Fail

The announced OLED panel update for the Dell XPS 15 has already been delayed since March, and it now looks like those hoping for this display type on this particular performance laptop will have to wait even longer before making a purchase. However, there are signs that Dell could finally deliver the much-requested display option in June.

The Pigs have flown, Hell hath frozen over. Dell has finally released a new BIOS for the XPS 15 9570 specifically to address the device's DPC latency issues. It would not be an XPS 15 fix without some unintended problems though, right?

Anki, the startup which attempted to make robotics mainstream through tiny, but relatively expensive, toys has folded. Based in San Francisco, CEO Boris Sofman broke the news to emotional staff that all 200 have been laid off with just one week of severance pay.

Firefox for Android will begin to fizzle out later this year. Mozilla is moving their ailing mobile browser into an extended-support update scheme in order to focus on a new mobile browser: Fenix. Firefox for Android will continue to receive minor updates until Fenix is ready to launch, at which point Firefox will move into end-of-life.

The company has revealed that it has no plans to introduce a GTX 1660 Ti with its XPS 15 refresh, nor will it release a white version either as it has with recent XPS 13 models. The new XPS 15 will come with a GTX 1650 though, Frank Azor confirms.

Six apps from Chinese developer DO Global have been found to secretly collect user data and send it to Chinese servers. While these apps have now been removed, this issue has once again turned a spotlight on a serious privacy problem that continues to plague the Google Play Store: unwarranted app permissions.

Samsung PR is in overdrive. After delaying the public release of the Galaxy Fold following reports of numerous display issues, the company is now doing its best to shut down any negative press about the foldable smartphone.

An Alienware Area-51m owner has managed to score a very respectable 26,435 points in 3DMark’s Fire Strike test (1.1). The laptop was fitted with an Intel Core i9-9900K CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. But it seems a couple of overclocking Clevo owners have proved their gaming pedigree by immediately responding with reminders of how well their particular laptops performed.
Clarification: The Clevo laptops recorded their scores earlier this month.

Did you buy a Mac, iOS device or the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit between 2003 and 2010? If you did, chances are that you received a wall plug too. Turns out that the three-prong adapters sold in certain countries during that period can break and cause an electric shock if touched.

The South Korean manufacturer is reportedly switching production of its flagship smartphones from its home country to an existing plant in Vietnam. The move is an effort to reduce manufacturing costs amid seven consecutive quarters of losses. LG currently manufacturers up to a fifth of its smartphones in South Korea.

In an internal memo to Apple Store employees, Apple has instructed its repair technicians to begin repairing MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards on-site rather than shipping the devices to a repair facility. It appears that Apple is trying to mitigate the lengthy turnaround time for the repair, an aftershock of the keyboard's failure that has become a major sticking point for several customers.

Although the Galaxy Fold has been officially delayed, it looks like two more such models are in the pipeline. For now, they are known as "Type G" and "Type S," but there is no official information regarding their commercial names or release date yet. However, at least one of them is rumored to be announced by the end of the year.

The security analyst responsible for dismantling the WannaCry malware that crippled tens of thousands of computer systems (including many used in government services) pleaded guilty to two counts of writing malware used in banking attacks. Marcus Hutchins, who discovered the kill-switch that finally resolved WannaCry, will face up to 10 years in jail and up to $500,000 in fines.

The Nokia 9 PureView's in-display fingerprint reader has been the subject of many a debate, and the company has sent out OTAs that were supposed to improve it. A new video, however, shows a Nokia 9 PureView being unlocked by an unregistered fingerprint, and a packet of chewing gum afterwards. And no, we're not making this up.

Yota is an OEM associated with innovative dual-screen phones of the same name. It made its last such device in 2017, and hadn't been heard from since. Now, it has emerged that Yota has filed for bankruptcy in the Cayman Islands.

Dell, you tease. After going quiet having missed its last deadline to fix the XPS 15 9570's DPC latency issues, the company has now given a new date by when it plans to release a solution. Hopefully, it is not just breadcrumbing owners with this revised schedule.

Samsung has issued a statement in response to Galaxy Fold review unit display failures. The Galaxy Fold is the first product from the company to ship with a foldable Super AMOLED Infinity display and is considered a halo product.

Oh dear, the Samsung Galaxy Fold has got off to a rough start. There have already been multiple reports from prominent tech personalities of their Samsung Galaxy Fold review units breaking after a day's use. Bleak times indeed for Samsung's first foldable smartphone.

Despite giving assurances to the contrary, Dell is still yet to fix the latency issues that have plagued the XPS 15 9570 since its launch. Get your act together, Dell.

A glimmer of hope, perhaps? It now seems that Dell is backtracking on its refusal to reintroduce S3 sleep mode, which it removed from the XPS 15 9570 with a BIOS update nearly a year ago. Its removal caused an outcry from some owners who complained of excessively high battery drain caused by the mode's removal.
Update: Dell has elaborated on its initial comments.

HTC unveiled the U11+ about eighteen months ago. Since then, though, the flagship has yet to get a single OS update. In fact, bar Android One phones, no HTC device has received the Pie update, and that's a list that includes devices like the U12 Plus—a flagship that was launched less than a year ago.

Acer has just revealed its brand-new Predator Helios 300. The laptop sports thin bezels, an RGB-illuminated keyboard, and it will feature top-of-the-range goods from both Intel and Nvidia. But we already expected this thanks to a retailer posting information about the device on its website just days before the computer was officially announced.

A recently posted and unearthed Geekbench listing has shown a device that could be truly unique, as it suggests a joint effort from smartphone giants Huawei and Samsung, who have generously brought Sony along for the ride. However, disappointingly, this potentially majestic device only scored a measly 1,623 points in the single-core test and sports a Snapdragon 660 SoC.

With YouTube Music now Google's primary streaming service, the Google Play Artist Hub is going to shut down at the end of April. Sadly, Google has no plans to offer a new direct portal for smaller artists, and all material that was uploaded through the Google Play Artist Hub will disappear from both the Google Play Store and Play Music.

It looks like V20 owners will have to wait a few more months before they see Android Pie on their device. LG will not be updating the device before the summer according to its recently published Q2 2019 update schedule. The V30, V30S ThinQ, V35 ThinQ and V40 ThinQ are in luck though.

The saga of the XPS 15 9570's latency issues rumbles on. Frank Azor, the Vice President & General Manager of Alienware, Gaming and XPS at Dell, has tweeted that recently updated Realtek audio drivers should fix DPC-related issues for many XPS 15 9570 machines, while an upcoming BIOS revision should resolve its underlying causes.

Samsung Electronics has issued earnings guidance for the first quarter of 2019, and it shows that the tech giant’s operating profit has decreased dramatically from the first and last quarters of 2018. Issues such as the fall in memory chip prices and weaker demand for products like displays have affected the South Korean manufacturer’s financial performance.

The e-reparability authority iFixit had nothing but criticism for the first-gen AirPods when they came out. The wireless earbuds received a rare "repairability score" of zero from the company. Now, the new 2019 versions of these products have received the same rating.

After spending a few extra days in testing, the long-awaited second cumulative Windows 10 1809 update for March is finally rolling out to the general public. This piece of code that is labeled "KB4490481" fixes a long list of issues, but it still includes five known issues that have been around for a while.

Some renders have been developed based on patent drawings made by Lenovo as part of a patent filing with the USPTO. The result is a rather odd foldable smartphone that not only looks peculiar in comparison to other foldable smartphones, but it also seems to reveal a number of impractical features.

There’s a great deal of anticipation in the gaming community for the PlayStation 5, or whatever name Sony gives its next-generation console. It seems that some can’t wait for the real thing though, and an increasing number of “leaks” of PlayStation-related hardware are starting to appear on social media.

The ultimate demise of the AirPower charging mat appears to have been foretold by Apple insider Sonny Dickson several months ago. In the absence of any official word from Apple, other than it cancelled AirPower because it couldn’t “achieve our high standards,” it appears that Dickson’s is the most plausible explanation of what went wrong.

A new video posted by YouTube channel PhoneBuff has pitted the Samsung Galaxy S10+ against the iPhone XS Max in a series of brutal drop tests. Although the flagship from the South Korean manufacturer is wrapped in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6, it loses to the subjectively better durability performance of its iPhone rival.

In what will surely go down as one of the biggest fails in tech history, Apple has quietly announced that it has cancelled its Qi-enabled, long overdue, AirPower charging mat. Apple quietly made the dumbfounding announcement in a written statement to TechCrunch.

Sony has announced a “realignment” that involves Sony Mobile, the Imaging Products & Solutions Business, and the Home Entertainment & Sound Business. The merger will create Sony’s Electronics Products & Solutions Business. Some see it as Sony’s attempt to hide the massive failure of Sony Mobile to compete with rivals such as Samsung, Huawei, and Apple.

Despite Apple’s reputation for build quality and design it has been having a few quality issues of late, particularly with regard to its MacBook line. A search on Apple’s website has revealed all of the products in its lineup that are currently eligible for its “Exchange and Repair Extension” programs.

Office Depot, Inc. and Support.com, Inc. have agreed to pay a combined total of US$35 million to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after being accused of tricking customers into paying for unnecessary computer repair services. Support.com has been involved in a similar scareware scandal before, in conjunction with AOL’s Computer Checkup service.

Third time’s not the charm for Apple it seems when it comes to its troublesome butterfly mechanism-based MacBook keyboards. The company has admitted that users are still experiencing issues with the redesign that was meant to end the problems customers reported with the first two generations.

In response to the massive media attention around Operation ShadowHammer yesterday, Asus has released a fix for the affected software (Asus Live Update Utility) to patch the security holes used in the attack. The company also released a tool that allows users to check their systems for any traces of the malware. Links to both the online tool and instructions on updating the Live Update Utility are included below.

Kaspersky Labs earlier today wrote about an attack they discovered in January that compromised Asus' Live Update Utility. The attack affected 57,000 Kaspersky customers and may have hit as many as 500,000 computers around the world. Dubbed "Operation ShadowHammer," the attack injected a Trojan into the Live Update Utility and used authentic Asus software certificates to install itself onto targeted systems.

The Sony Xperia XZ3, a few days ago, made the trip over to photography benchmark website DxOMark, where it failed woefully, continuing the trend of Sony flagships being unable to catch up to the competition.

A comprehensive study carried out by Bitwise Asset Management has come to the conclusion that the majority of reported volume in bitcoin trading is faked. Some unethical bitcoin traders are deliberately manipulating the volume to encourage either buying or selling of the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently valued at US$3,965.

Users of AMD X470 chipset-based motherboards who have updated to the latest AGESA 0.0.7.x offered by some OEMs over the past week are reporting that the update cripples the Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) from working automatically, requiring manual adjustments via Ryzen Master. The issue seems to have affected some Asus and MSI X470 boards and the only recourse is to downgrade the BIOS (if possible) or wait till a fix for the PBO issue is released.

HMD Global has come up with an official response on the issue of its devices sending sensitive user data to Chinese servers. While the company's reasoning appears sound, it's still a tad appalling that something of this sort is associated with the Nokia brand, especially considering the hardware and software issues the company's devices have been accused of having over the past year.

Although it will retail for more than twice its price, the Samsung Galaxy Fold seems to be slower than the Galaxy S10e. According to an alleged Geekbench entry — that has already been removed from the benchmark database — Samsung's foldable is also slower than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855-powered Royole FlexPai.

Due to a security oversight made by some Facebook employees, certain Facebook apps have been inadvertently logging user passwords as plain text on internal company servers. While still secured against outside intrusion, between 200 and 600 million user passwords were visible and searchable by about 20,000 employees at Facebook.

Today, the European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion for abusing its market dominance of online search adverts. The company has now been fined over €8.25 billion by the Commission in less than two years for illegal practices.

A hands-on video of a Samsung Galaxy Fold has been uploaded to YouTube. The clip in question is actually focused on unlocking the smartphone; however, the thing that is immediately apparent is how noticeable the crease down the middle of the device is. The Galaxy Fold will be officially launched on April 26.

In an embarrassing admission, Myspace has confirmed that it has lost every piece of music that users uploaded between 2003 and 2015, which equates to over 50 million files. The company reports that there is no way to recover the lost data.

A number of recent Geekbench listings alluded to the existence of two new Pocophone devices: The Poco F1 Lite and Poco F2. We were skeptical in our coverage of both stories and it turns out were right to be, as it was all just a ruse by the enthusiast community to see how the media would handle the false information.