Fail

Yet another device has gone up in flames. Again, it's a Xiaomi phone, this time the Poco X3. Supposedly, the device spontaneously combusted while charging, but Poco has claimed it was down to the customer puncturing the battery beforehand.

Logitech has killed Harmony, just as it did with Harmony Link and Squeeze Box. Apparently, Harmony servers will remain active, as will its database. For how long remains to be seen, though.

Apple has been making misleading claims about the Pro Display XDR, according to The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK. Now, Apple can no longer claim that the Pro Display XDR offers 'far beyond HDR' in the UK, although it continues to do so in the US and other countries. The same goes for the company implying that the display covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.

A timely reminder has been shared of how the current global chip famine has affected processor prices, in this case specifically for the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. While retailers who have tried to stay close to MSRP are invariably out of stock, those with Ryzen 9 5950X CPUs to sell are mostly setting astronomical price tags for the Zen 3 powerhouse.

The OnePlus 9 Pro has been shipping to people for about a week now, following its elaborate launch and extended marketing campaign. There are already countless complaints from people about their OnePlus 9 Pro handsets overheating, such as recording 4K videos or merely taking photos. OnePlus has already claimed that it is investigating the issue, but it is not a good start for the OnePlus 9 Pro.

Renowned YouTuber and smartphone breaker JerryRigEverything put the newly-launched Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 through the paces. The smartphone was quick to break in his bend test, much like the Asus ROG Phone 5. The area around the antenna lines seems to be the weak point, and gamers would do well to avoid applying pressure to that area.

The latest high-end video cards from NVIDIA are priced really high and the prices of custom designs make the US$2,999.99 tag on a GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition that has just been sold on eBay look like a bargain. For example, a German seller is down to the last ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 ROG STRIX, after selling 11 for over US$3,900 each.

A new CPU Mark single-thread performance chart for desktop processors has been published by PassMark, and once again it features some startling results. It appears the Apple M1 silicon, which is a hybrid chip, is rapidly closing in on the powerful Intel Core i9-11900K desktop processor in this particular benchmark.

Microsoft, in an all-out offensive, released a new commercial comparing the Surface Pro 7 to the iPad Pro. While the commercial makes some good points, it omits some key comparisons important to many consumers and overall ignores the categorical differences between the two devices.

High prices and lack of marketing likely led to poor sales of the SC15 and SC17 series. Manufacturers looking to break into the gaming laptop world will likely face similar challenges and pushback from established makers.

Although the brand-new OnePlus 9 Pro flagship is available for purchase from multiple retailers, only the ~US$1,000 model with 12/256 GB of memory/storage can be ordered right now. The version with 8/128 GB is nowhere to be found and there is no official information regarding its date of arrival.

Although the data breach in question today apparently took place back in 2019, it is quite disturbing to find out that more than 500 million Facebook accounts are now in danger since the database has surfaced online in a freely accessible low-level hacking forum. Thankfully, the vulnerability exploited back then has been patched.

According to a new report, the upcoming PlayStation Store closures for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable will result in the removal from purchase of over 2,200 digital-only games. Ironically, some of these titles will become Xbox exclusives due to this contentious decision by Sony. Even worse, apparently some games will be permanently lost.

Intel is yet to publish GPU drivers for the UHD Graphics 750, the iGPU that it has included in its new Rocket Lake-S processors. According to a company Vice President, the drivers will not be ready for a few weeks, despite processors like the Core i5-11600K and Core i9-11900K being available to purchase.

Major GPU OEM Colorful seems to have entirely omitted download links for Resize BAR BIOS updates on its technical support page. This leaves Colorful graphics card owners with no way to enable the feature, at least until the OEM fixes those broken links.

The Intel Core i9-11900K has been tested alongside an Intel Core i9-10900K and an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X in a barrage of Unreal Engine benchmarks. The Comet Lake part and Zen 3 chip performed well in the game engine tests, but the Rocket Lake i9-11900K simply appeared to be on the verge of obsolescence here.

The Sony PlayStation 5 outputs all content in HDR by default, even if games or videos do not support a higher dynamic range. There are some situations where one may want to disable HDR though, but it turns out that Sony's latest console struggles with displaying the correct colours when set to SDR.

The PlayStation 4 could inevitably become unusable in a few years, unless you fancy cracking it open and tinkering with it. Apparently, the console requires a working CMOS battery to play games, regardless of whether you purchased them physically or digitally. Replacing the battery is only possible for as long as the PlayStation Network supports the PS4, too.

The Apple M1 8-core chip has finally managed to leapfrog the Intel Core i7-11700K in PassMark’s CPU Mark chart for single-thread performance in desktop processors. This leaves only the top-end Rocket Lake i9-11900K ahead of the Apple Silicon. While the i9-11900K has an MSRP of US$539, an M1 Mac mini with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage costs from US$699.

With specs that make it look ancient, such as eMMC storage and a 2/5 MP pair of cameras, the PinePhone Beta Edition is exactly what its name says. Priced at US$150 (2/32 GB) or US$200 (3/64 GB and a USB-C docking bar), the PinePhone Beta Edition only comes with 30 days of warranty and it isn't just another smartphone.

Mechanical engineer Pim de Groot (@mifune) created a USB-C that seemingly brings back the bad old days of USB adapters that don't fit into ports the first (or second!) time.

When updating from Android 10 to Android 11 but without moving to MIUI 12.5, some Mi 10T Pro users might find trouble. For me, this means fingerprint reader and touchscreen response issues, some random app crashes, and more. According to what others who got the update are saying, it doesn't stop here.

The five new “Justin Gets Real” videos from Intel will likely make you laugh, but it seems unlikely that’s what Team Blue was gunning for when the company managed to snatch up "Get a Mac" veteran Justin Long to head its new anti-Mac “Go PC” ad campaign.

Asus' new mobile-gaming flagship device, the ROG Phone 5, recently earned a shelving of shame following a catastrophic end to its round of JerryRigEverything's popular durability tests. This failure was thought to be due to a weak point caused by a secondary USB type C port found on one side; however, the ROG Phone 3 also had one, and proved much more robust. A teardown may reveal what else is going on with this new phone.

Realme's newest performance-oriented smartphone, the Realme GT, may not be quite as impressive as thought. Earning an AnTuTu score that shows a tangible performance advantage over other Snapdragon 888-powered flagships, it appears the Realme GT only manages to hit such numbers via unscrupulous means.

Some iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 users are reporting issues with the color fading on their devices. At this stage, Apple is reportedly not treating the issue as a fault, but the result of normal wear and tear.

Multiple sources have confirmed that they have managed to bypass the Nvidia GeForce RX 3060's Etherium mining rate limiter. Installing the GeForce 470.05 development driver seems to do the trick, but one party insists that a custom VBIOS is necessary, too.

A bunch of Vietnamese cryptocurrency miners quite literally have taken PC hardware to new depths by submerging eight Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards in mineral oil. While their operating parameters are not visible, empirical data tells us that mineral oil can cool PC components with the same efficiency as air or water. Some components also last longer due to the constant, uniform cooling offered by the medium.

Estimated multi-core performance results for the expected M1X processor have the upcoming Apple Silicon taking on power-hungry desktop rivals such as the Intel Core i9-10900K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. Speculated Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 scores for the Apple M1X chip are based on it offering 1.77x the performance of the current M1 silicon.

An intrepid MSI employee tried to mine cryptocurrency on the MSI GE76 Raider gaming laptop. It can apparently mine at 52.8MH/s, a smidgen slower than the desktop Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070's 52.9MH/s hash rate. MSI says that it will continue its 'experiment' for a month before posting results.

Ambitious miners have successfully managed to best the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060's hash rate limiter less than a month after it was launched. The graphics card can now mine crypto at 45MH/s. With the restriction in place, its mining rate was restricted to 20MH/s.

German e-commerce website Mindfactory.de appears to have jumped the gun a little and listed the upcoming Intel Core i7-11700K processor for sale. Its price tag of €469 puts it on the more expensive end of the spectrum. Intel will officially unveil its 11th-generation Rocket Lake-S CPUs on March 16, 2021.

Intel has shared a PCMark 10 storage performance benchmark result for the i9-11900K that shows the upcoming Rocket Lake-S chip ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X by +11%. Additionally, a new CPU-Z result for the Intel Core i9-11900K has helped bolster its reputation as a soon-to-be single-core performance champion.

Three Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 cards have appeared for sale on a Belarusian online marketplace days before the boards are officially launched. The asking price for the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Eagle OC cards is 2,800 Belarusian rubles, which is roughly about US$1,080/€891/£770. The Nvidia MSRP for the GeForce RTX 3060 is US$329.

The ZTE Axon 20 5G smartphone’s under-display front camera has been found deeply wanting in DXOMARK’s rigorous photo and video tests. The Axon 20’s final selfie camera ranking leaves it 78 points behind the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and second from the bottom overall. The under-display camera had issues with high noise and color fidelity.

Apple M1-native malware has been discovered by an independent macOS security researcher. The GoSearch22 Safari browser extension, which is linked to the infamous Pirrit adware family, can run on any M1 silicon-based device, such as the late 2020 models of the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini.

The Hong Kong-based video card maker ZOTAC has uploaded an image on Twitter that has already been met by considerable ire from gamers. The picture shows a lineup of White Edition GeForce RTX 30 Series cards that look like they are hooked up as part of a huge mining rig. Tags in the tweet are aimed at gamers but the caption is definitely for crypto miners.
Update: ZOTAC has now removed the polarizing tweet.

An Intel Alder Lake-S processor has been spotted being tested on UserBenchmark, where it recorded an average boost rate of 0.8 GHz and was awarded with a 24.9% average bench. But before AMD fans start celebrating the untimely demise of Alder Lake, it seems likely that the 12th Gen chip’s hybrid architecture is fudging the numbers.

The Pro1-X by F(x)tec and XDA Developers was supposed to arrive next month and with a Snapdragon 835 SoC. However, supply problems have pushed the device's estimated delivery date to August 2021 and forced F(x)tec to use the Snapdragon 662, instead.

Despite low sales of the iPhone 12 Mini, sources have told noted tipster Jon Prosser that Apple will launch an iPhone 13 Mini. According to these sources, the main reason the iPhone 12 Mini floundered was the success of the iPhone SE (2020). Since no iPhone SE will launch in 2021, the iPhone 13 Mini will do markedly better.

PlayStation 5 scalpers have made a misjudged effort in regard to changing the gaming public’s overwhelmingly negative opinion of their activities. Those involved with PS5 scalping have claimed that the bad press surrounding them is unjustified. A British politician has put forward a Private Members’ Bill to ban retail bot use and console scalping.

The Xiaomi MIUI 12.5 update for eligible smartphones utilizing the Global ROM has been found to offer fewer features and lower system optimization figures than the MIUI 12.5 China ROM. One particular memory-related optimization has a shortfall of -13% for the Global ROM, leading some to call MIUI 12.5 Global a “lite” version of the Android overlay.

CDPR may well be busy fixing Cyberpunk 2077, but it now claims an unidentified hacker has compromised its servers. Apparently, the hacker lifted source codes to CDPR's games, including those of Cyberpunk 2077 and an unreleased edition of The Witcher 3.

The Razr 5G may combine nostalgia with a compelling design, but Motorola is letting it down with awful software support. With a vague promise of Android 11 at some point this year and six-month-old security patches, the Razr 5G is a tough sell at US$1,200.

Andrew Spinks, a co-creator of the popular platformer Terraria, took to Twitter today to blast Google for failing to provide help with his locked Google accounts. Spinks' YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and other Google services have been locked for three weeks. As a result of what he claims is a lack of support from Google, Spinks also announced that the Stadia version of Terraria has been canceled.

Slides from Intel have been published revealing numerous benchmark and usage comparisons between the ARM-based Apple M1 chip and Core i7 representatives of the Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake series. The choice of benchmarks and some subtle SKU changes suggest Intel is focusing on trash-talking the Apple M1 rather than improving its own production.

Reports out of China have stated that Xiaomi has started blocking the installation of Google Mobile Services (GMS) from some of its smartphones that operate with the China ROM firmware. Previously, users in China had been able to install the Google apps, but some with devices running on MIUI 12.5 have found this is no longer possible.
Xiaomi has clarified the GMS situation with an official statement.

Apple has accepted a ruling from South Korea's national Fair Trade Commission that it has abused its dominance of the smartphone market in that country to skew conditions in its favor when it came to selling and supporting iPhones through carriers. Therefore, Apple has "volunteered" to fund facilities and education for small business in the IT sector.

People have discovered a new issue affecting Cyberpunk 2077, and it is one that could allow the execution of malicious code on your PC. CDPR blames external DLLs and claims that it will fix the problem soon. However, people apparently warned CDPR of the issue before it released Hotfix 1.11. Cyberpunk Engine Tweaks has reputedly already addressed the vulnerability, though.