.3%. This is a considerable market share leap for AMD, who managed 27.2% of the market share in 3Q17.

Nokia has released the Nokia 1 at MWC. The device, the very definition of an extreme budget smartphone, looks to offer excellent bang for buck, especially since it trudges forward under the banner of Google's new Android Go. Here, we have a look at what makes the Nokia 1 a device you may want to have a look at, and other devices that could potentially offer you more value for your money.

On the occasion of MWC 2018, Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform series SoCs tailored towards bringing on-device AI and satisfying the needs of Chinese OEMs for more premium features at lower price tiers.

Apart from featuring a bezel-less display that does not seem to have the dreaded 2:1 ratio, the "Ghost" smartphone is clearly one of those atypical models that do not come with BlackBerry's signature mechanical keyboard.

Samsung could be looking for a name change to its flagship Galaxy S series and rumors are rife that the next Samsung flagship might not be referred to as the Galaxy 'S10'. Samsung's mobile head, DJ Koh, did not refute the rumors and said while a name change is being contemplated upon, the Galaxy brand is here to stay.

In addition to the new Android-driven phones that were introduced at this year's Mobile World Congress, Alcatel has also launched a low-end tablet that comes in two form factors. The Alcatel 1T 7 and the Alcatel 1T 10 come with Android 8.1 Oreo onboard and can provide a battery file of up to 15 hours on a single charge. This slate will soon be available for purchase starting at 69.99 EUR (around US$86).

The Ice Lake and Cannon Lake CPUs are ultra-low voltage processors featuring the 10 nm manufacturing process. The Coffee Lake-U i7-8559U CPU seems to be similar to the existing Kaby Lake-U CPUs, but its specs have been bumped considerably.

Sony has used MWC to introduce a new "dual listening" experience headset it calls the Xperia Ear Duo. The headphones allow users to interact with music, or notifications, at the same time as being able to hear their immediate environment.

After a few months of hard work, the team behind LineageOS revealed a new version of this custom ROM. Based on Android 8.1, LineageOS 15.1 comes with a new Trebuchet launcher, interface styles, LiveDisplay integration, QR support in Snap camera, and more. The first devices supported are the OnePlus 3/5/5T, Xiaomi's Mi 5/5S/5S Plus, Google's Nexus 5X and 6P, the LePro3/Pro3 Elite by LeEco, as well as the WiFi-only Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 slates.

Google could be set to make its Chrome OS a much more potent threat to Microsoft if a new commit in the Chromium source is any guide. A developer project known as Crostini shows signs of Google officially introducing support for Linux virtual machines on Chrome OS.

MicroSD cards have been getting steadily faster over the last few years with sequential speeds that compete with 2.5-inch hard drivers and improvements in IOPS that make them more able to handle application storage. The newly announced SanDisk Extreme 400 GB is more than 50 percent faster than smaller capacity Sandisk Ultra UHS-I MicroSD cards.

A detailed report by Onphones has shown proof of Honor India running a subtle, clandestine social media campaign against Xiaomi's new Redmi Note 5 devices on Twitter.

The Mi Mix 2S has finally been confirmed to be official and on its way. It will be launched on March 27, which, quite interestingly, is the same day the upcoming Huawei P20 is billed to be unveiled.

Sony has released its new pair of flagships, the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, at the ongoing MWC in Barcelona. Both devices are, of course, powered by the new Snapdragon 845, and sport new blazing designs. The company sticks to a single rear camera on both, however, but still impresses in that department, with both devices having the ability to shoot 1080p videos at 960fps.

Nvidia has released a new GeForce Game Ready driver that is currently available for download. The driver has been optimized for Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition and offers performance boosts for several other games, including PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Performance improvements range between 3% and 7%, depending on the system, graphics card and resolution.

Shipping figures for BlackBerry and TCL have been revealed: 850,000 BlackBerry devices were shipped in 2017. According to reports, BlackBerry management have been calling the year a success, especially in part due to the BlackBerry KEYone smartphone that was released in April 2017. Market analysts IDC stated that over 403 million smartphones were shipped in 4Q17.

A leaked render of the Moto E5 Plus smartphone has revealed an interesting detail: The device is likely to come with a dual camera system. The E5 range is expected to be an update of Motorola’s E4 range, which was released in June 2017. The render shows a number of differences from the predecessor. Details in regard to price and release date have yet to be confirmed.

Jolla has announced a new major version of Sailfish OS at the Mobile World Congress, which will simply be known as Sailfish 3. The new version will feature an updated application store, support for 4G, VoLTE and should have noticeable performance improvements. Sailfish 3 will also be made available for more devices.

Motorola has presented two Moto Mods at the MWC for its smartphones. The Health Mod can measure vital signs such as blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen saturation. A Moto Mod with a full-sized QWERTY keyboard was also shown.

The showcased models did not feature full integration with Alexa, as the vocal commands only prompt on screen answers instead of voiced answers, but the final products should fix this. Spec-wise, the Yoga 730 impresses with high-end features that can easily rival a gaming laptop, while the Flex 14 is more of a mid-range solution.