Software

OPPO has announced new beta programs to help bring the latest version of Color OS (based on Android 10) to some of its 2018 phones. These are the flagship Find X, the R17 and its Pro variant. Places in these programs are available to users in certain regions only, however.

The ZTE Blade A7 was a decent budget smartphone prospect in 2019. Now, new FCC documentation indicates that its name will be applied to a new device this year. This refresh, unlike its predecessor, will have triple rear cameras and a fingerprint sensor.

The release of Android 10 for the Mi A3 is bordering on farcical. Hyped by Xiaomi as one of the first devices that would receive Android 10, the Android One device is still languishing on Android 9.0 Pie. The end may now be in sight for the Mi A3 though, as Xiaomi has given another vague release date for it to receive Google's latest OS.

Google has made the Developer Preview page for the next version of Android live. This build is now available to download onto certain devices, Pixel phones included. It exhibits changes such as new security measures, privacy safeguards and electronic ID support.

30 W VOOC Flash Charge 4.0 is one of Realme's main selling points for the Realme X2, with the company boasting that the device can reach 65% charge in just 30 minutes. However, that may longer not be the case following a new update.

While Xiaomi started pushing Android 10 builds of MIUI 11 to the Pocophone F1 last month, many handsets are yet to receive the OS upgrade. Now the General Manager of POCO India has weighed in on the matter, and his response has seemingly irked some people.

Released earlier today, the free "Crews of Rage" update for Sea of Thieves comes with new Bounty Voyages into the Devil's Roar that allow you to fight Ashen Skeletons, while the new Chests of Rage contain valuable treasure and can also be traded at The Reaper's Hideout.

Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) is a popular alternative recovery used by those who like to root and modify their Androids. A new thread on Reddit asserts that Pokemon GO will not work if it detects signs of it in a device's storage. This behavior may be intended to prevent cheating in this augmented-reality (AR) game.

The IRS is suing social media giant Facebook for allegedly undervaluing its 2010 IPO, thereby avoiding over $9 billion in tax payments.

LG's G7 ThinQ is a flagship phone that is still less than 2 years old; despite this, the OEM is yet to provide it with a stable Android 10 upgrade. However, there are now signs that it is progressing in beta form, at least. It comes in the form of new Geekbench 5 listings showing this name in conjunction with a current OS version.

Currently limited at full HD resolution due to battery life-related concerns, the 120 Hz display refresh might soon become available for the Galaxy S20 lineup since Samsung is reportedly working on a software update that will bring WQHD+ 120 Hz capabilities. Its launch should take place by the end of April.

Yesterday, reports of Android 10 hitting the Mi A3 surfaced around the nooks of the Internet. They were fake, sadly. The Mi A3 hasn't received its Android 10 update, but recent developments point towards it being potentially at hand.

House of Marley has released its second-gen TWS earbuds, called the Redemption ANCs. Unlike their predecessors, they resemble Apple AirPods, albeit ones finished in sustainable bamboo. They also have a 4-mic system for voice calls, an IPX4 rating and a case with a USB type C port.

Microsoft has restructured its apps for the Android platform, mainly by combining all of them into one. It is now called Office on the Play Store, and allows access to OneDrive as well as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. However, it is reportedly not optimized for tablets.

Honor has confirmed that the release of the stable EMUI 10 update for the Honor 9X is at hand. Huawei is also sending out the update to the Mate 20 Lite and P30 Lite but the rollout appears to be extremely limited at the moment.

LG may launch a successor for its flagship phablet, the V50 ThinQ, soon. A device with a model number that might conform to this device has appeared on the Geekbench 5 database. It has the Snapdragon 865 and runs Android 10, and has a rather standard 8GB of RAM.

While many Realme users are already testing Android 10 Beta on their devices, it looks like the Realme 5 Pro will move directly to the stable Android 10 firmware. If everything goes as planned, this should happen next month. The same will happen with the Realme X, which is supposed to receive the update this month.

Almost two years after the phone was launched, owners of the Sprint model LG G7 ThinQ are finally receiving their first OS update. The Android Pie update is now rolling out to the phone, with Android 10 lingering on the horizon already.

After nearly 13 years, Microsoft seems to have addressed an oft-ignored issue when it comes to how Windows deals with multi-monitor refresh rates. Till now, Windows 10's Desktop Window Manager (DWM) caused stutters and frame-skips when running multiple monitors with mismatched refresh rates. Windows 10 2004 20H1's DWM, which supports hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in WDDM 2.7, finally seems to have corrected this issue as demonstrated by a user on Reddit.

Although the game is scheduled to arrive in early April, it is obvious — based on the sizes of the latest titles in the series — that the remake of the legendary Final Fantasy VII is going to be big. According to a recent rumor that still has to be confirmed, this title will occupy over 100 GB of space after installation (with all available DLCs).

The ViewSonic M1 Mini LED Pocket Projector has won one of the IF Design Awards for 2020. It has been conferred due to its innovative and functional stand, which also doubles as a lens-protector when not in use. It also packs a battery rated for up to 2.4 hours of cable-free use and a speaker from JBL.

Are you wondering whether your Huawei device will receive EMUI 11, the Chinese company's custom version of Android 11? Well, over 30 are apparently eligible, with the P20 series seemingly not making the cut.

Canon has teased the EOS R5 by affirming that this next-generation full-frame camera is indeed in development. The OEM now asserts that it will be the "most advanced" model in its category on its launch. It also plans to release new RF lenses and lens-extenders to go with the new unit.

As with its immediate predecessor, the Galaxy M30s, Samsung will release the M31 to the Indian market via Amazon. This site is currently teasing the phone as one that will replicate the popular "battery monster" in many ways, its 6000mAh battery included. However, its camera specs stand to improve somewhat.

Huawei's midrange Honor V30 is set to launch in Europe next week. However, in the aftermath of the phone maker's spat with Google, the Kirin 990-toting smartphone will not feature Google Services, arriving instead with Huawei's homemade HMS suite for maps, mail, and other key functions.

Sony, for some reason, completely ignored the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact in its Android 10 roadmap. The phones ran Android Oreo at launch and have only received one OS upgrade, to Android Pie. Owners of the phones aren't taking that kindly, though, and rightfully so.

The T8i is the latest in the EOS Rebel series made by Canon. It has a 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor with a 45-point all-cross form of auto-focus (AF) with Face Detect. This Rebel is also the first of its line to feature vertical video for consumption on mobile devices.

OnePlus has announced a new software update for the 7, 7 Pro, and 7T Pro. These stable new updates bring the same bug-fixes and feature additions to each of these devices. They also update their security patch levels to January 2020.

Huawei has been slapped with a trade ban from the US Administration that prevents it from selling to companies based in that country. However, the nation's Department of Justice (DoJ) had postponed it for 90 days by way of a new licensing system. Now, the same body has issued a further extension to the same.

A company called Aria has put its new true-wireless (or TWS) earbuds up for crowdfunding on Indiegogo. This isn't hugely unusual these days - however, these SONG X products distinguish themselves with an innovative "Star Ring" charging case. They are also described as capable of delivering high-quality audio with robust Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.

Nearly eight months on since launch, many AMD Navi GPU owners are complaining about random black screens and other driver inconsistencies even with the latest Radeon Adrenalin drivers. This puts prospective GPU owners in a conundrum as while AMD offers better value for money hardware, NVIDIA's drivers seem to be comparatively more stable.

Blender 2.82 was released on February 14th, bringing with it several new features. Among the most prominent are the inclusion of Mantaflow (a fluids system simulator), UDIM for texture mapping, and support for Pixar's USD file format.

An Android trojan by the name of xHelper has been found to reinstall itself after removal. Worse still, the malware reinstalls itself even after a factory reset. Malwarebytes has devised a fairly complex manner of removing the malware, which it says is the worst mobile malware the antivirus firm has ever encountered.

NVIDIA has now completed its fiscal 2020, which ended on January 26 this year. It has reported revenues of just over US$3 billion for its last quarter (4FQ2020), or 41% greater compared to 4FQ2019. The company's CEO has attributed this success to its "accelerated computing" concerns.

Earlier (on February 13, 2020), Android Police spotted a page for a new Android Developer Preview on this OEM's website. However, its download links never went live. Now, this page is back to its old Android 10 self, suggesting that the new version is still not here in any form after all.

After four titles made by Ghost Games, the Need for Speed franchise is returning to Criterion Games. The UK-based studio, widely known for the Burnout series, developed Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012). The recent titles that involved Criterion include Battlefield V (2018) and Star Wars: Battlefront (2016-2017).

Last week, Google Maps celebrated its 15th anniversary and now the mobile apps receive an update that includes quite a few noticeable changes, both functional — more information about transit rides — and visual — a new icon and a refreshed interface.

The recent Samsung Galaxy S20 launch event also served to unveil the addition of the Live Caption feature to Google, in which video-call speech is converted into text in real time. Now, there is evidence that this function is also being ported to Chrome. This app's gerrit shows the integration of an API necessary to deliver it within the browser.

Xiaomi is now broadening the rollout of Android 10 to the Mi 8, having begun rolling out the OS upgrade to its former flagship last month. The latest update, V11.0.3.0.QEAMIXM, weighs in at 1.9 GB and introduces a few other fixes, too.

Instead of ending production of the Galaxy S10 series, Samsung will keep making them and selling them officially with a US$150 permanent price drop. That could have an interesting effect on the support lifespan of the phones, and their resale value.

Surprisingly, Samsung has just managed to release the Android 10 update for the Galaxy A30 one month ahead of schedule, so other handsets might get the new software earlier than expected as well. The Indian Galaxy A30 gets the software version A305FDDU4BTB3 in the shape of a 1.4 GB OTA update package.

No, Microsoft has not released a new or slimmed-down operating system. Instead, Windows 12 Lite is a Linux distribution that, according to its developers, is superior to Windows 10 "in every respect". Someone is even selling physical install discs of the dodgy Linux distribution, too.

The wait for Android 10 on the Redmi Note 8 Pro continues, as does a Widevine DRM L1 fix. While the former remains an unknown quantity, the latter is apparently now in sight. Owners of the Redmi Note 8 Pro must wait at least another month or so before the next OTA update, though.

Sony took a few months to prepare the release of Android 10 for its latest set of smartphones. Apparently, it did not take long enough as people have been complaining of experiencing a multitude of bugs. The situation is so dire that Sony has ceased the rollout of Google's latest OS to the likes of the Xperia XZ2 and XZ3.

The popular online messaging service WhatsApp has reported that it has passed an important milestone: 2 billion users. It emphasized its simple, convenient and private interface in its statement on this matter. Furthermore, it asserted its ongoing commitment to protecting the (doubtless huges amounts of) data sent through it daily.

The Xiaomi Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro are upcoming flagships likely to rock the Snapdragon 865 processor. They have been just been certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, putting their imminent launch beyond doubt. This new approval also drops an interesting extra detail: these phones will run a heretofore-unknown version of their OEM's OS skin.

The Mi A3 should be in line to receive Android 10, with a mid-February release date previously being touted. The company has informed some fans that the OS upgrade may arrive later this week, but we would not guarantee it. On the contrary, Android 10 may be delayed until the end of February, instead.

Vivaldi 2.11.1811.33 is this year's first desktop update and comes with "a new and improved" Pop-out video mode, Themes update to match the OS dark/light mode, the ability to shift focus between different UI areas using the keyboard, upgraded developer tools, and improved full-screen tab casting.

The Poco X2 was launched just last week but is already receiving its first OTA update. The update comes as the January security patch, and brings some image processing improvements to the phone's cameras, along with a nifty bug fix.

While porting Windows 10 to the Raspberry Pi 3 has proven troublesome, the situation with its successor is much better. There is still little productive use for Microsoft's latest OS on the Raspberry Pi 4 yet, though.