Software

Good luck, commanders! EA announced today that Command & Conquer, the grandaddy of RTS games, will be getting a 4K remaster in the future. EA will work with Petroglyph Games, a studio founded by some of the original developers of C&C when Westwood Studios closed down.

The October update for Windows 10 is currently being rolled out to the general public. For those in the Fast ring of the Insider Preview program, however, the build of the future is available to try out. This update, known as 19H1, includes an improved Light Theme and some other things Microsoft had promised.

The latest update to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is a massive one and comes with a rather long list of changes, which includes Nuketown, Daily Tier Skip, Blackout with Nuketown Island zombies and the Bowie Knife, stability tweaks, and much more. The update is already rolling out to PlayStation 4 consoles, and the other platforms should get it next week.

The mobile game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has finally received a teaser trailer, just over a year after its development was announced. There are plenty of games based in the Harry Potter world, but this one is particularly newsworthy because of the developer involved: Niantic. The American software company is probably best known for its work with Pokémon Go.

The Fairphone 2 has finally received an update to Android 7.1 Nougat, a two-year-old version of the mobile OS. Considering the Fairphone 2's age and the slow rollout of supported software, the handset may be entering its end-of-life.

Google Chrome Labs has just revealed Squoosh, an in-browser image compression tool that can use non-browser image codecs to compress images without much loss in quality. The app can also be run offline after it is loaded in a browser at least once. Squoosh is aimed at web designers that hope to reduce web page load times by using compressed images.

HMD has sent the Pie update out to the Nokia 6.1 and Nokia 7 Plus. The company has now reaffirmed its commitment to providing steady software updates by confirming that the last-gen Nokia 3, 5, 6, and 8 will also all receive the Android Pie update.

Nintendo has won $12 million in a settlement with LoveRoms.com and LoveRETRO.co, two ROM distribution sites it sued this past summer. The couple that operated the two sites admitted that they participated in copyright infringement and agreed to the $12 million judgement against them. While it's unlikely the couple will have to pay the full judgement, this ruling will surely send a message to other ROM sites that distribute ROMs of Nintendo games.

Earlier, OnePlus had made a commitment to bring Pie to its older flagship series. However, the company later admitted that this upgrade would be delayed. Now, it seems that the prospect of Pie for last year's phones, the 5 and 5T, is back on the table with a new Hydrogen OS beta based on the latest version of Android.

Although Google's G Suite is more than enough for the office-related needs of many companies, Microsoft is working on a tool that would ease their migration to Office 365. If everything goes as planned, this "G Suite migration experience" should become available in the second quarter of 2019.

PlayStation 4 owners will soon be able to get their hands on the smash-hit battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). PUBG Corp and Sony have jointly announced that the title is now available for pre-order and will be launched on December 7. Four different editions will be available, and there are bonuses for those who pre-order the game.

The Xiaomi Mi A2 is supposed to receive the Android Pie update before the end of the year, but the firmware still needs some work. For now, the official Beta ROM can be downloaded via TWRP or fastboot and tried by the more adventurous users. Obviously, there is no OTA update to talk about at this stage.

Microsoft has announced that it has resumed rolling out the Windows 10 October 2018 update having fixed and tested last month's file deletion issue. The update is available now on Windows Update for certain devices that Microsoft has determined will have no issues with the feature update.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has formally re-named HTTP-over-QUIC as HTTP/3. This means that it is the next generation in internet-traffic-enabling protocols. HTTP/3 essentially allows QUIC to supplant TCP, and may hasten the adoption of TLS 1.3.

Adoptable Storage is a feature introduced with Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). It allows a phone to effectively turn a microSD card into its own internal storage. Some brands still allow Adoptable Storage in their stock ROMs, but Samsung is not one of them. However, it now seems that it is coming back in future updates that involve Pie (9.0).

Samsung's Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9 may be some of the highest profile devices of 2018 but the company will not be sending the Android Pie update to users of those devices until next year.

Although Sony promised to deliver Android Pie on October 26 to quite a few supported Xperia handsets, the update was a bit delayed. Fortunately, the Xperia XZ Premium, XZ1, and XZ1 Compact are now finally receiving the Android 9.0 firmware. Obviously, the other supported Xperia devices should get the update in the coming months as well.

Want to play Fallout 76 when it comes out later this week? Be prepared to stare at a loading bar. The game comes with a mandatory day-one patch that is a massive 56 GB in size. This is in addition to the 45 GB base game, meaning that gamers will need about 100 GB of free space. This patch has only been confirmed for the PS4, but considering the game's buggy beta, the PC and Xbox One versions are likely to have similar day-one patches.

CloudFlare has released a new app that will route your Android device's internet traffic through its local services, effectively changing your phone's DNS. While this may be a boon for privacy advocates that bemoan the lack of DNS server choice in Android 8.1 (and below), there are a few caveats. The biggest is that the app acts as a VPN, preventing users from accessing any other VPN at the same time.

The Black Shark is Xiaomi's take on a gaming phone. It is powered by up-to-date hardware, although it lacks a headphone jack. Xiaomi has announced that it will release this phone into the European market on November 16.

The LG G7 Fit is a sort of 'mini' (albeit mainly in terms of specs) variant of the flagship G7 ThinQ. It was announced at IFA 2018, but was not made available in certain markets on release. However, LG has stated that it will go on sale in more regions from now on.

The Nintendo Switch finally got a YouTube app yesterday, bringing the world's most popular video streaming service to the console. However, Netflix and Amazon are still absent. The lack of video streaming services on the console is becoming a sticking point for some, especially considering that the Nintendo Wii, which is 12 years old, offers Netflix, Hulu, Amazon video, and YouTube.

A new leak detailing Xiaomi's plans for the release of Android Pie has surfaced. According to the sources, devices like the Mi Mix 2 and Mi 8 phones are all set to receive the Pie update before the year runs out, while offerings like the Mi Note 3 will have to wait till Q3 2019 next year.

Huawei will begin sending out the stable Android Pie update to its current-gen flagships tomorrow. The update comes in the guise of an EMUI 9.0 update, the same software on the newly launched Mate 20 phones.

After spending a bit over a month in the Beta stage, Microsoft Launcher 5.0 is finally available for everyone as a stable release. The most important changes are the introduction of an updated Your Feed page and Windows Timeline support, but there are various other goodies in store as well.

Amazon's voice assistant Alexa is now available for all Windows 10 devices via the Microsoft Store. The Alexa app offers almost all features of the assistant but does miss out on some features such as Spotify integration. Alexa is also slated to get PC-specific capabilities in early 2019.

The Honor Magic 2 stands out among new smartphones, as it is only the 2nd device in the world to be equipped with a slide-down display for a completely bezel-less screen. It was released in China on November 6, 2018. Now - only 2 days later - it is reported as completely sold out in the country's main outlets.

A strange bug in Microsoft's activation servers is causing deactivation of several Windows 10 Pro licenses and prompting users to install Windows 10 Home. Trying to purchase a Pro key from the Store is apparently not solving the problem. Fortunately, Microsoft is aware of this issue and said that it is working to resolve it at the earliest.

The Fossil Sport smartwatch is now available for order as of today (November 8, 2018). This is the first smartwatch from this brand with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. The Fossil Sport also comes with 6 colors of interchangeable silicone strap.

Samsung's new One UI based on Android 9 Pie will be released sometime next year but apparently, that includes only the latest Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9 devices. According to a Samsung representative at the ongoing SDC 2018, the Galaxy S8, S8+, and the Note 8 will not be getting the new One UI user experience. However, it is not clear at this stage whether these devices will be getting the Android 9 Pie update separately or not.

Samsung has used its Developer Conference 2018 to introduce its next generation custom Android 9 Pie-based user interface design. Dubbed One UI, the new interface has been designed to simplify the user experience by reducing clutter. ​

Today marks the last official update for the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, the last phones in Google's storied Nexus line. While the phones haven't seen a software update since getting Android 8.1 Oreo in February 2018, the Nexus handsets have been receiving security updates every month, the last of which was pushed out today.

Available for Microsoft Windows since October 2013, Path of Exile finally became available on Xbox One consoles in August 2017. Now, the PlayStation 4 version is finally (almost) ready to roll out, as it should arrive — if everything works as expected — by the end of next month. Sadly, cross-platform support is not in the cards yet.

Design consultancy Special Projects has unveiled a new user interface approach to multitasking that uses AR technology. Seeking to emulate a physical real world work flow, the interface allows users to switch naturally between applications and move between tasks on a smartphone as though they were working naturally on multiple tasks at a desk.

More than three years since Adobe Systems completed the acquisition of the Fotolia microstock agency, this service that provides more than 57 million high-resolution royalty-free images and videos has finally been integrated into Adobe Stock.

A recent posting on Geekbench's benchmark site shows a Razer Phone 2 running Android 9.0 Pie. This could mean that Razer is testing Android 9 on their latest handset and may be releasing an update soon. This would put the Razer Phone 2 in an elite class, as only a handful of other phones are running Android 9.

Till now, WhatsApp has remained mostly free of the advertorial trappings of its parent company Facebook. All of that is set to come to an end, though, as a WhatsApp executive has confirmed that the messaging app will soon start displaying ads. How the data needed for such targeted ads will be collected remains a mystery.

Xiaomi's Poco F1, a few days ago, received the stable update to Android Pie. The company has also confirmed that the device will, at least, also receive the Android Q update next year. The F1 is marketed as a enthusiast-focused phone, so this is a welcome piece of information.

Location intelligence is based on the locational data of consumers gathered through IoT and similar means. Its market is thought to be capable of strong growth for the next 7 years, at which point it may be worth just over US$25 billion.

Huawei includes access to its Mobile Cloud subscription service in its version of Android, EMUI OS. It is dropping the price for this 50GB cloud storage solution to US$0.011 (€0.01) for Huawei device owners in the EU for this month. The price increases to €0.99 when this promotion expires.

Download links for a Spotify app for iOS have appeared on its community website. In addition, a Redditor also claims that there is also a WatchOS variant of the same in beta. However, the app is still in beta and does not much more beside the control of playback using the streaming service.

Valimail, a US authority in online authentication, has released the results of a study conducted on the ability to spot false election campaign material sent via email. It has found that only 20% of a group identifying as Republicans identified a fake sent by their candidate, compared to just under 40% of Democrats.

The BBC has reported that the private messages associated with a minimum of 81,000 Facebook accounts have been stolen. This data was hacked using a browser extension, then offered for sale online. The security company Digital Shadows has reportedly confirmed this theft.

A new CVE may enable yet another side-channel exploit in Intel processors. This vulnerability, known as CVE-2018-5407 (or "PortSmash"), targets Hyper-Threading (or simultaneous multi-threading (SMT)). It is confirmed as effective in Skylake and Kaby Lake chips, and could affect others.

The shares of the company Spotify were down 11% at the start of today (November 1, 2018) due to a forecast that shows relatively poor fourth-quarter performance. In addition, Spotify is now reported to be committed to new investments to boost innovation and future-proofing in its products.

Some Apple Watch Series 4 users have reported that updating their wearable to watchOS 5.1 bricked their device. After rebooting the Watch when installing the update, the device would freeze on the Apple logo and become unresponsive. Apple has since pulled the update and is working on a fix. In the meantime, affected users have been instructed to contact AppleCare for assistance.

The Honor Magic 2 has been released in an event in China. As expected, the phone has a total of 6 camera sensors, a new type of AI assistant called YOYO and a slide-down display. It also has extremely fast charging and the Kirin 980 with its NPU in tow.

Google's latest iteration of the reCAPTCHA system, reCAPTCHA v3, is now available to website administrators and webmasters. reCAPTCHA v3 runs in the background, tracking user behavior and assigning a risk score based on that behavior. Administrators can use this score to assign thresholds requiring further authentication if needed, allowing the bot-battling system to run unobtrusively for most users.

Since the Xiaomi Mi 8 and Mi 8 Explorer Edition already got Android 9.0 Pie, seeing the Mi 8 SE on Geekbench with the latest Android update onboard is not surprising at all. However, this only means that Xiaomi has begun testing the update and it might need at least a few weeks before being ready for launch.

Apple is rolling out iOS 12.1 today, and if you have an iPhone Xs, Xs Max, or XR, you can use Apple's new dual-SIM feature... as long as you're not using Verizon on your digital SIM or as your secondary number. Both T-Mobile and Verizon have stated that their networks are not ready to fully support the dual-SIM tech but are working on getting their networks up to scratch "in the near future."