Software

After over four years since its release, Samsung is still supplying the Gear S2 smartwatch with software updates. The latest set not only offers significant battery life improvements but also deliver an improved and clean-looking UI.

Bethesda has finally announced when Fallout 76 players will receive Wastelanders, a free expansion for the game. The post-apocalyptic title will be extended on April 7 for all platforms, with the expansion featuring a host of new content. The release of Wastelanders coincides with the game finally reaching Steam too, but there are some caveats.

The Realme C3 has become the first phone with a MediaTek Helio G70 processor, as it launches via Flipkart in India. It also has a 6.5-inch HD+ display with 3-4GB of RAM and up to 64GB of internal storage. It starts for INR 6999, or about US$98.

Although Wacom hardware should have no reason for sending out the history of application use of its owners, it looks like this has been happening for a while and there's no official explanation for that yet. Nevertheless, this story is quite intriguing and worth keeping an eye on.

It appears one of the world’s current best-selling smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy A50, could be receiving the expected update to One UI 2.0 soon thanks to the information revealed in a recently spotted Wi-Fi Alliance certification. The Android 10 upgrade will be welcomed by fans of the phone, which dominated sales charts in Europe and other markets in 2019.

Doogee has announced the S68 Pro, another in its long line of toughphones. However, this one also has the reverse wireless charging feature normally found in Huawei or Samsung flagships. This power will come from the device's 6300mAh battery.

Thermostats are just another household items that have been made smart over the last number of years. They have developed to the point that they can implement automatic usage plans, including those remotely set or sent by an energy company, in order to save money. A new study shows that more US households are interested in these functions.

Ricoh - which currently markets the cameras formerly known under the PENTAX brand - has launched a new camera with a durable, waterproof casing. The WG-70 also has a "digital microscope mode", which enables effective close-ups that is further enhanced with its ring of 6 LEDs that are also intended for macro photography.

LG looks to be getting better with software updates. The South Korean company is continuing its Android 10 rollout for the G8 ThinQ, and the latest version of the phone to receive the update is the US unlocked model. Both the Sprint and Verizon models already received the update.

Samsung has been linked to an upcoming budget smart speaker since 2018. More recent reports appear to confirm that this device will be called the Galaxy Home Mini and that it would launch on February 12, 2020. An even newer leak asserts that this date has in fact been pushed up a bit.

Disney+, Disney's incredibly popular streaming service, now boasts over 28.6 million paid subscribers. Other streaming services offered by Disney, including ESPN+ and Hulu, also saw impressive year-over-year growth.

There have been plenty of headlines written in regard to smartphone owners waiting to receive an update to Android 10. However, smartphones are definitely not created equally, as an image of a Google Pixel 2 XL running on an alleged version of Android R has demonstrated. Android R is likely a preliminary name for Android 11.

For some reason, Huawei is taking its sweet time with the rollout of the Android 10-based EMUI 10 update. The update is still mostly going out to Kirin 980-powered phones; ergo, last-gen premium phones including the Mate 20, P30 and Nova 5T series.

Recently, the brand POCO has reportedly started providing OTA updates to Android 10 for its first device, the F1. Now, it seems one for the February 2020 security patch level has followed. Oddly, it seemingly comes direct from Google, a service normally reserved for Pixel phones.

The "bring your own game" approach caters better to PC gamers because GeForce Now will be compatible with titles from your existing Steam, Origin, or Epic libraries. For $4.99 a month, subscribers can play their existing digital games on Nvidia's servers for up to six hours per month.

Xiaomi may have started rolling out Android 10 to the Redmi Note 8 Pro, but there are probably many of you out there that are still running Android 9.0 Pie builds of MIUI 11 on your device. Without official confirmation, it seems that many Redmi Note 8 Pro owners are being left in the dark about when their device will receive Android 10.

A Realme executive has revealed that this brand is working on its own smart TV, and that more details will be available at the next Mobile World Congress (MWC). To date, no specs or features for this upcoming product are known for sure. However, based on this announcement, its first launch may be in India.

The foldable and clamshell nature of the Samsung phone that may launch as the Galaxy Z Flip seems to have been confirmed in a few recent leaks. Now, a new one purports to outline its performance and specs as well. This next-gen device may be powered by the Snapdragon 855 - or 855+ - and run Android 10 with 8GB of RAM.

Nubia is thought to be working on a successor for the Red Magic 3 gaming phone. This generation is touted to have 5G, a 144Hz screen and other potentially ultra-fast attributes. However, a new specs leak suggests that at least one of these may not be as speedy as once thought.

Motorola is currently rumored to introduce the complete next-gen Moto G line-up at MWC 2020. It consists of the G8, G Stylus and G8 Power. The latter may have arrived on the Geekbench 5 website, revealing specs such as 4GB of RAM and Android 10.

While Samsung has adopted a two OS update policy for years, there are still ways of getting new versions of Android on older handsets. The Galaxy S8 and Note 8 are more recent examples of this, but so are the much older Galaxy S II, or Galaxy S2 as it is more commonly known, and the Galaxy Note 3.

Several instances of the Mi A2 Lite running Android 10 have appeared on Geekbench. Android 10 is likely the last OS upgrade that the Android One device will receive, having been released running Android 8.1 Oreo.

A new Nokia device has been spotted in the wild. The phone, marvelously codenamed "Captain America" is said to be the upcoming Nokia 5.2, and is billed for a February 23 launch at MWC.

The GPU Technology Conference (or GTC) 2020 has been set to begin on March 23 of this year. It will open with a keynote from NVIDIA's CEO and founder, Jensen Huang. The company also claims there will be over 1000 other speakers from various organisations across over 600 sessions at the 3-day event.

Realme has made the C3 official via its Twitter feeds. This phone will be powered by MediaTek's new Helio G70 chipset. This upcoming device will also have a 6.5-inch display and dual rear cameras, albeit ones that may improve over those found in the C2 in certain ways. The OEM has also revealed it will have a 5000mAh battery.

The confusion over Samsung’s rollout of the Android 10 based One UI 2.0 for the Galaxy S9 series seems to be settling as users around the globe have been reporting the update’s availability. Owners of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus from countries as far apart as India, the UK, Slovenia, and Australia have been reporting receiving the new software.

The Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 was released in early 2018 and is now getting its first taste of Android 10. Android 10 is the second major OS upgrade the phone will get, which is impressive for a phone that had an MSRP of just US$200. Getting it ahead of a number of flagships is icing on the cake.

Motorola's rumored new pen-enabled phone is becoming more and more real with each new leak. It seemt that it will be called the G Stylus, and may have 4GB of RAM and run Android 10. A new report claims to flesh it out further with SoC, camera and display details.

There’s been quite a drama between the Pocophone F1 and the popular Android 10 OS. There seemed to be some doubt over whether the ageing smartphone would even get an upgrade to the latest edition of Android, but it now appears a public rollout has begun with users around the world cheerfully commenting on the update.

The LG V35 ThinQ is the forgotten step-son of LG's recent flagships. An Android 10 update roadmap that surfaced last week completely omitted the V35, and that may have alarmed owners of the phone. We bring glad tidings, however.

iPhones are way more secure than Androids, right? Apparently not. A new report with information from forensic experts heavily points towards the reverse being the case. Androids may now be more secure than iPhones, with a Huawei flagship being surprisingly secure.

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.