Software

SEGA Europe has pledged to use nothing but recyclables in the original packaging for its hard-copy products in the future. This will take effect with the release of its new PC title, Total War: ROME II. The material in question will eschew plastic in favor of cardboard; even the shrink-wrap will be eco-friendly.

Huawei's Austrian regional manager has reportedly indicated that the OEM's phones will use its own in-house version of Google Mobile Services going forward, never returning to the use of the Play Store and its apps as normal. The company has developed its own alternatives for both following its ban from trading with US companies.

Qualcomm has announced that it has broken into the Japanese IoT market. The carrier KDDI has approved the 9205 modem for this platform. Therefore, its network for high-volume, low-power electronics can now transfer data at 4G/LTE speeds.

Transparent displays may become a commonplace backdrop for the future of technology. They can show colored images and videos, while allowing whatever's behind them to remain visible. A new research report indicates that their market could grow to a value of just over US$4.9 billion in 4 years.

The Mate 20 Lite may share its name with two of Huawei's former flagships, but the mid-range handset has not been afforded the same software support as the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. While the latter two received EMUI 10 globally in November, the Mate 20 Lite has spent the last two months on EMUI 9.1. Owners of the Mate 20 Lite may have now started seeing notifications to upgrade to EMUI 10 and Android 10, though.

Xiaomi has seemingly been toing and froing about whether to bring Android 10 to the Mi A2 Lite, despite it being an Android One handset. Now, the company has cleared up confusion about the update, although a timescale for its release remains out of reach.

The Galaxy S8 and Note 8 may now be two generations old, but they are still mighty powerful smartphones. Although they have started life on Android Nougat too, both can now be upgraded to Android 10. The Exynos 8895 and Snapdragon 835 should be well-suited for running Google's latest OS, too.

Smart speakers are increasingly popular household items. Their market is now thought to be capable of growing until it is worth US$19.91 billion in 4 years. This success may be driven by the rise of 5G, urbanization, consumer interest in smart homes and interest in the devices themselves.

Indian Realme X2 Pro users will soon be able to use VoWiFi on Reliance Jio and Airtel. The functionality comes via its latest software update which also brings the January security patch. It is rolling out now and will be available to users over the coming week.

A phone calling itself the OPPO PCLM50 has surfaced on Geekbench 5 recently. This putative new phone has an unnamed chipset, but one that may very well be Qualcomm's new mid-tier flagship, the Snapdragon 765G - or its nearest variant, the 765. It may also ship with the latest ColorOS 7 and 8GB of RAM.

The Galaxy XCover 4s is one of the latest in Samsung's line of rugged smartphones. It currently runs Android 9.0 (Pie). Now, however, devices with its model number have appeared on a benchmarking site running a major upgrade to this OS.

The Mi A3 is not due to receive Android 10 until next month, right? Not so, according to Xiaomi. The company has informed fans that the OS upgrade is live and rolling out to handsets now. There appears to be no evidence of this being the case, though.

An APK teardown has revealed that Google will be bringing native call recording functionality to the Google Phone app in Pixel devices. The updated Google Phone app will allow users to record, transcribe, and export the recordings. It will also prompt users on either side of the call whenever recording is initiated or terminated.

Huawei has given users of the Huawei Y9 (2019) Indian variant and the Nova 3/Nova 3i a cold shoulder as the company has confirmed the said devices will not be updated to EMUI 10. This is surprising considering that global variants of the Huawei Y9 are confirmed to received the update after a recent backlash and that these phones use the same Kirin 710 SoC as the Honor 8X, which is already getting its share of EMUI 10 goodness.

In addition to the long-awaited dual-barreled tanks that have been added to the Russian tech tree (namely the IS-2-II, IS-3-II, and the ST-II), World of Tanks 1.7.1 also comes with the Demount Kit feature that allows players to send complex equipment to the depot without spending gold. However, this kit can only be gained from Reward for Merit drops.

Inclusive Technology has debuted the Skyle, a housing for the larger iPad Pro 2018 variant that allows this tablet to be operated using eye-movements alone. It can allow certain users to access the App Store independently for the first time, while also integrating with other personal or household devices that have infra-red (IR) receivers.

Owners of the Huawei Y9 (2019) mounted a campaign against the company after it was revealed that their phones would not get the Android 10 update. That move appears to have been effective, as Huawei has now backtracked and promised the update for the phone. Sadly, that says nothing about other phones that were similarly snubbed, like the Nova 3 series and the Honor Play.

In what may well be a u-turn, Samsung has started releasing One UI 2.0 to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus. The Android 10 update may be the last OS that the two devices receive, but it is better than having to wait another month or two, right?

Although there are still freeware products that are completely free, others come with hidden traps that the user only gets to find out about via scandals. The free Avast antivirus is such a product — it turns out that the Czech firm behind it has been selling the browser history of its users to the highest bidder.

Apparently a rather basic arcade fighting game, Shadow Brawlers allows you to bring some friends for offline multiplayer battles that cover quite a few different modes and has the potential to keep you busy for a very long time — definitely a title that many will enjoy for years to come.

Xiaomi's latest build of MIUI 11 for the Mi 9T and Redmi K20 may be re-issue Android 10 to both devices, but there have also been reports of the update causing heavy battery drain for some handsets. There is a workaround though, with some Xiaomi software potentially being at fault.

The Canadian tech patent development group WiLAN has won a court case against Apple in which the former asserted that the latter had used its intellectual property without permission. However, the actual damages involved were to be re-assessed in a subsequent trial. This process has come to an end with the decision that Apple has to pay the plaintiff US$85.23 million.

Today, the world seems filled with screens of high enough resolutions to consume the content they can show regardless of their size or portability. However, a new report shows that TVs have still managed to retain the greatest share (over 50%) of videos watched among respondents in the US. They spend an average of 20 hours per week using their TVs, compared to 4 hours watching phones.

Known as Torchlight Frontiers during its Alpha stage, the successor of Torchlight and Torchlight II is now on its way to being launched as — obviously — Torchlight III. Even more, the game will drop the free-to-play business model and will be available at launch via Steam instead of Arc.

Chuwi may be best-known for its Microsoft Surface clones; however, it has decided that it will also do HTPCs now. This Herobox has a Gemini Lake chipset with the Intel UHD Graphics 600 necessary for 4K video playback. It also has 8GB of RAM, a 180GB SSD and it runs Windows 10.

In an unexpected move, Microsoft will issue another public update for Windows 7. The update, which comes almost two weeks after Microsoft officially ended support for the OS, will fix a bug affecting desktop wallpapers. The bug was introduced with the last official security patch released on January 14.

Those who use TCL's latest triple-camera smartphone, the PLEX, may be pleasantly surprised by a new OTA update that confers Android 10 and the January 1, 2020 security patch on these devices. This download is 2.7GB in size, and that is because of all the other features found in the new OS, which include a Modern Combat title and numerous UI tweaks.

The news that Xiaomi may not bring Android 10 to the Mi A2 Lite has clearly annoyed some people. Hundreds of people have responded by petitioning the company to do so, with representatives seemingly on hand to calm fears. Xiaomi still does not know when the Mi A2 Lite will receive its final OS upgrade, though.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ have been eligible for beta versions of One UI 2.0, Samsung's custom version of Android 10, for months now. The arrival of Android 10 on the Galaxy Note 9 brought hope to the idea of Samsung honouring its January release schedule for the S9 series too, but that no longer appears to be the case.

A new draft of a government resolution in Russia mandates that all electronics sold in the country carry pre-installed software from Russian companies that espouses the "formation of the priority of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values." However, these values are not explicitly defined in the resolution. The document is a followup to legislation signed into law last year forcing all smart devices and computers sold in Russia to be pre-installed with Russian-made software.

A new rumor from French website iPhonesoft claims that iOS 14 will be compatible with the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, and original iPhone SE. However, the upcoming version of iPadOS will supposedly drop support for the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 4. Apple is expected to announce the new versions of their mobile operating systems at WWDC in June.

Byte has emerged from beta onto the Play Store and the App Store. It, much like its predecessor Vine, allows the user to make videos of 6 seconds in length. Both apps also have a creator in common, who hopes to bring a form of revenue-sharing to this platform soon.

Huawei has confirmed that the Huawei Y9 (2019) will not receive the Android 10-based EMUI 10 update, and owners of the phone are, well, unhappy about that decision. Rightfully so, too, as the Honor 8X, another mid-range phone, was released around the same time and will be getting the update.

Action cameras are a popular device category, particularly among those who want to record their rugged pursuits wherever they go. A new report indicates that the market in question will grow to be worth US$8.9 billion in the next 5 years. This is thought to be influenced by similar performance by the travel and adventure-sports markets worldwide.

According to a new leak, Redmi - which is usually known as a smartphone brand - will launch a fitness tracker soon. It may be of the kind that fits into a silicone wrist-band, and may also have a front-facing capacitive button. This device may have been certified for use in India already.

Recently, the Google/Huawei Nexus 6P was the subject of a class action lawsuit in which the claimants experienced a disproportional amount of battery drain, bootloops or both. This case was settled, and the beneficiaries have now been informed that they will receive their respective compensation. It should be issued from now until February 29, 2020.

It seems owners of the Xiaomi Redmi 8A budget-friendly smartphone could soon be enjoying all the features that Android 10 has to offer. A recent Geekbench database entry for a “Xiaomi Redmi 8A” has “Android 10” mentioned as its operating system. The cheap handset with a large battery currently operates on Android 9 Pie.

Google Camera has just been updated to version 7.3.017 on the Play Store. A new report allegedly based on a teardown of its APK specifies the ability to record at 24 frames per second (fps). This option may pertain to upcoming phones such as the Pixel 4a series, which may also have cropped up in this code.

The Samsung Galaxy M20 will probably get a successor called the M21 this year. A new addition to the Geekbench 5 database suggests that this phone does in fact exist. Should it be genuine, it will be powered by the Exynos 9611 chipset and 4GB of RAM.

Smart TVs are already popular purchases, and may become more so in the future due to their role as smart-home hubs. The latest analysis of their market has found that their shipments may number about 266 million over the next 5 years. This is driven by 4K content and its increasing availability.

The latest report on the health- and fitness-tracker market shows that it may achieve a valuation of as much as US$5 billion by 2025. This may be driven by the increasing number of applications and functions for these devices. They may in fact improve to the point that they can be used to help diagnose and prevent illnesses in the future.

The 2020 Samsung Galaxy A-series of smartphones was rumored to gain a novel variant called the A01 this year. However, it seems the leak in question has been proved true thanks to new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approvals. They suggest that this Galaxy A01 may be made available through certain carriers this year.

8K is the next up-and-coming thing in display-tech standards. However, devices that support it may only be so effective at showing it without compatible, high-quality cables. The company Austere has put just such a product on the market.

Two years ago, LG promised that it would start delivering updates faster and more frequently. While 2019 largely proved a bust in that regard, the company has already started pushing Android 10 to the V50 ThinQ. Now, the company has announced its Android 10 roadmap, and who knew that promising to deliver updates in a more timely manner also meant ditching most of your current portfolio.

Xiaomi may have taken its time in delivering Android 10 to the Pocophone F1, but the OS upgrade apparently brings more than just minor changes to the device. Some people are even claiming that the update brings drastically improved gaming performance, which would be a boon for the almost eighteen-month-old handset.

Xiaomi launched the Mi A2 Lite in mid-2018 running Android One, making it eligible for at least one more OS upgrade. However, the company has now sparked talk online about whether the device will even receive Android 10, with it seemingly relegating it to just security patch updates, instead.

According to a Brazilian blog, Motorola has started to update its Moto G7 Plus to the latest version of Android. It adds the new kind of navigation controls, a dark mode and December 2019 security patches to this phone. So far, its roll-out appears to be slow, although it may be complete within a month or so.

The Inkplate 6 is a new product directed at those who like to make custom electronics from (nearly) scratch. It is a display that offers all the advantages of e-paper, as well as support for the hardware and software to customize it (its housing included) in a wide variety of ways. It also has a USB interface to power it, making it more versatile than many similar options.

OnePlus has announced and started rolling out OxygenOS 10.3.1 for the OnePlus 6 and 6T. The latest stable update for the devices addresses a host of issues while also improving system and camera performance.

Despite not being officially confirmed, the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 appeared to have missed the cut for upgrades to One UI 2.0, Samsung's custom version of Android 10. While some people had accepted the notion of their two-year-old handsets remaining on Android 9.0 Pie, Samsung has fuelled speculation that both could yet receive Android 10 at some point this year.