Latest Tech News

The Samsung Galaxy S9+ with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor apparently scored an impressive 265,267 AnTuTu score, obliterating the Snapdragon 835-driven Samsung Galaxy S8+ which scores around 170,000 points.

Essential doesn't look like it has any immediate plans to slip quietly into obscurity. The company has just launched three new color variants of its Phone PH-1 to help rekindle interest in the device.

Samsung fans in the USA will be able to choose from three new devices (with multiple configurations) from February 18. It will be possible to buy either the Notebook 9 (2018), Notebook 9 Pen or Notebook 7 Spin (2018) directly from Samsung's online store.

Atari has announced that it will be developing a digital currency called Atari Token. Atari (incorporated in 1972) was once a huge player in the video-game industry but struggled to compete against Sony, Sega and Nintendo in the game-console market of the 1990s.

The US Department of Defense has stated that the United States Air Force (USAF) must ensure its computers are operating Windows 10 by March 31, 2018. The Microsoft OS is considered to be a crucial component in the overall readiness of the armed service branch.

An email has been leaked showing the CEO of Insel Games appearing to threaten staff job security if they didn't post fake reviews of one of their games on Steam. After looking into these claims, Valve has decided to remove the developer from the Steam Store, but their games are still playable for those who have already purchased them.

The Snapdragon 625-powered Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 is an affordable all-rounder that starts at US$156, while the slightly more expensive Redmi Note 5 Pro employs a Snapdragon 636 chip, a dual main camera, and a 20 MP selfie shooter.

A new leak by tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) has detailed the forms of the upcoming Nokia 1 and 7+. The Nokia 7 Plus is particularly interesting, as it spots dual rear cameras, and will be an Android One device.

Microsoft has pushed an update for the Xbox app on Android and iOS, which finally allows users to engage in party chats on Xbox Live via their smartphone or tablet.

Reports last year claimed that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 9 would be the first Samsung device to feature an under-display fingerprint so. That has become extremely unlikely, however, as a new report claims the device will feature a rear-mounted sensor like with the Note 8.

Data by Counterpoint has hailed HMD as being the 11th largest smartphone brand in the world right now, ahead of traditional giants like Sony, HTC, and Lenovo.

Google is planning on bringing its Google Assistant service to a large number of new countries and the voice assistant will also support multiple new languages in 2018. The company has announced this during a presentation at the Digital New Initiative Summit in Amsterdam.

The imminent release of the LitePay service lead to a sudden appreciation for Litecoin over the past few days. Litecoin is thus expected to become more useful and appreciate even further as LitePay is compatible with Visa-enabled online/offline sale outlets.

Researchers at MIT managed to simplify and adapt the intricate algorithms required by large neural-nets in order to be ran on mobile devices and smart home appliances.

Samsung is looking to expand its Bixby voice assistant platform across all of its consumer products, including white good, by 2020. The move is aimed at increasing its IoT footprint as well as its AI efforts.

Apple's HomePod has come third, after the Google Home Max and the Sonos One, in an independent blind audio test. It only finished ahead of the relatively weak audio quality of the Amazon Echo Plus in a test conducted by Yahoo tech writer David Pogue.

Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast and Ludia announced Warriors of Waterdeep, a new Dungeons & Dragons mobile game for both Android and iOS. This turn-based RPG is free to play and uses card packs. Although it will not launch this month, those interested can pre-register and will receive a special gift pack on launch.

Huawei is widely expected to reveal new devices at MWC 2018 which may include the latest tablets in the MediaPad range. Leaks about the MediaPad M5 report that three variations will be made available.

The well-known worldwide shortage of GPUs has had an unexpected knock-on effect: It has temporarily hampered the search for aliens. Scientists working for SETI are having problems trying to purchase new GPUs which are used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The upcoming Microsoft Surface Phone is apparently ready to launch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 inside. While the software for it might still need a bit of polishing, the final prototypes are ready and insiders familiar with the matter claim that this device should arrive by the end of 2018, or as soon as first half of the year.

According to an alleged leaked CPU roadmap for 2018, Intel may be releasing the Core i7-8550H and Core i5-8400H. The Coffee Lake CPUs are designed for laptops, but the i7 is unique; it features 6 cores and 12 threads.

The heads of a number of American intelligence agencies have backed a "no buy" list that includes devices produced by Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE. The agents praised American telecommunications companies for not bowing down to pressure from the Chinese to sell their products.

This is not a rumor, as the information comes straight from the reputable news agency Reuters. It is still unclear if Turing is the previously rumored Ampere GPU, or Nvidia decided to separate the dedicated cryptomining hardware (Turing) from the gaming-oriented chips (Ampere).

The Amazon Music app for Windows 10 became available for download from the Microsoft Store yesterday. However, it is only available for those running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update or a later edition.

The CF-SV7 packs quite the specs for a mere 12-incheer: up to i7-8650U, up to 16 GB LPDDR3 RAM, SATA + NVMe storage combo, optical drive, and even optional specs like a 4G LTE modem. Prices are on the spicy side, but the models are only available in Japan for the moment, so MSRP could differ if Panasonic decides to bring them to the Western market.

Magic Leap has revealed more details about its forthcoming AR headset. Along with a developer edition coming out this year, there will eventually be multiple models of varying sizes, cost and performance.

HMD, perhaps only second to Google in terms of software updates, has failed to release kernel sources for any of its devices so far. Users are also stuck with locked bootloaders, which makes any attempts at community support futile.

The next version of Xiaomi's MIUI skin, likely to be named MIUI X, will be released to all recent devices. We expect a rollout in the second half of the year.

"Millions" of Android users have been affected by a cryptocurrency malware exploit, according to researchers at Malwarebytes. Users are redirected to a website that hijacks their device and mines for the Monero cryptocurrency.

All PC manufacturers are eagerly awaiting the release of the upcoming mobile Hexa-Core processors from Intel (codename: Coffee Lake). According to a leaked internal document, HP may be working on new Elitebook convertible laptops with these new chips.

Although Google is still way behind the giants that are Apple and Samsung, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL reached more than 3.9 million customers in 2017. However, both Google's handsets arrived in October, making this number of sold units quite impressive.

A report created by research company TrendForce has revealed a total of 164.7 million notebooks were shipped in 2017. This compares to 161.2 million units shipped in 2016 and a forecast of 163.8 million units expected to be shipped in 2018.

Although Facebook already filed an appeal, it is worth mentioning that the Berlin regional court ruled against its data-collection practices, saying that the default settings break the law, while some terms and conditions do not meet the legal standards needed to get the users' effective consent.

A leading market intelligence research company has issued a report forecasting smartphone market share gains for Apple in 2018. Samsung remains in the top spot but could see a drop in overall market share.

Financial regulators have issued warnings that a massive price crash involving Bitcoin and other popular virtual currencies (VC) would lead to financial ruin for many investors. The lucrative VC market is currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars but is notorious for its series of soaring peaks and troughs.

Huawei's upcoming smartwatches could be able to detect writing movements performed in mid-air using fingers. This new gesture control method has been described in a patent dated July 2016, so it might become reality pretty soon.

In addition to the LG Vision AI and LG Voice AI features, the next-gen LG smartphones will also come with a set of exclusive voice commands for Google Assistant. These technologies will be shown at MWC 2018 starting February 26.

The upcoming smartphone could be showcased at MWC 2018 together with the Zenfone 5 family. Being a gaming device, Asus could also opt to release it under the ROG brand.

The unannounced i3-8130U will come as an answer to AMD's entry-level Ryzen 2000U series and is said to feature impressive 3.4 GHz turbo frequencies.

The only major US carrier that offered completely unlocked devices decided to change its policy due to theft, so Verizon Wireless customers who get a new phone now have to go through a probationary period that lasts from the purchase date to the activation of the service.

Intel has announced the availability of new NUC kits powered by the new 'Gemini Lake' Pentium Silver and Celeron CPUs. The new kits feature improved integrated graphics and offer a fair degree of customization to meet specific end-user requirements.

The affordable ultrabook from Asus is powered by Intel's Kaby Lake-R i5-8250U CPU coupled with 8 GB of LPDDR3 RAM and the GeForce MX150 GPU. It also comes with 8 GB LPDDR3 RAM, a 256 GB SATA3 SSD and 13.3-inch FHD IPS touchscreen.

Miami-based BLU Products unleashed two new handsets, namely the quad-camera Vivo X and the budget-friendly Vivo One. Just as expected, both run Android Nougat and use MediaTek processors.

Apple is looking to revamp its software development workflow to balance introduction of new features and ironing out existing bugs. The upcoming iOS 12 internally codenamed 'Peace' will be the first result of this strategy.

The Japanese PC-manufacturer Fujitsu has announced a recall for some laptop batteries used in older Lifebook and Celsius laptops. As in many past cases, fire hazard is the reason for this recall.

Microsoft has announced support for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a Windows 10 only feature, to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1. This is to help organizations protect themselves during the transition to Windows 10 from the aforementioned OSs.

Micron has announced a lineup of enterprise SSDs using QLC NAND memory and will release the drives soon. These will be among the first available solid state drives using the cheaper QLC technology.

Samsung has prepared a new wireless charging pad for its upcoming flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+.

Windows Insiders in the Skip Ahead ring can expect to receive 'Redstone 5' builds shortly. With 'Redstone 4' (RS4) almost ready for rollout in a month, new RS 4 builds will henceforth be released in the 'rs4_release' branch.

Google has started work on the next iteration of the Android OS, Android P. The update is expected to overhaul the Android UI and also bring OS level support for devices that sport an iPhone X-like notch.