Fail

When buying a new laptop, it's undeniably important that the model both performs well and looks great. Nevertheless, these lesser-known aspects are just as important to the user experience even though they are almost never mentioned by most publications and YouTubers.

For those parents desperate to find a new catchy song to entertain children bored of watching “Baby Shark”, look no further. Not only is “Huawei Beauty” sung by a bunch of cute kids, the video also features a nifty dance routine and gives some handy advice about what brand smartphone you should own. Just try to ignore the unsubtle propaganda and occasional iffy imagery.

The Redmi Note 7 is a phone that is sold at US$150, yet has a 48MP camera to sweeten its budget deal. It arrived in the JerryRigEverything YouTube studio to undergo the by-now famous durability test. Unfortunately, the Redmi device fell at the final hurdle.

Skybound Games has announced that it has terminated its contract with Starbreeze Studios for Overkill’s The Walking Dead, effectively cancelling further progress on the first-person shooter. Skybound Games is part of Skybound Entertainment, which was cofounded by the creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman.

According to a report, people are taking to social media to share their concerns about the Nokia 9 PureView and its potential to trigger symptoms in those who suffer from trypophobia. In simple terms, trypophobia is a fear (or disgust) of groups of holes or bumps. The Nokia 9 PureView’s rear penta-lens setup has a pattern that could have trypophobic effects.

Almost four months on since Dell announced that it would soon fix the DPC latency issues that have caused audio problems for some XPS 15 9570 laptops, Frank Azor has conceded that there is no end in sight for beleaguered owners. While he claims that Dell is making progress, he still cannot give a timeline for when the company hopes to release a fix.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 line introduces the Infinity-O display to the international market. Unfortunately, it seems that some app elements are being occluded or otherwise disrupted by the 'punch-hole' found in the upper right corner of this screen type. This highlights the increasing need to account for and adapt to this new display tech in the future.

Razer has had to cut around 2% of its workforce due to “realignment.” It’s believed many of the staff that have been let go were involved with the company’s smartphone products. The cuts could mean that any progress on the Razer Phone 3 device has been halted while the manufacturer streamlines its operations.

The Galaxy S10 and S10+ are here one day early, sort of. Norwegian TV channel TV 2 has aired the launch advert for the Galaxy S10 and S10+ before tomorrow's Galaxy UNPACKED event in San Francisco. The advert confirms many of the S10 and S10+'s features including its Infinity-O display, its in-screen fingerprint sensor and the now rare headphone jack.

Polish e-retailer X-Kom ran a promotion this past weekend that offered a free copy of Fallout 76 with four sets of PlayStation 4 thumbstick covers, all for POL 19 zl (~US $5). This discount is not out of the norm for retailers selling Fallout 76, a title that has had trouble selling copies and satisfying gamers.

Razer is shutting down the Razer Game Store, its own online retail space for PC games. The store will close in the early morning of February 28th. Any games purchased through the Razer Game Store will continue to work, though keys purchased via the store will need to be redeemed before the end of February. Additionally, Razer will honor any pre-orders made through the Game Store and will continue its Razer Gold and Razer Silver rewards programs.

Vox Media, the parent company of tech news outlet The Verge, has issued multiple copyright claims on videos criticizing its widely maligned PC building tutorial video. Using YouTube's copyright claim system, Vox lodged copyright strikes against several different channels that made criticism or parody videos of the tutorial. YouTube issued a copyright strike against some of the channels in question before reversing the decision, citing fair use under the DMCA.

Amazon has been the focus of considerable political opposition in the state of New York due to its plans to build one of its two new headquarters (HQ) in Long Island. New Yorkers have voiced their discontent with the proposals over the amount it would reportedly cost the state, among other issues. Amazon may now continue its HQ plans with other US locationa in mind.

A press release from Dell published in early January stated that the Dell XPS 15, Alienware m15, and Dell G7 15 laptops would be offered with OLED panel options starting in March. Unfortunately for those waiting to snap up a Dell laptop with this type of display, company executive Frank Azor has now stated that April is the current target.

Working with all major internet providers in the country, Russian authorities are planning an interesting - and quite disturbing - experiment that involves disconnecting all local users from the internet. The purpose of this experiment is to get feedback and maybe provide modifications to a law proposed back in December 2018.

Dell has had to recall certain versions of its portable charging device, the Hybrid Adapter + Power Bank, because of the risk of electric shock. Apparently, the casing of the black adapter part of the accessory can break, which in turn exposes metal components that could pose a hazard. Dell has already received 11 reports of this occurring.

Apple was supposed to completely fix the eavesdropping vulnerability triggered via the Group feature in the FaceTime app last week, but it looks like the company found a few more bugs and fixed them as well. One bug is related to the Live Photos feature in FaceTime, while the other two are related to memory corruption flaws occurring in the IOKit and Foundation.

Everything was normal until our glass display suddenly cracked. If you're planning on getting a cheap Android from a Chinese OEM, then hopefully you won't be unlucky as we are. We're just glad that nothing caught on fire.

Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything has done it again and disassembled another smartphone, this time the Vivo NEX Dual Display. The teardown is not without its issues though.

It has been reported that around 7.3 million units of Battlefield V have been sold since it was released in November last year. EA’s stock price fell after the company announced a cut in its revenue outlook, but the price rose later in the day and closed at a higher price than the previous day. For Q3 FY19, EA reported total net revenue of US$1.289 billion.

It has been reported that a former Apple employee has been charged with stealing information about self-driving cars from the Cupertino company. The worker, named as Jizhong Chen, has been accused of taking photos in sensitive areas and obtaining detailed information about the secret project with the intention of passing the details on to a rival Chinese firm.

TSMC confirmed that around 10,000 wafers were compromised, but the Taiwanese company has yet to make an official statement about the full extent of the damages and the exact circumstances of the incident. The unfortunate event could create AMD / Nvidia GPU shortages and artificial MSRP increases in the coming months.

Some alarming reports of a serious error in Group FaceTime associated with iOS 12.1 or later, have emerged. This bug allows an iPhone user to activate the call microphone of a second iPhone, whether its own user is aware of this or not. Apple has announced that they are working on a solution, and has also addressed it in the interim by shutting the video-call service down on their end.

The iPhone has had a bumpy couple of months. iOS 12.1.2, released last month, broke cellular connectivity for some users. The problem got so bad that Sprint issued a warning to its customers to wait on updating. There doesn't seem to be any relief in sight; not only does iOS 12.1.3 not bring a fix for the cellular issues, but the latest update has actually broken WiFi for several users in addition to cellular connectivity.

A 13-count indictment has been announced against Huawei and the company’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, mostly in relation to fraud. Two of the Chinese manufacturer’s affiliates, Huawei Device USA and Skycom Tech, have also been included in the charges. A separate 10-count indictment against the same firm was also unsealed, charging Huawei with theft of trade secrets among other things.

Nintendo has been mum on the development of Metroid Prime 4 since its announcement at E3 2017, but it looks like development has not been going well. In a video announcement, Shinya Takahashi stated that Nintendo has decided to restart development of Metroid Prime 4 and hand over the reins to Retro Studios, the development house behind the first three Metroid Prime games.

Nvidia has announced that the financial guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019 has been lowered. A forecast revenue figure of US$2.70 billion had previously been given, but this has now been reduced to US$2.20 billion. One of the reasons given for the disappointing update was the apparent sales figures for the RTX series based on Turing microarchitecture, which were weaker than expected.

XPS 15 9570 owners rejoice. We can confirm that Dell has finally fixed the NVIDIA GPU issue that has been plaguing some 9570 laptops for months with BIOS 1.7. Unfortunately, the update has introduced some fan peculiarities though.
Update: Dell has commented on the fan behaviour in BIOS 1.7.

Motorola released the Moto G4 Plus back in 2016 and promised it would receive two major updates. A while later, the company went back on its word and claimed the mid-range phone would not get the update, prompting a media outcry which forced it to once again promise to deliver Oreo. It's been 16 months since then, though, and the G4 Plus is still on Nougat.

Xiaomi sent out the January update to the Android One Mi A2 earlier this week, and there have now been multiple reports of bricked devices after installing the OTA. Unpolished updates may be becoming a theme of Xiaomi's Android One phones.

DeepMind Technologies will be celebrating after its AlphaStar AI managed to defeat two human opponents in the popular RTS game StarCraft II. Five versions of AlphaStar were created to compete against each other, with the AI winner taking on highly ranked professional players. DeepMind, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has already managed to create a program that beat some of the world’s best players at Go.

Several users have complained of a 'stage light' anomaly in their MacBook Pro displays. iFixit wrote in a blog post that it has identified the cause of the issue and attributes it to the manner in which the display cables connect to the display controller beneath the Touch Bar. This design causes the cables to tear overtime giving the uneven backlighting effect when the display is opened beyond a certain angle. More worrisome, however, is the fact that getting it repaired can prove to be a costly affair.

The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) has imposed a fine of €50 million (~US$56.8 million) on Google for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The huge penalty has been justified by the regulatory body based on the severity of the violations, Google’s popularity with French users, and the fact that the infringements were ongoing.

A few recent bad decisions by the Indian government might force Samsung to stop the local manufacturing of Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9 flagships. Even worse, the company might drop its plans to increase the exports of mobile phones made in India, which were supposed to hit 40 percent of the production for 2019.

The Windows Mobile platform is all but dead at this point. Microsoft will finally let it rest forever this year. The company will withdrawing support for the latest version of its OS, as well as the second-latest, by December 2019. It is recommended that their remaining users switch to another ecosystem that will have continual support, like iOS or Android.

Although Yahoo's most severe data breach apparently involved more accounts than Collection #1, this new major security incident involves almost 2.7 billion records, including almost 773 million unique email addresses alongside passwords associated with those addresses on various breached services.

A few weeks ago, a leak rumored that the S10 phones could feature new fast-charging technology. New information, however, indicates that the reality of the matter could be different, and S10 owner may have to put up with Samsung's good old 15W fast charge.

Although most DPC latency-related complaints we heard so far from Dell XPS users involved the XPS 15 9570, it looks like the XPS 15 9575 convertible is also plagued by such problems. Frank Azor has recently confirmed that Dell is working on a fix for this problem and that he will keep everyone updated on the progress.

Although the game itself is free, Fortnite also features virtual coins that can be used to purchase various in-game items. Scammers use stolen credit cards to buy V-bucks and then sell them for good rates to legitimate players. Just as expected, these transactions are being done via the Dark Web.

Huawei might be on its way to becoming the world's second-largest smartphone maker, but the latest move made by the Chinese brand might be a costly one in the long run. The EMUI 9.0 update will come without access to third-party launchers, although this limitation will only be applied in China in the beginning.

Although Apple has recently asked its suppliers to cut the iPhone production by 10 percent in the second quarter, it looks like the brand's handsets are not doing well in China. In an unprecedented move, Apple authorized mid-cycle price cuts that go as high as 22 percent for the iPhone 8 and 20 percent for the iPhone 8 Plus handsets on JD.com.

27 months after the LG V20 was released, LG appears to have finally ended all software support for it. The device ran on Android Nougat out of the box and only received the Oreo update almost a year after launch. This marks a sad end for a device widely regarded as the last truly great Android flagship.

The Sony Xperia XZ4 is set to be released at MWC next month. The company's Vice President of Marketing, however, has alluded to the fact that the company may not launch an XZ4 Compact. Also, new information claims the XZ4 will not feature a 3.5mm headphone jack after all.

In a dissapointing but perhaps unsurprising move, Dell has postponed the release of its BIOS update for the XPS 15 9570. The news comes after the company previously said that it would release BIOS 1.7 by the end of 2018, which Dell claims will fix the NVIDIA dGPU issue that has plagued some XPS 15 9570 laptops.
Update: Dell has now released the BIOS 1.7 update. We will give you a full breakdown of our findings in the coming days.

Amazon's subsidiary has just released a free video streaming service that offers a rich collection of ad-supported TV shows like Fringe and Heroes, as well as various Hollywood movies like The Last Samurai, True Romance, Run Lola Run, and so on. IMDb Freedrive content can be enjoyed on mobiles, laptops/desktop PCs, as well as on big screens via Amazon Fire TV devices.

Early reviews of Royole’s foldable FlexPai device have come in, and it seems the main attraction of the smartphone is what everyone expected it to be: Its flexibility. The company has done well in beating major players like Samsung and Huawei to the crown of producing the first fully foldable phone, but it has done this by creating a seemingly flawed handset.

What is the most that you would pay for a laptop? Well, Dell UK must think that some people have cash to burn as it has listed a version of the Precision 7720 for over £7 million on its website. That is ex. VAT and delivery too, although you would be apparently saving over £3 million. A true bargain then.

The next major Windows 10 release will reserve 7 GB of your device's storage space to avoid failing big updates due to a Windows Update bug. Due to this bug, the system is not checking for enough space before launching after an update. While 7 GB might not be much for most Windows PCs, cheap devices with 32 GB of internal storage will get in trouble.

An official Huawei Twitter account (@Huawei) has been caught sending its celebratory New Year's message from an iPhone. It was quickly picked up by the vlogger MKBHD on his own Twitter feed. A Reuters report claims that the employees responsible for this mishap had been fined and sanctioned by the company, as it "damaged the Huawei brand".

Apple’s stock price plummeted on the NASDAQ today. The previous close for the Cupertino company stood at US$157.92. However, at the time of writing, the stock price had fallen to US$142.19, leaving the iPhone maker with a market capitalization value of around US$674.7 billion. Apple’s stock price hasn’t been this low since the first half of 2017.