Huawei’s business damaged by US sanctions despite success at home

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has admitted that sanctions imposed on it by the US in 2019 have had a major impact on its mobile phone business.

The US took action amid claims that the company posed a security risk and last July, the UK said it would exclude the company from building its 5G network.

Growth elsewhere in the company meant that it did make a profit overall.

But chairman Ken Hu, referring to the impact of the sanctions, told the BBC: "It has caused a lot of damage to us."

Mr Hu, speaking at the launch of Huawei's 2020 report, called for ...

'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

‘Fake' accounts claiming to be Amazon workers have been praising their working conditions on Twitter.

Votes are currently being counted in Alabama to decide whether Amazon warehouse workers will form a union.

But last night, a series of anti-union tweets were sent from accounts claiming to be staff.

Twitter has now suspended many of the accounts, and Amazon has confirmed at least one is fake.

Most of the accounts were made just a few days ago, often with only a few tweets, all related to Amazon.

“What bothers me most about unions is there’s no ability ...

Facebook undersea cable to boost South East Asia internet

Facebook and Google are planning two new undersea internet cables to connect South East Asia to North America.

The project with regional telecoms companies aims to supply faster internet to Singapore and Indonesia.

This comes after Facebook withdrew three projects to connect the US to Hong Kong with similar cables, following government concerns over spying.

The cables require regulatory approval from the national governments involved.

“Named Echo and Bifrost, those will be the first two cables to go through a new diverse route crossing the Java Sea, and they ...

AI: Ghost workers demand to be seen and heard

Artificial intelligence and machine learning exist on the back of a lot of hard work from humans.

Alongside the scientists, there are thousands of low-paid workers whose job it is to classify and label data - the lifeblood of such systems.

But increasingly there are questions about whether these so-called ghost workers are being exploited.

As we train the machines to become more human, are we actually making the humans work more like machines?

And what role do these workers play in shaping the AI systems that are increasingly controlling every aspect of our l ...

Covid vaccine: Social media urged to remove 'disinfo dozen'

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been urged by a US lawmaker to ban a dozen people who it is claimed are spreading the vast majority of disinformation about Covid vaccinations.

Representative Mike Doyle made the call to remove their accounts during a US congressional session on how the three firms were dealing with fake news.

He challenged Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pinchai to deplatform the dozen people immediately.

None have responded to the call so far.

Facebook said that it was looking into the matter to see if the accounts violated its comm ...

Google, Facebook Twitter grilled in US on fake news

Tech bosses Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey are being grilled by US politicians over the proliferation of disinformation on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

This latest hearing is the first since the storming of the US Capitol.

Politicians believe that was a tipping point for greater regulation.

They have said they plan to change the legislation that protects online platforms from liability for content posted by third parties.

The session began in combative style with the chair Mike Doyle asking all three executives whether they felt they bore re ...

Intel chief Pat Gelsinger: Too many chips made in Asia

Intel's new chief executive has told the BBC it is not "palatable" that so many computer chips are made in Asia.

The majority of processors are currently manufactured in the region, with Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung the dominant players.

US-based Intel plans to set up a new division to make chips for other companies based on their own designs.

Until now, its focus had been on manufacturing its own chips in its factories across the world.

Pat Gelsinger has said Intel will invest $20bn (£14.6bn) in two new fabrication plants in the US state ...

Donald Trump plans social media comeback, says adviser

Former US President Donald Trump will soon return to social media "with his own platform", his adviser has said.

"I do think that we're going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months," Jason Miller told Fox News.

He said the platform "will be the hottest ticket in social media" and would "completely redefine the game".

Mr Trump was suspended from Twitter and Facebook after January's deadly riots at the US Capitol in Washington DC.

The attack on 6 January by Trump supporters ...

NHS boss's Twitter accounts hacked by PS5 scammers

NHS executive Helen Bevan had her two Twitter accounts, with nearly 140,000 followers, stolen by hackers and used to promote fake PlayStation 5 sales.

She now has the accounts back but has received dozens of messages from people who fell for the scam.

Ms Bevan also paid money to someone who said they could help - but they turned out to be a scammer too.

She said she wanted to highlight the importance of extra security measures.

NHS Horizons chief transformation officer Ms Bevan mistakenly thought she had activated two-factor authentication (2FA), which requir ...

Gigabit broadband: First areas to benefit announced

The government has announced the first stages of its plans to get superfast broadband to the majority of homes in the UK.

Originally it had promised to roll out gigabit-speed broadband to every home in Britain by 2025 but that was reduced to 85% coverage in November.

The budget remains at £5bn - but only £2.1bn of that will be made available up to 2024.

The infrastructure build should start in 2022, the government said.

The first to benefit will be homes and businesses in Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Dorset, Durham, Essex, Northumberland, South Tyneside ...

Chip shortage: Samsung warns of 'serious imbalance'

Samsung, the world’s biggest computer-chip manufacturer, has warned of a “serious imbalance” in the semiconductor industry, as global shortages cause disruption.

It also said it might skip the launch of the next Galaxy Note smartphone, to streamline its lineup.

There are growing fears market shortages could slow economic recovery after coronavirus.

EU, US and Chinese governments are seeking to boost production.

“There’s a serious imbalance in supply and demand of chips in the IT sector globally,” Samsung's co-chief executive and mobile chief, Koh Dong-jin, sa ...

Technology and science move to the heart of UK security

National power will be defined not by the number of tanks and ships a country possesses but by its science and technology, and the quality of its algorithms.

That is the message of the UK's Integrated Review, which says the government's aim is for the country to become an innovation "superpower" by 2030.

"This will be essential in gaining economic, political and security advantages in the coming decade," it says.

It marks a major strategic shift in thinking. But delivery will not be straightforward.

US v China
A global tech race is ...

Bitcoin: Fake Elon Musk giveaway scam 'cost man £400,000'

Sebastian will always remember the moment he lost £407,000, with equal parts anger and shame.

The night leading up to it had been otherwise forgettable.

He and his wife watched a series on Netflix, before she went to bed and left him on the sofa messing about on his phone.

Then he received a Twitter notification with news from Elon Musk.

Sebastian told the BBC: "Musk tweeted, 'Dojo 4 Doge?' and I wondered what it meant.

"There was a link to a new event below, so I clicked on it and saw that he was giving away Bitcoin!"

Sebastian ...

Why the GameStop story is far from over

GameStop's shares slumped by 40% in 25 minutes on Wednesday, after a few days of frenetic growth.

Earlier that day the share price had soared to nearly $350 (£250) - 100 times more than this time last year.

What does this tell us?
One of the wildest stories of the year is still very much alive
Many amateur traders are still both making money - and getting hurt
Our understanding of what happened in late January, when GameStop's share price was making headlines around the world, remains incomplete
Why is it shocking?
In February, the prevaili ...

Why the GameStop story is far from over

GameStop's shares slumped by 40% in 25 minutes on Wednesday, after a few days of frenetic growth.

Earlier that day the share price had soared to nearly $350 (£250) - 100 times more than this time last year.

What does this tell us?
One of the wildest stories of the year is still very much alive
Many amateur traders are still both making money - and getting hurt
Our understanding of what happened in late January, when GameStop's share price was making headlines around the world, remains incomplete
Why is it shocking?
In February, the prevaili ...

Netflix considers crackdown on password sharing

Netflix is trialling a crackdown on password sharing.

Some users have reported seeing a screen saying, "If you don't live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching."

A spokesperson told the BBC: "This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorised to do so."

A decision has yet to be made as to whether the company will roll this out across its network.

In the trial, users can verify they are allowed to access the account by a code, sent via text or email.

Netflix is ...

Facebook asks judge to throw out FTC anti-trust lawsuit

Facebook has asked a US judge to dismiss anti-trust charges levelled against the company.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 45 other states sued Facebook for alleged anti-competitive behaviour in December.

The lawsuit requested the breaking up of the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

On Wednesday, Facebook described the complaint as "nonsensical" and asked the judge to throw the case out.

In a statement, Facebook said the case "ignores the reality of the dynamic, intensely competitive high-tech industry in which Facebook ope ...

EU seeks to supercharge computer chip production

The European Commission has set an ambitious target to boost production of cutting-edge computer chips by the end of the decade.

It wants 20% of such chips, in terms of value, to be manufactured within the EU by 2030. It was 10% in 2020.

The pledge comes at a time when supply has failed to meet demand, causing problems for car-makers and others.

Part of the challenge will be that the US and mainland China are also seeking to increase their own output.

At present, Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung dominate, with the two companies being the only ones capa ...

Microsoft email server hacks put Biden in a bind

The scale of a hack on Microsoft Exchange is beginning to emerge, with tens of thousands of organisations potentially compromised.

The attack used previously unknown flaws in the email software - and sometimes stolen passwords - to steal data from targets' networks.

Microsoft says the attackers are "state-sponsored and operating out of China".

And while it initially thought the number of attacks had been "limited", it has since reported "increased use" of the tactics - probably because other hackers are piling in to take advantage of the ...

Why popular YouTubers are building their own sites

Whether he's showing off astronomically expensive computer gaming hardware or dumpster-diving for the cheapest PC builds possible, Linus Sebastian's videos always strike a chord, and have made him one of the most popular tech personalities on YouTube.

But Google-owned YouTube gets most episodes of Linus Tech Tips a week late.

Now, they debut on his own site called Floatplane, which attracts a much smaller crowd.

"Google has been very, very good to me," Linus says. "But it's a lot of eggs in one basket."

And with a staff of two dozen, he ca ...

Why popular YouTubers are building their own sites

Whether he's showing off astronomically expensive computer gaming hardware or dumpster-diving for the cheapest PC builds possible, Linus Sebastian's videos always strike a chord, and have made him one of the most popular tech personalities on YouTube.

But Google-owned YouTube gets most episodes of Linus Tech Tips a week late.

Now, they debut on his own site called Floatplane, which attracts a much smaller crowd.

"Google has been very, very good to me," Linus says. "But it's a lot of eggs in one basket."

And with a staff of two dozen, he ca ...

Tech Tent: The new 'space race' for computer chips

Silicon chips are at the heart of many of the biggest technology stories of our time.

Without them, car plants around the world have come to a halt. The technology to make them is now seen by the United States as a key weapon in its trade war with China. And access to the latest and most-powerful versions will determine who wins the artificial intelligence race.

In this week's Tech Tent podcast, we look at the semiconductor industry and try to answer five important questions about chips.

What's behind the current shortages?
From Ford and General Motors in the ...

YouTube to lift Trump ban if violence threat falls, says CEO

YouTube's chief executive has said the platform may lift Donald Trump's suspension, if the threat of "real-world violence" decreases.

Susan Wojcicki said the company will look at government warnings and violent rhetoric to determine when it's safe to lift the suspension.

Following the Capitol Hill riot on 6 January that left five dead, Mr Trump's account was suspended.

YouTube said he had violated their incitement of violence policy.

"It's pretty clear that right now where we stand, that there still is that elevated risk of violence," the ...

Reddit chief: I was late to spot GameStop stock mania

Reddit boss Steve Huffman has told BBC News he supported the aims of controversial sub-Reddit WallStreetBets.

A long-time fan of the group, he said he had been slow in spotting its effect on GameStop's huge share-price spike in January.

"I was actually a little late to the party, because I didn't realise that Reddit had leaked into the real world again", he said.

GameStop's share price ended up reaching nearly $500 (£350) before falling.

WallStreetBets had been hyping up the computer-game retailer's shares.

The idea was if enough Reddit user ...

Contraception app Natural Cycles swipes at new rival from Clue

Natural Cycles, the first app to be cleared by US regulators for use as a contraceptive, has criticised the approval of a new birth control service from period tracker app Clue.

Natural Cycles knocked Clue's product for relying purely on period dates and also said its approval process had not been as thorough.

But Clue said the regulator had determined its digital Birth Control service was "safe and effective".

It is due to launch in the US in 2021.

The idea behind both apps is that they offer an alternative to traditional forms of contraception, an ...

Biden urged to back AI weapons to counter China and Russia threats

The US and its allies should reject calls for a global ban on AI-powered autonomous weapons systems, according to an official report commissioned for the American President and Congress.

It says that artificial intelligence will "compress decision time frames" and require military responses humans cannot make quickly enough alone.

And it warns Russia and China would be unlikely to keep to any such treaty.

But critics claim the proposals risk driving an "irresponsible" arms race.

"This is a shocking and frightening report that could le ...

MyHeritage offers 'creepy' deepfake tool to reanimate dead

Genealogy site MyHeritage has introduced a tool which uses deepfake technology to animate the faces in photographs of dead relatives.

Called DeepNostalgia, the firm acknowledged that some people might find the feature "creepy" while others would consider it "magical".

It said it did not include speech to avoid the creation of "deepfake people".

It comes as the UK government considers legislation on deepfake technology.

How do deepfakes work?
Deepfake Queen to deliver Channel 4 Christmas message
The Law Commission is ...

Bitcoin energy use 'bigger than most countries'

We've all heard the stories of Bitcoin millionaires.

Elon Musk is the latest.

His electric car company Tesla made a paper profit of more than $900m (£646m) after buying $1.5bn (£1bn) -worth of the cryptocurrency in early February.

Its high profile support helped pushed the price of a single Bitcoin to more than $58,000.

But it isn't just the digital asset's price that has hit an all-time high. So has its energy footprint.

And that's caused blowback for Mr Musk, as the scale of the currency's environmental impact becomes clearer.

It also helped ...

Amazon rainforest plots sold via Facebook Marketplace ads

Parts of Brazil's Amazon rainforest are being illegally being sold on Facebook, the BBC has discovered.

The protected areas include national forests and land reserved for indigenous peoples.

Some of the plots listed via Facebook's classified ads service are as large as 1,000 football pitches.

Facebook said it was "ready to work with local authorities", but indicated it would not take independent action of its own to halt the trade.

"Our commerce policies require buyers and sellers to comply with laws and regulations," the Californian tech ...

Spot: Boston Dynamics condemns robot paintball rampage plan

A US art installation that will let people control a paintballing robot in a mock art gallery has been condemned by the firm that made the robo-dog.

Boston Dynamics criticised the project, calling it a "provocative use" of its quadruped robot, Spot.

It warned that if the "spectacle" goes ahead, Spot's warranty might be voided, meaning it could not be updated.

The group behind it, MSCHF, argues that Spot or robots like it will probably be used for military applications.

The group is known for creating viral stunts, stories and products.

Google-linked smart city plan ditched in Portland

A smart city project started by Google's sister firm Sidewalk Labs to track mobility patterns in the US city of Portland has been shelved.

Last year, Sidewalk also ditched an ambitious project to build a digital city in Toronto, following controversy about the scale of its plans.

Portland confirmed the project would no longer go ahead.

Sidewalk said the scheme had most recently been in the hands of a spin-off company, Replica.

Replica told the BBC it was unwilling to share data to the level of detail requested by the city.

"At Replica, we believe ...

Huawei Mate X2 folding phone unveiled despite chip supply worries

Huawei has unveiled a revamped foldable smartphone, which it says has a much smaller internal gap when closed than that of its main rival Samsung.

The Mate X2 marks a major redesign for the Chinese firm. When shut, the large display is now hidden inside the device rather than exposed over its exterior, as was the case with past generations.

But its price - about £2,000 ($2,800) - is likely to limit demand.

And US trade bans also threaten the firm's ability to produce them.

The company's consumer devices chief acknowledged the challenges it faced in his openin ...

Margaret Mitchell: Google fires AI ethics founder

Google has fired the founder and co-head of its artificial intelligence ethics unit, claiming she violated the company's code of conduct.

In a statement, Google said an investigation found Margaret Mitchell had moved files outside the company.

The ethics unit has been under scrutiny since December, following the departure of another senior figure, Timnit Gebru.

Both women had campaigned for more diversity at Google and raised concerns about censorship within the company.

Dr Mitchell announced the news in a tweet, which read "I'm fired".

For ...

Clubhouse downloads double in two weeks, analytics firm says

Audio chat app Clubhouse has doubled its download numbers in just over two weeks, according to download estimates by one analytics firm.

App Annie reports that the app saw global downloads grow from 3.5 million to 8.1 million between 1 and 16 February.

The invite-only app has surged in popularity amid appearances by some high-profile celebrities.

But that popularity has also seen the firm attract significant criticism.

Experts highlighted that data from the app is sometimes routed through Chinese servers - even if users are in the United States or other count ...

Nvidia limits crypto-mining on new graphics card

Graphics card-maker Nvidia says it will deliberately reduce the efficiency of its latest card by 50% when it is used to mine the crypto-currency Ethereum.

Crypto-currency enthusiasts have contributed to a shortage of graphics cards by snapping up supplies to use for non-gaming purposes.

Nvidia said it had intervened to make sure its products "end up in the hands of gamers".

But it will also sell a bespoke crypto-currency mining processor.

What is the issue?
Graphics cards (GPUs) are a crucial component of a gaming PC.

A modern card ca ...

'Most healthcare apps not up to NHS standards'

A firm which reviews healthcare apps for several NHS trusts says 80% of them do not meet its standards.

Failings include poor information, lack of security updates and insufficient awareness of regulatory requirements, said Orcha chief executive Liz Ashall-Payne.

The firm's reviews help determine whether an app should be recommended to patients by NHS staff.

There are about 370,000 health-related apps available online, Orcha said.

App developers can categorise their apps themselves and the ones reviewed by the firm include those tagged health, fitness and med ...

Chinese users flock to Clubhouse amid soaring popularity

Audio-only social network iPhone app Clubhouse has seen an explosion of new users in the last week, including Chinese people discussing politics.

According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, the app was downloaded 2.3 million times by 31 January.

The chat app is free, but currently invite-only.

However, Chinese users are paying up to $77 (£56) for invitations from e-commerce sites, according to the FT.

Clubhouse was launched in May and valued at almost $100m. The app allows users to join and participate in pop-up public or private audio chatrooms.

...

How will 'chipageddon' affect you?

For the most part they go unseen but computer chips are at the heart of all the digital products that surround us - and when supplies run short, it can halt manufacturing.

There was a hint of the problem last year when gamers struggled to buy new graphics cards, Apple had to stagger the release of its iPhones, and the latest Xbox and PlayStation consoles came nowhere close to meeting demand.

Then, just before Christmas, it emerged the resurgent car industry was facing what one insider called "chipageddon".

New cars often include more than 100 microprocessor ...

Broadband switching should be less 'hassle', says Ofcom

People who want to swap broadband providers should be able to do so more simply, regulator Ofcom has said.

It follows its own research suggesting 40% of people are put off switching because it is considered too complex.

Under its proposals, customers would just contact their chosen new provider and the switch would happen automatically.

There is currently a mismatch between the number of superfast connections available and those taking them up.

Fibre broadband: The cost of delivering in rural areas
One in four UK homes can access 1Gbps broadband
...

Apple Face ID to work for mask wearers

The next update to the iPhone operating system will let owners use a face scan to unlock their handsets even when wearing a mask - but there is one big caveat.

At present, trying to use the Face ID feature with part of the face covered triggers a screen asking users to type in their passcode, which many find frustrating.

The iOS 14.5 upgrade should solve that.

But users also need to be wearing one of Apple's more recent smartwatches.

A Watch Series 3 or later, which the user must have earlier unlocked, is required, to provide an extra level of security to mak ...

GameStop investor battle moves on to silver as prices surge

Silver prices have hit an a eight-year high after calls to buy the metal on social media sparked a trading frenzy.

It comes a week after amateur investors piled into shares in the games retailer GameStop, causing them to jump 700%.

On Monday silver rose by as much as 11% to $30 an ounce, while shares in some mining firms were up as much as 60%.

Small time traders swapping tips on Reddit are thought to be behind the trend, as they seek to drive prices up.

However, some users of the site dispute this, alleging the "Silver Squeeze" is secretly being co ...

Google halts Play Store 'review bombing' by GameStop traders

Google has removed a wave of negative reviews of popular stock-market trading apps targeted by furious investors.

Platforms such as Robinhood have been hit after preventing independent traders buying GameStop and AMC shares.

Users of a Reddit message board had managed to upset the market by buying the shares and inflating their value, hitting established hedge funds.

Many online traders, feeling betrayed by Robinhood's restrictions, have hit back with critical reviews of the app.

Google has removed tens of thousands of one-star reviews for the widely-used tra ...

Joe Biden's tech - what can the president use?

You might think the world's most powerful man would have access to any gadget he chooses - but when it comes consumer tech, Joe Biden may be sorely disappointed.

The electronic devices around the US president are perhaps the most prominent hacking targets in the world.

"The odds are zero, that [Russia] aren't targeting world leaders," Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Bruce Schneier says.

Back in the 2000s, this wasn't such a big problem - the only personal devices that could be hacked were computers and non-smart mobile phones.

And why would the pres ...

Facebook's Oversight Board orders takedowns restored

Facebook's Oversight Board has made its first rulings about content, deciding four out of five of the removed posts referred to it have to be restored.

The board was set up to hear appeals from users about content they felt had been unfairly taken down - as well as cases referred by Facebook itself.

The five posts covered a range of issues, including hate speech, nudity, misinformation and violence.

The takedown the panel upheld was for a "demeaning slur" against Azerbaijanis.

This post had been correctly removed for using a term of disdain "me ...

Apple Christmas sales surge to $111bn amid pandemic

Apple sales have hit another record, as families loaded up on the firm's latest phones, laptops and gadgets during the Christmas period.

Sales in the last three months of 2020 hit more than $111bn (£81bn) - up 21% from the prior year.

The gains come as the pandemic pushes more activity online, fuelling demand for new technology.

Apple now counts more than 1.65 billion active devices globally, including more than 1 billion iPhones.

Apple's gains follow the release of its new iPhone 12 suite of phones, which executives said had convinced a record number of peop ...

Beware fake Covid vaccination invites, NHS warns

The NHS has warned people to be vigilant about fake invitations to have the coronavirus vaccination, sent by scammers.

The scam email includes a link to "register" for the vaccine, but no registration for the real vaccination is required.

The fake site also asks for bank details either to verify identification or to make a payment.

The NHS says it would never ask for bank details, and the vaccine is free.

Cyber-security consultant Daniel Card told BBC News that traffic data indicates thousands of people had clicked the link to the fake site - althou ...

Twitter pilot to let users flag 'false' content

Twitter is asking its users for help in combating fake news.

It has announced a pilot that allows people to submit notes on tweets that may be false or misleading.

The initiative, named 'Birdwatch', is being trialled among a small group in the US initially. The firm acknowledged the new system would have to be "resistant to manipulation attempts".

Companies like Twitter are looking at how they can better moderate their platforms.

Twitter said on Monday: "We know this might be messy and have problems at times, but we believe this is a model wort ...

Zuckerberg's Biden problem

Before the Cambridge Analytica story had broken. Before Facebook's acknowledgement that its platform had been used to help incite ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Before the WhatsApp lynchings in India. Before QAnon and the Proud Boys - Mark Zuckerberg had the world at his feet.

So much so in fact, that at the start of 2017 he decided to tour America.

In a Facebook post, he said he wished to "talk to more people about how they're living, working and thinking about the future".

His goal was to speak to people in all 50 states - to get out and engage with real Am ...

Cyber criminals publish more than 4,000 stolen Sepa files

Cyber criminals who stole thousands of digital files belonging to environmental regulator Sepa have published them on the internet.

The public body had about 1.2GB of data stolen from its digital systems on Christmas Eve.

Sepa rejected a ransom demand for the attack, which has been claimed by the international Conti ransomware group.

Contracts, strategy documents and databases are among the 4,000 files released.

The data has been put on the dark web - a part of the internet associated with criminality and only accessible through specialised software.

...

Covid-19: Amazon offers to help with US vaccine delivery

Amazon has offered to help distribute Covid-19 vaccines in the US, in a letter to new president Joe Biden.

The letter, penned by the firm's chief executive Dave Clark, said that the e-commerce giant stood "ready to assist you in this effort".

Amazon has come in for criticism about its handling of the pandemic, with some staff claiming conditions in its warehouses were not safe.

But it is also asking for vaccines for its workers to be prioritised.

The firm has signed an agreement with an unnamed healthcare provider to administer vaccines on site at i ...

PS5: Restock of new PlayStations causes chaos online

New stock of the PlayStation 5 console has led to thousands of gamers waiting in virtual queues online.

More than 160,000 people were trying to access Currys PC World website at one point on Wednesday, which had only a limited supply.

The recommended retail price starts at £449 - but eBay bids are currently running to thousands of pounds.

Experts said a rise in bots buying consoles added to the high demand had led to technical difficulties.

Sold out
PlayStation said the demand was unprecedented.

On Wednesday morning, a message on the Currys PC ...

Laptop of the Year: Honor MagicBook 14

There has been some fierce competition for the coveted spot of Tech Advisor's laptop of the year. But in the end, it came down to the best balance of features and cost – and no device does it better than the Honor MagicBook 14, which comes in at the very affordable price of £549.99.

The original MagicBook 14 was launched at the beginning of the year, and was the company’s first big step into the Western laptop market. Later in the year we also saw a re-released version with some upgraded specs and a few minor tweaks to justify its slightly higher £669 price tag.

Both generat ...

Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro camera faces serious problems and looks like a hardware issue

While we are waiting for the full review to come out (or maybe check out the existing review of the not-so-different Xiaomi Mi 10T), it would be a good idea to take a closer look at what seems to be one of the major flaws of the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro. Before moving on, I have to highlight that this is my personal experience with a handset that I purchased and it could be a hardware problem that only affects my unit or a certain batch.

In most cases, mobile phone photography tests involve night shots of various buildings and landscapes, without focusing on shots that involve a single lig ...

Nikon Z6 II review: A sensational second coming

During the spring of 2019 we spent weeks shooting with the Nikon Z6 around South Africa's wine region and pretty much fell head-over-heels for that superb full-frame camera.

So when Nikon announced its follow-up, the Z6 II, just 18 months after the original debuted, we wondered what more it could bring to the table. The answer is more processing power, for more speed in burst shooting, along with a wider buffer for capturing more shots consecutively, and dual card slots.

Don't think of the Z6 II as an upgraders camera, then, just think of it as the original enhanced for new ...

Dell's XPS 17 Proves Big-Screen Laptops Are Back, and They're Awesome

A few years back, a lot of major laptop makers began quietly paring down the number of 17-inch laptops they made (aside from monstrously large gaming rigs), with Apple and Dell dropping the 17-inch MacBook Pro and XPS 17 respectively. However, thanks to improvements like smaller bezels and improved energy efficiency, thin and light laptops with plus-sized screens and big performance are making a comeback.

After Apple re-envisioned its big-format laptop as the 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2019, Dell made a similar move by bringing back the XPS 17 this year. While the circumstances are diff ...

Razer Book 13 vs. Dell XPS 13 9310: Same CPU, Same Display, Big Differences

The Razer Book 13 and Dell XPS 13 are some of the sexiest 13-inch laptops in the market at the moment, but we're not here to talk about looks. Instead, we're going to try and compare them as objectively as we can to see which system comes out on top. After all, hard numbers are hard to argue against at the end of the day.

See our individual reviews on the Dell XPS 13 9310 and Razer Book 13 for more detailed information on each. Note that this comparison deals only between the two FHD configurations listed below as other SKUs have different CPU and display options.

Case

ASUS Announces the TUF Gaming VG289Q1A Gaming Monitor

ASUS has announced the TUF Gaming VG289Q1A Gaming monitor, which features a 28-inch screen size, a 4K resolution, and a maximum refresh rate of up to 60 Hz. These features make this monitor perfect for any gaming setup. ASUS has not announced any pricing for this gaming monitor or any availability information for the TUF Gaming VG289Q1A Gaming monitor.

The TUG Gaming VG289Q1A Gaming monitor offers a 4K resolution and a refresh rate of up to 60 Hz

The TUF Gaming VG289Q1A Gaming monitor features a resolution of 4K, or 3,840 x 2,160, which offers a large amount of screen space ...

Lenovo Yoga 7i Review: Premium Intel Evo Laptop On A Budget

As time goes on, Intel's 10-nanometer Tiger Lake processors will pounce on more laptop designs, given that it has only been a handful of weeks since the chip maker launched its latest mobile CPUs (which replace Ice Lake). Lenovo was quick out of the gate, however, and the company sent us an interesting sub-$1,000 Tiger Lake configuration from its rather plentiful 2-in-1 lineup. Specifically, the Lenovo Yoga 7i that arrived on our doorstep, and it's a flexible 14-inch convertible which is also the first to land in our lab armed with an 11th Gen Core i5-1135G7 processor in tow.

Our da ...

Blue Screen of Death returns! Windows 10 users' worst nightmare is back

Windows 10 fans are once again having to endure another problematic update release, in a Groundhog Day-style scenario that keeps on plaguing PC fans. This year has seen plenty of patches released by Microsoft that, while fixing some issues or adding new features, has also caused plenty of unintended knock-on effects. Only recently Windows 10 users saw the release of the October 2020 patch (one of the major landmark upgrades of the year) cause a slew of glitches such as driver compatibility issues.

While other patches released by Microsoft have caused a litany of problems, such as is ...

HP Omen 30L Review: A sleek 4K gaming tower with a modern design

When it comes to tower PCs, you have two camps: those who insist on the superiority of building your own and those who want something out of the box that works.

The new HP Omen 30L falls into the latter category, but HP, like other PC makers, borrows from the DIY crowd with success. Yes, it's a pre-made system, but its new one-button toolless entry, pre-wiring for expansion, and multiple RGB lighting zones make it feel a bit more custom.

I use the Omen Obelisk myself, so stepping up to the Omen 30L with new RTX 3080 graphics and 10th Gen Core i9 has me a bit jealous. And i ...

Intel NUC 11 Performance to arrive with up to a Core i7-1165G7 and in three chassis variants

Intel is supposedly due to announce the NUC 11 Performance this month, according to Fanless Tech. However, @9550pro has already revealed the full details of the device, and it has also been spotted on UserBenchmark. Intel will offer the NUC 11 Performance with a choice of three Tiger Lake processors, the leaked slide states, ranging from the Core i3-1115G4 to the Core i7-1165G7. All are 28 W processors and boost above 4 GHz. The Core i3 includes a lesser GPU though, with Xe Graphics reserved for the Core i5 and Core i7 SKUs.

Only the Core i7-1165G7 model has appeared on UserBenchmar ...

Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Review: AMD Does It Again

The Lenovo ThinkPad L14 is successor to last year’s 14-inch ThinkPad L490. During last year’s review, we noticed that neither the display nor the CPU performed particularly well despite what turned out to be an overall decent package. This year, for the first time in the history of Lenovo’s L-series, you can choose between an Intel and an AMD processor. Lenovo’s L-series sits right in-between the higher-quality T-series and the more affordable entry-level E-series and is aimed primarily at business users. Given that the L14 shares many of its exterior attributes with its predecessor we are ...

Windows 10 command line tool will help you keep track of all your storage

Microsoft has added a new built-in command line tool called DiskUsage to Insider builds of Windows 10 that reports how much disk space folders use.

As first reported by BleepingComputer, the news outlet discovered the new utility when testing Windows Insider builds 20277 and 21277. DiskUsage is capable of scanning entire drives or specified folders and reporting how much drive space each folder is using.

The utility is located in System 32 and is still in the early stages of development. Currently some features are now working as expected and there are even some spelling err ...

ASROCK B550 TAICHI RAZER EDITION REVIEW

Since the debut of ASRock’s Taichi brand, we’ve been fans of its quality blend of price, performance, and features. It’s also one of few sub brands that doesn’t go all in on a ‘gaming’ theme, which is something many people appreciate. I know I do. With the Razer influence, however, that’s changed somewhat here. The traditional yin/yang and cog machinery aesthetic has been left off with the release of the B550 Taichi Razer Edition. 

This reinvented ASRock Taichi board features a minimalist, yet unmistakably premium appearance that integrates Razer Chroma RGB support. It sure is a lov ...

AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU destroys predecessor and could worry Intel in leaked benchmark

A benchmark of AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800H has allegedly leaked on Geekbench, with some positive results. The benchmark was posted to Twitter by well-known leaker ASPIK (@TUM_APISAK) and can be compared against its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 4800H, and also the existing Comet Lake-H CPUs from Intel.

As ever, treat any leak with caution, but if this benchmark score is a genuine reflection of performance then the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H would be giving some serious competition to Intel's Tiger Lake-H family of high-end processors that will be launching in early 2021.

Trouble for Tiger Lake?...

Intel Debuts 'World's Fastest SSD,' the PCIe 4.0 Optane SSD P5800X

Intel is taking Optane to the next level with its SSD P5800X, which it bills as the fastest SSD in the world. The next-gen Optane SSD leverages the PCIe 4.0 interface, second-gen Optane media, and a new SSD controller to deliver truly astounding performance and endurance specifications.

Compared to the first-gen Optane DC P4800X, Intel says the 5800X offers an impressive 3X performance improvement in random read/write workloads, peaking at 1.5 million 4K random IOPS, and 3X more sequential performance at a peak of 7.2 GB/s. 

The drive also delivers up to 4.6 million IOPS in ...

New leaked Microsoft Surface Pro 8 details confirm memory configurations and LTE support

The Surface Pro 8 has already leaked plenty of times, but now Roland Quandt has revealed the memory configurations of Microsoft's upcoming 2-in-1. So far, we know that the design of the Surface Pro 8 will remain unchanged from its predecessor, which featured an outdated design itself. The Redmond-based company will switch the Surface Pro to Intel's Tiger Lake-U platform though, which should bring a healthy graphics boost for the Surface Pro 8 compared to the Surface Pro 7.

According to Quandt, LTE connectivity will return as of the Surface Pro 8, which is unsurprising. We suspect th ...

MSI RTX 3060 TI GAMING X TRIO REVIEW

While we all wish we could afford an Nvidia RTX 3090 or AMD RX 6900 XT, us rank and file PC gamers are more interested in more affordable and worldly options such as the RTX 3060 Ti. We've already checked out the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition card here at PCG and were impressed by its generational performance uplift and general characteristics. 

There’s always room for improvement though, and we've come to expect that from the premium tier partner cards such as in the MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio card we have here. It’s an absolute monster of a card. Is it worth the premium o ...

Standard DDR5 memory speeds 'will surpass those of overclocked DDR4' when it arrives in 2021

The first consumer DDR5 memory kits will arrive in 2021, presumably just in time for Intel Alder Lake and AMD's Zen 4.

This year will come to a close without any consumer platforms supporting DDR5 memory modules, but next year will likely see at least two of them—Intel's Alder Lake and AMD's Zen 4 architectures. In preparation, Team Group says it has developed consumer-grade DDR5 memory, and claims it is the first to enter the validation phase with key motherboard partners.

They include all the big names, those being ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. Team Group says it has be ...

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS M15 GU502L GAMING LAPTOP REVIEW

Coming in at the middle of the Zephyrus gaming laptop line-up, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502 packs an Intel Core i7 10750H and an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti into its svelte form. This nifty combo affords some steady gaming performance, especially when you consider the relatively reasonable price point of $1,299 (£1,000). But for this price, I'd still expect a little more from its other features than what I actually got.

I will admit I genuinely gasped when taking the M15 from its packaging. As the box opens, the laptop pushes out to meet you like some fancy, overpriced pop-up book. It doe ...

Windows 10 taskbar change could be a problem for those who haven’t activated the OS

Windows 10 has witnessed a taskbar change which, if it stays in place – at the moment it’s just in testing – could have an impact on those who haven’t paid for their copy of the operating system, and haven’t yet activated it.

The plan is to take some of the options currently available when you right-click the taskbar, and move them into the taskbar category under the Settings app (in personalization).

As Windows Latest reports, in fresh preview builds of Windows 10, Microsoft is experimenting with moving some options to the Settings app, including the ability to show or hide ...

MSI Prestige 14 Evo laptop review: Intel is catching up

If you're looking for both a powerful and compact business laptop for mobile use in the price range between 1,000 and 1,500 Euros (~$1,213 and ~$1,819), you might like the MSI Prestige 14 Evo. The A11M-005 model that we tested, which costs just under 1,300 Euros (~$1,577), offers a modern quad-core chip from Intel's Tiger Lake generation with the Core i7-1185G7. This is supported by 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB M.2 SSD. The display is a matte Full HD IPS panel with a slim bezel design. The device was developed in close cooperation with Intel (Evo platform).

The competitors of the ...

Core i5-11400 and i9-11900K Rocket Lake CPUs Show Up in New Benchmarks

Leaks for Intel's upcoming Core i5-11400 and Core i9-11900K Rocket Lake CPUs are starting to show up, including a few benchmarks. APISAK Tweeted two new benchmarks, one showcasing the i9-11900K running on an RTX 2080 Ti in an Ashes of the Singularity run, and a SiSoftware benchmark result has appeared for the Core i5-11400.

In the Ashes of the Singularity run, the Intel Core i9-11900K, with a base clock of 3.5ghz, scored 6400 points in the benchmark, with an average CPU frame rate of 64 fps. This score seems incredibly low for Intel's next-gen flagship. For perspective, you can find ...

The 16:10 ThinkPad X1 Nano's European pricing is revealed

Lenovo launched the X1 Nano as a new kind of 13-inch ThinkPad with an ultra-low weight and up to i7 Tiger Lake silicon. It has just appeared via a new sales avenue in Germany: CampusPoint, an online store ostensibly aimed at students.

Nevertheless, its listings might give consumers in other European countries an idea of how much they might have to pay should they want one of these ultrabooks when they arrive on their own markets.

The site has 4 SKUs of the Nano available, all of which have matte 2K IPS displays. Their base model here has the Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor, 1 ...

Lenovo K12 and K12 Pro announced

Just as expected, Lenovo announced its K12 series in China and to no surprise the two are just rebranded Motorola phones for the Chinese market. The K12 is identical to the Moto E7 Plus while the K12 Pro is simply a rebadged Moto G9 Power which was announced in Europe last month.

The Lenovo K12 comes with a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD with a waterdrop notch for its 8MP selfie cam. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 460 chipset paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage.

You get a 48MP primary camera next to a 2MP depth sensor. The battery comes in at 5,000 mAh while the software side is covered ...

Cyberpunk 2077 Runs At Playable FPS On Ryzen 5 4500U APU

Cyberpunk 2077 is launching soon, but that hasn't stopped one person from already messing with the game on an Aya Neo gaming tablet equipped with a Ryzen 5 4500U with Vega integrated graphics. Shockingly the gamer is able to play Cyberpunk at an 800P resolution at 30 FPS at the lowest settings. Sure it's not the prettiest experience and its way below the minimum Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements, but the fact that it runs is amazing in and of itself.

The Aya Neo is a gaming tablet made in China that is very similar in form factor to a Nintendo Switch -- but unlike a Switch, it runs ...

DELL 32-INCH CURVED 4K MONITOR (S3221QS) REVIEW

The Dell 32-inch Curved 4K S3221QS (catchy, I know) is a versatile monitor, enough for a variety of use cases including gaming. Yet it probably won’t blow you away for any one of them. It’s a great choice if you want something that can give you solid experiences across the board, but if your aim is high quality, high refresh gaming then it might not be the right fit for you.

First off, I was immediately surprised by how heavy the Dell S3221QS is. Most of the weight is in the stand, which feels great. Despite a relatively small footprint, the monitor stands solidly with practically n ...

Google opens up its Fuchsia OS to the public

Almost half a decade since news first leaked about Google’s Fuchsia OS, the company has announced that it is expanding the Fuchsia open source community and opening it up to contributions from the public.

Google’s Fuchsia OS is a bit of an enigma, and the company rarely talks about it, despite its code living on GitHub since 2016. 

It’s an open secret that Fuchsia is Google’s long-term project to create a general-purpose operating system, built from the kernel up, but this is the first time the company is engaging with it in the public.

Proper open source

Goo ...

Chuwi presents thin and light 13.3-inch LarkBook with modest specs for just under $400

Chuwi is back with a new slim and light 13.3-incher that weighs just under 1 Kg (2.2 lbs) and is only 11.9 mm thick (under 0.5 inches). The Chinese company is notorious for including rather outdated specs for most of its products to keep production costs as low as possible, and the LarkBook clearly proves this point. At least you do not need to sell a kidney to afford this fancy piece of hardware as the estimated AliExpress price is around $450.

Speaking of outdated specs, the LarkBook is powered by a quad-core / quad-thread Intel Celeron N4100 ULV CPU with 6 W TDP, which is still d ...

Galaxy A52 leak hints Samsung won’t mess with success

The Galaxy A51 is arguably more important than the S20 — it’s the affordable phone you’re more likely to buy, the phone that caters to a wide audience instead of enthusiasts. And Samsung apparently knows it. Well-known leaker OnLeaks has shared renders of what he says is the Galaxy A52 5G, and it looks like Samsung isn’t in a rush to reinvent one of its best-selling designs.

The images suggest the Galaxy A52 will hew very closely to the template Samsung established with the A51. You’ll still get a 6.5-inch display with a hole-punch selfie camera, an under-the-screen fingerprint read ...

Apple introduces AirPods Max, the magic of AirPods in a stunning over-ear design

AirPods Max feature incredible high-fidelity audio, Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, and spatial audio

Cupertino, California — Apple today announced AirPods Max, innovative wireless headphones that bring the magic of AirPods to an over-ear design with high-fidelity sound. AirPods Max combine a custom acoustic design, H1 chips, and advanced software to power computational audio for a breakthrough listening experience with Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio. AirPods Max come in five gorgeous colors, including space gray, silver, sky blu ...

Razer launches a more budget-oriented Blade 15 gaming laptop with some big caveats

Razer may be offering the world’s most compact 15-inch gaming laptops, but most of the variants are not exactly budget-friendly, even when specced with slower dGPUs. In an effort to make its solution more affordable throughout the Holiday season, Razer is now announcing the Razer Blade 15 Base Edition priced at only $1,499.99. However, the enticing price comes with some unfortunate compromises.

The Core i7-10750H CPU from Intel is plenty fast for a budget model, and, while the included 16 GB of DDR4-2933 RAM might be a bit slower than the industry standard 3200, it certainly is not ...

Microsoft is finally fixing one of the biggest issues with its Windows 10 updates

Windows 10 could soon get a whole lot better thanks to a fresh idea from Microsoft. The Redmond firm has just announced a new concept called the "Windows Feature Experience Pack" which look set to bring more features and regular fixes throughout the year.

So, instead of Windows 10 fans having to wait for Microsoft's two big blockbuster updates, which are usually released in the Spring and Autumn, the "Feature Experience Pack" will allow the company to roll out improvements away from these main upgrades. It could also mean it's easier to for the tech giant to mend ...

ASRock Launches Legacy M.2 Graphics Card

ASRock has introduced its first graphics card in an M.2-2280 form-factor. The M_2 VGA module is designed to add legacy display connectivity to any system that has an M.2 slot with a PCIe interface. 

The ASRock M_2 VGA module uses Silicon Motion's SM750 display controller with 16MB of embedded memory and a PCIe x1 interface. The card has a 15-pin header to connect a D-Sub output that supports resolutions of up to 1920×1440. Since this is a single-chip board, its power consumption is rated at 1.49 Watts, which is almost negligible by today's standards in the PC world. Meanwhile, the u ...

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero Motherboard Review

ASUS' ROG VIII Dark Hero is gaining a lot of hype for its sleek aesthetics, but there's more under the hood! Let's take a look.

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

The Crosshair from ASUS has been the gaming platform for AMD users since it was introduced in 2006. Within this platform, the Hero has been the mid-range board for the last eight generations to the top end Crosshair Formula that has a few upgrades of its own. That said, the Hero has been one of the most popular boards for gamers and enthusiasts building on the AMD X570 platform. With the release of the AMD R ...

Microsoft is finally fixing one of the biggest issues with Windows 10 updates

Windows 10 could soon get a whole lot better thanks to a fresh idea from Microsoft. The Redmond firm has just announced a new concept called the "Windows Feature Experience Pack" which look set to bring more features and regular fixes throughout the year.

So, instead of Windows 10 fans having to wait for Microsoft's two big blockbuster updates, which are usually released in the Spring and Autumn, the "Feature Experience Pack" will allow the company to roll out improvements away from these main upgrades. It could also mean it's easier to for the tech giant to mend ...

LG Gram 2021 launch event announced with four lightweight laptops up for release

LG will present its new Gram laptops in South Korea on December 16, the company has confirmed. The event will commence at 18:00 KST (UTC +9), according to a post on the dedicated LG Gram website. LG is yet to announce anything globally, which suggests that the December 16 event will be limited to South Korea. Nevertheless, LG will probably release its new Gram laptops outside its home market, so the launch event will be relevant to international audiences.

Based on recent findings, LG plans to upgrade its Gram series to Intel's new Tiger Lake architecture. The timing of LG's event h ...

Nikon Z Finally Gets its Fast Ultra-Wide Zoom: A Review of the Z 14-24mm f/2.8

Back in September, Nikon announced its fast ultra-wide zoom lens: the Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8, completing its trinity of fast zooms for Z-mount cameras. How does it perform?

Jared Polin has been waiting impatiently for fast glass from Nikon and is excited to finally get his hands on a lens that, for him, makes Nikon’s Z-mount a truly viable option for professional photographers. Nikon zooms with f/2.8 maximum apertures have taken a while to come to market — and it seems that they're still proving hard to get a hold of.

Nikon made its announcement in mid-September, stating tha ...

Biggest MacBook design change in years just leaked

While the iPhone 12 has several color options, the MacBook has remained boring on the design front for several years. At the moment, the darkest MacBook you can buy is ‘space grey’, which isn’t all that dark. This seems like a strange oversight, given our love of black tech products. 

But it looks like Apple is finally planning on catching up if a new patent is to be taken at face value. Interestingly, the patent begins by revealing the reasoning behind the absence of black MacBooks — and it comes down to their metal casing.

“Enclosures for portable electronic devices can in ...

Lenovo might announce ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga in the next week

Earlier this year, the names of two new ThinkPad X1 models were leaked: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano and ThinkPad X1 Titanium. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano is already available in the USA - the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium meanwhile is nowhere to be found. The last time we heard about it were a few leaked promo videos on Youtube.

2020 is drawing to a close and by this point, we expected to see the ThinkPad X1 Titanium in early 2021, maybe with an announcement at the virtual CES. However, there are new signs that at least the public announcement might still come in this year.

Lenovo ...

Acer Predator X35 Review

The world of gaming monitors is grander and more diverse than ever before. Depending on your budget, you can find yourself spoiled for choice: HDR, ultrawide, adaptive sync, high refresh rate, multiple high resolutions… the list goes on. But what would happen if you put them all in one? That’s the question Acer must have asked, because the answer is the Predator X35.With this monitor, Acer is out to check all of the boxes. It’s a 35-inch ultrawide with a full 1440p resolution, a 200Hz refresh rate, true HDR with 1000-nit peak brightness and 512 zones of local dimming, G-Sync Ultimate, an 18 ...

NZXT Kraken X73 RGB AIO CPU Cooler Review

Explaining all the details of these new NZXT Kraken X-3 RGB AIOs may be repetitive reading for those of you who caught our original review of the Kraken X-3 and Z-3 series earlier this year, if that applies to you then you might want to skip past this introduction as the only significant change with this new bunch of AIOs is the addition of RGB fans, and of course the inclusion of the 240mm Z53 which was missing from the original launch in July.

The addition of the Z53 to the Kraken AIO range means you can now enjoy the benefits of a CPU block LCD screen with a 240mm AIO, which is p ...

CORSAIR ICUE H115I ELITE CAPELLIX REVIEW

The iCue H115i Elite Capellix is the latest CPU chiller from Corsair and boy is it colourful. You’d better like lights if you're planning on picking up this all-in-one cooler. This thing has a lot of lights. OK, the RGB functionality is far from the only thing Corsair’s latest all-in-one water cooling solution has going for it. But it is very much central to the proposition.

The model currently roasting our retinas is the H115i and thus a 280mm member of a model line also available in 240mm and 360mm form factors. The aforementioned RGB-ness concerns the fans and the top cover of th ...

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro, New Muscle in Workstation CPUs

AMD’s Threadripper Pro processors for workstation desktops are finally here. These chips disrupt a market that Intel has dominated since AMD discontinued its Opteron lineup in 2017. In fact, they have the potential to upend it by offering up to an incredible 64 processing cores on a single CPU die. That's far more in core count than an Intel Xeon W-class chip, and still more than a match for two Xeon scalable chips, while obviating the complexity and cost of multiple-CPU implementions.

Read on to find out if a Ryzen Threadripper Pro is worth considering in your next workstation.

How to Fix Audio Level Problems in Windows 10

Windows 10 includes a custom volume mixer, which sounds like a great idea on paper—who wouldn’t a way to control the volume of individual apps? It’s incredibly useful when you need to dial back your game audio a bit so you can hear your guildmates on Discord (or the YouTube video you’re listening to in the background). It’s not so useful when you forget it exists.

For the past week or two, some YouTube videos I’ve watched have sounded a little faint. I didn’t think much of it at first, assuming I simply bumped the dial on the external DAC I use with my headphones. I cranked that up ...

New Apple Leak Reveals Stunning MacBook Pro Upgrade

Thanks to Apple’s new M1 processor, the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini machines are breaking benchmarks left, right, and center. That's enough for many of the geekrati to level up to the ARM-based hardware, but Apple has something spectacular planned for 2021.

Building on his previous reports, noted Apple analyst Ming Chi-Kuo lays out a stronger case for Apple switching to mini-LED displays in the MacBook hardware next year. With Apple’s suppliers gearing up for a massive switch in production, it’s clear that the LED panels offering improved colors, higher contract, a ...

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT BIOS files leaked and analysed

Tech enthusiasts gleaned some pre-launch insight into the AMD Radeon RX 6800/XT graphics cards ahead of launch thanks to developer Patrick Schur sharing an AIB card BIOS with veteran tech reviewer Igor Wallossek. Now it looks like history is repeating, with the dynamic duo teaming up to produce insightful analysis of an 'AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT' before it becomes official.

The Igor's Lab blog, spotted via VideoCardz, says that Schur sent along two AMD Navi22 AIB BIOS files for analysis. Before we go on to that it is worth stopping and considering the questions – qhat is an AMD Radeon ...

New Second Gen EVE V 2-in-1: Tiger Lake 3840x2400 with Thunderbolt 4

Sometimes for a company to get its projects over the line, it requires the help of crowdsourcing ideas. One such company is Eve Tech, or EVE for short, and looking to build on the success of its first-generation EVE V 2-in-1 dubbed the "Surface Pro Killer". Today the company has officially lifted the lid on its second-generation EVE V. The new EVE V 2-in-1 includes a whole host of impressive features and specs including Intel's Tiger Lake mobile processors with Xe integrated graphics, Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6, and a 13.4" 4K (3840 x 2400) with 10-point multitouch. The design of ...

The Asus RT-AX86U Is a Wi-Fi 6 Router That Doesn't Sacrifice Looks for Power

Wi-Fi 6 has accelerated its creep into mainstream wireless networking, urged along by the similarly accelerating spread of gigabit internet. Until the last few months or so, purchasing a Wi-Fi 6 device has largely been a decision more about future-proofing and less about immediate gain. That’s quickly changing, however, with all manner of wireless device manufacturers releasing products boasting about blazing this and blistering that, and it’s finally time to take a serious look at 802.11ax routers.

The Asus RT-AX88U was an early entrant in the field, and the company now has several ...

ASRock x Razer: New Razer Taichi Edition X570 and B550 AMD Motherboards

ASRock and Razer have today announced a product collaboration. Two of ASRock's premium models for AM4 are being updated with Razer styling and Razer Chroma connectivity: the X570 and B550 Taichi Razer Edition. Built upon the popular Taichi series, both of the new Razer Edition variants include a 16-phase power delivery, with official support and compatibility with Razer's Chroma RGB ecosystem.

Whenever Razer does a collaboration with any company in the hardware industry, it gets people excited and talking. One of the most prominent brands globally with its green inspired peripheral ...

HP's latest privacy tool for laptops is meant to thwart prying eyes

It’s getting pretty difficult to make a laptop that stands out. There are countless thin and light notebooks with comfortable keyboards, beautiful screens and enough power for most professional workflows. To really make an impression, manufacturers have to introduce some unique features that rise above mere gimmickry. HP’s latest attempt is something called Presence Aware on the EliteBook 1040, which lets the machine know when you’re in front of it so that it can dim the screen when you leave and wake up when you return. There’s also a new AI noise reduction tool to make your voice sound cl ...

Jabra Elite 85t review: AirPods Pro-beating noise cancelling Bluetooth earbuds

Jabra is back with its fourth-generation Bluetooth true wireless earbuds, the Elite 85t, with improved fit, better sound and active noise cancelling to rival Apple’s AirPods Pro.

The Elite 85t cost £219.99 and top the range that includes its predecessors the £170 Elite 75t and £140 Elite 65t.

The new earbuds have a lighter and more balanced fit compared with the Elite 75t. The redesigned oval-shaped silicone ear tips don’t enter your ear canal quite so deeply, but are no less secure. The remainder of the earbud sits comfortably outside your ear, avoiding resting on any delic ...

Is Windows Defender Good Enough to Protect Your PC by Itself?

I mostly write reviews of VPNs, articles and features about VPNs, and responses to emails (of varying degrees of hostility) from or about VPN services. In nearly all of these contexts, I've tried to explain that VPNs (although excellent for securing your internet traffic) don't replace password managers, antivirus suites, or the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). But recently a reader asked me if I was implying that the security software from Microsoft was somehow lacking. That's a question worth considering.

Here's what our intrepid reader sent me. Note that this excerpt has b ...

G.Skill Trident Z Royal DDR4-4000 C17 2x16GB Review: Outshining The Competition

High-speed memory kits are often associated with sloppy timings: Once you surpass that DDR4-4000 mark, it requires a lot of resources to cherry-pick the best integrated circuits (ICs) that meet the requirements. G.Skill is one of a handful of memory vendors willing to invest time and resources into bringing high-speed memory kits that aren't held back by loose timings to the enthusiast market.

G.Skill offers a wide variety of DDR4-4000 memory kits with densities that start at 16GB (2x8GB) and go up to an awe-spiring 128GB (4x32GB). The CAS latency timings on these kits generally spa ...

Huawei P Smart 2021 Smartphone Review - Is Huawei's first "home-made" SoC any good?

In its midrange P Smart 2021 smartphone, Huawei uses a processor that comes from the manufacture of a Chinese partner for the first time. The Kirin 710A is considered the first SoC that Huawei developed itself. For quite a while, the Chinese manufacturer SMIC and the HiSilicon division have been working together in the commercializing of the 14-nm process in China.

Although the "original" Kirin-710 SoC is already manufactured in the modern 12-nm production process, it is manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan. Until now, the Kirin chips have been designed by the HiSilicon division ...

Ryzen 5000 CPU support is coming to 400 series chipsets sooner than expected

What just happened? Good news for AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPU owners looking to run their shiny new processors in older 400 series motherboards as multiple board suppliers have seemingly decided not to wait until 2021 to roll out updated BIOSes supporting the new chips.

AnandTech points out that several ASRock B450 motherboards now have updated BIOSes available to download that add Zen 3 support. Indeed, a quick check reveals that many B450 boards do have new BIOSes that were made available on November 19 but the descriptions are vague, only saying that they optimize system compatibil ...

Security researcher accidentally discovers Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 zero-day

A French security researcher has accidentally discovered a zero-day vulnerability that impacts the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems while working on an update to a Windows security tool.

The vulnerability resides in two misconfigured registry keys for the RPC Endpoint Mapper and DNSCache services that are part of all Windows installations.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RpcEptMapper

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache

French security researcher Clément Labro, who discovered the zero-day, says that an attacker that has ...

Our favorite pre-built gaming PC is the best way to get an RTX 3080 right now

Most years we're all about building the best PC you possibly can from Black Friday deal parts, but 2020 isn't exactly a normal year. AMD's brand new CPUs are scarce, and even old graphics cards are hard to find. The latest Nvidia RTX 30-series and RX 6800 from AMD? Forget about it—we can't find them in stock, let alone on sale.

But there is a way to get one of these new cards, if you don't mind getting a whole PC right along with it. Buying a prebuilt gaming PC right now is the easiest way to get your hands on an RTX 3080 right now. Conveniently, Dell has chopped about $50 off the h ...

Initial reviews show the limitations of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold

The ThinkPad X1 Fold is finally here and in the hands of reviewers. Sadly, it is not all rosy for Lenovo's first foldable. The ThinkPad X1 Fold starts at US$2,499, although that only gets you 256 GB of storage and no accessories. Lenovo charges US$2,749 for the detachable keyboard and pen, and another US$50 if you want a Windows 10 Pro licence. Prices rise to US$3,099 though if you want 1 TB of storage, instead of 256 GB.

For that money, you could pick up practically any high-end laptop or 2-in-1, although they lack the foldable display that the ThinkPad X1 Fold has. However, MKBHD  ...

Shortage Disaster: AMD RX 6800 & 6800 XTs Out of Stock Everywhere

If you had hopes of getting a shiny new RDNA 2 graphics card from AMD this upcoming Black Friday, you'll likely be very disappointed. Even though AMD's launch for third-party custom Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards officially occurred today, every single tech store has sold out its entire stock in both aftermarket and reference flavors. That isn't surprising, as some retailers didn't even have stock to begin with. 

Both graphics card manufacturers and some stores have gone to Twitter to share the problems with the RX 6000 series volume. Simply put, just like the Ampere shortages, AMD a ...

Intel’s New eASIC N5X Series: Hardened Security for 5G and AI Through Structured ASICs

The programmability of a processor is a scale is all about flexibility and performance – something highly programmable and customizable is adaptable to all sort of situations, but often isn’t as fast. However, something that has a very specified compute pathway can go very fast, but can’t do much beyond that pathway. On the flexible side, we have FPGAs, that can be configured to do almost anything. On the fixed side, we have ASICs, such as fixed function hardware for AI. Somewhere in the middle is what’s called a ‘Structured ASIC’, which tries to combine as many benefits from the two.

Apple M1 chip performs admirably against AMD's Ryzen 5000 workstation with RTX3080

Despite obvious handicaps, Apple’s M1-based MacBooks delivered a laudable performance in a head-to-head against the latest performance workhorses from AMD.

The tests were performed by custom high-end desktop assemblers Puget Systems who wanted to test the performance penalties of Apple’s decision to move away from Intel processors to ARM-based ones.

Puget pitted two of their AMD PCs equipped with Ryzen 5800X and Ryzen 5950X against the MacBook Air and Pro, and were themselves impressed by the Apple M1’s performance given the obvious impediments of the new architecture that p ...

Make every game awesome with this gargantuan 55-inch Alienware OLED monitor

There's no getting away from the fact that the Alienware AW5520QF is a massive screen. It's awesomely massive though, not annoyingly so. But at 55-inches you're going to need a big ol' desk just give this somewhere to sit, and you'll want to be sat back from it as well. Because even with its native 4K resolution, you're looking at a fairly low 80ppi (pixels per inch), where we usually avoid anything less than 100ppi for normal viewing distances, but you know, some things are worth making an exception for. This is one of those things.

Playing on a screen this big is going to give all ...

Overclocker hits 7GHz on DDR4 memory. Who needs DDR5?

The longer it takes for DDR5 memory to grab a foothold in the market (none of AMD's or Intel's consumer platforms support the next-gen memory standard...yet), the higher overclockers will continue to push DDR4 RAM. Now the record to beat is a hair over 7GHz.

That is incredibly fast for DDR4 memory. It was just over a year ago when I naively wondered if overclockers would break the 6GHz barrier on DDR4, and sure enough, some did with a kit of G.Skill memory. Now 14 months later, bragging rights belong to Micron and its Crucial Ballistix Max memory.

Micron got a huge assist fr ...

Laptops with NVIDIA RTX 3000 GPUs and AMD Ryzen 5000H APUs to arrive in 1H 2021 from as little as US$999

The desktop versions of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3000 graphics cards may still be almost impossible to come across, but the company has a lot more Ampere-based SKUs planned, including three mobile variants. According to a new report by Wccftech, ASUS and MSI will begin selling RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 laptops from as early as January 2021. There will be equivalents from HP, Dell and Lenovo, but laptops from these OEMs will not arrive until April 2021.

NVIDIA will continue to supply the ageing GTX 1650, GTX 1650 Ti and GTX 1660 Ti to manufacturers too, although these will be paired with ...

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 Review: Nipping at Ampere's Heels

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 have arrived, joining the ranks of the best graphics cards and making some headway into the top positions in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. Nvidia has had a virtual stranglehold on the GPU market for cards priced $500 or more, going back to at least the GTX 700-series in 2013. That's left AMD to mostly compete in the high-end, mid-range, and budget GPU markets. "No longer!" says Team Red. 

Big Navi, aka Navi 21, aka RDNA2, has arrived, bringing some impressive performance gains. AMD also finally joins the ray tracing fray, both w ...

Windows 10 20H2 update: New features for IT pros

Jesus Vigo reviews the newest additions to Windows 10 (20H2) as they pertain to IT pros. These updates can help you make the most of the latest release to Microsoft's flagship OS.

Released in October 2020, the most recent update to Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system has only just begun gaining steam in mass deployment worldwide. Whether it's come down to the global pandemic, compliance testing, or simply out of an abundance of caution, the slowness is finally picking up steam and more devices are starting to make the transition to update version 20H2.

Beginning with thi ...

Tested: iPhone 12 smokes the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra in real-world speed

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is a beast of a phone in most respects between its huge screen, capable cameras and gobs of memory, but how fast is it compared to Apple’s latest mainstream phone? Not very, it seems. Gary Sims has pitted the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra against the regular iPhone 12 in his realistic Speed Test G benchmark, and the results are… not pretty.

Simply put, the iPhone 12 obliterated the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra across the board. Apple’s device claimed the largest advantage in the CPU-oriented test, where it finished in 32.5 seconds versus Samsung’s 38, but it also won b ...

MSI launches Suprim GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards

Just ahead of the weekend MSI took the wraps off a new range of graphics cards. The Suprim range is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 focussed sub-brand which is aimed squarely at the premium market. Described as "a prestigious concept... with high quality materials and meticulous engineering that can be seen, felt, and experienced," it is easy to understand the brand philosophy. I think it has been influenced by the recent move of the premium gaming laptop market in becoming somewhat more subtle to try and appeal to the creator market too.

At the time of writing there are three Su ...

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano features lower powered Tiger Lake UP4 CPUs & 1.35mm travel keyboard

When Lenovo announced the new 13 inch 16:10 flagship ThinkPad X1 Nano in late September 2020, a few things were left in the dark. For example, the exact release date. In the press-release, Lenovo did not give us a release date beyond the 4th quarter 2020, which by now would mean December. Depending on the locale, even an early 2021 looks increasingly likely. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1 is not listed in Lenovo's PSREF database yet, which is an indicator that availability is more than a few weeks away.

Availability was not the only question we had about the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Na ...

Intel Tiger Lake-H Beats AMD Ryzen 4000 in Geekbench 5

There has been a lot of hype around Intel's upcoming 11th Generation Tiger Lake-H mobile chips, but few benchmark results to back up the excitement. That has changed since apparent Core i7-11370H (via Tum_Apisak) results emerged today in the Geekbench database to offer a sneak peek of what's to come.

The Core i7-11370H is indeed a mysterious processor. It's seemingly a quad-core chip with Hyper-Threading, which raises some alarms. Previous Core i7 H-series procesors typically come with six or eight cores. Geekbench 5 picked up the Core i7-11370H as a Tiger Lake-U processor, conveyin ...

Sony's next mid-range Xperia smartphone will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 chipset; Snapdragon 875 being lined up for Xperia 1 III

It seems that Sony has at least two new Xperia smartphones in the works. According to some sleuthing by @NodSikharulidze, the Japanese company is developing one smartphone with an SM6350 chipset and another with the SM8350. Qualcomm has already confirmed that the SM6350 is the model number of the Snapdragon 690, while the company is thought to have assigned SM8350 to the Snapdragon 875.

Android Next and GSMArena believe that Sony is preparing an Xperia 10 III with the Snapdragon 690, along with an Xperia 1 III using the Snapdragon 875. This belief seemingly stems from Sony having re ...

Intel's manufacturing is broken and new Rocket Lake CPUs prove it

Intel’s upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs prove it is in a crisis of existential proportions. The next six months will decide both its fate and the future direction of the PC as a whole. Hyperbolic? Much? Actually, no.

It’s a somewhat speculative interpretation, to be sure. But tales of Intel’s woes have become so routine of late that the very existence of Rocket Lake and what it implies has been largely overlooked. Rocket Lake says very, very bad things about the viability of Intel’s entire business model. And that, in turn, makes it very significant for the PC as a whole.

Rocket L ...

ASRock announces its custom Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards

ASRock has announced its custom-cooled Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards. The four cards announced by ASRock are the flagship Radeon RX 6800 XT Taichi X 16G OC, the mid-range Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 Phantom Gaming D 16G OC, and the entry-level Radeon RX 6800 Challenger Pro 16G OC.

Featuring AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture, the new ASRock Radeon RX 6800 series support the DirectX 12 Ultimate standard and hardware-accelerated raytracing. All cards have 16GB of GDDR6 memory and support PCIe 4.0. The cooling solutions of these cards use ASRock’s Striped Axial fan design for ...

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Build 20262 with lots of welcome fixes

Although Insiders in the Dev Channel do occasionally get to try out upcoming features in Windows 10, more often than not the new builds Microsoft rolls out focus on fixing problems and tweaking settings.

That’s certainly been the case with the previous two flights, and today’s new release, Build 20262 (FE_RELEASE) is no different.

Fixes in this release include:

Fixed an issue resulting in certain apps launching unexpectedly transparent in recent builds, with no content visible.

Fixed an issue where old SleepStudy etls were unexpectedly not being cleaned up....

EVGA drenches Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3090 and 3080 cards in liquid cooling

EVGA is not letting a little thing like a shortfall of GPUs (compared to demand) stop it from launching more cards around those very GPUs that are proving so elusive. Just the opposite, EVGA has launched a combined eight new liquid cooled GeForce RTX 3090 and 3080 graphics cards, plus a couple of do-it-yourself kits for those who already managed to score certain EVGA models.

Like every other 3090 and 3080 on the planet, these new models are out of stock. So they have launched in the sense that EVGA has unveiled them and erected products pages, with pricing information.

The e ...

REVEALED: The little-known iPhone trick that allows you to take a screenshot without clicking a single button

iPhone users have discovered a 'mind-blowing' trick to save time when taking a screenshot.

The little-known hack involves changing the settings to allow screen grabs to be taken quickly by simply double tapping the back of the phone. 

But the setting is only available on iPhone X and above with iOS 14.

The feature was revealed on both Facebook and TikTok where thousands raved about the new find. 

To activate the feature, click on 'accessibility' in settings followed by 'touch' before turning on the 'back tap' button.

Once the double or triple tap has ...

Windows 10 users to be plagued with annoying adverts if they refuse to ditch Chrome

Windows 10 users may soon be targeted by a barrage of full-screen adverts unless they ditch Google Chrome and switch to Microsoft's Edge browser instead. It's no secret that Microsoft wants more Windows users to move over to its internet-browsing software but this latest drive could be its most aggressive to date.

According to the team at Windows Latest, it appears that Microsoft could be planning to target Chrome users with adverts. That may not sound like anything new except this time, in a bid to make sure you don't miss it, the message could take over the whole screen.

T ...

Here’s your first good look at Samsung’s gigantic battery smartphone

Samsung’s battery-centric Galaxy M12 phone might just exist as more than rumors and an empty case. OnLeaks and Voice have posted what they say are accurate design renders for the M12, indicating just what will house that claimed 7,000mAh battery.

The leak appears to corroborate reports that it’s a no-frills design with a plastic unibody back, a flat 6.5-inch screen, a fingerprint sensor in the power button and a teardrop notch for the selfie camera. A two-tone finish helps distinguish the M12 from the Galaxy A42 5G. The standout is a quad rear camera array, although we wouldn’t expe ...

Why building your own gaming PC isn't just about cost

We all know the glory of an extravagant gaming rig - the lights, the tubing, the sheer unadulterated power. And you probably already know that building a PC yourself is cheaper than buying a pre-built gaming PC. But that’s not all that makes a hand-crafted rig so special. Those of you with an affinity for all things that buzz and whirr, from ginormous Nvidia RTX 3080 cards to dinky NVMe SSDs, should know there's nothing quite like putting all the pieces together with your own hands.

But let's go back in time for a moment. During the 1980s the world experienced the home computer boom ...

Google Pixel 4a 5G: Review results

The Pixel 4a 5G is the largest Pixel smartphone, thanks to its 6.2-inch screen. With the 6-inch Pixel 5, Google goes against the current trend by not considerably increasing the screen size.

The 499-Euro (~$590) Pixel 4a 5G shares a lot of features with the 630-Euro (~$743) Pixel 5. Both smartphones have very restrained design. However, the polycarbonate housing of the Pixel 4a 5G does not provide as much grip as the housing of the Pixel 5. Nonetheless, the Pixel 4a 5G still feels very good in the hand. And there are surprises: The Pixel 4a 5G comes with a 3.5-mm headphone jack unli ...

The little-known iPhone trick that allows you to take a screenshot without clicking a single button

iPhone users have just discovered a 'mind-blowing' trick to save time when taking a screenshot.

The little-known hack involves changing the settings to allow screen grabs to be taken quickly by simply double tapping the back of the phone. 

But the setting is only available on iPhone X and above with iOS 14.

Scroll down for video

The feature was revealed on both Facebook and TikTok where thousands raved about the new find. 

To activate the feature, click on 'accessibility' in settings followed by 'touch' before turning on the 'back tap' button.

...

Best tablets 2020: our guide for all budgets

As the UK heads towards the holiday season, being able to easily entertain ourselves, read the news, play games and – more importantly than ever – video call our loved ones means having the right tablet can make a real difference.

Unlike most laptops, tablets have fairly good video cameras, support apps and make it simple to fire up that Zoom call. Here are the best available across a range of budgets.

Amazon Fire HD 8

Amazon’s Fire tablets are low-cost media consumption machines that get the job done without breaking the bank. They start at only £50 with the Fire 7 ...

HP EliteBook x360 1030 G7 Convertible Review: A Spectre Dragonfly Hybrid

The EliteBook x360 1030 G7 is HP's latest high-end ultra-thin business subnotebook positioned to be above the more affordable EliteBook 830 or ProBook families. It is, in many ways, the gray version of the more visually ravishing HP Elite Dragonfly. Nonetheless, the EliteBook x360 1030 G7 introduces several changes both inside and out to make it better than both the outgoing EliteBook x360 1030 G4 and first generation Dragonfly.

SKUs are plentiful ranging from the 10th gen Core i5-10210U up to the Core i7-10810U CPU with vPro, FHD to 4K UHD AMOLED touchscreen, 8 GB to 32 GB of LPDDR ...

Microsoft plans to update your Windows 10 computer whether you like it or not

If you haven't hit the update button on your Windows 10 PC in a while then you might find Microsoft will soon be doing it for you. It seems the Redmond firm can't wait any longer for some users to switch to its very latest operating system and that means some users will soon be upgraded whether they like it or not.

Those affected by this automatic upgrade will be anyone who is still using Windows 10 version 1903 on their PCs with this ageing software no longer being supported by Microsoft from next month.

According to Windows Latest, Microsoft has now started informing users ...

Intel begins rollout of the first Wi-Fi 6E adapters for faster connectivity

I haven't even owned my Wi-Fi 6 router for a full year yet and already there is a (slightly) newer wireless standard that is inching into the marketplace. That would be Wi-Fi 6E and, well, that's the way it goes—technology never sits still. In this case, Intel is standing ready with its AX210, the first Wi-Fi 6E adapter.

This is not a proper launch (no press release, no big announcement), and there might not be one until early next year. In the meantime, a marketplace seller on Newegg is selling and shipping the adapter from China (via Tom's Hardware) for $33. Intel has also apparen ...

Vivo X60 and X60 Pro mistaken for the Xiaomi Mi 11 and Mi 11 Pro in hands-on image

The Xiaomi Mi 11 and Mi 11 Pro are already hotly anticipated, but the photo above is not of them. Seemingly first published on Weibo by the likes of DigitalChatStation, outlets like Gizchina asserted that the photo is of Xiaomi's next flagships, which are reputedly due early next year. To the credit of DigitalChatStation, they did not explicitly state that we were looking at the Mi 11 series.

Instead, they merely hinted that the devices pictured would be announced by the end of the year. As a second photo demonstrates, the devices pictured are running OriginOS, the custom version of ...

Samsung’s revolutionary SSD behaves like a (powerful) PC - and you'll never guess why

The first virtual edition of FMS 2020 (Flash Memory Summit, not Football Manager) is well underway and the first announcements are already trickling through, with Samsung’s intriguing new enterprise SSD snatching the spotlight.

Meet the SmartSSD, which Samsung Semiconductor refers to as a Computational Storage Drive (CSD).

It is designed to “accelerate a variety of applications including database management, video processing, artificial intelligence layers, and virtualization”. In other words, like the coprocessors of yesteryear and the GPU of today, the CPU can offload spec ...

New M1 MacBook Air smokes Core i9 16-inch MacBook Pro in Geekbench

Yes, you read that headline correctly: according to a new listing in the Geekbench 5 database, the M1 MacBook Air absolutely destroys the Core i9 16-inch MacBook Pro in both single- and multi-core tests. 

The scores apparently come from the MacBook Air 10,1. According to the Geekbench post, this MacBook Air runs macOS 11.0.1 and uses an “Apple Silicon” processor. The laptop posted an impressive 1687 and 7433 in the single- and multi-core tests, respectively.

Comparatively, the top-of-the-line 16-inch MacBook Pro with a Core i9-9880H performs about 35% worse in Geekbench 5’s ...

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Build 20257 with loads of important fixes

Insiders in the Dev Channel can look forward to test driving exciting new features in Windows 10 before anyone else. However, not every new build that gets rolled out can be a show stopper.

Sometimes, instead of exciting additions, what you get from a new flight is a bunch of fixes, which is the case in new Build 20257.

Changes and Improvements in this release include:

Based on feedback, Microsoft is updating its Start menu tile theming logic such that the tile background for Win32 apps will no longer adjust based on detected contrast ratio, except in the case of pin ...

Intel Launches Its First Wi-Fi 6E-Capable Wireless Card

Intel has launched its first WiFi 6E-capable M.2 wireless card, the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210. As of writing, we're only seeing it shipping from China. It comes in a M.2 2230 form factor and supports both the 802.11ac and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6 & Wi-Fi 6E) protocols. If you have a laptop or desktop motherboard with an M.2 WiFi module, this M.2 card will fit right in.

Of course, the real beauty of this card is its ability to run the new WiFi 6E standard. The Federal Communications Commission passed this upgrade to WiFi 6 just this year. WiFi 6E devices to operate on the 6 GHz band, rather ...

Kioxia launches its first PC PCIe 4.0 SSDs just in time for the next-gen storage explosion

The market for faster solid state drives is ripe for expansion with next-gen game consoles and PCs alike sporting storage architectures that can help developers tap into the speed potential of PCIe 4.0 models. And right on cue, Kioxia, formerly known as Toshiba Memory, has come out with a new line of PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

Kioxia's new XG7 and XG7-P represent the company's first-ever client (read: not datacenter) PCIe 4.0 models. Compared to the previous generation XG6 series, which are PCIe 3.0 drives, Kioxia says its latest offerings deliver twice the sequential read performance and 1.6x ...

The Xbox Series X and PS5 are breeding a new wave of affordable 32-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitors

Next gen consoles aren't just kickstarting a new interest in solid state storage, they're also responsible for a new wave of affordable, high-spec gaming monitors. That's great news if you want high-refresh 4K action, but don’t fancy paying an absolute fortune. 

Monitors from Viewsonic, Acer, and Philips are among a new generation of displays to bring 4K high refresh to the 32-inch form factor. The really exciting bit is that the new models, including the Philips Momentum 328M1R, Acer Predator XB323QK, and Viewsonic Elite XG320U, are expected to be very competitively priced compared ...

This Windows 10 update could be a winner with tinkerers and perfectionists

Microsoft is working on a Windows 10 update that will introduce a range of new font management facilities and further expand customization options.

Windows 10 users can already select a default font from a long list of pre-sets and install new ones via a simple drag-and-drop mechanism, but the upgrade is set to introduce further granularity.

The new features, which include the ability to fiddle with the way fonts render on-screen, are expected to arrive via open source application PowerToys, built by a small group of Microsoft developers.

According to the product roa ...

Sapphire unveils its own AMD RX 6800 cards, and they're kinda gorgeous

AMD's Big Navi Big Boi, the 6800XT, will eventually hail from third-party manufacturers, but that's a little way away yet. That hasn't stopped Sapphire from revealing its plans for such boards, and they’re looking good, with the GPU manufacturer getting to flex its high-end muscles for the first time in an age.

There are actually two in fact: Sapphire’s RX 6800-series line is split into PULSE (why the caps?) and Nitro+. Those PULSE boards (honestly, it makes it sound like a backwater nightclub) fill 2.7 slots and are a classy black and red, with a heartbeat motif on the back. Its th ...

What Is the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” on Windows 10?

Windows 10 now has a strange specification named “Experience.” Standard desktop versions of Windows 10 say you have the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” installed. What does that mean? Microsoft is being secretive as always, but here’s what we know.

Another Windows 10 Mystery

If you head to Settings > System > About and scroll down to “Windows specifications,” you’ll see a line named “Experience.” It likely says you have the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” installed.

This section also tells you what edition of Windows 10 you have installed, which update vers ...

Forget the Surface Go 2 tablet, this rival has a keyboard and stylus for less than half the price

When we reviewed the new Surface Go 2 tablet from Microsoft, we found it to be "an excellent affordable Windows 10 tablet that features a premium design found in the company's more expensive devices”. 

However, if you want something even more affordable, you should check out the Pipo W11, which retails for about half the price of Microsoft’s diminutive tablet.

Pipo is not a household name, but we've known about the company since 2014 when it unveiled the Pipo W2 tablet. The W11 follows in the footsteps of its 6-year old predecessor, which back then ran on a little-known ...

As Huawei is set to drop Android, another tech giant is shunning a Google OS

IN 2021 Huawei will be introducing a massive change - dropping Android for their in-house HarmonyOS software. But the P40 Pro and P30 Pro makers aren't the only tech giant that looks set to shun a Google-made operating system.

Rumours are circulating that OnePlus could be about to drop a Google-made operating system on an upcoming device. But Nord fans who are worried about seeing a massive Android shake-up like their Huawei counterparts are getting needn't be concerned. According to the rumour mill, OnePlus won't be switching things around on their Android devices - it will be on t ...

MSI's GeForce RTX 3090 Suprim Emerges With Jaw-Dropping 1,965 MHz Boost Clock

A Redditor has received one of MSI's looming GeForce RTX 3090 Suprim as a replacement for the Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming, which the U.K. retailer didn't have in stock. The lucky owner shared some photographs and interesting information on the unreleased graphics card.

If you don't take into account the exclusive Lightning series, the Gaming X series has always delivered the fastest gaming graphics cards from MSI. However, the latest evidence lends credence to the rumors that MSI might have reshuffled its products. The introduction of the Suprim series would logically rel ...

AMD Ryzen 5000 undervolting will return better than ever in future update

Director of technical marketing at AMD, Robert Hallock, is promising new and improved undervolting capabilities are on the way for Ryzen 5000 chips, to be bundled into a future AGESA firmware update.

Currently AMD's Ryzen 5000 processors do not offer undervolting in any capacity, and that means you'll have to stick to only positive voltage tweaks today. AMD does offer the ability to run your processor within the constraints of a lower TDP, such as taking a 105W TDP part down to 65W TDP, but beyond that you're a bit stuck at the stock configuration.

At least for the time bein ...

Shuttle XH410G: 3-litre mini-PC launched with Comet Lake-S processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 support

Shuttle has announced its latest mini-PC, the XH410G. While the machine may look like a run of the mill mini-PC, the XH410G packs a punch. Measure 250 x 200 x 79 mm, the XH410G supports with a choice of 65 W Intel processors, an expansion slot and multiple ports.

Specifically, Shuttle has designed the XH410G with an LGA1200 socket, meaning that it supports Comet Lake S from the Celeron G5900 to the Core i9-10900. The machine also has two SO-DIMM slots, an M.2 2280 slot and a 2.5-inch bay that can take up to 9.5 mm drives. Additionally, Shuttle has included an M.2 2230AE slot for Wi- ...

THE BEST PEN-BASED NOTE-TAKING APPS FOR YOUR CHROMEBOOK

Have you ever tried to use your Chromebook for note-taking with a stylus? Some devices are more suited to the task than others, with the Lenovo Chromebook Duet being the best, in my opinion. There are a lot of pen-enabled apps that you can use, but which ones are truly the best? Today, we’re going to tell you which three we think are the most featureful and provide the best experience on Chromebooks. Then, we’ll give you a few runners up that you can try out as well. If you’re interested in seeing which apps are best for sketching and drawing on a Chromebook, you can check out our round-up ...

If the Apple Silicon MacBook looks like this, I need it

The MacBook Pro you see in this article is like a dream come true. The work is a set of concept illustrations made into 3D rendered goodness by the folks at Zone of Tech. In this device is a true meeting of worlds, with industrial design elements from the recent past of both the MacBook and the iPad Pro, including but not limited to a giant trackpad, a super bright and colorful display, and bezels that are equal on all sides and corners.

The MacBook Pro ARM (Apple Silicon) Concept appeared in a Tweet from Daniel (ZoneOfTech) this week with a pointer toward the next-generation machin ...

WhatsApp now lets users send disappearing messages

WhatsApp will soon have a disappearing message feature, designed to enable users of the chat app to cut down on their digital footprint.

Once the update, which is rolling out from Thursday, hits phones, users will be able to set an option for each individual chat they are in – whether one-on-one or a group – to delete messages automatically seven days after they have been sent.

Unlike some competitors, such as the secure messaging app Signal, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, decided against offering flexibility to users. There is no option to change the length of time m ...

AMD RYZEN 9 5900X REVIEW

Let's cut straight to the chase: the performance of the Ryzen 9 5900X and AMD's latest Zen 3 architecture is good. It's really very, very good. It pretty much delivers on the promise that AMD laid out at the chip reveal on October 8, and if nothing else that should make for very worrying reading for Intel. For us gamers that is nothing but good news, because there is now real choice when it comes to the best CPU for gaming for your next build. 

It isn't a one horse race anymore.

Intel has managed to stay competitive through AMD's successive performance improvements to Zen th ...

TicWatch Pro 3 GPS review: A powerful Wear OS smartwatch in more ways than one

T here is very little positive that anyone will remember 2020 for but it has been a decent year for Android-friendly smartwatches.

In recent months we’ve seen the Galaxy Watch3 continue Samsung’s impressive offerings and the Oppo Watch, which is as fine a rendition of the Wear OS experience as any other.

Both have their odd niggles and now they face serious competition for the title of best Android smartwatch of 2020: The new TicWatch Pro 3 GPS.

The design maybe a little restrained but with the TicWatch Pro 3 Mobvoi has improved on its past efforts and counters the l ...

Apple AirPods Pro 2 release date, rumours, features and specs

Apple's AirPods Pro came out at the end of October 2019, offering a different design to the original AirPods, along with sweat and water resistance, customised fit, active noise cancellation and advanced on-device controls. 

What might their successor bring to the party though? Here is everything we have heard so far about the second generation of Apple AirPods Pro, which we are calling AirPods Pro 2.

Release date and price

Q4, 2021

$249

A report from Bloomberg suggests the Apple AirPods Pro 2 could be released in 2021, with other sources suggesting i ...

Xiaomi Cooks Up Palm Size Intel Mini-PC, Starting at $149

According to a recent Gizmochina report, Xiaomi has launched a crowdfunding campaign to bring the brand's Ningmei Rubik’s Cube Mini to the market. 

Xiaomi's upcoming mini-PC utilizes a similar recipe as the Chuwi Larkbox and GMK NucBox. The device measures 62 x 62 x 42mm, which is around the size of a Rubik's Cube. That's probably where Xiaomi drew its inspiration for naming the mini-PC. The Ningmei Rubik’s Cube Mini features a metallic body, but Xiaomi still managed to keep the weight at only 145g.

A Celeron J4125 processor from Intel powers Xiaomi's latest mini-PC. The Cel ...

DELL XPS 13 (LATE-2020) REVIEW: GREATNESS, REFINED

ThisThis is an easy review. Today, we’re looking at the XPS 13 9310, Dell’s best-in-class 13-inch ultraportable laptop. It’s identical to the Dell XPS 13 9300, which I reviewed back in April, in every way, except one: it has Intel’s new 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors.

The new XPS 13 starts at $999.99. The base model includes a Core i3-1115G4, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, Intel’s UHD integrated graphics, and a 1920 x 1200 non-touch display. But the most exciting feature of the Tiger Lake line is Intel’s new Iris Xe integrated graphics. Models with those graphics start at $1,099.99 ( ...

LG quietly unveils a fast 27-inch FreeSync Premium gaming monitor

At first glance, LG's new 27-inch UltraGear 27GN800-B gaming monitor appears virtually identical to another one with a similar model number (27GN850-B). Both are equipped with a fast screen and offer similar specifications across the board, but the new 27GN800-B is actually a little different (and hopefully ends up a little bit cheaper to boot).

The 27GN800-B is another LG monitor to feature an IPS panel, just like the 27GN850-B that came before it. And like its predecessor, it offers a native 2560x1440 (QHD) resolution with a respectably fast 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms gray-to-gray ...

GLORIOUS MODULAR MECHANICAL KEYBOARD (GMMK) REVIEW

The Glorious Modular Mechanical Keyboard was the world's first modular RGB mechanical keyboard when it was introduced way back in 2016, is still one of the best. The GMMK, as we'll call it from here on (otherwise that's a real mouthful), is modular in that you can hotswap any of the 104 RGB keyboard switches to create your own bespoke board.

Glorious initially set out to create an affordable line of “high-performance PC gaming accessories” for the masses, a line of quality gear to rival the industry leaders, and it has certainly hit that bar. In the process, it has managed to set so ...

Arctic's massive Liquid Freezer II 420 cooler is built for CPUs that like to blaze

For the most part, all-in-one liquid coolers come in three general sizes: 120mm (single fan), 240mm (two fans), and 360mm (three fans). That includes Arctic's Liquid Freezer II line of AIO coolers, but apparently 360mm was not big enough for some customers, who have been urging the company to go even bigger. And it did, with its new Liquid Freezer II 420.

This is still a three-fan cooling unit, but with larger 140mm fans attached to the radiator instead of 120mm fans, as found on the Liquid Freer II 360 model. It exists because, according to Arctic, fans kept asking, "Will Arct ...

Apple is almost definitely launching its first non-Intel Mac on November 10

Mac systems built around Apple's own custom silicon based on Arm are coming, as the company embarks on a two-year plan to phase Intel chips from its lineup. But when will it happen in earnest? One week from today.

I can't say that with 100 percent certainty, but I'm 99.99 percent convinced. That's because Apple has announced a third fall event (via MacRumors) for next Tuesday, November 10, to unveil "one more thing."

The previous two events in September and October have seen launches of the iPhone 12, a new iPad Air, a HomePod mini speaker, the Apple Watch Series 6 ...

HOW TO GET PRODUCTIVE WITH FULL HD EXTENDED DISPLAYS ON THE LENOVO CHROMEBOOK DUET

Since the Lenovo Chromebook Duet arrived on the scene back in January 2020 at CES, most users have been a bit enamored by the diminutive tablet with the bright, beautiful display and very low starting price. After all, getting a great tablet, kickstand cover and keyboard/trackpad combo in the box for $299 is pretty amazing and makes for a great overall Chromebook experience. Add to that mix the fact that we’re starting to see pretty deep discounts on this package for the shopping season and picking up a Duet has never been more attractive.

There’s one issue that’s been a bit of a t ...

This Windows 10/macOS combination is the perfect desktop operating system

We know that Microsoft is planning to give Windows 10 a makeover in the future, but it’s unlikely that the software giant will really go to town on the design, with the focus of its UI revamp -- codenamed Sun Valley -- being more on tweaking things and expanding on the Fluent Design language currently in use.

While some people are more than happy with how Windows 10 looks, it’s pretty bland when compared to macOS. But what if Apple and Microsoft joined forces to produce a Windows/macOS hybrid?

Over on Reddit, Kaiwave33x has put his design skills to good use to add macOS elem ...

This water-cooled RTX 3080 is the most cyberpunk design Gigabyte's made yet

Gigabyte is making a splash with the new water-cooled GeForce RTX 3080 design, now entering the maelstrom of custom Ampere graphics cards being swiftly swept away by the tide. The new Aorus Xtreme Waterforce WBs (noted by Computerbase) is overclocked by 8 percent, meaning it'll be throwing up boosts clocks of 1,845MHz, and it'll do so in a full-cover, water-cooled wet suit with impeccable cyberpunk style.

Gigabyte also claims more efficient heat dissipation thanks to the "shortened distance between the water channel and the GPU", and the broad copper base plate covers the ...

G.skill launches extreme low-latency memory that's ideal for AMD Ryzen gaming PCs

G.Skill has announced two brand new kits of extreme low-latency DDR4-3600 memory—a 32GB kit smack bang in the sweet spot for gaming and a 64GB kit for memory-heavy applications, such as content creation.

The new low-latency memory kits will be rated to CL14-15-15-35, which matches the Team Extreem ARGB C14 kits currently sitting atop of our best RAM for gaming guide. G.Skill will be offering its extreme low-latency kits under its Trident X Neo, Trident Z Royal, Trident Z RGB, and Ripjaws V series—plenty of options from bling to bare. 

All kits are built using Samsung B-Die c ...

Apple to Launch MacBooks With Own Chips Next Week

Apple Inc.’s 15-year relationship with Intel Corp. will officially begin to unwind next week when new Mac computers are revealed.

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant said on Monday that it will hold an online event dubbed “One more thing” on Nov. 10. That “thing” will be Macs with main processors designed by Apple for the first time, replacing Intel chips that have been a mainstay since 2006. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Apple and overseas suppliers are ramping up production of three Mac laptops with Apple processors: new 13-inch and 16-inch MacBook P ...

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 folding phone will have an LG rival that looks LIGHT YEARS ahead

The world of smartphone design is starting to get pretty wild, with manufacturers looking to deviate from the the candy bar form factor thanks to new tech like flexible panels and under screen cameras.

LG, however, is setting itself apart from the foldable devices that are becoming the new standard with its Project B handset, set to sport a rollable display and following in the footsteps of its uniquely designed swivel smartphone, the LG Wing. 

LG has been working on a rollable display for a while, and we initially heard about its Project B smartphone last November, with its ...

Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti GPU could be unleashed on November 17

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which is supposedly the next GPU to arrive in the Ampere range, could be launched in less than three weeks’ time on November 17, going by the latest speculation.

This comes from MyDrivers (via Videocardz) along with the suggestion that according to third-party graphics card manufacturers, stock levels of the 3060 Ti will be similar to that witnessed with the RTX 3070 that just hit the shelves – in other words, it’ll be very thin on the ground.

But that wouldn’t really be any surprise given that all of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 launches have failed to me ...

Moto G 5G leaks suggest another budget 5G Motorola handset is on the way

We've seen the Moto G 5G Plus already this year (called the Motorola One 5G in the US), and if the rumors are correct then the standard Moto G 5G is going to be the next affordable 5G phone to arrive from Motorola.

As per information obtained by XDA Developers and an image posted to Slashleaks, the handset is going to come running the brand new mid-range Snapdragon 750G chipset, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage on board.

Further information revealed on Twitter points to a 6.66-inch display running at a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, plus a 5,000 mAh battery. As the na ...

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X ends Intel's hegemony in single-thread perf; 10% faster than Core i9-10900K and 23% faster than Ryzen 9 3900X

Intel has traditionally held the single-core performance crown for many generations. AMD did get close to Intel 9th gen Coffee Lake, but Comet Lake once again showed good leads in single-core and gaming. With Ryzen 5000 Zen 3, Intel may not be in a comfortable position any longer.

User /u/losh11 (@loshan1212) first posted CPU-Z results of the Ryzen 5 5600X on Reddit. The OP had since deleted the post, but the results were shared quickly to other subreddits. CPU-Z screenshots and product packaging of the Ryzen 5 5600X were subsequently reposted by @GawroskiT on Twitter.

In th ...

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 review

The Dell XPS 13 is the best laptop on the market, but its success has caused the XPS 13 2-in-1 to be somewhat overshadowed. It doesn't help that early versions of the laptop/tablet hybrid suffered from poor battery life and a clunky chassis. The 2020 model, however, should help the XPS 13 2-in-1 step out of the shadows of its sibling and into the spotlight. 

The new XPS 13 2-in-1 is without question among the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Dell smartly used the XPS 13 as a blueprint for the XPS 13 2-in-1, an almost identical laptop, but with the ...

Philips 48OLED+935 4K HDR OLED review

If you want a nice new shiny OLED TV, but you don’t want it to a) be massive and b) sound rotten, especially when you compare the quality of its sound to the quality of its pictures, you’ve been bang out of luck. Until now, that is.

Philips has stridden in where other TV brands apparently couldn’t be bothered to tread, and the result is the OLED+935. Oh, you can have a massive version if you want: the OLED+935 is available in both 55in and 65in screen sizes. But it’s also yours in a relatively titchy 48in version if you fancy - which is a much more realistic screen size for plenty o ...

Seagate: We Are On Track with 20TB HAMR HDDs in December

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology is expected to enable rather massive increase of hard drives capacity in the coming years. It took the industry several decades to develop this technology and its mass roll-out was delayed several times. In fact, Western Digital even decided to use energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) and microwave-assisted (MAMR) technologies before moving on to HAMR. Yet, its rival Seagate is on track to introduce HAMR-based HDDs this year. 

At its earnings conference last week Seagate reiterated plans to ship its 20 TB HAMR HDD ...

Sony Xperia 1 II with 12GB RAM benchmarked ahead of global rollout

The Sony Xperia 1 II is already out in a special 12GB RAM configuration in Taiwan. Now we get a Geekbench listing for the device which shows out the small performance gains compared to the regular 8GB RAM model.

The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II manages a 908-point single-core run and 3387 points in the multi-core department. For comparison, the standard 8GB RAM model pushes around 895 points in the single-core test and just over 3,225 in the multi-core department.

The 12GB RAM Xperia 1 II is expected to launch in more regions on October 30.

Windows 10 update could make your browser lightning fast

Microsoft is “experimenting” with a new feature - called start-up boost - that could increase the speed with which its web browser Edge is able to launch from the Windows 10 desktop or taskbar.

The speed gain will be achieved by activating select Microsoft Edge processes when a Windows 10 machine is powered on. With these processes already running in the background, using up minimal computing resources, Edge will exist in a state of readiness that should improve launch times.

The start-up boost feature is already available as an option in Edge version 88, which was recentl ...

WhatsApp is getting two killer upgrades — how you can try them out

For many people, WhatsApp has become the conversation platform of choice, with over 2 billion people using the Facebook-owned app to keep in touch with friends and family. In addition to offering encrypted messaging, WhatsApp boasts several features that appeal to a variety of users. And it’s about to expand its bag of tricks.

Specifically, WhatsApp is gaining two new capabilities that figure to broaden its appeal — the ability to mute conversations with others indefinitely, and a way to shop directly from within WhatsApp.

The ability to simply mute some conversations for th ...

No-one can agree if AMD's RX 6800 XT can really beat the RTX 3080, but it's going to be close

Preliminary benchmarks are starting to appear, and they paint a good picture for AMD's upcoming RX 6000 series GPUs.

Multiple leaks purported to be for the unreleased AMD Radeon RX 6800XT graphics card have appeared online—although the results are far from definitive. Claiming to show performance for a high-end RDNA 2 graphics card, multiple sites and leakers are reporting the AMD RX 6800XT toppling the RTX 3080 in 3DMark test, Firestrike, while falling behind in ray-traced workloads.

These figures are all unverified at this time, and it's unlikely we'll receive any concrete ...

There’s a serious issue with Windows 10 October Update: here’s what it breaks on your PC

WINDOWS 10 fans may find themselves in a nightmare scenario following the release of the latest update to the operating system, which seems to break a few essential parts of the software.

Windows 10 users might be having second thoughts about downloading the recently released Windows 10 October Update. That's because the latest software updates from Microsoft seem to have caused some pretty serious issues with the hugely-popular operating system, including breaking the File Explorer, which is used for, well, just about everything. The updates, known as KB4579311 and KB4577671, were ...

Raja Koduri To Present at Samsung Event as Intel Mulls Chip Outsourcing

Intel's Raja Koduri is slated to present a "1000X More Compute for AI by 2025" presentation at Samsung's Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE) Forum next week, which comes as Intel mulls its strategy for outsourcing some of its production to third-party fabs. The presentation comes after Raja Koduri tweeted an image of a visit to Samsung's Giheung plant in Korea last year, sparking rumors that Intel would use Samsung to produce components for its Xe graphics solutions. Those rumors seemed spurious in the past, but Intel's recent announcement that it will outsource some chip production ...

Should I buy a 55-inch 8K TV?

2020 has been a big year for 8K TVs. After some hesitant forays into the technology, its biggest advocates are plunging ahead with multiple models featuring the high resolution – but at what sizes do you really see the benefit?

As standard, 8K TVs don’t usually get smaller than a 65-inch size – and tend to come with 75-inch and even 85-inch sizes too. In the US, the flagship Samsung 8K QLED this year, the Q950TS, only comes in an 85-inch size, which speaks to the kind of big-screen experience Samsung is pushing for its 8K sets.

There is, however, the odd appearance of a 55-i ...

Microsoft Releases Temporary Fix for Windows 10 Reset Bug

A recent Windows 10 bug found some individuals with "certain hardware configurations" unable to restore their computer to a previous state, but now there's a fix.

The "Reset this PC" feature is typically found under the Recovery section in the Settings menu. When issues arise with the PC configuration, Windows 10 users can utilize this option to return their computer to factory settings. But a recent bug disabled it for anyone still running Windows 10 version 2004.

When making an attempt at resetting, an error message would appear instead: "There was ...

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel, a bizarre new gaming phone, is available to buy now

If you're looking to buy a new gaming phone the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is out today, and it might be great for the task if you can get around its one peculiar selling point.

You see, the Phone Duel seems designed for use held horizontally - its pop-up front camera and two rear cameras work best when you're holding the phone sideways, as presumably you'll be buying this phone if you're spending most of your screen time gaming.

The phone is available to buy now from Lenovo's website, and it'll cost you £899 (roughly $1,175, AU$1,645) - that's quite a lot for a smartphone, es ...

Smartwatch Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 GPS with Snapdragon Wear 4100 Review: Dual display and a large battery ensure a better battery life

With its display technology and powerful battery of an almost 600-mAh capacity, Mobvoi mainly wants to improve the weak battery life that is typical for WearOS – and it succeeds. The fact that the smartwatch uses "GPS" in its name, even though many wearables record routes at this point, is also justified: with GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS the TicWatch Pro 3 GPS is positioned very well.

Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 GPS

Processor

Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100

Memory

1024 MB 

Display

1.4 inch , 454 x 454 pixel 459 PPI, Full ...

ASUS unveils GeForce RTX 3070 KO (Korean Origin) graphics card

ASUS KO – a special series for the Korean market

ASUS has unveiled its special series called KO, which stands for Korean Origin. These series are special edition only to be sold in South Korea.

A special team of designers and managers gathered feedback from Korean users on what they expect from a graphics card in terms of design, noise, temperature, and pricing. It took half a year to complete the design. The final design was selected from 10 candidates.

The first graphics card to be part of the KO series is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070. This graphics card has been design ...

Gigabyte Releases New AMD Powered BRIX Pro PCs

Gigabyte has spiced up its lineup of BRIX Pro mini-PCs with two new models, the GB-BSRE-1505 and the GB-BSRE-1605, powered by AMD's Ryzen Embedded processors. Pricing and availability are unavailable at this time.

These AMD powered units are similar in size compared to Gigabyte's latest Tiger Lake BRIX PCs, measuring 1‎96.2 x 44.4 x 140 mm. They aren't the smallest BRIX units Gigabyte offers, but the extra size allows these PCs to pack more USB ports and display outputs, which can be handy if you need a desktop replacement.

The differentiating factor between the two units is ...

Never worry about USB port connectivity again with this dual connector thumb drive

The transition from USB Type-A to USB Type-C has not exactly been an expeditious one, mostly because the market is already flooded with devices built around the former. That's why even the newest cutting edge motherboards typically offer more USB-A ports than USB-C ones. Kingston's new DataTraveler Duo USB flash drive can plug into either one of them.

It’s a cleverly designed flash drive with a USB-C connector on one side and a USB-A connector on the other, either of which (or both) can be hidden in the slider-style casing.

"The addition of the DT Duo adds much needed ...

AMD Radeon RX 6000 series, what we know so far

AMD Radeon RX 6000 series specifications have been known to us since Monday. This week AMD provided a lot of details to AIBs, including new (working) drivers, final SKU names, and so on. We have been able to cross-check parts of the specs and we feel confident that these are more or less final.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT – Navi 21 XTX

AMD’s Big Navi will feature 80 Compute Units (5120 Stream Processors). This card will be (for now) AMD exclusive. The Radeon RX 6900XT will be the AMD flagship series, which according to our sources will be in limited quantity. The card would ...

iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1 now rolling out with bug fixes aplenty

This Friday Apple's newly unveiled iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are officially becoming available, and ahead of that the company is pushing out a software update to all of its supported phones and tablets.

iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1 are now rolling out, and both of these are, as the minor version number incrementation shows, small updates, focused on fixing bugs.

And there are a lot of such fixes included, for sure. Here's the full changelog courtesy of Apple itself:

- Adds support for 10-bit HDR video playback and edit in ‌Photos‌ for ‌iPhone‌ 8 and later

- Add ...

Philips OLED805 (65OLED805) review: One of the prettiest and most affordable OLED TVs in town

The Philips OLED805 marks another battle in the raging OLED price war. Those hunting for the truly vibrant imagery of OLED panels are still looking at significant outlays to ensure their pixel hungry desires are sated, but it's getting heated out there. 

The best OLED TVs – which make up a lot of best TVs overall, of course – are a hotbed of competition among biggest brands, competing to deliver the best visuals, best design and, importantly, a great price. The Philips OLED805 enters the market as a perfect combination of all three.

Sadly for our US readers, this TV is avail ...

This strange Windows 10 bug gave us a serious fright - don’t make the same mistake

We at TechRadar Pro often cover the latest Windows 10 updates and issues, but also sometimes fall victim to bugs in the operating system ourselves.

Last week, we experienced a strange Windows 10 problem that prevented our Start menu from opening, which is of course a major inconvenience.

Every time we clicked on the menu or pressed the Windows key, we were served the following message: “Critical Error: Your Start menu isn’t working. We’ll try to fix it next time you sign in.”

Check out our list of the best cloud backup services around

We've built a list of th ...

HP Envy 15 Review

Aimed at creators—photographers, videographers, graphic designers, musicians, and the like—the HP Envy 15 delivers with a gorgeous and expansively large display, modern and powerful components, and minimalist design. I’ve used the Envy 15 extensively over the past two months and I love it for the most part. But there are a few niggling issues that mar a near-perfect computing experience.

Design

As its name suggests, the HP Envy 15 is a large, 15.6-inch laptop, and I’m a big fan of its uncluttered minimalist design, which is both premium and professional looking. I especially ...

iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S20: the latest smartphone features, specs and cameras compared

Now we know what the latest iPhone looks like, we can ask how it compares with its market rival: the Samsung Galaxy S20. 

Apple's virtual iPhone launch - the first of its kind thanks to Covid-19 restrictions - was filled with technical terms and phrases like "Lidar", "Ultra-Wide Band" and "nano ceramic crystals". 

It announced a £699 iPhone 12 mini, one of four 5G-enabled phones unveiled by the tech giant and the most affordable flagship-series phone the company has announced in several years, alongside the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 ...

Intel Officially Kills Cannon Lake Graphics Support

Intel may be having difficulty bringing 10nm to desktop processors now, but this isn't the first time the 10nm process has given the company trouble. Back before Ice Lake, Intel's first 10nm mobile line was actually the ill-fated Cannon Lake. While it was originally set to be a much bigger deal, with several chips planned for launch, it eventually only saw one processor hit the market, and only in China. That processor, the Core i3-8121U, shipped with disabled internal graphics, and new code today sees Intel essentially admitting that support for the line is dead. As well as slyly hinting a ...

Hands on: Fujifilm X-S10 review

The Fujifilm X-S10 is a bold new step in the company's quest to make the ultimate mid-range mirrorless camera. By taking many of the highlights of its flagship Fujifilm X-T4, including in-body image stabilization (IBIS), and shoehorning them into a smaller, cheaper body, it's made a camera that has the potential to be one of its most popular mirrorless shooters so far.

Until now, the role of deputy to Fujifilm's X-T flagships has been filled by excellent little cameras like the Fujifilm X-T30. The X-S10 isn't a replacement for that model, but instead a slightly uncharacteristic atte ...

ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQX: 32-Inch 4K IPS Panel with 144 Hz Refresh Rate, G-SYNC, DisplayHDR 1400, and More

Chinese web store Taobao (via TFT Central) has listed one of ASUS’s most highly anticipated monitors, the ROG Swift PG32UQX. While a few of its core features were laid out by the company back in January (CES), Taobao’s listing reveals the display’s complete specifications, which look spectacular.

The ASUS ROG Swift PG32UQX is a 32-inch monitor that leverages a 4K (3840 x 2160p) IPS panel with full-array local dimming Mini LED backlight (1,152 zones). Supporting refresh rates of up to 144 Hz, the display boasts NVIDIA’s highest tier of G-SYNC certification – G-SYNC ULTIMATE – to ensu ...

The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is like an Echo Dot for Android owners

For smart home owners, it's been a busy few weeks of announcements: last month, Amazon unveiled its slate of new smart assistant-equipped speakers and displays then, in early October, Google revealed its new Google Nest Audio device. Now it’s time for another manufacturer to follow suit: Lenovo. 

Meet the new Lenovo Smart Clock Essential. 

Lenovo’s latest smart product uses Google Assistant like the new Google Nest Audio but it’s also a smart display that can show you the time, the day, the outside temperature and a small icon for the weather.

Not only is it pretty ...

Nikon Z 6II and Nikon Z 7II announced: Nikon updates its full frame Z-series

Nikon has launched the Z 6II and Z 7II, updates to its top-end Z-series mirrorless cameras, with more powerful processing, twin memory card slots and enhanced autofocus and continuous shooting capabilities.

They seem like they have been around for ever, but the Nikon Z 6 and Z 7 were launched only two years ago in 2018. The accelerating rate of change in the full frame mirrorless camera market, however, means that now seems like a lifetime ago – so just two years after the first Z-series cameras arrived, new and updated versions are here.

These are evolutions of the original ...

Review: MSI MPG Sekira 100R

Introduction

MSI may be best known for its motherboards and graphics cards, but success in those fields has allowed the Taiwanese manufacturer to branch out considerably. These days, it's possible to kit out a high-end gaming setup with all sorts of MSI gear, ranging from keyboards and mice to monitors and even gaming chairs.

A lesser-known category is PC chassis, in which MSI has over a dozen models to choose from. One of the latest additions is the MPG Sekira 100R, priced at £120 and in for review today.

It is quite clear that Sekira 100R is intended as a visual co ...

Canon PowerShot Zoom: a pocket camera crossed with an 800mm telescope!

The Canon PowerShot Zoom has just been announced for a release in the west, after the innovative pocket camera – which features up to 800mm zoom, with image stabilized stills and video shooting – was released in Japan via crowdfunding.

One of the manufacturer's most unusual products, the Canon PowerShot Zoom is unique in the marketplace. Featuring the same 12.1MP image sensor found in the Canon SX70 bridge camera, it combines the functionality of a pocket-sized telescope or monocular – with a three-step zoom system offering 100mm f/5.6, 400mm f/6.3 (optically) and 800mm (digitally) ...

Bluetooth bugs are making contact tracing apps spit out tons of errors

At the heart of all Bluetooth-based contact tracing apps is one fundamental issue: whether they actually help in the struggle to slow the spread of Covid-19. Whether they’re effective or not can be judged on two factors: epidemiologically and technically. But, months into the pandemic, there are still no clear answers.

“They're quite unreliable,” says Douglas Leith, the chair of computer systems at Trinity College Dublin, who has been analysing how well devices can use Bluetooth to measure distance. Leith says the reliability of apps to detect other devices around them accurately an ...

Intel quietly introduces the Core i3-10100F processor

Intel has quietly rolled out the 10th generation Intel Core i3-10100F processor. HEXUS regulars will already be well aware, from the nomenclature, that this is one of Intel's processors with a disabled on-board GPU ('F' suffix). However, the best feature of the new Intel Core i3-10100F can't be decoded from the name - it boasts Hyperthreading - as well as a slightly faster boost clock, and double the RAM capacity support, compared to its processor (the Core i3-9100F), at the same price.

The Intel Core i3-10100F processor is part of the Comet Lake-S line of desktop processors built b ...

The cheapest 4K monitor right now could replace all your displays

Walmart is currently offering up the most affordable 4K monitor (that doubles as TV) on the market - even cheaper than bargain basement Amazon Prime Day displays.

At just $158, the Spectre U425CV-U even undercuts most refurbished displays we've seen to date, and this one comes with a full one year warranty. It costs around $14 a year to run and uses a 42.5-inch LED panel, supported by two feet and surrounded by an extremely thin bezel.

Uniquely among ultra cheap televisions and monitors, it sports four (yes four) HDMI inputs, meaning you could connect up to four computers at ...

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G review

Samsung hopes to change everyone’s mind with the Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G, the successor to its seminal foldable. This time, Samsung’s ditched much of what made the first Fold meh, like the dinky front display and the dodgy side-notches, and smartened up the design.

Good start, yes. But this is a £1,799 phone, so saying it has to be good is an understatement. To get a recommendation for anyone without a huge amount of disposable income, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has to be near-perfect. So, is it?

DESIGN AND SCREEN: FOLD EVERYTHING

Combining a 6.23-inch cover display with ...

A Razer Edition motherboard is the cherry on top of your RGB battlestation

The final frontier for Razer in the PC space is to offer actual components, having already tackled keyboards, mice, headsets, controllers, and a range of other products (even toasters). Taking a step in that direction, Razer intends to sell a line of AM4 motherboards for AMD's Ryzen processors.

This was one of the many announcements at its inaugural RazerCon event over the weekend. It is also part of a bigger play to RGB all the things, as it has been doing. And it ties in with its Chroma Connect program consisting of over 50 third-party hardware partners, including new additions WD ...

Now that's build quality: Microsoft Surface Book takes a bullet for its owner, saving a life

Twitter user @itsExtreme_ (Aaron) reported that a Microsoft Surface Book saved his life by taking a stray bullet a tenant shot from the floor below. Aaron tweeted an image of his Surface Book after the incident. The convertible laptop was definitely worse for wear, with the bullet having penetrated the display and the mousepad. 

Unsurprisingly, the device no longer works. However, @itsExtreme_ has reached out to Microsoft support about the possibility of getting his laptop serviced or replaced. Considering the attention the original tweet received on Twitter, it will be interesting ...

Honor MagicBook 14 with Ryzen 5 4500U review

Introduction

Huawei and its subsidiary Honor have been expanding their presence in the laptop world for years now but have really hit their stride in the last 12 months. We've now covered the ultra premium Huawei MateBook X Pro 2020, the ultra powerful Huawei MateBook 14 2020 AMD, the affordable 16.1-inch Honor MagicBook Pro, and its more portable sibling - the Honor MagicBook 14 with the 12nm quad-core Ryzen 5 3500U that was initially available.

Now we have our hands on the upgraded version of the last one with the new Ryzen 5 4500U processor, based on AMD's newer Zen 2 arc ...

COLORFUL Launches CVN Guardian and WARHALBERD DDR4 Memory Series

October 12th , 2020 Shenzhen, China – Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions and high-performance storage, launches the CVN Guardian RGB DDR4 gaming memory for the latest AMD platforms and the WARHALBERD DDR4 memory for the 3rd generation AMD Ryzen platform and Intel desktop platforms. The COLORFUL CVN Guardian RGB Gaming Memory sports an eye-catching heat sink with an RGB lightbar that supports motherboard RGB sync. On the other hand, the WARHALBERD is a value-oriented DDR4 memory featuring ...

ASUS ROG Strix XG438Q 43in 120Hz Gaming Monitor Review

The XG438Q is based around a VA panel, with the usual characteristics of this technology. It has very high 4,000:1 contrast, and quite high 450cd/m2 brightness. On the downside, the pixel response is 4ms gray-to-gray, which is par for the course for VA. Brightness and contrast are sufficient to enable HDR-10 support, with the ability to display 90 per cent DCI-P3 gamut to go with it.

Since this is such a big screen, it’s not packed with the adjustment. You can tilt forwards and backwards, but otherwise the position is fixed on the stand, with no swivel or height raising. There are t ...

AMD Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Price, Specs, Release Date, Performance, All We Know

AMD has officially announced that the Zen 3 architecture will land this year and outlined the new Ryzen 5000 models, setting the stage for a new wave of powerful chips based upon a newer version of AMD's most successful architecture to date. The new Zen 3 microarchitecture will power AMD's full lineup of next-gen chips, including the Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer" desktop processors that will soon vie for a spot on our list of Best CPUs, the Ryzen 5000 laptop chips, and the EPYC Milan data center processors.

The first four new Ryzen 5000 models come as chips for the desktop PC, and ...

Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review: You can't get a better Chromebook than this for $629

For most of the last few weeks, I’ve been using an Acer Chromebook Spin 713 review unit. I was impressed by this convertible Chromebook just from the first impressions. And now? Everyday usage has confirmed my initial experience: I don’t think you can buy a better Chrome OS laptop for $629.

To help explain why, let me share a little perspective.

My daily driver is the predecessor to this laptop, Acer’s Chromebook Spin 13. Most of the updates and upgrades to the Spin 713 are either cosmetic (more on that later) or newer generation components. And yet, a similar configuration ...

iPad Pro and MacBook Pro are about to get this killer upgrade

The iPad Pro and MacBook Pro will be the first Apple devices to use new Mini-LED display technology. So says a report from DigiTimes, citing industry sources.

An earlier rumor said that an early 2021 refresh of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro will be the first Apple product to use Mini-LED, with new MacBooks coming in the second half of the year. There will apparently be 10,000 Mini-LEDs used in each display.

Check out our iPad Pro (2020) review

Learn more about Apple's next big product: the iPhone 12

Plus: Samsung Galaxy S21 could get the OnePlus 8T's best feature

Gigabyte Updates BRIX Pro Lineup With 11th Gen Tiger Lake Processors

Gigabyte has updated its lineup of the BRIX Pro series with Intel's latest 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs including new Xe integrated graphics. Gigabyte has three Tiger Lake units available, with different CPUs for each SKU, you can grab a Core i7-1165G7 Quad-Core, Core i5-1135G7 Quad-Core, or Core Core i3-1115G4 Dual-Core model.

As found by FanlessTech, connectivity is extensive on the BRIX Pro, rivaling that of entry-level PCs. Each BRIX comes with four HDMI 2.0a ports, one Thunderbolt 4/USB 4.0, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 and two Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports in the rear I/O. Wireless connectivity ...

HyperX Launches High-Capacity Impact DDR4 RAM for Laptops, SFF PCs

HyperX, Kingston's elite gaming division, today launched new Impact DDR4 SO-DIMM offerings with capacities that span up to 64GB. 

HyperX's announcement points to high-capacity kits that could be the best RAM for enthusiasts needing large amounts of memory on their notebooks or small form factor PCs.

Impact memory modules are equipped with the brand's Plug N Play feature that automatically sets up the memory to run at the advertised frequency without any manual tweaking. Compatibility-wise, Impact memory modules should play nicely on both AMD Ryzen and Intel platforms.

Windows 10 Version 2004 is Now on One-Third of PCs

Over 300 million PCs have upgraded to Windows 10 version 2004, based on the latest usage data from AdDuplex.

“[Windows 10 version 2004] is now on more than 33 percent of Windows 10 PCs, the latest AdDuplex report notes, adding that its data is based on a survey of almost 150,000 PCs.

As you may recall, Windows 10 version 2004 got off to a slow start this year, thanks to massive compatibility and reliability issues. But usage in the new version doubled last month, from 11.6 percent the previous month to 24.1 percent, indicating that most of the issues had been resolved.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X leak shows a powerhouse gaming CPU that could embarrass Intel’s Core i9-10900K

AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X has been spotted in a game benchmark where the purported chip put up a very impressive performance compared to Intel’s current flagship Core i9-10900K, getting AMD fans excited that this CPU could be a real winner in terms of its price/performance ratio.

The Ryzen 5800X was spotted in an Ashes of the Singularity benchmark (as ever, bear in mind the usual caveats about early leaks and authenticity), with the processor being an eight-core effort as previous rumors have claimed.

Sadly the clock speeds aren’t detailed for the 5800X – and neither are the syste ...

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano: Extremely lightweight 16:10 ThinkPad goes up against Dell XPS 13 9310

Lenovo's ThinkPad brand has a new flagship model: The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1 complements the high-end ThinkPad X1 series with a new, much smaller model.

In design, the new ThinkPad X1 Nano is very similar to the existing Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8. You could call the ThinkPad X1 Nano a smaller brother of this model, as it has the same wedge-design and black Carbon fiber top-cover. The key difference between the two: While the X1 Carbon uses 14 inch displays in the more common 16:9 aspect ratio, the X1 Nano comes with a 13 inch screen in the taller 16:10 ratio. By going t ...

Linux graphical apps coming to Windows SubSystem for Linux

At the Microsoft Build 2020 virtual developers' conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.0 would soon support Linux GUIs and applications. That day is closer now than ever before. At the recent X.Org Developers Conference (XDC), Microsoft partner developer lead Steve Pronovost revealed that Microsoft has made it possible to run graphical Linux applications within WSL.

It's always been possible to run Linux graphical programs such as the GIMP graphics editor, Evolution e-mail client, and LibreOffice on WSL. But it wasn't easy. You had to instal ...

IBUYPOWER GAMING RDY ELEMENT CL PLUS REVIEW

For over 20 years, iBuyPower has been making wild-looking performance-focused gaming PCs from this mech head looking thing to some RTX 3080-powered behemoths. The system we are messing with today, the Element CL Plus, tackles one of the major challenges for a lot of PC makers, liquid cooling.

What makes the Element CL Plus (the CL stands for Custom Loop) special is its approach to custom hardline liquid cooling. It's special because the system itself, with all its high-end components, manages to squeeze in an impressive-looking liquid cooling system for only $2,200. 

If you ...

LENOVO USI STYLUS REVIEW – A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

A Pressure Sensitive Lifestyle

As an artist, the moment I saw the Pixel Slate hit the marketplace, I eagerly bought it. No longer would I need to boot up my Windows PC, grab my Wacom tablet, plug it in and try to locate my missing stylus in order to begin drawing. No longer would I need to carry around a field notes bullet journal to compose my thoughts throughout my day. Traditionally, I would sit at my desktop to draw, find a hard surface to write on in order to use my small notebook or just use my phone for tasks and notes, but I’ve long since sought out a way to increase my prod ...

ASUS also caught modifying GeForce RTX 3080 TUF and ROG STRIX PCB designs

This is a continuation of our GeForce RTX 30 series ‘stability issues’ coverage.

ASUS quietly changes RTX 3080 photos as well

We have just reported that MSI has updated the photos on their website for RTX 3080 series (GAMING X TRIO and VENTUS) featuring a new PCB design. It seems that ASUS has done the exact same thing. There is however a small difference between both manufacturers.

Unlike MSI, ASUS delayed the launch of its ROG STRIX models, likely to deliver updated designs to the reviewers. Unfortunately for ASUS and fortunately for you guys, we have a very large ...

New Google ChromeOS updates cause 100% CPU usage, could set you on fire

ChromeOS users are reporting that a new series of updates which cause a Google Play Store service to utilize 100 percent of their CPUs is making their devices hot and leading to performance issues.

As reported by BleepingComputer, after upgrading their devices to ChromeOS version 85.0.4183.108 and later users have faced a number of issues including apps that are running erratically, devices getting hot, fans running at high speed and batteries draining much too quickly.

Upon investigating these issues further, users discovered that they were caused by the Google Play 'com.an ...

AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs may have just leaked in full

We’re just a few weeks away from AMD’s RDNA 2 launch event, but full specifications for its first Radeon RX 6000-series cards may have already surfaced online. 

As part of its latest buying guide, Newegg Insider – a company blog listed on the US retailer’s front page – has listed the alleged specifications for AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. 

While these specs should be taken with a pinch of salt, they suggest that AMD is prepping three GPUs for its October 28 launch event – the RX 6700 XT, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT.

The latter, Newegg Insi ...

Gigabyte Outs A Duo of new Mini-ITX motherboard A520I AC motherboards

And with A520, these should not be expensive. Meet the A520I AC and A520M S2H. Two motherboard models that use the AMD A520 chipset have been released. Sales will start on October 2nd (Friday).

The "A520I AC" is a Mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a direct 4 + 2 phase digital power supply circuit that uses 55A DrMOS and an 8-layer PCB. In addition to Realtek 8118 Gigabit LAN, the network is equipped with IEEE 802.11ac / a / b / g / n wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.2 as standard equipment. The main specifications are DDR4-5300 x 2 memory (maximum 64GB), storage SATA3.0 (6Gbsp) ...

Pixio PX247 Review: Cheap Speed With Impressive Performance

For those hunting the best gaming monitor, the feature list is obviously a top priority. You’ll need a fast refresh rate and Adaptive-Sync for sure. HDR and extended color would be nice too, and how about some zooty styling and cool RGB? An ultra-wide curved screen can sound cool too. But when you actually have to open your wallet, suddenly value rises to the top of the must-haves list. What does a monitor need to have to be adequate for gaming? Is there an inexpensive monitor that is more than merely competent?

Today, we’ll be trying to answer that question with a review of the Pix ...

Newegg Insider lists AMD Radeon RX 6000 series specifications

The latest entry in Newegg’s official blog lists Radeon RX 6000 series specs.

Radeon RX 6900XT

The Newegg Insider is a company blog advertised on the retailer’s front page, ran by contributing journalists, who may or may not have access to confidential information that the retailers possess. The Insider blog is used to provide product overviews and buying guides for customers. The retailer also has a YouTube channel with over 0.5 million subscribers.

Newegg one of the largest PC hardware retailers in the United States. It is to be expected that the company will have ...

Dell XPS 17 (9700) review: The 17-inch laptop is back, and it's spectacular

Dell’s XPS lineup has been among the best for years, and the company has gradually refined whatever pain points it did have, such as when it used to put the webcam below the screen. But this year, the lineup underwent a major redesign, with Dell chopping down the bezels even more, something that I wouldn’t have guessed was possible.

The firm has long touted how small the footprint is on its laptops, always saying that the XPS 15 fits in the footprint of a 13-inch laptop, and that the XPS 13 fits into the footprint of an 11-inch laptop. With the XPS 15 fitting into an eve ...

Genesis Thor 420 RGB Low-Profile Mechanical Keyboard Review: Low profile, small setbacks, good value

Genesis is a smaller name in the gaming peripheral world, but the brand is steadily gaining popularity, particularly in the e-Sports community. The Polish-based company makes and sells all sorts of peripherals, including keyboards, mice, headphones, microphones, PC cases, and more, which are specifically targeted at value-oriented customers.

Genesis sent me the Thor 420 RGB low-profile mechanical keyboard, and I've been using it almost exclusively for the better part of three months. As a primer, I have experience with both membrane and full-sized mechanical keyboards; my daily driv ...

Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ review: Android tablet to rival the iPad Pro

The Galaxy Tab S7+ is Samsung’s unreserved attempt to beat Apple’s iPad Pro with an Android tablet designed just as much for work as it is for play.

The new tablet comes in two sizes: the 11in Tab S7 costing £619 and the 12.4in Tab S7+ costing £799, as reviewed here.

Intended to compete with Apple’s top iPad Pro, it looks very similar in design. The 12.4in OLED screen is simply fantastic, rivalling the very best OLED TVs let alone smartphones and tablets. It has iPad Pro-like thin bezels around the edge of the display, flat metal sides, rounded corners and even antenna lines ...

European Commission to challenge Apple tax bill verdict

The European Commission plans to appeal against a ruling that Apple does not have to pay 13bn euros (£11.6bn) in back taxes to Ireland.
The EU's General Court had ruled in July there was no evidence Apple had broken any rules on tax paid there.
Ireland never disputed the arrangement but the European Commission, which brought the case, argued it enabled Apple to avoid taxes on EU revenues.
The EU said paying the correct amount of tax was "a top priority".
In 2016, a court ruled that Ap ...

Amazon unveils flying Ring security drone and Luna games service

Amazon's smart home security division Ring has unveiled a flying camera that launches if sensors detect a potential home break-in.
It is designed to activate only when residents are out, works indoors, and is limited to one floor of a building.
The firm also unveiled an online games-streaming service and a voice-activated screen that swivels about.
But one campaign group described the drone camera as Amazon's "most chilling home surveillance product" yet.
"It's difficult to imagine why Amazon thinks anyone wants flying internet cameras linked up to ...

AMD Dimgrey Cavefish Reportedly Points To Navi 23 GPU

Continuing with AMD's tendency for fishy codenames, the chipmaker (via @Komachi Ensaka) has added support for a Dimgrey Cavefish graphics card to Mesa 20.3-devel. Much like Sienna Cichlid and Navy Flounder, Dimgrey Cavefish is presumed to be a RDNA 2 graphics cards that'll surely unsettle the gaming graphics card hierachy as we know it.

AMD has already committed to lift the curtains for the Radeon RX 6000 series, which have been popularly baptized as Big Navi, on October 28. Therefore, it's not too surprising that the chipmaker's trio of next-generation graphics cards are doing thei ...

AMD Ryzen 7 5700U Materializes In New Benchmark

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (via @TUM_APISAK) has emerged in an Ashes of the Singularity submission. The model name makes it pretty clear that the chip hails from AMD's next-generation lineup that succeeds the Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs.

Where the Ryzen 7 5700U's belongs is currently a mystery, but there are two prospects that are being thrown around: one is Lucienne and the other is Cezanne. AMD's affection for using famous painters' surnames as the codenames for its processors is well known, and sometimes the chipmaker's selection might provide some clues.

A quick ...

HOW TO ENABLE AN EASIER PICTURE-IN-PICTURE MODE FOR CHROMEBOOKS

If you’ve ever attempted to use picture-in-picture (PIP from this point on) on a Chromebook, you likely understand a bit of the frustration that comes with the territory. For instance, you’ve always needed to right-click twice on YouTube videos to get the proper context menu to appear and choose to enable PIP. Even then, however, it didn’t always work or the option would sometimes disappear. It’s been so unreliable for me that I’ve never picked up on the habit of actually using the feature.

When I was actually using it, I was leveraging the Google-made PIP Chrome extension that, od ...

Latest Galaxy Z Fold 2 software update enables eSIM functionality

Samsung released the Galaxy Z Fold 2 globally last week. Some pre-order customers had already got their hands on the device by then. There were a few who couldn’t find the eSIM option on their new foldable device. That’s because the eSIM functionality wasn’t enabled at that time.

As many of you would be aware, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has one physical SIM slot and an embedded SIM, quite like the Galaxy Fold. The embedded SIM wasn’t available out of the box but the latest Galaxy Z Fold 2 software update rolling out today addresses this.

Latest Galaxy Z Fold 2 update finally enable ...

HP Envy x360 13 (2020) review: This small 2-in-1 is more premium than its price

Between its small, slim design and its snappy AMD processor, HP's midrange convertible laptop is worth seeking out.

If I was still commuting regularly on a bus or train, the HP Envy x360 13 two-in-one laptop would be on my shortlist. It would also be a top consideration if I were shopping for an older high school or college student. It's small, stylish and light at just less than 3 pounds (1.3 kg). Battery life is long despite the size. And the AMD Ryzen 5-4500U processor delivered performance beyond that of pricier Intel chips. Add in fast Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 and, essentially ...

AMD Big Navi might still be faster than the RTX 3080

We’re just weeks away from the launch of AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs, but a firmware listing may have prematurely outed the specs for the the company’s highly-anticipated Big Navi cards.

An eagle-eyed Redditor found a listing in the new ROCm (Radeon Open Compute) firmware that reveals some of the specs for the so-called Sienna Cichlid GPU - otherwise known Navi 21 or Big Navi - which will arrive as the flagship of the RX 6000 series

The listing hints that the GPU will feature 80 compute units (CUs) and a 256-bit memory bus. If each Compute Unit (CU) in AMD's RDNA 2 architecture still ...

Intel NUC 11 PRO ‘Tiger Canyon’ detailed

A new series of Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) has been detailed. 

The next generation Tiger Lake NUC has been detailed

Intel is adding a new series of NUCs called 11 PRO (Tiger Canyon). The PRO series is meant for business and commercial use. These are not the same series as Panther Canyon (NUC 11 Performance), also featuring Tiger Lake, as those are meant for consumers.

Intel Tiger Canyon aka NUC 11 PRO will feature up to 11th Gen Core i7-1185G7 processor based on Tiger Lake-U architecture. This is a quad-core CPU with eight threads offering up to 4.8 GHz tur ...

Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition revealed with nearly top specs for a lower price

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition is a more affordable version of the flagship phone ‘for the fans,’ which means it prioritizes cameras and display quality at a more favorable price than the rest of the Galaxy S20 line, starting at $699 / £699 / AU$1,149 for the sub-6 5G model.

The phone goes as low as £599 / AU$999 for the 4G-only version, which isn’t coming to the US, though a different mmWave 5G $749 version is coming to the US through Verizon. All S20 Fan Edition models can be pre-ordered starting September 23, while the S20 Fan Edition release date is set for October 2, except ...

Adata's first desktop PC is a 5-liter NUC with integrated graphics

We were fairly impressed with Adata’s first foray into gaming PCs, which began a few months ago with the XPG Xenia 15, a genuinely impressive laptop with better-than-expected battery life. For its followup act, Adata is trying its hand at a mini PC with its new XPG Gaia.

The Gaia is based on Intel’s NUC 9 Extreme Kit, or otherwise known as Ghost Canyon. That is not necessarily a bad thing, just perhaps a bit uninspired for Adata’s introductory desktop.

Built for “gamers, esports pros, and tech enthusiasts,” Adata appears to have simply taken the ...

NHS Covid-19 app: England and Wales get smartphone contact tracing for over-16s

People living in England and Wales are being urged to download the government's official contact-tracing app following its official release.
NHS Covid-19 instructs users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they were nearby someone who has the virus.
It also has a check-in scanner to alert owners if a venue they have visited is found to be an outbreak hotspot.
Anyone over the age of 16 is being asked to install the app onto their smartphone.
That is a change from trials, which were limited to the over-18s.
The move reflects a desire by health chiefs f ...

AMD Navy Flounder and Sienna Cichlid GPU Specs Leak in ROCm Update

A sharp-eyed redditor found a listing in the new ROCm (Radeon open compute) firmware update that reveals some of the specs for the highly-anticipated RDNA2 Sienna Cichlid (Big Navi) and Navy Flounder (Navi 22 or 23) graphics cards. Things could change over the next month as AMD fine-tunes its gear, so take these specs with a grain of salt - even though the numbers come from an official firmware update, these specs aren't confirmed.

The firmware update indicates Sienna Cichlid (Navi 21, i.e., Big Navi) will feature 80 CUs and a 256-bit memory bus. The CU count for this GPU is interes ...

Chrome OS is getting a light theme, here it is in action

Over the last few years, one of the more major enhancements to operating systems like iOS and Android is the addition of a dark mode. Chrome OS is going in the opposite direction by bringing a dedicated light theme, which we managed to get our hands on early.

With a dedicated system-wide theme switcher, apps for Android and iOS have recently been able to match that desired color theme. Considering Chromebooks are able to run Android apps, as well as the fact that web apps can also respect your light/dark mode settings, it was surely only a matter of time before Chrome OS got a prope ...

Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Redefining Gen4 Performance

Samsung’s 980 Pro is set to redefine the company’s product line up, and perhaps the entire high-performance market, with a combination of the speedy PCIe 4.0 interface paired with a new controller and flash, all of which delivers brutal performance in many types of applications. That isn't too surprising given the drive's rated speed of up to 7/5 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and 1 million IOPs.

For the first time, the company’s flagship Pro series SSD doesn't come with 2-bit MLC flash. Instead, the 980 Pro uses Samsung’s latest 3-bit TLC flash to reduce costs, essentiall ...

Windows 10 antivirus is getting a huge upgrade

Microsoft has unveiled a series of changes to its Windows 10 antivirus service that will bring all the company’s extended detection and response (XDR) facilities under one roof.

Announced at the company's Ignite 2020 event, the changes will see Microsoft 365 Defender (formerly Microsoft Threat Protection) and Azure Defender consolidated under the umbrella of the Microsoft Defender antivirus service.

The company claims the offering will provide the “broadest resource coverage of any XDR in the industry”, using AI to analyze attacks across different vectors and deliver automat ...

HP Pavilion 14 launched with Intel Tiger Lake processors, an NVIDIA GeForce MX450 GPU and a UHD display

HP has unveiled the new Pavilion 14, which has received a complete overhaul. The Pavilion 14 now features 11th Gen Intel Core processors and an optional NVIDIA GeForce MX450 GPU in a more compact design. HP boasts that the Pavilion 14 has an 84% screen-to-body ratio, 16% quieter fans and 27% increased airflow. Theoretically then, the Pavilion 14 should look more modern than its predecessor without sacrificing performance or cooling.

The new model will be available in six colours, although HP notes that final colour options will vary by country. The Pavilion 14 will combine two colou ...

Apple Watch Series 6 review: still the greatest but with one big pitfall

Want to understand the success of the Apple Watch? Sure, you could look at how it has, for some time, outsold the entire Swiss watch industry. Or you could look at the number of copycats.

For starters there’s the Amazfit Bip S, the Huawei Watch Fit and the Xiaomi Mi Watch. Oppo likes the Apple Watch so much that it doesn’t just look similar, it’s also got the same name: Oppo Watch. Say it quickly and it even sounds the same.

So what do you do as the clear frontrunner? You make your product better without stuffing up your lead. Such a mentality is not the friend of radical re ...

Coronavirus: 'Government must publish contact-tracing app data'

A leading health charity is demanding details about how England and Wales' contact-tracing app fared in tests.
The app is due to launch on Thursday.
It has been trialled in the London Borough of Newham as well as the Isle of Wight, but data from from the pilots has not been made public.
The Health Foundation said it was particularly concerned the tech could exacerbate existing inequalities, leaving some people at greater risk of being infected.
The government has responded saying: "We have spoken with groups with protected characteristics, such as age, ethni ...

Dell Quietly Slashes Price of the 4K 120Hz OLED Alienware 55 Monitor by $1000

Dell was the first company to unveil a large-format gaming display — the Alienware 55 — based on an OLED panel back at CES 2019. It just so happens that Dell appears to be the first maker to slash pricing of such a product, too. 

The Alienware 55 uses a 55-inch OLED panel featuring a 4K resolution, 400 nits peak brightness, a 130,000:1 contrast ratio, a 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time, as well as a 120 Hz maximum refresh rate. This high refresh rate along with support for VESA’s Adaptive-Sync technology in its AMD FreeSync Premium as well as Nvidia G-Sync-compatible implemen ...

Mobvoi TicWatch 3 Pro is coming in three days with Wear OS

Mobvoi launched a new TicWatch GTX last week that may have left some drooling over the price but dissatisfied over its features. For those still wishing for a formidable Wear OS smartwatch won’t have to wait long. The company has already confirmed that the TicWatch 3 Pro is landing this week and, if the leaks are correct, it could yet again be one of the more notable if not the most notable smartwatches running on Google’s Android-based wearable platform.

Mobvoi hit smartwatch news radars after it was reported that Google made an investment in the Chinese company’s ...

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT specs: Navi 21 GPU with 16GB could cost $499

I’m knee deep in reviewing NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards, and now the RTX 3090 to have a day one review, but the world hasn’t stopped.

We now have some new rumored specs on the AMD’s next-gen Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card, where Rogame tweets it will be powered by the Navi 21 GPU and have 16GB of GDDR6 memory. The 16GB of GDDR6 memory is coming from Samsung, and will reportedly be on a 256-bit memory bus.

Not only that, but there is also the Navi 22 GPU that should power a slightly slower card that should materialize into the Radeon R ...

Samsung launches Odyssey G7 T1 Faker Edition gaming monitor in South Korea

Samsung had unveiled its Odyssey series of gaming monitors earlier this year at CES 2020. The lineup consisted of the Odyssey G7 and the Odyssey G9, featuring curved QLED VA displays, a 240Hz refresh rate, HDR, 1ms GTG response time, and G-Sync. The company has announced today that it has launched a special edition version of the Odyssey G7, which is inspired by T1’s star League of Legends player Faker.

The South Korean firm has designed the Odyssey G7 T1 Faker Edition gaming monitor in collaboration with SK Telecom’s esports organization T1. The special-edition monitor comes with F ...

Microsoft buys Fallout creator Bethesda for $7.5bn

Xbox-owner Microsoft has acquired the games company behind blockbuster titles including Doom, Fallout, Skyrim and Wolfenstein.

It is paying $7.5bn (£5.85bn) for Bethesda's parent ZeniMax Media.

Xbox has said that the publisher's franchises would be added to its Game Pass subscription package for consoles and PCs.

This could help make the forthcoming Xbox Series X more attractive than the PlayStation 5 to some players.

Both machines are due to launch in November.

Game Pass already gives players access to more than 200 games. Microsoft includes first-pa ...

WeChat: Judge blocks US attempts to ban downloads of Chinese app

A judge has blocked a US government attempt to ban the Chinese messaging and payments app, WeChat.

US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said the ban raised serious questions related to the constitution's first amendment, guaranteeing free speech.

The Department of Commerce had announced a bar on WeChat appearing in US app stores from Sunday, effectively shutting it down.

The Trump administration has alleged it threatens national security.

It says the app could pass user data to the Chinese government.

Is the US about to split the internet?
What Ti ...

TikTok and WeChat: US to ban app downloads in 48 hours

TikTok and WeChat will be banned from US app stores from Sunday, unless President Donald Trump agrees to a last-minute deal.
The Department of Commerce said it would bar people in the US from downloading the messaging and video-sharing apps through any app store on any platform.
The Trump administration says the companies threaten national security and could pass user data to China.
But China and both companies deny this.
WeChat will effectively shut down in the US on Sunday, but people will still be able to use TikTok until 12 November, when it could also be ful ...

HP EliteBook 840 G7 First Impressions

The new HP EliteBook 840 could be the perfect business-class laptop for the pandemic, with better performance and efficiency. It can even withstand being sanitized with normal household wipes.

As some of you may know, I’ve long been a fan of HP’s EliteBook series, but I haven’t actually reviewed one since last year: That was the EliteBook x360 1040 G5, a convertible laptop that is among the very best I’ve ever reviewed, with a nearly-flawless typing experience that I still use as my baseline for other reviews.

Flash forward to 2020 and the new EliteBook 840 is a familiar and ...

TicWatch Pro 3 listing confirms specs, dual-display, new health features for the Wear OS watch

Last month an early retail listing confirmed the presence of Mobvoi’s upcoming TicWatch Pro 3. Now, another retail listing for the TicWatch Pro 3 has confirmed nearly all of the specs and features of the upcoming Wear OS smartwatch. Here’s what we know.

A listing on Malaysian retail Shopee (since removed, pictured below) gives us perhaps our best look at the TicWatch Pro 3 with several images of the watch and its features. Of course, it mentions the new Snapdragon 4100 chipset, claiming an 85% boost in CPU performance and 150% boost in GPU performance. We can also clearly see that t ...

Leaked 85-inch Surface Hub 2S product images confirm specifications of 2020-bound interactive whiteboard

WalkingCat has revealed that Microsoft plans to release a new version of the Surface Hub. Microsoft released 55-inch and 84-inch versions of the Surface Hub five years ago, but it opted to only bring a 50-inch edition of the Surface Hub 2S to market last year. However, it did announce an 85-inch model last April, which may be the version that we are looking at here.

According to the two images, the device has an 85.6-inch Pixelsense display that operates at 4K. The display also has a 16:9 aspect ratio and is coated anti-glare glass. It is only a 60 Hz panel though, unlike the 120 Hz ...

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X would have 12 cores and Yes ZEN3 would be Series 5000

Chatter on the web is getting bigger that ZEN3 based desktop processors, might see a name change, not Ryzen 4000 but Ryzen 5000. This rumor has been ongoing for days now, and there's more and more merit to that story.

A new tweet from Patrick Schur, software engineer, and a bit of a AMD Ryzen series news leaker, revealed that the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X processors will feature 12 and 8 cores respectively. He also suggests that the upcoming Zen3-based series will change its nomenclature to 5000. This information has been rumored for a few weeks since if AMD does not change it ...

Chrome OS 87 may move media playback controls to Quick Settings on Chromebooks

Last month, I pointed out that a new Global Media Controls feature was in the works for Chrome OS 86. I didn’t say it at the time, but my hope was that this would remove the annoying (at least to me) media playback controls in the Notifications stack on my Chromebook. It looks like I may get my wish with Chrome OS 87.

Work has begun with a target version of 87 on media controls right in the system tray, as spotted by Chrome Story. Code only started appearing earlier this week, so much of what’s planned could be changed, but here’s a video demo of the current progress:

You ca ...

PS5 vs Xbox Series X: How do they compare?

If we had a console war klaxon, now would be the time to sound it!

Sony has just revealed more details about the PS5, so how does it compare to the XBox Series X which will also be released in November?

Take a look below to see how these monster machines match up, as they battle it out for Christmas 2020 supremacy.

Price and release date
Sony has now revealed that the PS5 will match the Xbox Series X in price, costing £449.99.

However the new console will come out nine days later than its competitor in the UK, releasing on 19 November.

Microsof ...

Sony announces the Xperia 5 II with 120Hz screen and actually useful game enhancements

Sony is continuing its refresh of its smartphone line to focus on photography and video with the new Xperia 5 II. It’s the smaller sibling of the very tall and weirdly expensive Xperia 1 II, and this newer phone betters it in several regards. It’s cheaper, for one thing, going on sale on September 29th for $949. The other major improvement is that Sony has put in a high-refresh-rate 120Hz panel.

Oddly, though, Sony says it’s not shipping until December 4th and even more oddly, it will have 5G but won’t work with the 5G networks in the US — just like the Xperia 1 II.

The basi ...

AMD Radeon RX 6900XT leaks in new photos

New photos of alleged AMD Radeon RX 6900XT leak

A YouTuber RedGamingTech has leaked more photographs of the alleged Radeon RX 6900XT graphics card. It seems that the source of the photographs is the same as JayzTwoCents’s who also shared some of these photos yesterday.

It is worth noting that the graphics card name has not been confirmed. It is only alleged that the highest-end model will be called RX 6900XT. AMD is likely to unveil multiple graphics card SKUs based on RDNA2 architecture. The flagship model should feature Navi 21 GPU (known as Big Navi), while the rest of th ...

Potential Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6700 Reference Design Emerges

Tech YouTuber JayzTwoCents recently shared an image of what appears to be another Radeon RX 6000 (a.k.a. Big Navi) graphics card that may eventually contend for a spot on our best graphics cards page.

Unlike the beefy Radeon RX 6000 that AMD teased in Fortnite, this newly leaked variant features a less substantial cooling solution, insinuating that it could be a SKU that's on the lower end of the Big Navi spectrum. It's plausible that AMD might use the triple-fan configuration for the flagship model, such as the Radeon RX 6900, while saving the dual-fan setup for something like a Ra ...

Nvidia RTX 3080: PCIe 4.0 vs 3.0 scaling analysis

If you haven’t already read our full RTX 3080 review, I would recommend doing so first. That will give you an idea of how this new GPU compares to the likes of the RTX 2080 Ti, GTX 1080 Ti and more. In this article, we are only looking at performance of the RTX 3080, but tested on different CPU platforms.

Here, we are comparing three sets of data. First of all, the data we used for our review – the RTX 3080 Founders Edition tested with an Intel i9-10900K overclocked to 5.1GHz, restricting us to PCIe 3.0 due to the Z490 platform. To give us an idea of PCIe Gen4 performance with this ...

The cheapest 8-core AMD Ryzen laptop now costs less than the cheapest Core i7 notebook

Lenovo no longer lists the AMD Ryzen-powered IdeaPad 5 on its own site, and we don't know why. Fortunately, the laptop is still available at Walmart - and at a seriously affordable price too.

On paper, the IdeaPad 5 (model numbers 81YM0060US, 81YM005YUS or 81YM0061US) has a lot going for it. With a rock-bottom price, the machine significantly undercuts the previous cheapest AMD Ryzen 8-core laptop.

What do you get for your money? A choice of three colours, a 14-inch full HD IPS display, an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPU, 8GB of DDR4 memory (soldered), a 256GB PCIe SSD and a 57WHr bat ...

PlayStation 5 matches the price of the Xbox Series X

Sony has matched the price of the forthcoming flagship PlayStation 5 to that of Microsoft's Xbox Series X.
Last time round, the PS4 significantly undercut the Xbox One at launch.
Sony also confirmed the PS5's "digital edition" - which does not have a disc drive - would cost about 40% more than the low-end Xbox Series S.
Both PS5 consoles are set to be released on 19 November in the UK, and 12 November in the US, Japan and Australia.
That puts them slightly later than Microsoft's 10 November launch date.
Sony was the clear leader in the previous g ...

Intel Core i7-10875H facing supply issues, manufacturer quietly launches Core i7-10870H instead

Intel launches two new Comet Lake-H processors.

Meet Intel Core i7-10870H and Core i5-10200H

There were no official announcements, but Intel has added two SKUs to the Comet Lake-H lineup. A fourth 8-core high-end processor has been launched according to Intel’s own website.

Interestingly, the processor was allegedly launched due to supply issues of the higher-end model, the Core i7-10875H. This processor is very popular among high-end gaming notebooks. After all, this is the fastest Core i7 processor in the lineup.

Compared to the 10875H, the 10870H offers a ...

iPhone 12 already looks outdated as Samsung lines up new flagship

Apple is lining up its next flagship with the upcoming iPhone 12, but despite news of an improved A14 processor giving the innards an overhaul with a 15% boost in performance, and 30% less power draw, the chassis leaves a lot to be desired. 

Still touting the candybar design, and a sizeable notch, not a lot has changed with Apple's aesthetic, but its classic form factor is beginning to look outdated compared to Android competitors, and Samsung's plans for its own future flagships will either force Apple to rethink its approach, or see it left in the dust.

Samsung made waves ...

Apple Fitness+ subscription service unveiled alongside Series 6 Watch

Apple has unveiled a new personalised workout subscription service alongside new smartwatches and tablet computers.
Fitness+ collects health data gathered by an Apple Watch and then displays it alongside workout videos shown on a larger display.
The platform will compete with existing fitness apps on iOS from Peloton, Les Mills and Fiit.
It also poses a challenge to Fitbit, whose wearables benefit from their own health-coaching subscription service.
As many had forecast, Apple decided to hold back details of its next iPhones for a separate event.

Yoga and ...

OnePlus 8T render shows the new phone, but this leaks contradicts others

There's yet another OnePlus 8T leak today, and this time there's a render of what the forthcoming Android phone will look like as well as the all-important specs.

This new OnePlus leak, however, is different from the recent outing of the 8T and 8T Pro, which was seemingly confirmed by the OnePlus website. The source, PriceBabain collaboration with reliable leaker @Onleaks, suggests that there's no Pro version coming, contradicting what we heard just hours ago.

We'll note that at least one rumor previously called into question the existence of the higher-specced OnePlus 8T Pr ...

iPhone 12 won't have 120Hz screen after all, says analyst

The iPhone 12 is possibly (although unlikely) only hours away from being unveiled, but whenever it finally arrives it seems its screen won't be as good as we hoped. According to noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors), Apple's new iPhone will have a 60Hz refresh rate, not 120Hz.

That would make it inferior in terms of display response and smoothness compared to the Samsung Galaxy S20, Note 20, the OnePlus 8 Pro and a handful of other high-end Android handsets.

A higher refresh rate makes fast-moving images like gaming and action movies look smoother. The iPhone 12 range w ...

Microsoft differentiates Xbox Series X and Series S in new product pages

Microsoft has launched dedicated webpages for both the Xbox Series X and its little sibling, the Xbox Series S. 

The difference in marketing language is stark, billing the Series X as "the fastest, most powerful Xbox ever" while pitching the Series S as packing "next-gen performance in the smallest Xbox ever" and calling it "the best value in gaming." In creating two distinct pages for each console, Microsoft seems to be differentiating between the two consoles in an effort to clear up any confusion surrounding its next-gen hardware strategy.

Th ...

LG Wing smartphone has a swivel screen

South Korean tech firm LG has unveiled a smartphone with a larger screen which swivels out to reveal a second, smaller one underneath.

The Wing's second screen can either act independently of the larger screen while it is displaying a film, for example, or can complement it as a controller for gaming and media.

However, some of this functionality relies on using pre-installed browsers.

One expert said it was one of the "more radical designs" he had seen.

"It's a very tricky design to evaluate without using it - it is reminiscent of some of the ...

This little-known Windows tablet rivals the Microsoft Surface Go 2

The Chuwi Hi10x is, in our opinion, the best alternative to Microsoft's Surface Go 2 - the recently released Windows-based tablet that goes head-to-head against the iPad with its 10.5-inch form factor.

The follow-up to the Chuwi Hi10 is a huge improvement on the original, which we reviewed it back in 2016, and makes for an enticing proposition indeed.

Including a capacitive stylus pen and original keyboard docking station, the Hi10X comes in at under $250 (£200/AU$350), which is still far lower than the 64GB version of the Surface Go 2 (which, as a reminder, comes without ad ...

LG Wing smartphone has a swivel screen

South Korean tech firm LG has unveiled a smartphone with a larger screen which swivels out to reveal a second, smaller one underneath.
The Wing's second screen can either act independently of the larger screen while it is displaying a film, for example, or can complement it as a controller for gaming and media.
However, some of this functionality relies on using pre-installed browsers.
One expert said it was one of the "more radical designs" he had seen.
"It's a very tricky design to evaluate without using it - it is reminiscent of some of the desi ...

A new Covid-19 contact-tracing app will be launched across England and Wales on 24 September, the government has announced.
The app will let people scan barcode-like QR codes to register visits to hospitality venues and will implement Apple and Google's method of detecting other smartphones.
Businesses are being asked to display QR code posters to support the app.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock described the launch as "a defining moment".
The first version of the NHS contact-tracing app, intended for the whole of the UK, was trialled on the Isle of Wight in May but later abandoned.
"We need to use every tool at our disposal to control the spread of the virus including cutting-edge technology," said Mr Hancock.
"The launch of the app later this month across England and Wales is a defining moment and will aid our ability to contain the virus at a critical time."
According to the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics, there were an estimated 3,200 new cases a day in England during the first week of September, compared with 2,000 the week before.
Some hospitality venues have already been using their own QR code-based systems for test and trace but are now being asked to switch to the NHS version instead.
Universities, hospitals, leisure premises, civic centres and libraries are being asked to display posters in communal areas such as cafes, where people gather for longer than 15 minutes.
An alternative system, such as a handwritten register, must also be maintained for visitors who do not have smartphones, the Department of Health and Social Care said.
Do I have to give my contact details if I eat out?
Covid-19 tracing app is released in NI
Scotland's Covid app downloaded almost 600,000 times
Welsh Health and Social Services Minister Vaughan Gething said launching a joint app with England was "the most practical option".
He added that the move reflects "movement across our shared border".
"It makes sense to use the same app, working in exactly the same way, regardless of which country you're in."

It has had a long and troubled gestation but the team behind the NHS Covid-19 app are hoping that they've finally got it right at a time when it can make a significant contribution to limiting the spread of the virus.
Back in April, an app seemed to be a key weapon in the government's armoury but since Baroness Dido Harding took over the Test and Trace programme, it's been relegated to the "cherry on the cake".
Around the world there are still doubts amongst those working on contact tracing apps about just how good Bluetooth is as a way of measuring the distance between people.
But the fact that pubs, restaurants and other hospitality businesses are now being told they have to do a better job of logging contact details of visitors presents an opportunity.
They may now see having QR codes for visitors as a simple way of complying with the rules, and that could encourage take-up of the app.
There has been some confusion about whether businesses will be complying with the rules on collecting customer data if they rely on the app. But I've been told that they will be compliant even though the nature of the app means none of the data will be visible either to them or to the authorities.

Coronavirus: England and Wales' contact-tracing app gets launch date

A new Covid-19 contact-tracing app will be launched across England and Wales on 24 September, the government has announced.
The app will let people scan barcode-like QR codes to register visits to hospitality venues and will implement Apple and Google's method of detecting other smartphones.
Businesses are being asked to display QR code posters to support the app.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock described the launch as "a defining moment".
The first version of the NHS contact-tracing app, intended for the whole of the UK, was trialled on the Isle of Wight ...

Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2020) Review

Earlier this year, I was able to spend some time testing the Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2019) gaming laptop, featuring an RTX-2060 and an older Intel processor, and thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. For the past few weeks, I've been testing the 2020 version of the Blade 15 Advanced, with a 10th Gen Intel processor and an RTX-2080 Super w/Max-Q tuning. Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2020)

The updated internals have added to the overall cost of the Blade 15 Advanced, with the model I've been testing normally priced at $2,999 (however, it can be found on sale for $2,799).

Does ...

MSI launches its the MAG B550 TORPEDO Motherboard

Meet the new MAG B550 TORPEDO. For the 3rd Gen Ryzen processors & Ryzen 4000 G-series processors, the new MAG B550 TORPEDO motherboard is designed to be the best choice in its class.

 The MAG B550 TORPEDO has the same military theme as all the other members in the MAG family. The 10 Dual Rail Power System with smart power stages and the stunning extended heatsink allow the MAG B550 TORPEDO to stably supply the power needs for multi-core processors. It supports up to AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 cores processors.

Besides the heatsink on the power stage components, the MAG B550 TO ...

Asus and Zotac Massively Slash GeForce RTX 2000-Series Pricing

Nvidia and its add-in-board (AIB) partners are set to release GeForce RTX 30-series ‘Ampere’ graphics cards on September 17. But before launching something new, they need to get rid of existing GeForce RTX 20-series products. Apparently, this is exactly what Asus and Zotac are doing in some countries. 

Asus slashed prices of its GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics cards by 50% in the Philippines, according to its Facebook page. Zotac also cut down price of its GeForce RTX 2080 Ti board by a whopping 55% in Malaysia, the company announced. Furthermore, those who purchased the board on or ...

Motorola Edge Plus Smartphone Review – High-End Again at Last

Cheap no more! The Edge Plus is Motorola's attempt to compete with the best of the best the smartphone market has to offer. An assertive price and decent connectivity may look good on paper, however they are nothing out of the ordinary. But is it enough to go head to head with Samsung and Apple?

Back in May of 2020 we had the chance to review the Motorola Edge, a high-quality device somewhere in-between upper mid-range and high-end. The Motorola Edge Plus, or Edge+, is unambiguous about its ambitions, and regarded by Motorola as a true high-end flagship smartphone. At an asking pric ...

Huawei to shift phones to its own Harmony operating system from 2021

Huawei has announced plans to pre-install its own Harmony operating system on its smartphones from next year.
The Chinese company said it would also offer the software to other manufacturers to use as an alternative to Android.
Huawei is currently the world's second bestselling handset-maker, after a brief time in the top spot.
But others have tried and failed to challenge Google and Apple's dominance.
Google's Android accounted for 85.4% of smartphones shipped last year, according to research company IDC, and Apple's iOS the remaining 14.6%.
And those fig ...

AMD Threadripper Pro 3995WX Thinkstation Listed for $18,000: Benchmarks Emerge

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3995WX is one heck of a chip. It recently found itself atop PassMark's leaderboard (as spotted via @TUM_APISAK), leaving heavy hitters, such as the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X and EPYC 7702, in the rear view mirror. That makes it all the more exciting that this powerhouse CPU has landed in a new system. But who can actually afford it? 

Debuted back in July, the Threadripper Pro series builds upon the success of the Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series (codename Castle Peak), while also borrowing a page out of the EPYC 7002-series' (codename Rome) playbook. The Ze ...

SiPearl working on a giant 72-core processor for supercomputers

A Twitter post by a French politician inadvertently revealed details about SiPearl’s upcoming high-performance processor powered by Arm’s Neoverse Zeus cores. 

The SiPearl Rhea system-on-chip will be used for an experimental ‘towards exascale’ supercomputer platform, with Rhea’s successor, SiPearl’s Cronos, used for the first European exascale supercomputer. 

The SiPearl Rhea SoC is based on 72 Arm Neoverse Zeus cores and to that end will be able compete against Amazon’s Graviton 2 and Ampere’s Altra processors. The processor also features 68 mesh network L3 cache slices alo ...

Alleged AMD Radeon RX 6000 engineering sample spotted

A photograph showing an engineering sample of the alleged RDNA2 graphics card has been published online.

Is this Big Navi?

A picture of a mysterious engineering sample has emerged on Bilibili. It is not possible to determine which graphics processor does the graphics card has, but one could guess this might be one of the upcoming Big Navi variants (or any other NAVI 2x family processor at this point). The timing for this leak is definitely interesting.

Some labels have been attached to the board, such as ‘Typical Samsung 16Gb‘ indicating the memory type used for this ...

The Armari Magnetar X64T Workstation OC Review: 128 Threads at 4.0 GHz, Sustained!

Blitzing around a race track in a fast car only ever convinces you of one thing: I need to go around the track even faster. I need a better car, I need a better engine, better brakes, or better tires. I need that special go faster juice, and I need to nail the perfect run. The world of professional computing works the same, whether it comes down to rendering, rapid prototyping, scientific compute, medical imaging, weather modelling, or something like oil and gas simulation, the more raw horsepower there is, the more can be done. So enter the new Armari Magnetar X64T – an overclocked 64-core ...

Android 11 system update from Google adds privacy controls

New privacy controls and a screen-recording tool are among features being added to Android phones in the latest major update to Google's mobile operating system (OS).
Android 11 also makes it easier to keep track of chat messages across multiple apps, and control smart home gadgets.
Google has made efforts to encourage third-party device manufacturers to roll out its system updates more quickly than they used to.
But some brands lag behind others.
The tech giant has said that in addition to its own Pixel brand, the following firms would be the first to offer down ...

Rumored Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Specs Hit the Sweet Spot

Nvidia might have already announced its GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards, but the Ampere rumor mill never rests. Hardware insider @kopite7kimi, who was spot on with Ampere's specifications before launch, just revealed alleged specifications for another undetermined SKU that could well earn a spot on our Best Graphics Cards list.

According to the tweet, the leaker doesn't know if the card in question is the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or GeForce RTX 3060 Super. In either case, the graphics card will reportedly leverage the GA104 silicon, similar to the the one that's confirmed to be insi ...

ASRock Launches Ryzen 4000 Mini PC With 2.5G Networking

ASRock Industrial Computer's latest 4X4 BOX-4000 series of Mini PCs is here to disrupt the small form factor (SFF) market. Available with three different processor options, the 4x4 BOX-4000 series targets both home and business users.

The 4X4 BOX-4000's plastic enclosure has a 4.3 x 4.6 x 1.9-inch (110.0 x 117.5 x 47.9mm) footprint and weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg). The mini PC can sit comfortably on your desk or you can mount it behind your screen, thanks to the included VESA mounting bracket. 

The 4X4 BOX-4000 employs AMD's latest Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs th ...

Samsung's Note20 Ultra Variable Refresh Rate Display Explained

In August 2020, Samsung launched the new Note20 Ultra – an interesting device that we have on our review test bed. It's safe to say that over the last few generations, there hasn’t been all that much exciting about the Note line of devices - the phones typically use the new silicon and camera technologies that were introduced in the Galaxy S-series of the same year, and the Note lends on its form factor, only improving upon the design and software experience around the S-Pen. This year’s Note20 Ultra, based on our testing, generally also follows the same formula, but with the important exce ...

ASRock Launches Ryzen 4000 Mini PC With 2.5G Networking

ASRock Industrial Computer's latest 4X4 BOX-4000 series of Mini PCs is here to disrupt the small form factor (SFF) market. Available with three different processor options, the 4x4 BOX-4000 series targets both home and business users.

The 4X4 BOX-4000's plastic enclosure has a 4.3 x 4.6 x 1.9-inch (110.0 x 117.5 x 47.9mm) footprint and weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg). The mini PC can sit comfortably on your desk or you can mount it behind your screen, thanks to the included VESA mounting bracket. 

The 4X4 BOX-4000 employs AMD's latest Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs th ...

Samsung's Note20 Ultra Variable Refresh Rate Display Explained

In August 2020, Samsung launched the new Note20 Ultra – an interesting device that we have on our review test bed. It's safe to say that over the last few generations, there hasn’t been all that much exciting about the Note line of devices - the phones typically use the new silicon and camera technologies that were introduced in the Galaxy S-series of the same year, and the Note lends on its form factor, only improving upon the design and software experience around the S-Pen. This year’s Note20 Ultra, based on our testing, generally also follows the same formula, but with the important exce ...

Apple fires back in Fortnite App Store battle

Apple has fired back against claims by the maker of the Fortnite game that its control of the App Store gives it a monopoly.

In a response to the August lawsuit filed by Epic Games, Apple called those arguments "self-righteous" and "self-interested".

It denied that its 30% commission was anti-competitive and said the fight was "a basic disagreement over money".

Apple also said Epic Games had violated its contract and asked for damages.

The filing is the latest in a legal battle that started last month, after Fortnite offered a di ...

'Biggest update ever' to fix Android flaw

Samsung, LG and Google have pledged to provide monthly security updates for smartphones running the Android operating system.
In July, a major bug was discovered in the software that could let hijackers access data on up to a billion phones.
Manufacturers have been slow to roll out a fix because many variations of Android are widely used.
One Android expert said it was "about time" phone makers issued security fixes more quickly.

Android has been working to patch a vulnerability, known as Sta ...

Galaxy Z Fold2: Samsung's third attempt at a folding smartphone

Samsung has revealed its third attempt at a folding smartphone: the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G.

Its original Galaxy Fold smartphone was delayed for several months after several early reviewers found the screens broke or were easily damaged.

BBC Click's Chris Fox went hands-on with Samsung's latest version to see what it had changed since its first attempt.

Lenovo releases first Fedora Linux ThinkPad laptop

For years, ThinkPads, first from IBM and then from Lenovo, were Linux users' top laptop pick. Then, in 2008 Lenovo turned its back on desktop Linux. Lenovo has seen the error of its ways. Today, for the first time in much too long, Lenovo has released a ThinkPad with a ready-to-run Linux. And, not just any Linux, but Red Hat's community Linux, Fedora.

Red Hat Senior Software Engineering Manager Christian Schaller wrote: 

This is a big milestone for us and for Lenovo as it's the first time Fedora ships pre-installed on a laptop from a major vendor and it's the first time the ...

How to take screenshots in Windows 10

From keyboard shortcuts to built-in apps, there's plenty of ways to take screenshots on a Windows 10 PC.

There's any number of reasons why you may need to take a screenshot on a Windows 10 PC. You may need to send an error report to IT, capture graphics and images for a presentation, or create a tutorial on how to take screenshots in Windows 10. 

No matter the reason you're trying to take screenshots in Windows 10, there are options. Microsoft didn't make all of them super simple, and you'll need to bring in additional apps like Paint to actually save the screen captures you ...

MSI Releases Combo PI V2 1.0.8.1 BIOS Updates for X570, B550 and A520 series motherboards

MSI has started distributing optimized BIOS updates for the X570, B550 and A520 series motherboards. Combo PI V2 1.0.8.1 BIOS are released and able to download successively from now throughout September.

The MSI news-release is very shot but the new BIOS updates affects the following:

Optimized memory compatibility

Optimized overclocking ability of memory

Mitigate S3 resume issue

Solved RAID issue of B550 platform

Now supports UMA setting for Ryzen 4000 G-Series (Renoir) processors

The release schedule is listed below, BIOS for all 500 ...

Big Navi Radeon 6000 Branding Unearthed In AMD Custom Fortnite Map And How To Find It

Only a few days ago, AMD worked with Fortnite Creative Island modder MAKAMAKES to create the custom AMD Battle Arena in Fortnite creative. Players have the option of playing three different game modes, and among the maps, there apparently was a baked-in Easter egg referencing Big Navi model numbering, or at least so it seems.

Just this evening, a personality who appears to be an AMD-sponsored Facebook streamer, GinaDarling, was live playing and streaming Fortnite on this new map, when she discovered the AMD-planted Easter egg you can see below. It certainly seems like it is referenc ...

Apple Seeds Fourth Public Beta of watchOS 7 to Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the fourth public beta of an upcoming watchOS 7 update to public beta testers, one week after seeding the third public beta and just a few days after seeding a new beta to developers.

The ‌watchOS 7‌ update can be downloaded after installing the proper profile from Apple's Public Beta website. ‌watchOS 7‌ should not be installed on a primary device as it is still an early beta and there could be bugs, plus there is no way to downgrade back to watchOS 6.

‌watchOS 7‌ is a major update that introduces a new Sleep Tracking feature for the Apple Watch, which is ...

The Aorus 15P is a light gaming laptop designed for esports pros

Gigabyte has announced the Aorus 15P, a portable laptop tailored to professional gaming. It’s available now on Gigabyte’s online store, starting at $1,599.99.

The company says it worked with esports teams, including G2 Esports, to design the new laptop. It weighs 4.4 pounds (2kg) — which is portable so far as gaming laptops go — and it’s 0.9 inches thick. Gigabyte says the chassis passed “a series of pressure tests” for durability.

Gigabyte is promising up to eight hours of battery life, which is certainly an optimistic prediction for a gaming rig (and this one has a per-key ...

You Probably Never Found This Wholesome Windows 95 Easter Egg

The news cycle is bleak. Easter eggs are fun. And maybe it’s the nostalgia speaking (and the recent anniversary), but Windows 95 still reigns supreme in my memory as the best operating system of all time. It’s for these three very scientific reasons that the reveal of a long-hidden Windows 95 easter egg temporarily cured my 2020-induced depression.

The Easter Egg was revealed on Living Computers: Museum + Labs’ YouTube Channel (via BoingBoing) to celebrate Microsoft’s 45th anniversary. In the video, Windows 95 developer Jeff Parsons reveals how to find a secret credits sequence.

TCL Says Its New E Ink Colour Display Can Handle Video

Known for its tablets, TVs, and phones, TCL has this week announced a new technology, NXTPAPER, that could totally change how you think about e ink. E ink displays are known for being great to stare at for hours and perfect for reading books (and sometimes even comics), but the latest colour displays from E Ink have low resolution and slow refresh rates, making them unusable for video. TCL claims its new NXTPAPER tech could be a solution.

TCL’s press release is a little confusing, as it appears to compare NXTPAPER both to E Ink’s displays and to traditional LCD displays that you fin ...

iPad Air 4: New renders show an updated tablet with a Touch ID-enabled power button

The iPad Air (2019) has an arguably old-fashioned look, being lumbered with a large chin and forehead so as to accommodate a classic Apple home button. However, this feature does confer the advantage of supporting the OEM's form of fingerprint authentication, Touch ID, whereas the more expensive Pro variants have sacrified it in the name of thin bezels.

Recent leaks have suggested that its successor, which could be called the iPad Air 4, (or, according to additional rumors, the iPad Air (2021)) may also adopt this slim-border design. It may make sense, especially if the new iPhones  ...

Why your next Tiger Lake laptop likely won't perform as well as all those Intel slides claim

Intel dropped a whole bunch of details on their 11th gen Tiger Lake series this week complete with detailed press releases, interviews, and performance slides. According to their own benchmark results for the Core i7-1165G7, raw multi-thread performance should rival the Ryzen 7 4700U while the integrated Xe GPU should be on par with the discrete GeForce MX350.

The problem with manufacturer-provided numbers is that they usually show the processor at its best running on a machine that isn't yet ready for retail. When pressed for an answer on what specific Tiger Lake laptop Intel were ...

Facebook to freeze political ads before US presidential election

Facebook has announced that it will not take on any new political ads in the seven days prior to the US election on 3 November.
However, the firm will still allow existing ads to continue to be promoted and targeted at different users.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed the measure in a Facebook post.
He said that he was "worried" about divisions in the country potentially leading to civil unrest.
He added that Facebook would also label posts from candidates attempting to declare victory before the votes had been counted.
The social network ...

Chrome OS 86 bringing tab search to Chromebooks and it’s awesome

Earlier this week the Stable Channel of Chrome OS 85 was released to Chromebooks. Hot on the heels of that, the Chrome OS 86 Dev Channel was updated and I’ve been using it on my daily driver. If you’re the kind of Chromebook user I am and have one or two dozen tabs open at any given time, you’re likely going to love the new tab search feature.

Here’s a screenshot of it in action:

Above you can see I have 9 pinned tabs, two regular active tabs and a new tab page, just for good measure.

By clicking on the drop down arrow to the right of the last tab shown, there’s a dr ...

Apple more valuable than the entire FTSE 100

The valuation of US tech giant Apple has continued to surge, surpassing the entire value of all the members of the UK's top share index.

Apple's shares rose 4% on Tuesday, valuing it at $2.3 trillion (£1.7tn), compared to the £1.5tn value of all the companies in the FTSE 100.

Apple shares fell back on Wednesday, but remained ahead of the London index at the close of trading on Wednesday.

It is just two weeks since Apple became the first US firm to be valued at $2tn.

Investors have been snapping up US tech stocks as demand for tech goods has surged amid the co ...

Nvidia's new Reflex latency-busting technology aims to make you a better gamer

Nvidia is today announcing the introduction of Nvidia Reflex technology. In an attempt to put a quantifiable number on gaming PC input lag, Nvidia and its pals at monitor manufacturers are introducing screen-based technology called Reflex Latency Analyzer that is able to accurately measure system latency for the first time without specialised equipment. It's also adding per game support for a new Reflex Low-Latency Mode, which aims to lower input lag in select games.

Details remain sparse on the exact specifications for upcoming monitors with the technology, although we know Alienwa ...

Chrome OS 85 Stable Channel arrives: Here’s what you need to know

On Tuesday, Google announced that the Chrome OS 85 Stable Channel is released, with the typical staggered rollout over the coming days. As usual, Google has highlighted some of the newest features for Chromebooks, but there’s always more in terms of experimental functionality.

I’ll share what you need to know about Chrome OS 85 from the official release and cover thee additional items Google has held under wraps for now.

Wi-Fi password sync between Chromebooks

We knew that WiFi password synchronization between Chromebooks was coming and it’s finally here in Chrome OS ...

Don't download latest Windows 10 update if you own one of these popular laptops

There's a fresh Windows 10 warning out this week and ignoring it could leave your PC facing the nightmare of the dreaded blue screen of death. The new alert has been issued by the team at Lenovo who say that, after installing the August 2020 cumulative update for Windows 10 Version 2004, some ThinkPad laptops are being hit by this irritating bug.

In a post on its support page Lenovo states that "after installing the August 2020 cumulative update for Windows 10 Version 2004, users may notice one or more of the following symptoms: Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) when booting • Blue S ...

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 vs original Galaxy Fold: we compare the foldable phones

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 is here - as the follow-up to Samsung's first ever foldable phone, the original Galaxy Fold, it brings some tweaks and improvements to the established formula with some extra features thrown in.

We first heard about the Galaxy Z Fold 2 at the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 launch event, where it was teased by the company, but we didn't get all the information until a separate event a few weeks later.

So what's new in this improved Galaxy Fold phone? The form factor is largely the same, but beyond the expected iterative updates, there are some other new fe ...

Coronavirus: Apple iPhones can contact-trace without Covid app

Apple has begun letting its iPhones carry out contact-tracing without the need for users to download an official Covid-19 app.
As an alternative, owners are being invited to opt in to a scheme called Exposure Notifications Express (ENE).
This keeps a 14-day log of other phones detected via Bluetooth and serves an alert if one or more of their users is later diagnosed to have the virus.
The local public health authority will determine what the notification says.
It might tell the user to download a more fully functional app for further guidance.
However, it ...

Sabrent unveils Rocket 4 Plus NVMe M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD

7,000MB/s read and 6,850MB/s write sequential performance

Although we might have seen a glimpse of Samsung's 980 Pro, Sabrent is not giving it any room to breathe as it has unveiled its answer, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Being a faster version of the Rocket 4, the Rocket 4 Plus uses Phison's PS5018-E18 SSD PCIe 4.0 controller paired up with TLC NAND flash, hitting impressive sequential read and write performance of up to 7000MB/s for read and up to 6850MB/s for write.

The Rocket 4 Plus will be available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities.

In order ...

RTX 3080 and 3090 specs leak: a 24GB monster looms on the horizon

According to leaked product pages from Gainward, Nvidia's new high-end card is wild, at least when it comes to memory.

Here it is: The Nvidia RTX 3090. Or at least, one variant of the new GPU from hardware company Gainward, which appears to have accidentally posted product pages for the RTX 3090 and 3080 a little bit early. 

A day before Nvidia's Ampere reveal event, where we expect Nvidia to officially show off the RTX 3090 and 3080 graphics cards, Gainward posted (and then removed) images and specs for its versions of each card, with specs that match up with previous leaks ...

TikTok owner to 'strictly' obey China's tech takeover law

TikTok's owner has said it will "strictly adhere to" new rules imposed by China over what technologies the country's companies can sell overseas.
The export controls could potentially be used to block the sale of TikTok's US operations.
The expanded list of restricted items covers some of the methods the app uses to target who sees which videos.
The app's ability to quickly identify and cater to users' interests has played a large part in its success.
Bytedance began talks to sell TikTok's American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand division after Pr ...

Neuralink: Elon Musk unveils pig with chip in its brain

Elon Musk has unveiled a pig called Gertrude with a coin-sized computer chip in her brain to demonstrate his ambitious plans to create a working brain-to-machine interface.

"It's kind of like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires," the billionaire entrepreneur said on a webcast.

His start-up Neuralink applied to launch human trials last year.

The interface could allow people with neurological conditions to control phones or computers with their mind.

Mr Musk argues such chips could eventually be used to help cure conditions such as dementia, Parkin ...

Elon Musk to show off working brain-hacking device

Elon Musk is due to demonstrate a working brain-to-machine interface as part of his ambitious plans to give people superhuman powers.
His brain-hacking company, Neuralink, applied to start human trials last year.
But Friday's demonstration will involve a robot and "neurons firing in real time", a series of tweets reveals.
The interface could allow people with neurological conditions to control phones or computers with their mind.
But the long-term ambition is to usher in an age of what Mr Musk calls "superhuman cognition".
People need t ...

Apple Fortnite players left behind in new update

People who play Fortnite on Apple Macs, iPhones and iPads are to be excluded from the game's latest update.
It follows the weeks-long escalating row between the two companies, which resulted in Fortnite being pulled from Apple's App Store.
Mac computers, which do not use the App Store, are also now affected.
Fortnite's updates often make sweeping changes to the game and Thursday's introduces a partnership with Marvel comics superheroes, among other things.
Game development
Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney blamed Apple's plan to pull access to developer tools on 2 ...

Warning over 'dangerous' DIY beauty trends on TikTok

DIY beauty trends popular on TikTok could be dangerous and harmful, healthcare groups have warned.

Examples include applying bleach to whiten teeth, removing moles at home, and using eyelash glue to make lips appear larger, BBC News has discovered.

When these videos went viral, they encouraged others to copy the so-called "beauty hacks", which could cause permanent harm, the groups warned.

TikTok told BBC News the videos did not violate its community guidelines.

However, the British Association of Dermatologists, the British Dental Association and t ...

Apple can block Epic's Fortnite but not Unreal Engine

A US judge has ruled that, for now, Apple can continue to block the video game Fortnite from its App Store.

However the tech giant cannot terminate Epic Games' developer accounts or compromise its graphics tool Unreal Engine, which is used by many third-party game creators.

This is until a full hearing can take place on 28 September.

Apple pulled Fortnite from the App Store after Epic deliberately broke its rules in protest at Apple's policies.

Epic said Apple had also threatened to take away its access to developer tools.

In her ruling, as reported b ...

Carmakers urge FTC to fight Qualcomm ruling

A group of carmakers and tech firms is urging US regulators to take further action against chipmaker Qualcomm over its sales practices.

Tesla, Ford, Honda, Daimler, Intel and MediaTek have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to fight a recent court ruling in favour of Qualcomm.

Qualcomm has a practice of requiring customers to sign patent licence agreements before selling them chips.

Such practices have drawn accusations the firm is stifling competition.

Qualcomm, the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips, has contested those claims. The BBC has ap ...

TikTok to launch legal action against Trump over ban

Chinese video app TikTok is set to launch legal action to challenge a ban imposed by US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump's executive order prohibits transactions with TikTok's owner ByteDance from mid-September.

Officials in Washington are concerned that the company could pass data on American users to the Chinese government, something ByteDance has denied doing.

The short video-sharing app has 80 million active US users.

TikTok says it has tried to engage with the Mr Trump's administration for nearly a year but has encountered a lack of due process and an ad ...

Lyft and Uber receive reprieve in California employment rights row

Uber and Lyft have been granted a reprieve in a row over drivers' employment rights in California after a court granted an emergency injunction.

The ride-hailing firms had threatened to suspend operations over an earlier ruling that they must classify drivers as employees, not contractors.

But the reprieve allows them to continue operating while the court considers their case for appeal.

The court's decision came just hours before Lyft was due to halt rides.

The court has ordered Uber and Lyft to both submit their plans for hiring employees by early September ...

Apple first US company to be valued at $2tn

Tech giant Apple has become the first US company to be valued at $2tn (£1.5tn) on the stock market.

It reached the milestone just two years after becoming the world's first trillion-dollar company in 2018.

Its share price hit $467.77 in mid-morning trading in the US on Wednesday to push it over the $2tn mark.

The only other company to reach the $2tn level was state-backed Saudi Aramco after it listed its shares last December.

But the oil giant's value has slipped back to $1.8tn since then and Apple surpassed it to become the world's most valuable traded compa ...

Iconic British music brand NME launches in Asia

Iconic UK music brand NME has launched in Asia, even as the entertainment industry is hit by the coronavirus.

NME says its new Singapore-based website will deliver a fresh approach to the Southeast Asian music scene.

The company says it will initially focus on Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and has plans to rapidly expand in the region.

The announcement comes at a time when many other media companies are making major cutbacks due to the pandemic.

"Expect the best music writing and multimedia content, from breaking news to long-form features to a ...

Best B550 motherboard for gaming

The best B550 motherboard means picking from the latest pool of AMD motherboards rocking a second-tier chipset, and will become ever more relevant as the next generation AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs become available towards the end of the year. But what are you missing by opting for a B550 motherboard compared to the top-end X570 AMD gaming motherboards?

Honestly, not a great deal. It's been a long time coming, however; almost a year after the original 500-series AMD Ryzen motherboard was launched this mainstream chipset has hit the market, bringing PCIe 4.0 support into the more affordable ...

Donald Trump joins TikTok rival Triller

Donald Trump has joined Triller, a New-York-based rival to China's TikTok.

After two days on the social-media app, the US president has 11,000 followers.

TikTok was banned in India two months ago. Mr Trump wants to follow suit unless it sells the app's US version and has signed executive orders targeting both it and another Chinese social-media app, Tencent's WeChat.

Both India and the US fear data collected by the TikTok could be given to the Chinese government.

TikTok strongly denies this and says none of its international users' data is stored in China.

Seeed Odyssey X86J4105 Review: PC and Maker Board in One

The Raspberry Pi is, by far, the world’s most popular single-board computer and, for many people, the Raspberry Pi 4 is fast enough to serve as a PC. But what if you want the flexibility of a single-board computer that has GPIO pins for physical computing but you need the speed and compatibility of an x86 PC? Enter Seeed’s Odyssey X86J4105, which marries an Intel Celeron CPU with two sets of GPIO pins, one of which is for an onboard Arduino-compatible controller and the other of which has 40 pins and claims to work with Raspberry Pi accessories.

Clearly more expensive than the prici ...

Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar review: the solar-powered super watch

Garmin’s latest go-anywhere, do-anything Fenix 6 Pro Solar multi-sport watch recharges from the sun, marking an important step towards the smartwatch you never need to charge.

The £739.99 Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar is one of the US firm’s top-of-the-line devices, capable of lasting weeks on a charge and tracking practically any stat you’d want, plus it’s able to guide you out of forests when you’re lost.

The watch is available with either a 42 or 47mm case, and in various colours and materials, here reviewed in slate grey with red accents and a 47mm case.

By every dime ...

Huawei’s Sound X is better than the HomePod. But there’s a problem

Apple, Bose, Sonos, Google and Amazon all have plenty to offer in the £200-£400 bracket Bluetooth speaker market – not to mention a more stable footing in the audio game - this may explain why Huawei has called on the services of audiophile pioneers Devialet to deliver something that will stand out. Enter the Huawei Sound X – a nicely weighted and compact speaker that more than holds its own in an already crowded market.

Made from a combination of shiny black plastic and audio-transparent knit fabric, the Sound X somehow manages to look like a hyper-realistic rendered photo even in ...

Intel Celeron N4000 vs N4100 vs N4120: What’s the difference?

Celeron CPUs have been part and parcel of Intel’s processor family for more than two decades. They've played a vital role in the company's product mix, despite not getting the sort of press coverage as its flagship CPU family, the Core series.

That’s partly due to the fact you can’t actually buy most Celeron models today. 

A fair chunk are either sold as part of a motherboard (e.g. this Seeed motherboard) or as part of a complete system - most likely a tablet or a laptop.

Intel Celeron N4000 vs Celeron N4100

The N4000 is arguably one of the most sought after ...

Dropshipping: The hustlers making millions from goods they never handle

Gabriel Beltran moved from Uruguay to Miami with the dream of making it big as a drummer.

Five years ago, he was struggling to pay his rent and living on his girlfriend's student loan.

Then he made over $20m (£15m) through a little-known online retail technique: dropshipping.

And in bedrooms around the world other savvy individuals are getting rich the same way.

The sellers never see their products. They typically remain completely anonymous. And their marketing reaches hundreds of millions of people.

Chinese goods
The process is simple: the ...

Fortnite: Epic Games sues Google and Apple over app store bans

Fortnite-maker Epic Games is taking legal action against Google after being banned from the Google Play app store, hours after doing the same with Apple.

Apple and Google both removed the hit game from their app stores after Epic Games bypassed their payment systems, to avoid giving them a cut of sales.

Both platforms take a standard 30% of purchases on their app stores.

Google said it runs an "open" system and would work to bring Fortnite back to its official app store.

On Android phones, app stores other than Google Play are available, so it it st ...

This gaming PC with an RTX 2070 Super is on sale for $1,250

Building your own desktop is typically cheaper than buying a pre-built machine, but there's definitely a reason why consoles are so popular. Some people would rather buy something that works out of the box, and sales can also turn pre-built PCs into a better value. One desktop from ABS with an RTX 2070 Super graphics card is currently on sale for $1,249.99, a $250 discount from the original MSRP. It's also the cheapest PC on Newegg right now with that graphics card.

The desktop on sale has an Intel Core i7-9700 processor, which isn't one of Intel's newer 10th-gen CPUs, but it still ...

ASRock A520 Motherboards Show Why A520 May Be a Better Option Than B550

Don't fret if the pricing for B550 motherboards is preventing you from upgrading. VideoCardz received information that ASRock is reportedly preparing up to five different A520 motherboards for budget seekers. According to the publication, A520 motherboards will launch later this month, which differs from DigiTimes' report of a September launch.

A520 is the entry-level chipset for AMD's 500-series, and being A-series, CPU overclocking is pretty much off the table. It's reasonable to expect A520 to arrive without PCIe 4.0 support, although AMD hasn't officially said otherwise.

...

Tiny CPU firm claims shocking performance wins in bid to oust Intel and ARM

Nuvia is not a household name for CPU designs, but this startup promises to revolutionize cloud server CPU performance in the coming years. 

According to the company, its Orion server system-on-chips (SoCs) based on its Arm's Phoenix cores will deliver over two times higher single-thread performance when compared to existing x86 designs, such as AMD’s Zen 2 and Intel’s Sunny Cove using a third of power. 

Nuvia’s promises seem very bold at first, but the company’s founders — John Bruno, Manu Gulati, and Gerard Williams III — have a track record of developing successful proces ...

Intel's Xe Graphics Might Mean You No Longer Need a Separate Graphics Card to Play Games

Intel has finally given actual details on its upcoming Xe GPU architecture that will power its future CPUs with integrated graphics. While Tiger Lake, Intel’s upcoming 11th generation, 10nm mobile processor, will be the first product to leverage Xe, the company also said it was designing a more powerful mobile CPU with Xe integrated graphics (code-named DG1) for creators. During a press event, Raja Koduri, senior vice president, chief architect, and general manager of Architecture, Graphics, and Software at Intel, said it will ship this year, too. Intel is also working on a discrete GPU for ...

Fortnite: Apple ban sparks court action from Epic Games

Apple has removed Fortnite from its App Store, preventing players from installing one of the world's most popular games on iPhones.

It came after a Fortnite update that let players buy in-game currency at a lower rate if they bought direct from maker Epic Games - bypassing Apple.

Epic appeared to know the ban would come, announcing it had filed a legal complaint minutes after the removal.

Apple takes a standard 30% cut of sales from its compulsory payment system.

Hours later, Google also appeared to remove the app from its Google Play Store - though it remain ...

Facebook adds 'blackface' photos to banned posts

Facebook has updated its rules to tackle posts containing depictions of "blackface" and common anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Its Community Standards now explicitly state such content should be removed if used to target or mock people.

The company said it had consulted more than 60 outside experts before making the move.

But one campaigner said she still had concerns about its wider anti-racism efforts.

'Deeply damaging'
"Blackface is an issue that's been around for decade, which is why it's surprising that it's only being dealt with now,&quo ...

AOC's new CU34G2X: 34-inch UltraWide 3440x1440 at 144Hz for $450

AOC has just revealed its new CU34G2X gaming monitor, offering a 34-inch 21:9 aspect ratio UltraWide experience with a native 3440 x 1440 resolution.

The 34-inch UltraWide has a super-fast 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time, so you should be pretty good for even the fastest shooters on the market. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its battle royale mode Warzone would be pretty damn near perfect on the AOC CU34G2X.

AOC taps a VA panel for its CU34G2X monitor, with a curvy 1500R curvature. AMD FreeSync is supported on the monitor, so you might want to grab a Radeon RX 570 ...

Xiaomi’s new transparent OLED is one of the weirdest TVs ever

Xiaomi has its fingers thoroughly in a number of tech pies, and for its tenth anniversary, the Chinese tech giant announced a swathe of new products, including the Mi 10 Ultra flagship smartphone and… a completely transparent TV.

Despite having a pretty considerable novelty factor, the Xiaomi Mi TV LUX OLED Transparent Edition is actually going to be available to consumers in China from August 16, where it'll cost a cool ¥49,999 (roughly $7,200 / £5,500 / AU$10,000).

Xiaomi's transparent OLED joins the novelty TV ranks of Samsung's The Frame...

...the rotating, verti ...

Huawei's 24-Core 7nm Kunpeng CPU Allegedly Beats Core i9-9900K In Multi-Core Performance

Chinese news outlet IThome received word that Huawei is on the brink if launching the brand's new desktop PC (internally known as Pangu) for the domestic market. The system utilizes a variant of the company's Kunpeng 920, which is also known as the Hi1620. The report claims that the Kunpeng 920 3211K's multi-core performance is slightly better than the Intel Core i9-9900K Coffee Lake processor.

The Kunpeng 920, which is based on Arm's Neoverse N1 (codename Ares) microarchitecture, boasts core configurations that span from 24 up to 64 cores, running between 2.4 GHz and 3 GHz. TSMC us ...

Chrome for Windows to gain handy Incognito Mode desktop shortcut

The Windows version of Google Chrome is preparing to add a desktop shortcut to open directly into an Incognito window, perfect for whatever you use Incognito Mode for.

Incognito Mode in Google Chrome has more than its fair share of uses, be it hiding certain web pages from your history, bypassing paywalls from larger news sites, or just wanting to do a search without it appearing in your Google Search history. Whatever you use Incognito Mode for, the current best way to open an Incognito window is to first open Chrome, then use the Ctrl-Shift-N shortcut or the “New Incognito window” ...

WhatsApp braced for its biggest change in years but this upgrade comes with a warning

WhatsApp looks set to launch a big update soon and it will finally fix one of the biggest irritations of the popular chat app. As spotted by the ever-reliable team at WABetaInfo, it appears that the Facebook-owned chat app has begun testing a feature called "Linked Devices".

As the name suggests, this will allow WhatsApp's two billion users to add more than one device to their accounts meaning they can chat from a PC, smartphone and tablet without any fuss.

Currently, the only way to do this is via WhatsApp Web but this service requires the primary smartphone that' ...

watchOS 7 public beta is out now – here's what's it brings to your Apple Watch

After being announced at Apple’s WWDC 2020 event in June, watchOS 7 is finally available – or, at least, a public beta of it is anyway.

This follows a developer beta which has been available for a while, but the public beta is easier to get and is actually designed for general users (albeit those who can put up with a few bugs and non-final software). Thankfully, you won't need to pay into the Apple Developer Program, but you will need to get the iOS 14 beta on a paired iPhone first.

Grabbing the new Apple Watch software is an easy process, and we've got a step-by-step guide ...

Windows 10 update means copy-and-paste will never be the same again

Microsoft may be planning to release Windows 10X in the spring of 2021 but some of the new operating system's features could be coming to Windows 10 sooner than that including a new panel that completely changes how copying and pasting works.

As reported by Windows Latest, in Windows 10 Build 20185 the software giant has added a new panel that allows users to insert emojis, GIFs and even content from their clipboards. The new panel also includes several new features to make it easier for users to add content to their messages, documents and emails.

In addition to being able ...

The headphones that even a DJ can't break?

Before the pandemic hit Anne Frankenstein would be DJ-ing in bars or clubs most Friday and Saturday nights.

She laughs when asked if she misses it: "Not really, I kind of prefer the quiet life. I think I was playing a few too many gigs before lockdown. It's been nice to just enjoy music at my own pace."

Fortunately for Anne she has a day job - her mid-morning show on Jazz FM.

As well as making life hectic, those gigs took a toll on her kit, in particular headphones. She has "completely destroyed" headphones in the past through overuse and crushing ...

Brydge releases new line of ‘Designed for Surface’ keyboards and accessories

On August 17th, Brydge will begin selling a new lineup of Surface accessories that have the “Designed for Surface” badge, meaning that they were made in collaboration with Microsoft. The lineup includes keyboards for the Surface Pro and Surface Go, but the most intriguing product in the group is the $99.99 W-Touch standalone trackpad. It’s apparently the first standalone wireless trackpad made for Windows 10.

The W-Touch is like a Magic Trackpad 2 that’s built for Windows 10 instead, coated in a striking black with an aluminum build. It has Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity and it supports ...

5 MUST-HAVE TERMINAL COMMANDS FOR LINUX ON YOUR CHROMEBOOK

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past week exploring what is possible on Chrome OS. Thanks to some updates to the Linux container, we’ve installed Windows 10 and a variety of Linux flavors. I love tinkering with Chrome OS to see how far I can push the maturing ecosystem but today, we’re going to focus on what the Linux container is currently designed to do. That, of course, it to run the Debian framework and allow users to install compatible Linux applications on Chrome OS. Doing so doesn’t require you to be a Linux guru and thank goodness for that. I’m still learning as I go but masterin ...

HUAWEI GAMING DISPLAY TO USE A 240HZ REFRESH RATE & MINI LED PARTITION BACKLIGHT

Chinese manufacturing giant, Huawei, has a lot of issues on its hands right now. However, this is not stopping the company from developing and releasing new products. Earlier, there were reports that Huawei Display is coming soon. According to reports, this display will include low-end, mid-end, and high-end models. In addition, a recent Weibo report claims that one of the three displays that Huawei will release is for gaming. Furthermore, this gaming display will support a refresh rate of 240Hz, and mini LED partition backlight. There is currently a surge in the request for gaming since th ...

New Apple Leak Reveals iPhone 12 Design Shock

iPhone 12 surprises keep coming (both good news, bad news and unexpected twists), but now we know perhaps the biggest problem with Apple’s new iPhones. 

Mysterious industry insider ‘Mr White’ has continued his impressive track record leaking Apple hardware, by revealing the chassis for the coming iPhone 12. While this confirms the range’s move to a more angular new design, he also confirms Face ID will be the same size and, as a consequence, the large notch introduced with the iPhone X in 2017 will not be getting any smaller in 2020. 

08/08 Update: a further image of an iPho ...

TikTok threatens legal action against Trump US ban

TikTok is threatening legal action against the US after Donald Trump ordered firms to stop doing business with the Chinese app within 45 days.

The company said it was "shocked" by an executive order from the US President outlining the ban.

TikTok said it would "pursue all remedies available" to "ensure the rule of law is not discarded".

Mr Trump issued a similar order against China's WeChat in a major escalation in Washington's stand-off with Beijing.

WeChat's owner, Tencent, said: "We are reviewing the executive order to ge ...

What is Tencent?

Based in Shenzhen and founded in 1998, the Chinese company Tencent enjoys huge popularity - and profits - in China.

Its cute penguin symbol is as familiar to Chinese children as the McDonalds "golden arches" logo is to children in the West, says the BBC's China media analyst Kerry Allen.

"Tencent is thought of as so much more than just a Chinese company in China - it has gained a reputation as a family-friendly organisation that connects families, friends and work colleagues in a digital age," she said.

"It has a business model that other Chi ...

Intel Core i9-10910: Rumored Apple Exclusive Fails to Impress on Geekbench

The Intel Core i9-10910, which is believed to be an Apple-exclusive chip, has shown its face on Geekbench 5 again. Without confirmation from Intel, of course, we can't be positive of the accuracy of the results, spotted by @Leakbench. But this allows us to do an early pseudo-assessment of the CPU's performance. 

The Core i9-10910 in question, as well as the current Core i9-10900, belong to the 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family. The 14nm processors find their home inside the new LGA1200 CPU socket. They're equipped with 10 CPU cores, 20 threads and 20MB of L3 cache. One theory as t ...

ASUS Radeon RX 5600 XT TUF EVO Review

Today, we have for review the ASUS Radeon RX 5600 XT TUF Gaming EVO graphics card positioned a notch below the ROG STRIX Radeon RX 5600 XT TOP OC graphics card we reviewed earlier. The TUF Gaming line of PC hardware and peripherals by ASUS represents durable, high cost to performance products targeted at gamers. The brand itself, though, has had some bad press in recent times over sub-optimal cooler designs that weren't well received by reviewers. Since then, the company worked extensively on improving the cooler and thermals of its Navi TUF Gaming graphics cards, and the culmination of tha ...

Nearby Share file feature on Android now, Chromebooks in the “coming months”

Well, I picked a great time to pull the SIM card from my iPhone and plop it into a Google Pixel 4. Android devices running 6.0 or better now have a “Nearby Share” feature that’s functionally identical to Apple’s AirDrop for iOS and macOS. With it, you can wirelessly share files and photos between two devices.

I tested it on two Pixel phones I have and it works great. But that’s not a standard use case, of course.

Beaming a file from one person to another is the typical situation, and as long those two people have Android phones running a supported software version, it will w ...

Wear OS is set to lose music streaming features "within weeks"

If you’re enjoying streaming music using your Wear OS smartwatch, unfortunately those days are numbered.

Currently Google Play Music is the sole service that can play music from the wrist, but Google is preparing to shutter the service by the end of the year.

But Android Police has spotted that support for Wear OS will end a lot sooner – in fact, “in the next couple of weeks”.

“Users will no longer be able to use or download Google Play Music on their Wear OS by Google smartwatches. Google is investing heavily in improving integrated music services through all of you ...

First Look: macOS Big Sur Public Beta

So here we are, at the end of OS X. Two decades ago Apple parked the sixteen-year-old Classic Mac OS and leaped to version 10.0, but four years ago the company rebranded the software that drives the Mac as macOS, and the writing was on the wall. And now in 2020 it’s macOS Big Sur, version 11.0. The name is an extension of Apple’s use of California places to brand its Mac releases, but the version number is the real story. The Mac OS X era is truly over. macOS Big Sur is the start of a radically new era in the Mac’s life.

With the release of the macOS Big Sur Public Beta, Apple is in ...

AMD Ryzen 9 4950X leak has appeared – and it could take Intel's gaming crown

A new leak has detailed AMD’s Zen 3-based Ryzen 9 4950X CPU - and it should have Intel worried.

This leak comes via Igors Lab, which reveals that the so-called Ryzen 9 4950X will be a 16-core, 32-thread part with an impressive boost frequency of 4.8GHz. 

The information comes from an OPN code which reads "100-000000059-52_48/35_Y." The ’35’ at the end signifies the 3.5 GHz base clock, with ’48’ telling us the boost clock is 4.8 GHz. That’s 100MHz higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, which tops out at 4.7GHz. 

There's a whole world of ...

TikTok: Trump signs order to address 'threat' of Chinese app

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ban transactions with TikTok's parent company ByteDance.

The executive order says the US "must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security".

Under the order, beginning in 45 days, any US transaction with ByteDance will be prohibited.

TikTok denies accusations it is controlled by or shares data with the Chinese government.

On Thursday night, the US president also issued a follow-up executive order taking similar action to ban WeChat, an app owned by Ch ...

WhatsApp: with any luck, you'll never have to use this important new feature

WhatsApp has started to trial a new feature designed to stop the spread of misinformation on the immensely-popular chat app, which boasts more than two billion users worldwide. From today, you'll be able to quickly search the contents of a WhatsApp message with a single tap to make sure that you haven't been duped by a viral text which has been forwarded or copy-pasted between thousands of people worldwide.

The new feature appears in the form of a magnifying glass icon next to the text message. Tapping this will trigger a web search using your default web browser and search engine o ...

Razer BlackShark V2 Review

When it comes to esports, accuracy and precision are important, and having great audio with an excellent soundstage is a vital part of that. That’s where esports gaming headsets like the Razer BlackShark V2 come in handy.A follow-up to the glossier BlackShark, which has been lauded for its comfort, great sound quality, and cool design, this successor has a more subdued look and not much in the way of frills and thrills. But, that’s only because it’s honed in on the way it lets you experience audio in gaming instead. It’s hitting the shelves with three new technologies either developed or co ...

New Xbox Insider Preview build has a bunch of new features

If you're an Xbox Insider on the Preview Alpha ring, there's a new version 2008 preview on its way to you today. But unlike the vast majority of Xbox Insider builds, build 19041.4067 actually contains a bunch of new features.

First up is a faster and better Microsoft Store. This was announced earlier this week, and was promised for Xbox Insiders. Not only is it meant to be faster, but it should be easier to use and more secure. Right now, it's only available to some Insiders, and only in the U.S., UK, Canada (English), and Germany.

Also available to a random subset of users ...

Intel Alder Lake Already Looks Confusing: 12 Configurations Possible

Alder Lake may be one of Intel's most confusing microarchitectures to date. That's if the latest coreboot patch (spotted via Twitter user La Frite David) is accurate. Apparently, there will be a plethora of core combinations for the chipmaker's upcoming Alder Lake-S and Alder Lake-P CPUs; however, we don't know yet if every configuration will actually make it to market. 

Alder Lake has been expected to leverage a hybrid architecture with large and small CPU cores, a setup that's similar to Arm's big.LITTLE technology. Intel first used this design on its 3D Lakefield chips for laptop ...

AMD ‘Ryzen Lite’ processors make debut in ultracheap rugged Lenovo laptops

Lenovo has unveiled the second generation of the 100e notebook, the firm's popular laptop range aimed primarily at the education market.

This aggressively-priced piece of kit is powered by two new processors from AMD, announced at CES earlier this year. The AMD 3015e and the AMD 3020e do not belong to any specific family (e.g. Athlon, Ryzen or Sempron), but feature the smallest (and probably cheapest) Zen-based parts.

Given the 6W TDP, we don't expect much from these tiny Ryzen-like processors. They have two cores, either two or four threads and a base frequency of 1.2GHz, b ...

Samsung unveils Note 20 smartphones and Galaxy Z Fold 2

More than a year after the disastrous launch of its folding phone, Samsung is back with a range of new devices that it hopes will improve sales in a market hit hard by the pandemic.

Among them is the Galaxy Z Fold 2, a successor to Samsung’s first foldable device, which features a larger 6.2-inch front screen and opens up to reveal a flexible 7.6-inch display inside the device.

The South Korean technology company also unveiled two versions of its oversized smartphone, the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, upgraded tablets called Tab S7 and S7+, a new Galaxy Watch 3 sm ...

TikTok to open $500m data centre in Ireland

TikTok has said it plans to build a $500m (£375m) data centre in Ireland.

It will store videos, messages and other data generated by European users from the short-form video-sharing app.

Until now all of its users' records were stored in the US, with a back-up copy held in Singapore.

The announcement comes at a time when President Trump has threatened to ban the app in the US on the grounds its Chinese ownership makes it a national security risk.

TikTok's Beijing-based parent company Bytedance denies the charge. However, it is in talks to sell its US, Canada, ...

Google tests eye-catching Weather Tile redesign on Wear OS

Just before I/O last year, Wear OS added Tiles to the right of the watchface that provide quick access to bite-sized pieces of information. After recently adding one for hand washing, Google is tweaking the Weather tile with a bold and fresh new design.

The current Weather card shows the temperature and condition, while a bi-hourly forecast appears below. Sourced from weather.com, tapping opens the full app for current wind speed, precipitation percentage, and four-day forecast.

Google is now testing (via Reddit) an updated Weather Tile for Wear OS that has a distinctly diff ...

Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless headphones spotted in leaked video

The forthcoming Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless noise-cancelling headphones have been spotted in a leaked promotional video. The advert appears to confirm that the next-generation noise-cancellers will feature an upgraded audio chip, new voice controls, a 30-hour battery life and smarter noise-cancelling.

As expected, the XM4s – successors to the five-star, Award-winning WH-1000XM3 – seem to be almost identical in appearance to their predecessors, but it's a different story on the inside. 

Assuming the video is legit (and it certainly looks it), the XM4s will sport the latest Sony ...

AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 20.8.1 driver download

Download the all-new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1. Next to a number of fixes, the driver adds support for Hyper Scape, Horizon Zero Dawn, Complete Edition for PC Grounded.

Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition, designed to give gamers deeply immersive gameplay and inspired by today’s era of social, connected gaming. Should you like to share or read up on user experiences, we have an open discussion thread open on these drivers right here. 

Support For

Hyper Scape

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition for PC

Grounded The Epic preset on the Ra ...

LG OLED48CX TV REVIEW

LG’s OLED48CX is a game-changer. Not only is this the first sub 50-inch OLED television, it’s also the first TV that LG has made that supports 4K resolution at 120Hz. This makes this 48-incher a mouth-wateringly viable option for PC gamers looking to replace a traditional IPS or TN panel. Meet the new gold standard when it comes to a 4K TV that can also act as one of the best gaming monitors around.

That freshly shrunken form factor is a big deal. Previously, the smallest OLED TV you could buy was 55-inches. While a 48-inch screen is hardly bite-sized, it’s the fir ...

Apple releases fourth beta of watchOS 7 to developers

Alongside the release of iOS 14 beta 4, Apple today has also released watchOS 7 beta 4 to developers. watchOS 7 includes new features such as sleep tracking, new watch face features, fitness improvements, and more.

Update: watchOS 7 beta 4 is now rolling out via an over-the-air update to developers.

watchOS 7 beta 4 can be installed by developers through the companion Apple Watch app on iPhone or by heading to the Settings app on the Apple Watch itself. If you don’t yet see the new beta on your device, be sure to keep checking as it’s still rolling out to all developers.

Microsoft's TikTok grab: Inspired or naive?

Last week, Congress grilled Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Microsoft, wasn't invited to the party.

I thought Microsoft's boss would be relieved that his company was safely out of the firing line.

It appears I was wrong.

What I didn't know at the time was that Satya Nadella was in fact looking to expand deeper into social media.

Microsoft already owns LinkedIn. Acquiring video-based social-media platform TikTok, though, would make it responsible for its controversial content.

In short, it would open itself up to all the criticisms and accu ...

Call for TikTok security check before HQ decision

An influential backbench MP has called on the government to carry out a security review of TikTok before its Chinese owner decides whether to base the app in the UK.

Neil O'Brien - co-founder of the China Research Group of Tory MPs - said the intelligence services should publish a report into the matter.

President Trump is threatening to ban TikTok in the US.

This has forced the app to ditch plans to establish its headquarters there.

TikTok had been expected to pick California or New York - where it already has offices - after appointing an American ex-Disney ...

Microsoft to continue talks to buy TikTok's US operations

US tech giant Microsoft has confirmed that it is continuing talks to purchase the US operations of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella had a conversation with President Donald Trump about the acquisition on Sunday, the tech firm said.

Microsoft stressed that it "fully appreciates the importance" of addressing President Trump's concerns.

A full security review of the app will be conducted, the company added.

Microsoft will also have to provide the US government with a list of the "proper economic benefits" t ...

MSI’S GS66 STEALTH ALMOST HAS WHAT IT TAKES TO BEAT RAZER

ForFor years, Razer has set the standard for making gaming laptops that are compact, slim, and feel great to use. MSI wants to end that streak, and its new GS66 Stealth is actually a viable alternative, at least in terms of performance. It still has a little work to do on nailing the small design details.

The GS66 Stealth doesn’t quite nail the fit and finish to take on the best, but landing short of that still gets you a polished laptop that’s stuffed with powerful components and other features that typically come with a $2,349 gaming laptop (as configured; this model starts at $1, ...

ADATA Falcon And Swordfish SSD Reviews: Affordable NVMe Storage

By now, everyone with even the vaguest of interest in PC technology can tell you how much snappier solid state drives are than even the fastest of spinning disks of yesteryear. There have been some interesting wrinkles recently, like ultra-high speed drives that ride the PCI Express 4.0 bus, but in test after test, regardless of drive type, just having a modern SSD offers enough of a boost to make an older PC feel new again. Similarly, it's basically a necessity to slap an SSD like one of the ADATA drives we'll be showing you here, into a new system build to not make any big sacrifices in r ...

Galax Cooks up DDR4-5000 RAM for Performance Purists

Galax has expanded its HOF (Hall Of Fame) line with not one, not two, but three new series of high-performance memory kits. Meet the HOF OC Lab Diamond, HOF OC Lab Diamond RGB and HOF OC Lab Phantom RGB product lines.

The trio of RAM kits stay true to their HOF roots. They come equipped with a black PCB that's passively cooled by all-white heat spreaders. In the case of the Diamond series, the heat spreaders are adorned with a diamond-shaped pattern, which is available with or without RGB lighting. The Phantom RGB series' heat spreader, meanwhile, boasts a light bar with customizabl ...

Huawei has the same app problem that doomed Windows Phone

Huawei is now the world’s biggest smartphone maker in terms of shipments, according to Canalys data, which suggests the Chinese tech firm surpassed rival Samsung in Q2 2020, albeit mostly due to its domestic sales in China. This is the first time in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple has led the market.

Huawei was quick to pounce on the news, particularly given the turbulent 14 months it has endured since the U.S. issued an embargo forcing it to stop using Google’s flavor of Android in its new handsets. But despite Huawei’s glee at surpassing Samsung, its future i ...

Kylie and Kendall Jenner endorsed 'knock-off' Apple products on Instagram

Kylie and Kendall Jenner are amongst dozens of influencers BBC Click has discovered to be promoting the sale of imitation Apple AirPods on Instagram.

The two celebrities have a combined following of 322 million followers.

Apple believes such cloned earphones may infringe its intellectual property rights, but is not pursuing a case against the two sisters.

However, the firm has taken previous action against influencers it believed to be hawking "knock-off" AirPods.

Kylie and Kendall Jenner declined to comment.

Lookalike tech
Click's in ...

Seagate ships 18TB HDDs, but breakthrough hard drives will arrive later this year

Seagate Technology has started shipping its hard disk drives featuring a 18TB capacity to select customers, and revealed that HDDs will be more broadly available later this year. But while 18TB drives significantly increase storage capacities of modern datacenters, Seagate has a more important launch set for the next few months, as it also intends to start commercial shipments of its drives based on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). 

The importance of HAMR — a technology that has been explored for 66 years now — is fundamental as it is expected to enable hard with capacities ...

The Canon EOS R5 is a CHEAT CODE for wildlife photography

The Canon EOS R5 is about to put professional wildlife photographers out of business. That's our verdict, after extensively testing the Animal AF function on the new camera, which is nothing short of witchcraft. 

Much has already been said about the Canon EOS R5, and we'll be saying plenty more in our full review (which we're currently putting the finishing touches on). However, something that simply can't be said enough is just how awesome the new animal autofocus is. 

We were expecting to be impressed, but we weren't prepared to be gobsmacked. The Animal AF is so good, and ...

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google face claims of 'harmful' power

The heads of some of the world's biggest tech companies have appeared before Washington lawmakers to defend their firms against claims they abuse their power to quash competitors.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos said the world "needs large" firms, while the heads of Facebook, Apple and Google argued their companies had spurred innovation.

The appearance comes as lawmakers consider tougher regulation and competition probes are under way.

Some critics want the firms broken up.

Democrats pressed the tech titans on competition issues, while Republicans were more ...

The Sony A7SIII Looks Like It's About to Dominate the Full-Frame Mirrorless Cam Market

Last year Sony sold the most full-frame mirrorless cameras in Japan, and while Canon and Nikon attempt to play catch up, today Sony is announcing its latest high-end mirrorless cam – the A7SIII – which looks like it’s about to crush the competition.

Now I fully admit that using “crush” this way is a bit hyperbolic, and because the camera won’t be available in stores until sometime in September, things could change between now and then. But if you look at the A7SIII’s specs and new features, Sony’s latest full-frame mirrorless feels like a shot across the bow of every other high-end ...

Konami is entering the desktop PC business

The division responsible for Konami's famed pachinko machines is diving into a new market: PC gaming. Japanese outlet PC Watch (via Tom's Hardware) reports that the company has three desktop models currently available to preorder, with shipping due to commence this September.

The Arespear product line is handled by Konami Amusements, which also handles arcade systems and the company's esports interests. The models range from 184,000 yen (roughly $1,750 in the US) through to 338,800 yen ($3,205) depending on the specs.

And what are they? The Arespear C300 is the low cost mode ...

Tech giants Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon to face Congress

Unprecedented is a dangerous word in journalism, but this really hasn't happened before.

On Wednesday, four of the biggest names in tech will give evidence to members of the US Congress.

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sundar Pichai (Google), Tim Cook (Apple) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) will all be grilled.

Jeff Bezos - the world's richest man - has never testified before either house. They have never all been quizzed together.

How these tech bosses do, how they stand up to scrutiny, could be a defining moment in their future relationship with government.

Cen ...

Facebook takes the EU to court over privacy spat

Facebook has pushed back against a European Union investigation into its practices, taking it to court over privacy concerns.

Two investigations are being carried out into Facebook to find out if it breaches competition laws.

To gather information, the European Commission has demanded internal documents from Facebook that include 2,500 specific key phrases.

Facebook says that means handing over unrelated but highly sensitive data.

The European Commission says it will defend the case in court, and its investigation into Facebook's potential anticompetitive con ...

No end to Covid-19 webcam shortage

As Covid-19 lockdowns took effect around the world, millions turned to remote working and organising virtual hangouts with friends.

Overnight, webcams went from mundane computer accessories to gold dust.

Even now, the initial surge in demand, in March, has barely abated, with manufacturers struggling to satisfy the many consumers trying to buy.

And while some consumers have been successful, there is plenty of evidence many more are still searching in vain.

'Chasing demand'
Smartphones, tablets and laptops generally come with built-in cameras.

B ...

Amazon, Google and Wish remove neo-Nazi products

Amazon, Google and Wish have removed neo-Nazi and white-supremacist products being sold on their platforms following an investigation by BBC Click.

White-supremacist flags, neo-Nazi books and Ku Klux Klan merchandise were all available for sale.

Algorithms on Amazon and Wish also recommended other white-supremacist items.

All three companies told the BBC that racist products were prohibited on their platforms.

Oren Segal from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an anti-hate organisation, said the companies needed to "constantly be on top of what the algori ...

Nikon Z50 firmware update captures pets' eye portraits, among other goodies

Following the launch of the new Z5, Nikon has released a wave of firmware updates for its existing family of three Z-mount mirrorless cameras. 

The Nikon Z50 can now detect dogs' and cats' eyes and faces, in addition to those of humans, thanks to firmware version 2.00, and also receives improvements in subject tracking. Nikon Z7 and Nikon Z6 users already have these features, of course, so updating to firmware version 3.10 treats them to the ability to use the newly announced Z teleconverters (which is also included in the Z50 update). 

The Nikon Z5 will come preloaded with ...

The Surface Pro X will soon help you pretend to pay attention to calls

After first announcing it last year, Microsoft has started rolling out the Surface Pro X's highly-anticipated Eye Contact feature as part of its latest Windows 10 Insider Preview. The AI-powered software uses the tablet's custom SQ1 ARM processor to make it look like your eyes are always directly looking at the camera while video chatting.

The feature is available with any app that works with the Surface Pro X's front-facing camera, so you can use it with non-Microsoft apps like Zoom and Google Meet. However, you can't take advantage of the feature while the tablet is oriented verti ...

Intel's 7nm is Broken, Company Announces Delay Until 2022, 2023

Intel announced today in its Q2 2020 earnings release that it has now delayed the rollout of its 7nm CPUs by six months relative to its previously-planned release date, undoubtedly resulting in wide-ranging delays to the company's roadmaps. Intel's press release also says that yields for its 7nm process are now twelve months behind the company's internal targets, meaning the company isn't currently on track to produce its 7nm process in an economically viable way. The company now says its 7nm CPUs will not debut on the market until late 2022 or early 2023. 

Here's the snippet from I ...

Kill Windows 10 bloatware for good with this new open source tool

Whether you buy a brand new Windows 10 device or install the operating system on a system you've built yourself, bloatware will still be an issue. 

Microsoft's operating system ships with a number of universal apps that users normally aren't able to uninstall, but a new standalone third-party utility named Bloatbox allows users to rid their machines of such apps.

While you can normally uninstall apps loaded onto a laptop or desktop PC by Dell, Samsung or other hardware makers, you can't uninstall first-party apps from Microsoft such as the Your Phone app. Now you can use Blo ...

Blackbaud Hack: Universities lose data to ransomware attack

At least eight universities in the UK and Canada have had data stolen about students and/or alumni after hackers attacked a cloud computing provider.

Human Rights Watch and the children's mental health charity, Young Minds, have also confirmed they were affected.

The hack targeted Blackbaud, one of the world's largest providers of education administration, fundraising, and financial management software.

The US-based company's systems were hacked in May.

It has been criticised for not disclosing this externally until July and for having paid the hackers an und ...

Windows 10 disastrous new update could break your internet connection

Windows 10 May 2020 Update is the first of two feature-packed releases planned for this year. The new version of the operating system brought a redesigned Cortana app and the ability to make your PC password-less ...to name just a few new additions. Unfortunately, there were some unplanned changes that arrived with the update too, including users left unable to connect to printers, randomly deleting emails in Gmail, problems accessing files saved in OneDrive cloud storage, and stuttering video games.

And now there's another quibble to add to the ever-growing list since the roll out ...

Apple Confirms Stunning New MacBook Pro Details

As Apple focuses on its environmental impact and reducing the company’s carbon footprint, the MacBook Pro will lead the charge as part of a stunning commitment from Tim Cook and his team.

Today’s news from Apple confirms that it is working with aluminium suppliers on carbon-free processing. As an intermediate step, the 16-inch MacBook Pro will be the first hardware to use a low-carbon aluminium and forge a new and more environmentally friendly laptop. 

July 22 update: Aluminium International Today’s Nadine Bloxsome not only talks about the new process, but also notes the inv ...

Zotac Launches Compact Core i7-Powered PC For Content Creators

Zotac has announced today a new compact 5.85-liter PC that the brand bills as an excellent tool for content creators. 

The Inspire Studio SCF72060S arrives in an all-white body that measures 225 x 203 x 128mm (8.86 x 7.99 x 5.04 inches). Zotac doesn't specify the materials used in the mini-PC's construction, but the images show what appears to be a plastic exterior. You'll find an Intel Core i7-9700 octa-core processor inside the Inspire Studio SCF72060S. The processor enjoys the company of a Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super graphics card and 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory. Only one SO-DIMM ...

Coronavirus: The great contact-tracing apps mystery

Germany and Ireland have both trumpeted their success in rolling out contact-tracing apps.

But is there any evidence that they are doing what they are designed to do - warning people they could be infected with the virus?

Not yet - and the privacy-conscious way in which they are designed could mean we will never know how effective they have been.

Last month, the UK government announced that it was abandoning a centralised NHS contact-tracing app for England and switching to a decentralised version, based on the Apple-Google toolkit. This model has been favoured by pr ...

QAnon: Twitter bans accounts linked to conspiracy theory

Twitter has announced sweeping measures aimed at cracking down on the QAnon conspiracy theory, including banning thousands of accounts.

The social media giant said it would also stop recommending content linked to QAnon and block URLs associated with it from being shared on the platform.

QAnon is a sprawling conspiracy theory whose followers support US President Donald Trump.

Twitter said it hoped the action would help to prevent "offline harm".

In a statement shared on the platform, Twitter said it would permanently suspend accounts that violate it ...

Coronavirus: England's test and trace programme 'breaks GDPR data law'

Privacy campaigners say England's test and trace programme has broken a key data protection law.

The Department of Health has conceded the initiative to trace contacts of people infected with Covid-19 was launched without carrying out an assessment of its impact on privacy.

The Open Rights Group (ORG) says the admission means the initiative has been unlawful since it began on 28 May.

The government said there is no evidence of data being used unlawfully.

The test and trace system involves people being asked to share sensitive personal information. This can in ...

Coronavirus: England's test and trace programme 'breaks GDPR data law'

Privacy campaigners say England's test and trace programme has broken a key data protection law.

The Department of Health has conceded that the initiative to trace contacts of people infected with Covid-19 was launched without carrying out an assessment of its impact on privacy.

The Open Rights Group (ORG) says the admission means the initiative has been unlawful since it began on 28 May.

It involves people being asked to share sensitive personal information.

This can include:

their name, date of birth and postcode
who they live with
pla ...

Alan Rusbridger: Facebook oversight board must avoid 'half-baked judgements'

A member of Facebook's new oversight board has warned that it should avoid launching too quickly.

Alan Rusbridger told BBC Click that it would be "great to be up and running" in time for November's US elections.

But in an exclusive interview, he said it would be damaging to "come out with half-baked recommendations now before we are ready".

He did not yet know whether it would be ready to make "key decisions on the hot potatoes" of the Presidential election.

Mr Rusbridger also acknowledged calls for existing members of the board ...

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 8) Review: Terrific Typing, Super Slim

Built for business, but great for anyone who wants to get work done, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon has long been one of the best ultrabooks you can buy. Starting at $1,331 ($1,472 and $1,989 as tested), The latest version of Lenovo’s 2.4-pound laptop comes standard with Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and a pair of VoIP function keys on the keyboard, but otherwise is identical to last year’s model. However, with improved performance and battery life to go with its sleek design and snappy keyboard, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 8) is a compelling productivity powerhouse. < ...

A possible Huawei MatePad T10 makes its way onto Geekbench

Huawei's MatePad line of tablets is thought to get new, affordable members soon. According to the leaker Roland Quandt, they are called the T10 and T10s. The new series is thought to run on the Kirin 710A processor and distinctly low-end amounts of RAM for 2020. One of them may have inadvertently confirmed this by showing up on Geekbench.

At least, a device called the Huawei AGS3-AL09HN has appeared on this benchmark. It is most likely to be the T10, as another variant called the AGS3-W09 has reportedly been certified in Indonesia as the T10s. The AL09HN runs on an octa-core process ...

Logitech Launches New 'Folio Touch' Keyboard Case With Trackpad for 11-Inch iPad Pro

Logitech today announced the launch of the Logitech Folio Touch, a new keyboard case with trackpad designed for the 11-inch iPad Pro models released in 2018 and 2020.

The Logitech Folio Touch is Logitech's first keyboard with trackpad designed for the ‌iPad Pro‌ and it serves as an alternative to Apple's own Magic Keyboard. Logitech previously released the Combo Touch, a keyboard with trackpad that works with the 7th-generation iPad, the ‌iPad‌ Air, and the 10.5-inch ‌iPad Pro‌.

Similar in design to the Combo Touch, the Folio Touch features a case that wraps around the ‌iPad ...

New DDR5 SDRAM standard sees performance boost, dual-channel DIMM

They were two years behind schedule but the industry group overseeing memory technology development and standardization has finally announced the officials specs for the new DDR5 SDRAM standard.

The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association said I'm a report issued Tuesday the new memory specifications will provide developers with twice the performance power and lower power consumption.

Among the key improvements will be a quadrupling of maximum die density, up to 64 gigabytes from 16 gigabytes under the old standard. Each DIMM can handle two 32-bit memory channels instead of ...

Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G Demonstrates How Zen 2 Will Make AMD's APUs Relevant Again

There is still no word on when AMD's Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) desktop APUs will launch, but the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G is here to delight us in the meanwhile. Someone has put the octa-core APU through its paces (via @TUM_APISAK) on Geekbench 5.

By now, it shouldn't be any surprise that Renoir will come wielding the Zen 2 microarchitecture. The 7nm APUs will retain the Vega iGPU, but Zen 2 alone is enough to put AMD's APUs on the radar again. While the previous generation of APUs maxed out at four cores, Renoir is pushing the limit to eight cores, and that's with simultaneous m ...

The Lenovo Legion will have the most powerful speakers put on a phone, says new teaser

The Pro model of the Lenovo Legion will have the most impressive audio system of any phone so far, says General Manager Chen Jin. He specifically called out the Xiaomi's Mi 10 Pro and Black Shark 3 Pro, saying that the Legion's speakers will have a nice symmetrical layout and will be tuned better.

The Legion will feature two forward-firing speakers with large cavities – 1.4 cc – and will have an all-metal construction. Check out the teaser video below for a demonstration of their power.

The two speakers will be able to produce spatial sound, which is vital in games as the di ...

Coronavirus: TikTok deletes 29,000 rule-breaking videos

TikTok says it has deleted about 29,000 coronavirus-related videos that broke its rules in Europe alone since the beginning of 2020.

The video-sharing app says it does not allow misinformation that could harm an individual's health or public safety.

It said about 3,000 of them contained medical misinformation and described the numbers as "low-level".

The number of coronavirus-themed videos breaking the rules has fallen every month, since a peak in March, it said.

On 9 July, the business published its latest transparency report, in which it said 49 m ...

Samsung DeX wireless mode might be coming with the Galaxy Note 20

Samsung DeX might finally be getting a wireless mode soon. The company has been quiet about the potential changes it might have in store for DeX by the end of the year, but new evidence found by XDA-Developers indicates that Samsung hasn’t given up on the idea of a wireless mode for its desktop environment. On the contrary, the company appears be working on this feature as we speak, and with a bit of luck, it might debut on the Galaxy Note 20 series.

New evidence of a wireless mode for DeX can be found in the Samsung Tips app under the section named Become a power user. As you can s ...

Mobvoi launches first noise-cancelling headphones to rival the Sony WH-1000XM3

Mobvoi has announced its first-ever pair of over-ear headphones, the TicKasa ANC, which come with active noise cancellation and support for Hi-Res Audio.

The company, which is best known for its TicWatch smartwatches, has previously released true wireless earbuds like the TicPods ANC and the TicPods Pro, but this is the first time that it's branched out into over-ear cans. 

According to Mobvoi, the new headphones come with "five built-in microphones and dual-microphone noise isolation" which allows the TicKasa ANC to "easily detect environmental noise, using A ...

This tiny PC packs an unbelievable amount of power thanks to an AMD Ryzen 4000 CPU

Asus recently revealed its PN50 mini PC, and now the manufacturer has spilled some more details for the UK market on the supremely compact computer (which is just a 115mm square, and 49mm thick).

Asus notes that the PN50 will be capable of driving an 8K display (at 60Hz), or you could hook up four 4K monitors (at the same refresh rate). The manufacturer further boasted that the device offers around 35% more performance over similar current-gen Asus mini PC models (this is in Cinebench R20 testing, by the way).

In the UK, there will be four different models, with the top of t ...

Ultra-cheap Windows Home 10 hybrid PC gets faster with new CPU

Kano has unveiled its second-generation Windows 10-based hybrid PC designed with education in mind. 

The new system is powered by Intel’s Celeron N4000 SoC, promising better performance than the previously used SoC, and continues to be shipped with custom educational tools. 

Ever since the inception of the OLPC project more than a decade ago, the vast majority of inexpensive PCs for education have run Linux and its derivatives, which to a large degree limited their popularity in developed countries. Kano, a maker of PCs for education, understood such limitations at some poin ...

Apple releasing iOS 13.6 today with Apple News+ Audio, Car Key feature, more

Apple is making iOS 13.6 available to all users today. The update brings new features like improved support for downloading and installing system updates, the all-new Apple News+ Audio content, as well as the exciting Car Key feature.

We’ve seen a number of new features/changes over the last few months with iOS 13. Apple launched support for Exposure Notifications (contact tracing) in iOS 13.5 while 13.5.1 brought a patch for the vulnerability that the unc0ver jailbreak took advantage of.

After that, we got the iOS 13.5.5 beta (renamed to iOS 13.6) that brought along a peek ...

Galaxy Z Fold 2 launch date LEAKED and it's sooner than we thought

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is Samsung's third foldable smartphone, with the Galaxy Z Flip bridging the gap between it and the company's first attempt with last year's Galaxy Fold that had some serious issues before a revised launch a few months later. 

All the wrinkles should be ironed out this time around, and fans are excited to see the Fold 2 at Unpacked on August 5, but there were reports that the handset would be a no-show at the event and had been delayed until 'at least October' but it seems that plans have changed, now that a revised release date has slipped out.

According ...

Huawei: Time to ditch UK's laissez-faire policy to tech takeovers?

For Britain's telecoms industry, at least, there is now some clarity. The future of our networks will have to be built without Huawei, even if that sets our 5G rollout back a few years.

The question is how did we get here? Why did we become so reliant on a high-risk vendor and what does that imply for the way we manage homegrown technology companies in the future?

The former director of GCHQ, which has been charged with oversight of Huawei's equipment for some years, has a theory about this.

Robert Hannigan told Radio 4's Today programme there had been a failure of i ...

Acer's New Predator Triton 500 Is a Good Gaming Laptop That Costs Too Damn Much

Owning a gaming laptop is super convenient, even if you don’t need one for travel. It saves space on your desk, and you don’t have to worry about messing around with monitor placement or figuring out the best place to put your desktop tower to show off all that RGB lighting while also having enough cord length for all your peripherals. (Take it from me: Corner desks are not always the best choice for desktop PCs.) But all that convenience usually means a high price tag, and depending on the specs, some gaming laptops are either bulky, get really hot, or both. Aside from specs, aesthetics an ...

Windows 10 Version 20H2 Inches Towards Completion

Yes, I know it seems early, but today’s release of a cumulative update for Windows 10 version 20H2 indicates that this release is nearly complete.

Windows 10 version 20H2 is currently testing in the Windows Insider Beta channel, or what used to be called the Slow ring. Today, Microsoft released build 19042.388 (KB4565503) to testers, describing it as a cumulative update that only includes quality improvements.

Those improvements include:

A fix for an issue that might prevent users from using PowerShell to change the system locale on Server Core platforms.

A f ...

OnePlus Nord REVEALED in exclusive video

OnePlus has really been on the ball with the launch of the OnePlus Nord, playing to its strengths and engaging the community to build up hype before the big reveal next week which is an occasion in itself, offering fans a world first with an AR event. 

There's a mini docuseries that's been giving us a look behind the scenes, and the company has continued its trend of dropping hints and clues on its social media accounts - as it did with the OnePlus Buds which will be debuting alongside the Nord next week. It even opened up limited pre-orders before anyone had laid eyes on it, but no ...

Will you buy the Galaxy Note 20 if it sports the Exynos 990 processor?

The closer we get to the official launch of the Galaxy Note 20 series, the less likely does it seem Samsung will manage to address all major complaints consumers voiced over its previous flagship, the Galaxy S20 family. In case you haven’t heard the latest, we’re now getting conflicting information on whether the company will even attempt to fix the Exynos 990, one of the most disappointing chips it ever delivered, especially as part of a $1,000 smartphone.

It goes without saying that at this point, the only way Samsung can “fix” the Exynos 990 is by axing the entire thing and that ...

Razer gets its first 60 percent keyboard, the Huntsman Mini

Why it matters: There are plenty advantages to going with a smaller keyboard layout. Some prefer the minimalist look afforded by such a compact design while others are genuinely short on physical space and simply don’t have room for a full-sized board. Still others enjoy the portability and additional room for a mouse that a 60 percent board affords.

Razer is going all-in on the miniature movement. After announcing a smaller version of its DeathAdder V2 mouse last week, the gaming accessory maker on Tuesday unveiled the Huntsman Mini ultra-compact form factor keyboard.

The l ...

AMD's Xeon W-Killing 64-Core Threadripper Pro Lands in Lenovo ThinkStation P620

AMD's new Threadripper Pro processors include four new chips that span from 12 cores up to 64 and support up to eight channels of DDR4-3200 memory and 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes on all models, creating what AMD bills as the ultimate processor for professional workloads with up to more than twice the number of cores as Intel's competing workstation processors.

The Threadripper Pro chips debut exclusively in new Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstations, which are custom-built to support the new chips with a specialized chassis and cooling system, but AMD says the Threadripper Pro chips will beco ...

Huawei: What does the ban mean for you?

The UK's decision to ban Huawei's 5G kits from use in mobile networks and to also stop using its equipment in full-fibre broadband networks is not without consequence for the country's internet users.

As the Digital Minister Oliver Dowden acknowledged, the decisions will have "consequences for every constituency in the country".

The Chinese firm itself has claimed customers will face bigger bills as a consequence of the billions of pounds that will be spent ripping out its kit and moving to other suppliers.

And there could be further consequences for the wi ...

Huawei: BT says 'impossible' to remove all firm's kit in under 10 years

BT's chief has said it would be "impossible" to remove Huawei from the whole of the UK's telecoms infrastructure before 2030.

The government is expected to say that no new 5G equipment from the Chinese firm can be installed after 2021, and that all its existing 5G kit must be removed later - possibly by 2025.

But it is unclear if similar deadlines will also be given for Huawei's other mobile and broadband gear.

A statement will be made on Tuesday.

"If you were to try and not have Huawei at all [in 5G] ideally we'd want seven years and we could ...

Labour joins Facebook advert boycott over 'hateful material'

Labour is joining the advertising boycott of Facebook "in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement", one of the party's senior MPs has said.

Shadow minister Rachel Reeves told the BBC the party wanted "to express our concern about the failure of Facebook to take down some hateful material".

Companies including consumer goods firm Unilever have also joined the campaign.

Facebook has said harmful posts would be removed but some could stay if they have news value.

Facebook to tag ‘harmful’ posts as boycott widens
Parties splurge ...

Huawei: Why the UK might hang up on 5G and broadband kit supplier

These are tense times for Huawei and the UK's telecoms providers.

The prime minister will shortly review use of the Chinese company's equipment, with MPs set to be informed of his decision on Tuesday.

It seems likely that Boris Johnson will set a deadline by which time the firm should stop being involved in the country's 5G network. But what's unclear is whether he'll also order it to be stripped out of other mobile and fixed-line broadband systems too.

The decision will not only have an impact on the rollout of high-speed data services but could also encourage other ...

Colorful Announces Two sub-$130 micro-ATX B550 Motherboards

With AMD's B550 models now on the shelves, a lot of focus around its launch was based on pricing - or rather the lack of very low-cost entry-level models.

The motherboard manufacturer Colorful has today unveiled two new micro-ATX sized B550 motherboards: the CVN B550M Gaming Frozen V14 and B550M Gaming Pro V14 models. Some of the primary features include a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec, two PCIe M.2 slots with one Gen4 and one Gen3 slot, as well as a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller.

The most striking of the new pair from Colorful is the CVN B550M Gaming Frozen V14 model. ...

First impressions: Dell XPS 17 (9700) is simply magnificent

Dell has been doing some remarkably exciting things lately in the laptop space that are hard to ignore. Its XPS revamp, which started in late 2019, has culminated now in the recently reviewed XPS 15 (now in arctic white) and the new 17-inch XPS 17 (9700), with the latter, just arriving on our doorstep.

The XPS 17 (9700) is arguably more interesting than the XPS 15. While the XPS 15 is now like a 14-inch laptop in size, the XPS 17 is closer to what a 15-inch workstation was like in 2019.

While it is undoubtedly bigger, the XPS 17 also has a new vapor chamber thermal solution, ...

At 1TB, this is the cheapest large capacity USB drive right now

Patriot does a lot of things for tech fans; solid state drives, gaming keyboards, gaming mice, headsets as well as RGB memory modules. It's a popular brand and one that has been well received by reviewers (including us) for more than a decade. 

However, unbeknown to many is that they have a USB flash drive brand (AKA thumb drives) that is nothing short of exceptional for two reasons.

First, its flagship model, the 1TB Supersonic Rage Elite (PEF1TBSRE3USB) is one of the cheapest 1TB USB flash drives on the market. At the time of writing, it was the most affordable one, costin ...

These Are the Best Games You Can Play on a Chromebook

Android apps are now a fixture on Chrome OS and Chromebooks, but they don’t all run as smoothly as you might hope – and that includes games. If you’re looking for gaming experiences that work well on a bigger screen, run without a hitch, and even offer keyboard and trackpad support (in some cases), then these are the best games we’ve found for playing on a Chromebook.

1. Game Dev Tycoon (£5)

Play a game about developing games – why not? Game Dev Tycoon takes the tried and trusted tycoon sim format and applies it to the scenario of an up-and-coming software studio. Your job i ...

TikTok deleted 49 million 'rule-breaking' videos

TikTok says it deleted more than 49 million videos which broke its rules, between July and December 2019.

About a quarter of those videos were deleted for containing adult nudity or sexual activity, the business said, in its latest transparency report.

The video-sharing app also revealed it had received about 500 requests for data from governments and police, and had complied with about 480 of them.

The US has suggested it is "looking at" whether to ban the Chinese-owned app.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that downloading Ti ...

Coronavirus: Ireland's Covid Tracker app is out - where's England's?

This morning I installed Ireland's just-released contact-tracing app on my phone, where it joined Germany's Corona Warn-App, which was released three weeks ago.

Gibraltar recently released its Beat Covid Gibraltar app, based on the Irish code.

The Republic's Covid Tracker software is also the foundation of an app Northern Ireland is promising to release within weeks. And now there's a hint Wales could go the same way.

"We remain in discussion about a range of options to achieve a working app, including development in Northern Ireland," a Welsh Government sp ...

Huawei: UK government weighs up ban of Chinese firm's telecoms kit

The government has received a report into Huawei that is likely to change its policy over the Chinese firm's role in the UK's telecoms networks.

Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre had delivered its findings.

NCSC is believed to have said it can no longer assure the security of Huawei's products because of new US sanctions.

"We're now examining it and understanding the implications of it," Mr Dowden told BBC Radio 4's Today.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has yet to deliver its conclusions ...

Razer's First Non-Gaming Headphones Give You a Sony-Like Experience For Less

Countless companies have tried to dethrone Sony from its noise-cancelling headphone throne, but none have succeeded. Now Razer is taking a different approach with its first pair of headphones designed for a wider consumer audience – not just gamers – by paying homage to the Queen with a look that emulates Sony’s excellent and much-loved WH-1000XM3s. You can definitely hear the difference between the two, but with a price tag that’s £130 cheaper than Sony’s, the Razer Opus is a compelling alternative.

Aside from the midnight blue finish (which is the only colour option currently avai ...

Reckful: Twitch and gamers pay tribute after star's death

Tributes have been paid to video games streamer Byron Bernstein, known as Reckful, who died on Thursday.

Mr Bernstein was a well-known and loved e-sports player and had 960,000 followers on streaming site Twitch.

His brother Gary Bernstein confirmed that Reckful had taken his own life, aged 31.

Twitch said Reckful was a "streaming pioneer" and that it was "devastated" to hear of his death.

Mr Bernstein had built his following in part by playing World Of Warcraft.

When his death was reported on Thursday evening, fans held virtual me ...

George Floyd: Twitter drops 'master', 'slave' and 'blacklist'

Social media platform Twitter is dropping the terms "master", "slave" and "blacklist" in favour of more inclusive language.

The terms are frequently used in programming codes which originated decades ago.

US bank JPMorgan has also announced a similar move as more companies address racism following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

Replacing the terms could cost millions and take months, according to experts.

Quaker Oats acknowledges 'racial stereotype'
Microsoft's GitHub drops master-slave jargon
...

Dell XPS 17 (9700) Review: Big-Screen Machine

Dell’s XPS lineup has long included some of the best ultrabooks and premium laptops, but it’s been over a decade since we saw a 17-inch version. The XPS 17 (9700) is a triumphant return after a decade away, with a gorgeous display that almost floats in air on thin bezels, as well as solid CPU performance and the option for a gaming-grade GPU. If you were waiting for a bigger screen with this design, you’re finally getting one (and getting the performance to match).

Design of Dell XPS 17 (9700)

Dell has followed in Apple’s footsteps with the XPS lineup, making each laptop loo ...

LG's rollable smartphone to arrive early next year with a BOE screen

While it's having none of that foldable action, at least so far, LG is apparently working on a rollable smartphone, that was pictured in 3D renders in August last year. Those renders are based on a patent LG filed for, and sometimes with patents nothing actually comes out of them in the form of a real product.

This time things seem to be different. According to a report from LG's home of Korea, the company will launch the rollable smartphone currently codenamed Project B at some point in early 2021.

Interestingly enough, the display panel will be provided by BOE, and not LG ...

Motorola Moto G Pro in for review

Say hello to the Motorola Moto G Pro - the Europe-bound counterpart to the US Moto G Stylus. The pair is basically indistinguishable, specs-wise.

So let's see what's in the box. Motorola has provided all you need to get started - an 18W charger, a USB-C cable and a complimentary silicone case.

Unlike the Moto G Stylus, the G Pro's name doesn't tease the built-in accessory, but it's there - tucked into the right bottom corner of the phone. You need to pry it out with a fingernail - there's no push-to-pull-out mechanism like on the Galaxy Note10 series. Unlike the Note10's S P ...

WhatsApp set to relaunch controversial feature after unexpected ban

WhatsApp could finally be given the green light to restore one of its most anticipated new features – after it was unceremoniously ditched last month. Last month, the Facebook-owned chat app kickstarted the rollout of its WhatsApp Payments feature after years of development.

As the name suggests, the new functionality is designed to allow WhatsApp users to send money to friends and small businesses wirelessly within the app. Following extensive testing in India, WhatsApp launched the Payments feature in Brazil - its second largest market - last month.

Days after the launch, ...

Google's Fitbit takeover probed by EU regulators

The EU is questioning whether Google's proposed takeover of Fitbit will harm competition, or give it access to too much personal data.

Fitbit makes fitness-tracking watches that monitor the wearer's heart rate and activity levels.

A group of 20 consumer groups and privacy advocates have called for Google's takeover to be blocked.

Google said it would not use Fitbit data to target advertising and would be "transparent" about the data gathered.

It announced it was buying loss-making Fitbit for $2.1bn (£1.68bn) in November 2019.

The move would ...

Best Intel Z490 motherboards

The best Intel Z490 motherboard is a must If you’ve made the decision to jump onto the Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake train and want to get the most out of your new CPU. Intel’s Z490 boards are equipped with the new LGA 1200 socket, and even the more affordable B460 options feature improved connectivity, networking, power delivery components and (take this with a grain of salt) future 11th Gen Rocket Lake compatibility.

So while you need a whole new motherboard platform for Intel’s new chips, there’s a strong chance it will last for a few CPU generations to come. ...

Gigabyte's Aorus Liquid Coolers Tame Intel Core i9-10900K at 5.2 GHz Without a Sweat

Overclocking the Core i9-10900K and keeping the processor's operating temperature under check could prove to be a difficult task. Have no fear, though, as Gigabyte thinks that the brand's lineup of Aorus liquid coolers can get the job done.

Gigabyte demostrated the Aorus liquid cooler's prowess by submitting an overclocked Core i9-10900K for some Prime95 beating for over 30 minutes. The manufacturer overclocked the Core i9-10900K to 5.2 GHz on all ten cores. CPU-Z and HWiNFO64 reported voltages of 1.392V and 1.423V, respectively. During the stress test, the processor pulled over 320 ...

Google discontinues the Pixel 3A and 3A XL

Google has discontinued its mid-range Pixel 3A and 3A XL smartphones, the company announced today . “Google Store has sold through its inventory and completed sales of Pixel 3A,” Google said in a statement to The Verge. “For people who are still interested in buying Pixel 3A, the product is available from some partners while supplies last.”

That might be disappointing to hear for people who were on the market for a more affordable Google-made phone. In his review last year, my colleague Dieter Bohn found the 3A had an excellent camera, especially for its low price.

The 3A is ...

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra official render leaks from Samsung website

An official render of the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has just been leaked...by Samsung itself. And it looks a lot like previous renders of the upcoming top-tier flagship phone.

Leaker Max Weinbach was seemingly the first to reveal a pair of images, noting he’d found them on a Russian Samsung website. Other leakers quickly spread the word, with Ben Geskin even tweeting a link – which was still live at press time – that pointed to one of the photos on Samsung’s official site.

Leaker @OnLeaks noted the similarity between the new image and the unofficial render he had leaked b ...

Lego pulls ads on Facebook over 'hate speech'

Lego has become the latest big name to join an advertising boycott on social-media platforms, saying "urgent action" is needed to end hate speech, discrimination and misinformation.

It would pause paid advertising on all social-media platforms for at least 30 days, the Danish toy company said, and spend the money "on other channels".

More than 400 companies have joined the Stop Hate for Profit campaign.

It wants "hate, bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism and violence" dealt with.

Facebook said artificial intelligence rooted out 90% of ...

Hands-on with iOS 14’s Sound Recognition feature that listens for doorbells, smoke alarms, more

iOS 14 brings a range of valuable new features, and some of them are designed as Accessibility options but happen to be useful for just about everyone. Read along for a hands-on look at how to use iPhone Sound Recognition to get alerts for things like doorbells, running water, smoke alarms, crying babies, animals, and more.

Another one of the Accessibility features in iOS 14 that’s appealing for lots of use cases is the new “Back Tap” feature. That lets users create custom controls with a double or triple tap on the back of their iPhones.

Sound Recognition is also an Accessi ...

Polar Just Made Its First Affordable, Stylish Smartwatch

Polar smartwatches aren’t exactly chic. Like many fitness-first wearable companies, Polar’s strength has always been its in-depth metrics and platform. When it comes to style, Polar usually relies on that plain, sporty aesthetic, as it did with the M400, M600, A300, and the A360 fitness tracker. But today it’s launching a new smartwatch, the Polar Unite, and it doesn’t make my eyes bleed! It’s also £135, which, as far as Polar smartwatches go, is pretty dang affordable.

The Unite has many of the same features Polar introduced with its Ignite smartwatch, which was released last year ...

Huawei: Ministers signal switch in policy over 5G policy

The government has signalled it is set to take a tougher line against Chinese telecoms equipment-maker Huawei.

A review is under way into how forthcoming US sanctions would affect the UK's continued use of its products.

"Given that these sanctions... are extensive, it is likely to have an impact on the viability of Huawei as a provider for the 5G network," said Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden.

He added he wanted Samsung and NEC to become 5G network kit providers.

They would help make the UK's mobile networks become less dependent on the other two su ...

India bans TikTok, WeChat and dozens more Chinese apps

In a statement, it said the apps were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

In total, 59 apps were banned - among them popular messaging app WeChat. It follows escalating tensions along the disputed border between the two powers.

Both India and China deployed more troops to the Ladakh region in June.

Clashes have left at least 20 Indian troops dead. Satellite images also appear to show that China has built new structures overlooking the Himalayan border region.

India's Ministry of ...

Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550 Review: Two-Screen Cool

It’s been a long time since I’ve been this impressed with a laptop’s design. As I unpacked the Asus Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550 and booted it up for the first time, I thought I knew what to expect, having tested both the ZenBook Pro Duo and the smaller ZenBook Duo. But the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 takes things to another level —literally —and delivers some serious cooling innovation in the process. It’s one of the best gaming laptops you can buy, particularly if you value the utility of a second screen more than comfortable input devices.

The second touch display that sits above the keyboard ( ...

Ampere Preps 7nm 128-Core Server CPU to Take on AMD and Intel

Today, Ampere announced plans to expand its Altra family of server processors with the Altra Max chip, which arriving by the end of the year with a whopping 128 CPU cores.

Similar to the Amazon Graviton2, the Ampere Altra is based on Arm's Neoverse N1 (codename Ares) microarchitecture. TSMC carves the Altra for Ampere with its 7nm FinFET manufacturing process. The Altra family currently features 11 different models, however, the list and specifications are subject to change. 

Each core inside the Ampere Altra corresponds to a single thread and comes with its own cache. We're ...

Mobvoi's new smartwatch doesn't change much, but does bring two useful new tools

It seems 2020 is the year of incremental upgrades for Mobvoi smarwatches - the new TicWatch Pro (2020) didn't change up much but upgraded the specs, and the newly-announced TicWatch C2+ tells much the same story.

The TicWatch C2+ is mostly the same as the TicWatch C2 smartwatch from 2018, but with two significant adjustments, and they might make this a more interesting smartwatch than the largely unchanged specs list would suggest.

Firstly, the TicWatch C2+ has 1GB of RAM, which is twice as much as the C2, and this should make scrolling the menus and accessing apps a lot smo ...

Samsung's radical Galaxy Fold 2 design change revealed

Samsung is working on a follow up to last year's Galaxy Fold that's expected to launch this August , and while the Korean manufacturer was almost certainly going to shake things up with the design, given the issues it had with its first attempt at the Fold, the latest leak suggests quite the turnaround. 

A new collection of renders have surfaced, reportedly based on a patent filed by Samsung this week that seems to incorporate elements from the Galaxy Z Flip - which was blissfully unencumbered by any of the problems we saw with the Fold - and the Galaxy S20 Ultra. It's certainly a v ...

Acer's new Predator gaming chair will soothe you in ways others don't

So you've got one of the best gaming chairs, have you? Does it play soothing music and massage you while you game? Thought not. Though it probably also doesn't cost $999 either… Still, Acer's got you covered if you deem relieving your aching shoulders priceless, as from July you'll be able to pick up the new Predator Gaming Chair x OSIM. At the moment, however, it's looking like it's a North America-only product, so some of us are going to have to stick with finding someone else to rub us down after a hard gaming session. 

Maybe it's down to the OSIM co-branding, but the latest Pred ...

This new Dell XPS 13 build is ditching Windows 10 for Ubuntu

A new build of the Dell XPS 13 has gone on sale with one major difference - it has dropped Windows 10 in favour of Ubuntu.

The new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition ditches Microsoft's software in favour of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS preinstalled to work straight out of the box, giving developers a new ultra-portable and powerful laptop option.

The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is now available in North America and selected EMEA countries including UK and Ireland from today costing $1,049/around £899.

Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

The launch is is the first system availabl ...

AMD is going to make it easier to submit bug reports when your GPU crashes

Back in March, AMD had said that while posting about graphics issues related to its Radeon hardware on Reddit is helpful, submitting an actual bug report directly to the company is the better course of action. Pretty soon, that will be easier to do right from within AMD's Radeon Software utility.

As spotted by a user on Reddit (Ceremony64), there is a new bug reporting tool in the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition driver package (version 20.20.01.05) for people who are participating in the Windows Insider program, who also are testing out the latest Windows Subsystem for ...

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS DUO 15 REVIEW

This beautiful-looking beast is the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, the very latest ultra-modern gaming laptop from the Republic of Gamers brand and the true successor to the original, ground-breaking Zephyrus machine. The GX550LXS has got the latest Nvidia graphics card, the latest Intel CPU, and a second, large touchscreen monitor built into the surprisingly svelte chassis. But I'm afraid I don't really get it.

I mean, I do like it. The build quality is excellent—more effective than the first, mildly flimsy Zephyrus notebook—and the performance is pretty outstanding when you push it as ...

ADDLINK S90 1TB PCIE 4.0 NVME SSD REVIEW

It may not look like much, but the Addlink S90 is a tiny revolutionary. A small drive trying to upset the status quo. Conventional wisdom says quality storage only comes from a few big players. Names like Samsung, Western Digital, Crucial, Intel et al. Addlink doesn't have much respect for the old ways though, so following the success of its S70 (which makes a prominent appearance in our best NVMe SSD guide), the S90 moves things up a level by offering speedy PCIe 4.0 throughput. Which isn't bad for a company predominantly seen as a budget player.

If you've followed the shift to PCI ...

Apple reimagines the iPhone experience with iOS 14

iOS 14 introduces new ways to customize the Home Screen, discover and use apps with App Clips, and stay connected in Messages

Cupertino, California — Apple today previewed iOS 14, introducing the biggest update ever to Home Screen pages with beautifully redesigned widgets and the App Library, a new way to tap into the App Store with App Clips, powerful updates to Messages, and more.

The new widgets present timely information at a glance and can be pinned in different sizes on any Home Screen page. Users can create a Smart Stack of widgets, which uses on-device intelligence t ...

watchOS 7 adds significant personalization, health, and fitness features to Apple Watch

Introducing watch face sharing, sleep tracking, and automatic handwashing detection

Cupertino, California — Apple today previewed watchOS 7, delivering enhanced customization tools and powerful new health and fitness features to the world’s most advanced smartwatch. Personalization is taken to an entirely new level with shareable and discoverable watch face configurations, while sleep tracking, automatic handwashing detection, additional workout types including dance, and a new hearing health feature give greater insight into overall well-being and are designed with privacy in mind. ...

Will your iPad get iPadOS 14? There's good news for owners of most iPads

Apple has finally unveiled iPadOS 14, the newest (and second, not fourteenth) version of its iPad-only operating system that'll bring new tweaks and features to your faithful tablet.

There's good news for people who like using iPadOS and are keen to try the newer version – every iPad that supported the original version last September will get iPadOS 14, as well as the newer iPads released since then. 

That brings the total number of slates that support the operating system up to 15, so some of the best tablets on the market are about to get better.

iPadOS is impressi ...

How to password protect a file or folder in Windows 10

When you get a new Windows 10 PC, or any version of Windows for that matter, there are a couple of things that you must do before you actually start using your PC. Of course, downloading Chrome is one of the things many us do, but there are other equally important things that you should pay attention to, especially if your PCs have sensitive information such as personal photos, videos, bank information, or anything that you don’t want anyone to get access to.

If you don’t follow the right steps, your sensitive information may get into the hands of the people that might cause you har ...

Realme X3 with 12GB of RAM appears on GeekBench

Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth recently confirm the company was working on the Realme X3 which he referred to as the company’s next flagship. The model has been confirmed to launch alongside the Realme X3 Zoom on June 25.

The Realme X3 has now been spotted on benchmark database GeekBench. The device appears with model number RMX2085 and it is listed to have a 12GB RAM onboard. Earlier, the X3 was rumoured to have an 8GB RAM onboard and we can assume there will be more than one RAM variants. However, the single and multi-core scores are not in the terrain of Snapdragon 865-powered mod ...

Wear OS now supports hardware-accelerated watch faces for smoother animations

While Android 11 for phones and tablets is expected to launch in Q3, Wear OS is still running Android 9 Pie. That said, the wearable platform is still getting updates with watch faces now able to take advantage of hardware acceleration.

Hardware acceleration lets watch faces render at a higher frame rate with smoother animations and transitions. Google says “these benefits are self-evident” for end users.

Behind-the-scenes, Wear OS apps already take advantage of hardware-accelerated graphics rendering, but watch faces are implemented using canvasses. Google last month update ...

Video tests MacBook Air thermal and CPU performance with improved cooling design

A new video from Linus Tech Tips today sheds light on the MacBook Air’s thermal design and how various different tweaks can affect performance and heat dissipation. The results show an increase in performance, but not quite as you would expect.

The video starts by explaining Apple’s somewhat odd design decision. Instead of placing the fan right next to the CPU, where the majority of the heat is generated, Apple placed the fan on the far side of the MacBook Air. This leaves the MacBook Air CPU with around 10W of CPU cooling capacity, the video explains.

In the video, a variet ...

First ARM Macs will be MacBook Pros and an all-new iMac: report

Apple is set to unveil its long-awaited Mac transition from Intel to ARM processors today at its online WWDC 2020 keynote, and analyst Ming-chi Kuo has issued his predictions for the first Macs that will use the new Apple-designed processors. His research note was reported on by MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider.

First of all, Kuo says the last new Intel-based Mac ever will be a brand new iMac design with thinner bezels and a 24-inch display. This iMac is said to be planned for a release in Q3 2020, but an ARM version will follow it in the first quarter of next year.

The ...

Facebook removes Trump ad over 'Nazi hate symbol'

Facebook says it has removed adverts for US President Donald Trump's re-election campaign that featured a symbol used in Nazi Germany.

The company said the offending ad contained an inverted red triangle similar to that used by the Nazis to label opponents such as communists.

Mr Trump's campaign team said they were aimed at the far-left activist group antifa, which it said uses the symbol.

Facebook said the ads violated its policy against organised hate.

"We don't allow symbols that represent hateful organisations or hateful ideologies unless they are pu ...

Coronavirus: Health minister says app should roll out by winter

A government minister has said the NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app is "not a priority" and he was not sure it would be out by winter.

The app, which has been trialled on the Isle of Wight, was initially expected to launch nationally weeks ago.

The BBC can also reveal that the project's two lead managers - NHSX's Matthew Gould and Geraint Lewis - are stepping back.

And Simon Thompson - a former Apple executive - is joining to manage it.

Mr Thompson is currently chief product officer at the online grocer Ocado. He has been appointed to Baroness Di ...

Abuse and threats aimed at wheelchair user over faked photo

A Newcastle woman says she received death threats online after being turned into an internet meme that mocked her wheelchair use.

Emily Morison, 24, woke up last week to messages from friends about one of her photos which had been edited to include a pro-Trump message she didn't write.

The comments included telling her to "wheel herself off a cliff", and another encouraging murder, she said.

Facebook has removed the post - but TikTok did not.

Ms Morison is a blogger who writes about accessibility and equality.

On 14 June, she woke up to see ...

Germany has its Covid-19 app, so where's the UK's?

Around the world, major countries are unveiling new contact-tracing apps as they emerge from lockdown.

Germany has just launched a decentralised app based on the Apple and Google platform. Switzerland, Ireland and Austria are testing theirs. And Japan is said to be unveiling something similar, with the help of Microsoft, later this week.

So the inhabitants of an island just off the south coast of England could be forgiven for asking - has everybody forgotten about us?

Six weeks ago, a trial of the NHS contact-tracing app was launched on the Isle of Wight with great f ...

Would you pay to Zoom Keanu Reeves or Star Trek's Riker?

Actors Keanu Reeves and Jonathan Frakes are among the celebrities offering fans the opportunity to chat one-to-one via Zoom during lockdown.

Reeves is auctioning a 15-minute Zoom call for a children's cancer charity.

The highest bid at time of writing is $9,800 (£7,800).

Meanwhile, on the celebrity message platform Cameo, £166 will buy a 10-minute Zoom call with Star Trek actor Jonathan Frakes or skateboarder Tony Hawk.

Cameo said there had been "a tonne of interest" in its Zoom service, Cameo Live, despite just 31 celebrities - only four of whom ar ...

Instagram 'will overtake Twitter as a news source'

Photo-sharing app Instagram is set to overtake Twitter as a news source, research suggests.

The 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News report found the use of Instagram for news had doubled since 2018.

The trend is strongest among young people. It said nearly a quarter of UK 18-24-year-olds used Instagram as a source of news about coronavirus.

But social media platforms were also among the least-trusted sources.

Just 26% of people said they trusted social media as a source of information about the virus. A similar percentage said they trusted news that had been ...

Former eBay executives charged with cyber-stalking

Six former eBay executives and staff have been charged with cyber-stalking in a campaign against a couple who ran a newsletter critical of the company.

Prosecutors allege the harassment included sending the couple live cockroaches, a bloody Halloween mask and a funeral wreath, as well as threatening messages.

EBay said it did not tolerate such behaviour and apologised to the couple.

The firm fired the employees last September after its own probe.

That inquiry also uncovered "inappropriate" communication by former chief executive Devin Wenig, but it ...

Riot Games executive resigns after 'abhorrent' George Floyd post

A gaming firm executive has resigned over a meme he posted about George Floyd, who died while being arrested.

Ron Johnson, who was head of consumer products at Riot Games, shared an image detailing Mr Floyd's criminal record.

He wrote that it was "no reason to condone his killing" but added: "This type of criminal lifestyle never results in good things."

Riot Games said the Facebook post was "abhorrent" and told staff Mr Johnson had exercised "poor judgment".

The Los Angeles-based firm produces the hugely popular League ...

Firm defends algorithm that 'spots women's orgasms'

A firm that claimed to have built an algorithm to identify women's orgasms has defended itself after ridicule on social media.

Cyprus-based Relida Limited said its algorithm could "validate" female orgasms 86% of the time.

Slides from a presentation it produced were posted on Twitter and were retweeted thousands of times.

The company said it had wanted to help developers test sex tech products and that its work had been "twisted".

The presentation was posted on Twitter by Stu Nugent, brand manager at the sex toy label Lelo, after he was se ...

PlayStation 5: Sony games chief says PS5 offers a paradigm shift

The PlayStation 5 has finally broken cover in all its curvy glory.

Not everyone's convinced by its black-white-and-glowing-blue design. But for many consumers, it's the games that count rather than the aesthetic appeal of the box.

Dozens were teased in an online event. But Sony is remaining tight-lipped about the machine's price.

Any new console will have a hard time navigating the tough economic waters that lie ahead, but Sony's reluctance to tell us how much its next machine will cost won't help consumers figure out if they can afford it.

But PlayStation ch ...

George Floyd: Microsoft bars facial recognition sales to police

Microsoft has become the latest US company to limit the use of its facial recognition technology by police.

The firm said it would not start sales to US police departments until the country approves national regulation of the technology, which critics say is racially biased and easy to abuse.

Amazon and IBM have already made similar moves.

These followed widespread protests over police brutality and racial discrimination.

Amazon on Wednesday banned police from using its tech for one year, while IBM earlier said it would stop offering the technology for " ...

PlayStation 5: Sony to give gamers first look at new platform

Sony will give gamers their first look at the PlayStation 5 during a special event later on Thursday.

Fans will finally get to see a range of yet-to-be-announced titles that are currently in development for the highly anticipated platform.

The showcase is one in a series of updates to the console that Sony is set to reveal over the coming months.

The Japanese firm will stream the event live at 20:00 GMT on YouTube and Twitch.

The event was initially set to go ahead on 4 June, but Sony postponed due to the on-going Black Lives Matter protests across the US.

Developer warns VR headset damaged eyesight

A software developer has tweeted about how wearing a VR headset for hours a day has damaged his eyesight.

A visit to the opticians left him "worried about my future VR use" after a doctor blamed the technology for a problem with his vision.

Glasses should correct the issue but would normally only "be prescribed to 40-year-olds", he tweeted.

The Association of Optometrists said it had not seen evidence that VR headsets could cause permanent eye damage.

Facebook-owned Oculus states in its handbook that one in 4,000 may suffer "dizziness ...

George Floyd: Twitter to make Juneteenth a company holiday

The boss of Twitter and Square has said that both firms will honour Juneteenth as a company holiday in America.

Jack Dorsey also said Twitter was working to identify which days it made most sense to recognise the end of slavery in other countries.

Juneteenth is observed by many African-Americans on 19 June every year to mark the emancipation from slavery in the US.

It comes as companies respond to Black Lives Matter protests around the world.

The roots of Juneteenth, which is also known as Freedom Day and Jubilee Day, date back to 1865, when Union Army Genera ...

Babylon Health admits GP app suffered a data breach

Babylon Health has acknowledged that its GP video appointment app has suffered a data breach.

The firm was alerted to the problem after one of its users discovered he had been given access to dozens of video recordings of other patients' consultations.

A follow-up check by Babylon revealed a small number of further UK users could also see others' sessions.

The firm said it had since fixed the issue and notified regulators.

Babylon allows its members to speak to a doctor, therapist or other health specialist via a smartphone video call and, when appropriate, s ...

Samsung: Court rejects Lee Jae-yong arrest warrant request

A court in Seoul has denied an arrest warrant request for Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, after prosecutors accused him of accounting fraud and stock manipulation.

The ruling provides at least temporary relief for the de facto head of the South Korean conglomerate.

But Mr Lee isn't completely in the clear yet as prosecutors said they will continue with their investigation.

They can still return with new evidence and seek another arrest warrant.

Last week state prosecutors asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Mr Lee related to their probe into account ...

Xbox Series X: Microsoft tailors launch plans for the pandemic

The biggest challenge facing Microsoft and Sony's next generation consoles - the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 - might not be proving the most powerful or having the best games at launch but the fallout from Covid-19.

Many gamers will have less spare cash to spend. And there has been speculation supply-chain problems caused by the pandemic will lead to manufacturing delays and higher costs.

This was supposed to be the week of the giant E3 games expo, in Los Angeles, a chance to build hype for the launches.

Instead, Xbox will give a first look at some games in devel ...

Huawei launches media blitz as UK weighs its role in 5G networks

Huawei is launching a newspaper and internet campaign to mark 20 years of business in the UK.

In an open letter to the public, the Chinese telecoms company says it is "as committed as ever" to provide "the best equipment" to the UK's 5G mobile and full-fibre broadband providers.

It comes amid a new security review that could lead the UK government to ban use of Huawei's 5G network kit.

Huawei's local boss said he expects the UK to act in the nation's interests.

The initiative follows a report in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, which said Londo ...

Coronavirus face mask lights up with moving mouth shapes

A light-up face mask that responds to the sound of the wearer's voice has been developed by a games developer in California.

The BBC's Chris Fox spoke to designer Tyler Glaiel and had a go at making the mask himself - although he keeping his purely as a novelty.

Snapchat stops promoting Donald Trump's account due to 'racial violence'

Snapchat says it has stopped promoting President Donald Trump's account.

As a result, it will no longer feature in the app's Discover section. The firm said it would "not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice".

The decision follows Mr Trump saying that "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" would have been used on protesters if they had breached the White House fence.

It follows Twitter's decision to hide some of the president's posts.

Snapchat's parent company Snap said: "Racial violence and injustice have n ...

Coronavirus: France's virus-tracing app 'off to a good start'

France's digital minister has said its coronavirus contact-tracing app has been downloaded 600,000 times since it became available on Tuesday afternoon.

StopCovid France is designed to prevent a second wave of infections by using smartphone logs to warn users if they have been near someone who later tested positive for the virus.

But a last-minute launch delay led some citizens to download the wrong product.

England has yet to confirm when its own app will roll out nationwide.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock had originally said it would be by 1 June, and then l ...

Grindr removes 'ethnicity filter' after complaints

Dating and hook-up app Grindr says it will remove the "ethnicity filter" from the next version of its app, following years of criticism from its users.

The app currently lets people filter potential matches according to their age, height, weight and ethnicity.

But critics say the ethnicity filter fuels discrimination and that the app does too little to tackle racism.

Announcing the change, Grindr said it had a "zero-tolerance policy for racism and hate speech" on its platform.

Analysis
by Ben Hunte, LGBT correspondent

For ye ...

George Floyd death: Jake Paul denies looting Arizona mall

YouTuber Jake Paul has denied looting during a protest against racial inequality in Arizona.

The 23-year-old says he was only there to film content for his 20.1 million YouTube followers.

Photos and videos seen on social media claim to show Jake, whose estimated wealth is over $11 million, involved in looting an Arizona shopping mall.

"Neither I nor anyone in our group was involved in any looting or vandalism," he wrote on Twitter and Instagram.

12 people were arrested at Scottsdale Fashion Square after "millions of dollars of damages and theft ...

Amazon UK website defaced with racist abuse

Amazon has blamed a "bad actor" for racist abuse that appeared on multiple listings on its UK website.

The abuse, now removed, appeared when users searched the online shop for Apple AirPods and similar products.

It was unclear how long the racist language remained on the site, but it sparked outrage on Twitter and the sharing of screenshots and video grabs.

"We investigated, removed the images in question and took action against the bad actor," Amazon told the BBC.

The company did not elaborate on the "bad actor", nor give detail ...

Microsoft 'to replace journalists with robots'

Microsoft is to replace dozens of contract journalists on its MSN website and use automated systems to select news stories, US and UK media report.

The curating of stories from news organisations and selection of headlines and pictures for the MSN site is currently done by journalists.

Artificial intelligence will perform these news production tasks, sources told the Seattle Times.

Microsoft said it was part of an evaluation of its business.

The US tech giant said in a statement: "Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can ...

Trump signs executive order targeting Twitter after fact-checking row

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at removing some of the legal protections given to social media platforms.

It gives regulators the power to pursue legal actions against firms such as Facebook and Twitter for the way they police content on their platforms.

President Trump accused social media platforms of having "unchecked power" while signing the order.

The order is expected to face legal challenges.

Legal experts says the US Congress or the court system must be involved to change the current legal understanding of prot ...

Myka Stauffer: Backlash after YouTubers give up adopted son

A couple who documented on a popular YouTube channel their life with an autistic toddler adopted from China are facing a backlash after they revealed he had been placed with another family.

Myka Stauffer and her husband James, based in Ohio, produced videos about Huxley's adoption and his challenges.

Since 2017 the couple received sponsorship deals and video revenue.

While some understood the decision, critics accused the pair of exploiting Huxley to build their YouTube career.

The news that Huxley is living permanently with another family was revealed on Tue ...

Pulling apart a £339 anti-5G USB stick

A device costing more than £300 promises to protect your family from 5G, using ground-breaking quantum technology - but does it work?

The rollout of the new 5G mobile networks began in the UK only last summer and has not yet reached outside urban areas.

Yet across the country there is already a cottage industry offering protection against the supposed negative health effects, even though they have been dismissed by regulators and mainstream scientists.

The 5GBioShield was recommended by a member of Glastonbury Town Council's 5G Advisory Committee, which has called fo ...

Video streaming: Lockdown sees fifth of UK homes sign deals

One in five households in Britain – six million – signed up to an online video subscription service during the Covid-19 lockdown, data suggests.

The majority of those sign-ups, 52%, are going to Disney+, according to market research firm Kantar.

The most-enjoyed piece of content, though, was Netflix’s exclusive documentary series Tiger King.

AppleTV+ struggled to engage TV viewers, however, according to the research.

Kantar’s data shows the tech giant’s TV service was popular on smartphone and tablet devices, but lagged behind competitors in ...

Twitter tags Trump tweet with fact-checking warning

A post by US President Donald Trump has been given a fact-check label by Twitter for the first time.

President Trump tweeted: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."

Twitter put a warning label under the post and a subsequent tweet under its new policy on misleading information.

Mr Trump responded by tweeting again, saying the social media giant "is completely stifling free speech".

Twitter's notification displays a blue exclamation mark underneath the tweets, suggesting readers & ...

Facebook shareholders try to block encryption plan

Investors at Facebook's annual stockholder meeting will vote on a proposal to postpone the firm's plans for end-to-end encryption.

The firm says it wants to make the measure the default option across its messaging platforms to protect privacy.

But activist shareholders say this would make it nearly impossible to detect child exploitation on Facebook.

The group wants the company to delay the move until after its board of directors studies the risk further.

"As shareholders, we know that privacy is important to a social media company, but it should not com ...

Huawei: What would happen if the UK ditched the Chinese firm?

Huawei's future in the UK is in doubt - again.

The consequences could affect how quickly improved internet access is rolled out and how much it will cost. This a time when the country's economy is already in a precarious state because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The catalyst for a potential rethink is the US's move to restrict the firm's ability to buy chips, which was justified on "national security grounds".

On Sunday, the UK's National Security Centre (NCSC) confirmed it was examining what impact this would have on the UK networks that use Huawei's tech ...

Could coronavirus kickstart more accessible tech?

Many people have changed the way they work during the coronavirus pandemic, but for some disabled people this has brought some specific challenges.

Improvements in accessible technology has seen artificial intelligence software provide real-time, on-screen transcriptions of what someone is saying in video calls, but there are concerns that some video calling platforms and apps are not as accessible as they could be.

BBC Click’s Paul Carter finds out more.

Fresh UK review into Huawei role in 5G networks

The UK government is conducting a new review into the impact of allowing Huawei telecoms equipment to be used in British 5G networks.

The National Cyber Security Centre involvement comes after the US brought in fresh sanctions on the Chinese company, citing security fears.

In January, the UK resisted US pressure to ban Huawei from contributing to 5G.

A UK government spokesman said: "The security and resilience of our networks is of paramount importance."

"Following the US announcement of additional sanctions against Huawei, the NCSC is looking ...

Wikipedia sets new rule to combat “toxic behaviour”

Wikipedia is to institute a new code of conduct to battle what the firm called "toxic behaviour" by some volunteers.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation that runs the site, voted on new measures that will be finalised by the end of the year.

Wikipedia is written and updated by volunteers.

Many, particularly women and members of the LGBTQ community, have complained of abuse and harassment from other editors.

Wikimedia's board of trustees said maintaining civility was a core value.

"We must work together to create a safe, inclusive ...

Australia 'records fastest internet speed ever'

Researchers in Australia claim they have recorded the fastest ever internet data speed.

A team from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities logged a data speed of 44.2 terabits per second (Tbps).

At that speed, users could download more than 1,000 high-definition movies in less than a second.

According to Ofcom, the average UK broadband speed currently is around 64 megabits per second (Mbps) - a fraction of that recorded in the recent study.

Australia lies in the middle of global rankings for internet speeds, and slow connections are a regular source of compl ...

Coronavirus contact tracing: My new skill

It could be the most important job of our times. And now, after receiving a 95% pass rate in my final exam, I can proudly say, I am a qualified contact tracer.

What is not clear is just how well trained most of the people undertaking this vital task in the UK will be.

A contact tracer does the detective work of calling up people known to be infected with a disease and working out where they have been in recent days and who they might have met.

The idea is then to track down those with whom they have been in close proximity and tell them to go into quarantine.

...

Coronavirus: MPs demand answers on misinformation

Twitter has begun labelling tweets that spread misinformation about Covid-19, including some from Mark Steele, who posts about links between 5G and coronavirus.

But tweets from other 5G conspiracy theorists, such as David Icke, remain unchallenged.

MPs have asked Google, Twitter and Facebook to return to Parliament to answer their questions about content.

Only Facebook's head of global policy Monica Bickert has agreed to attend.

Chairman of the DCMS (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) select committee Julian Knight said MPs had been "very disappointed&qu ...

Grandmother ordered to delete Facebook photos under GDPR

A woman must delete photographs of her grandchildren that she posted on Facebook and Pinterest without their parents' permission, a court in the Netherlands has ruled.

It ended up in court after a falling-out between the woman and her daughter.

The judge ruled the matter was within the scope of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

One expert said the ruling reflected the "position that the European Court has taken over many years".

The case went to court after the woman refused to delete photographs of her grandchildren which she had ...

Apple and Google release marks 'watershed moment' for contact-tracing apps

Apple and Google have released a software tool that will make it possible for nations to release coronavirus contact-tracing apps that adopt the firms' privacy-centric model.

It offers developers access to added Bluetooth functionality to solve a problem existing apps have of iPhones sometimes failing to detect each other.

Android and iOS device owners will have to carry out system upgrades.

But some countries - including the UK - are pursuing a different approach.

"The release of these APIs [application programming interfaces] along with the operating-s ...

Man sentenced to death in Singapore via Zoom

A man has been sentenced to death via a Zoom video call in Singapore, as the country remains on lockdown following a spike in Covid-19 cases.

Punithan Genasan, 37, received the sentence on Friday for his role in a drug deal that took place in 2011.

It marks the city's first case where such a ruling has been done remotely.

Human rights groups argued that pursuing the death penalty at a time when the world is being gripped by a pandemic was "abhorrent".

The vast majority of court hearings in Singapore have been adjourned until at least 1 June, when th ...

Coronavirus: Apple shoppers required to wear masks

Apple is gradually reopening its US stores, following easing of lockdowns intended to slow the Covid-19 pandemic.

But there will be strict rules for customers, including the wearing of a face mask. If customers don't have their own, one will be provided.

Visitors will also be asked a set of health questions at the door and have their temperature checked.

There will be a reduced number of customers in the store and deep cleans will happen throughout the day.

About 100 Apple stores have already reopened worldwide.

In a post detailing how the new measure ...

Coronavirus: Isle of Wight contact-tracing app trial - a mixed verdict so far

It is 10 days since all Isle of Wight residents were invited to test the NHS app at the heart of the government's test, track and trace strategy. So how's it going?

Mixed would probably be a fair verdict.

The big concern was how many people would download it. Epidemiologists suggest that for the UK as a whole, about 60% of the population needs to install and use the software for it to live up to its full potential.

So when Downing Street says there have been roughly 60,000 downloads, that's not a bad result. The island's population is 140,000, and its inhabitants are ...

Disney's head of streaming to become CEO of TikTok

Disney's head of streaming Kevin Mayer is stepping down to become the boss of social media platform TikTok.

He has been named the chief executive officer of TikTok and chief operating officer of ByteDance, the platform's Chinese parent company.

TikTok, an app where users post short videos, has seen an explosion of growth since its US launch.

But that increased popularity has led to scrutiny by the US government over its ties to China.

Mr Mayer will be responsible for ByteDance's "global development" including emerging business, gaming and music.

Europe's supercomputers hijacked by attackers for crypto mining

At least a dozen supercomputers across Europe have shut down after cyber-attacks tried to take control of them.

A pan-European supercomputing group says they seem to have tried to use the machines to mine cryptocurrency.

"A security exploitation" disabled access to the Archer supercomputer, at the University of Edinburgh, on 11 May.

Staff said they were working with the National Cyber Security Centre to restore the system, which had recently installed a pandemic modelling tool.

"We now believe this to be a major issue across the academic commun ...

Universities' move online 'must be done the right way'

Harry Ashworth should be in the final term of his first year at Oxford University, studying music.

Instead he is stuck at his parents' house in south London hunched over a laptop, listening to lectures via Zoom.

He doesn't feel that the sudden and dramatic change in circumstances has affected his learning too much, but he is missing some aspects of university life.

"I am in a jazz orchestra and that isn't really happening now. And I would have been playing at the summer balls, so there are social events that I've missed."

Some of his more practical ...

Coronavirus: Film piracy streaming trebles in lockdown

Newly released films have been downloaded illegally in huge numbers since stay-at-home lockdown measures were imposed in the UK.

According to Fact, the UK's intellectual property protection organisation, overall links to illegal streaming sites doubled between February and April.

And for some recently released films, it had trebled.

Kieron Sharp, chief executive of Fact, said it was no surprise.

"It's essential to remember that the only legal way of watching films is through the official providers.

"Every pirated link that we detect denies t ...

Facebook buys GIF-maker Giphy to add to Instagram team

Facebook has purchased the GIF-maker Giphy and plans to make it part of the Instagram team.

A report from Axios values the deal at $400m (£330m), but Facebook would not confirm the final price.

In a blog post, Instagram's VP of Products Vishal Shah said third party firms would still have access to Giphy's library of GIFs and stickers.

But many of those sites including Twitter and Pintrest are direct competitors to Facebook.

A Graphical Interchange Format or GIF is an animated image or short soundless video that plays on a continuous loop without requiring the ...

Disney forces explicit Club Penguin clones offline

Disney has ordered unauthorised copies of its Club Penguin game to close, after the BBC found children were being exposed to explicit messages.

Visits to fan-run Club Penguin Online surged during the coronavirus pandemic with more than a million new players.

But racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and sexual messages flow freely on the unauthorised platform.

Disney said it was "appalled" by the website, and has ordered it to close or face legal action.

Club Penguin Online appeared to go offline on Friday afternoon.

One man involved in the site ...

Coronavirus: German contact-tracing app takes different path to NHS

Germany's forthcoming coronavirus contact-tracing app will trigger alerts only if users test positive for Covid-19.

That puts it at odds with the NHS app, which instead relies on users self-diagnosing via an on-screen questionnaire.

UK health chiefs have said the questionnaire is a key reason they are pursuing a "centralised" design despite privacy campaigners' protests.

Germany ditched that model in April.

And on Wednesday Chancellor Angela Merkel said there would be a "much higher level of acceptance" for a decentralised approach, which ...

Wristband helps workers maintain social distancing

A wristband which notifies the wearer with a vibration if they get too close to maintain safe social distancing has been introduced at the port of Antwerp.

BBC Click finds out more.

Coronavirus: Musk defies orders to reopen Tesla's California plant

The local police department said that it was aware of the situation, but that it would act at the discretion of county health officials.

The Alameda County Public Health Department said on Monday it was "actively communicating" with Tesla about reopening plans and that it was taking the same approach it had taken with other business that had violated lockdown orders.

In an email seen by Reuters, Tesla also reportedly told workers the decision to reopen was in line with California guidelines.

Mr Musk wrote on Twitter that Tesla had been "singled out", saying that othe ...

Coronavirus: A4-sized face shields 'too narrow' for PPE

The British Standards Institution (BSI) says that A4-sized face shields do not always protect healthcare workers' faces from exposure to Covid-19.

Faced with a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), many communities have started making their own to help frontline workers.

These include 3D-printing and laser-cut designs.

Some incorporate A4-sized acetate transparent paper, designed for overhead projectors, to make the visor.

"People are trying to use materials that are readily available," said Nathan Shipley, PPE group certification manager ...

China's factory activity shrinks as slowdown worries rise

Chinese factory activity contracted for a second straight month in January, the official Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) showed.

The index ticked up to 49.5, but remained below the 50-point level that separates growth from contraction.

China reported its weakest economic expansion in 28 years in 2018, and growth is expected to slow further.

Already, a number of multinationals have said sluggish growth in China has affected their bottom line.

The manufacturing data was up slightly from the 49.4 level recorded in December.

Marcel Thieliant, economist at ...

RTX Voice: Noise-destroying tech put to the test

Graphics card-maker Nvidia is developing noise-cancellation technology that can eliminate nuisance sounds from video calls and livestreams.

The first version of its technology uses spare capacity on its high-end graphics cards.

BBC Click's Chris Fox put the system through a series of increasingly complex challenges, alongside existing noise-cancelling software Krisp.

Coronavirus: 'Plandemic' virus conspiracy video spreads across social media

Major social networks are rushing to take down a new coronavirus conspiracy theory video which has rapidly spread across the internet.

The so-called "Plandemic" video is edited in the style of a documentary, with much higher production standards than many conspiracy videos.

The video is filled with medical misinformation about where the virus came from and how it is transmitted.

Despite efforts to remove it, users are constantly re-uploading the clip.

Since the 26-minute video first appeared earlier this week, it has exploded across YouTube, Faceboo ...

Tech Tent: An experiment on the Isle of Wight

An island off the south coast of England is now the focus of the world's attention - or at least that part of the world that wants to know whether contact tracing apps can help deal with the coronavirus.

On this week's Tech Tent we hear how a trial on the Isle of Wight could determine which kind of app - if any - is the best way forward.

Listen to the latest Tech Tent podcast on BBC Sounds
Listen live every Friday at 15:00 GMT on the BBC World Service
A good proportion of the island's 140,000 residents have now downloaded the NHS Covid-19 app, among them Andy S ...

Coronavirus: NHS reveals source code behind contact-tracing app

The NHS has released the source code behind its coronavirus contact-tracing app.

More than 40,000 people have installed the smartphone software so far.

The health service is targeting the Isle of Wight only, at this stage, but it says this is the first stage of the app's rollout - not a test.

Tests carried out on behalf of BBC News confirm the developers have found a way to work round restrictions Apple places on the use of Bluetooth in iPhones.

In a related development, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced that Baroness Dido Harding will head up the w ...

Coronavirus: Will offices be safe for a return to work?

As lockdowns start to ease in many countries, so the tentative return to work begins, leaving people understandably concerned about how safe a space an office will be in the middle of a global pandemic.

Alongside some mouldy old food in the communal fridges, there is likely to be an increase in the amount of technology used to monitor employees.

From thermal cameras taking your temperature when you enter the building to apps or wearables to alert you if you get too close to colleagues, work could soon have the feel of the Minority Report movie.

The Edge in Amsterdam ...

Sonos Arc soundbar makes jump to Dolby Atmos audio

Sonos has announced a new flagship soundbar with the latest surround-sound technology.

The Sonos Arc is the firm's first model to incorporate Dolby Atmos - which bounces audio off the ceiling to create the impression that sounds are being emitted from different heights.

The launch comes nearly five years after Yamaha was first to bring an Atmos soundbar to market.

Sonos may benefit from the coronavirus having caused many cinemas to close.

But company watchers have warned that people's concerns about their jobs and personal finances may deter them from buying ...

Coronavirus: Hands on with NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app

For an app with so much riding on it, NHS Covid-19 is at first sight very simple and extraordinarily unexciting.

At this stage it is only available to NHS and council workers on the Isle of Wight.

On Thursday, other residents of the island will get a leaflet containing a link that will trigger a download.

And eventually anyone will be able to download it directly from the UK versions of Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store.

I have been given special early access.

When you install it, you are asked to enter the first four characters of your post ...

Coronavirus: Cyber-spies hunt Covid-19 research, US and UK warn

The UK and US have issued a joint warning cyber-spies are targeting the health sector.

Hackers linked to foreign states have been hunting for information, including Covid-19 data and vaccine research, they say.

UK sources say they have seen extensive activity but do not believe there has been any data theft so far.

Those behind the activity are not named in the alert but are thought to include China, Russia and Iran.

The three countries have all seen major outbreaks of the virus but have denied previous claims of involvement in such activity.

The join ...

Facebook and Twitter allow scammers 'free rein'

Social-media companies are failing to clamp down on scammers selling people's personal details through their platforms, an investigation from consumer watchdog Which? has shown.

It found 50 profiles, pages and groups on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offering stolen credit-card details, and Netflix and Uber Eats accounts.

And much of the content had remained on the platforms after being reported.

Facebook and Twitter said such activity was not tolerated and would be removed.

The investigation, carried out before the coronavirus lockdown, found one Facebook p ...

Tesla warns on shutdown as Musk calls for end to lockdown

Demand for Tesla's electric cars held up in the first three months of the year, despite upheavals caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Quarterly revenues jumped 30% from last year to $5.9bn (£4.7bn), allowing the firm to turn a small profit of $16m.

It is the third quarterly profit in a row for the company, marking a turnaround after years of losses.

But Tesla said forced shutdowns and limits on deliveries had clouded its forecast for coming months.

"Frankly I would call it forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights ...

Coronavirus: UK contact-tracing app 'ready in two to three weeks'

Building a coronavirus contact-tracing app that might help the UK emerge from lockdown has been a titanic effort - and it has largely taken place in private.

But now the NHS chief responsible has told MPs he hopes the first version will be ready in a fortnight's time.

Matthew Gould also disclosed plans to log the location of whenever two or more people are in close proximity for minutes at a time.

That will disturb privacy campaigners.

However, NHSX - the health service's digital innovation unit - has told BBC News this extra request will be "opt in" ...

Coronavirus-themed game banned in China

A coronavirus-themed game has been blocked on Steam in China because of its politically motivated content.

In order to win Coronavirus Attack, players have to stop "selfish zombies" from escaping a country infected with the virus.

Players reported the game for using the same colour scheme as the Chinese flag, with virus-shaped animations in place of its stars.

The game has been inundated with negative reviews on Steam's store.

China and the US trade coronavirus conspiracy theories
Fortnite's virtual concert attracts 12 million
"A ...

NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan

The UK's coronavirus contact-tracing app is set to use a different model to the one proposed by Apple and Google, despite concerns raised about privacy and performance.

The NHS says it has a way to make the software work "sufficiently well" on iPhones without users having to keep it active and on-screen.

That limitation has posed problems for similar apps in other countries.

Experts from GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre have aided the effort.

NCSC indicated that its involvement has been limited to an advisory role.

"Engineers have ...

Coronavirus: DJI Mavic Air 2 jettisons drone safety feature in Europe

DJI has launched its first consumer drone to warn of nearby planes and helicopters via its controller.

The inclusion of the safety feature follows multiple reports of near-misses with other aircraft.

However, the firm says supply chain problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic mean it is only equipping the Mavic Air 2 with the ability in North America at this point.

Buyers in Europe and elsewhere will be offered a version lacking the facility.

DJI also said that logistics problems caused by the virus meant that it had been forced into a staggered launch.

UK spies will need artificial intelligence - Rusi report

UK spies will need to use artificial intelligence (AI) to counter a range of threats, an intelligence report says.

Adversaries are likely to use the technology for attacks in cyberspace and on the political system, and AI will be needed to detect and stop them.

But AI is unlikely to predict who might be about to be involved in serious crimes, such as terrorism - and will not replace human judgement, it says.

The report is based on unprecedented access to British intelligence.

The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think tank also argues that the use of AI ...

Coronavirus: Australians download COVIDSafe contact tracing app

More than a million Australians have downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government.

The COVIDSafe smartphone app uses a Bluetooth wireless signal to exchange a "digital handshake" with another user when they come within 1.5m (4.9ft).

The app then logs this contact and encrypts it.

Users will be notified if they have had more than 15 minutes of close contact with another user who tests positive.

Australia has recorded 6,694 confirmed coronavirus cases and 80 deaths from the virus, according to data f ...

Coronavirus: 'I faked having Covid-19 on Facebook and got arrested'

Michael Lane Brandin knew his Facebook post would cause a stir.

What he didn't realise was that he'd be arrested, lose his job and face a trial that could see him behind bars.

It was an otherwise dull afternoon in March and the debate about how to cope with the potential outbreak of Covid-19 was all over his timeline.

So he decided to, in his words, "do a social experiment".

Mr Brandin posted that he'd tested positive for coronavirus. And then he added that doctors had told him that the virus was now airborne.

That would mean it had suddenly ...

Coronavirus: Influencers' glossy lifestyles lose their shine

It's hard to believe that even in lockdown, life on Instagram can look idyllic.

Last month, Manchester-born Jack Morris posted a photograph in his swimwear, standing in an infinity pool against a pink sunset in Bali.

"Lauren and I are trying to stay inside in our villa as much as possible and comply with social distancing," he wrote.

"It sucks but if everyone does their part, the quicker this will be over!"

The post caused some of his 2.7 million followers to lash out, responding with comments like: "Things could be worse, mate." ...

Coronavirus: State surveillance 'a price worth paying'

A major increase in state surveillance is a "price worth paying" to beat Covid-19, a UK think tank says.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), founded by the former prime minister, says it could offer an "escape route" from the crisis.

In a report, the Institute argues the public must accept a level of intrusion that would normally "be out of the question in liberal democracies".

The rollout of contact-tracing apps has provoked a global debate.

The paper argues all governments must choose one of three undesirable outc ...

Coronavirus: What is contact tracing and how does it work?

Governments around the world are proposing contact tracing as a way of limiting the spread of coronavirus after lockdown.

Contact tracing can be done from memory, but smartphones apps that can automate the process have also been developed.

BBC Click's Chris Fox explains what contact tracing is, and some of the methods that have been proposed.

Coronavirus: YouTube bans 'medically unsubstantiated' content

YouTube has banned any coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts World Health Organization (WHO) advice.

The Google-owned service says it will remove anything it deems "medically unsubstantiated".

Chief executive Susan Wojcicki said the media giant wanted to stamp out "misinformation on the platform".

The move follows YouTube banning conspiracy theories falsely linking Covid-19 to 5G networks.

YouTube stars urge fans to stay at home
Coronavirus: Facebook launches UK Covid-19 symptom survey
Mrs Wojcicki made the re ...

Coronavirus: NHS contact-tracing app is tested at RAF base

The NHS is testing its forthcoming Covid-19 contact-tracing app at a Royal Air Force base in North Yorkshire.

It works by using Bluetooth signals to log when smartphone owners are close to each other - so if someone develops Covid-19 symptoms, an alert can be sent to other users they may have infected.

In its current state, it tells users either: "You're OK now," or: "You need to isolate yourself and stay at home."

The health secretary for England said the trials "are going well".

"The more people who sign up for this new ap ...

Musk says SpaceX is 'fixing' brightness from satellites

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said the company was "fixing" the brightness of his company's satellites.

Stargazers around the world and including many Britons have witnessed unusual constellations made up of the low earth orbit spacecraft.

SpaceX has been launching large batches of satellites as part of its Starlink project to improve global internet coverage.

The most recent launch took place on Wednesday.

Responding to a question about the brightness of the Starlink satellites on Twitter, Mr Musk said it was due to the angle of the satellites s ...

Fortnite reluctantly comes to Google Play store

Epic Games has released Fortnite on Google's Play app store after a long-running dispute with the tech giant.

The title had previously only been available to Android users outside of the marketplace. It means Google will get a cut of in-game purchases.

Google introduced opt-in security measures which block apps distributed via other means in March.

Epic said the move pushed it to release the game on Google's platform. Experts suggest the move will benefit players.

Fortnite is one of the world's most popular video games, attracting millions of players and view ...

DForce hacker returns $25m in 'stolen' crypto-currencies

A mystery hacker allegedly stole $25m (£20m) in crypto-currencies - and then returned the funds two days later.

Records show that funds in a variety of crypto-currencies were withdrawn from the DForce platform based in China.

A sum of $10m was taken in Ethereum, for example, while a further $10m was taken in digital coins tied to the US dollar and $4m in other coins.

Roughly the same amount has now been returned - although in a different mix of crypto-currencies.

DForce is an online service that allows users to make crypto-currency transactions with one anoth ...

Coronavirus: Apple and France in stand-off over contact-tracing app

France is pressing Apple to let its forthcoming coronavirus contract-tracing app work in the background on iPhones without building in the privacy measures the US company wants.

The country's digital minister confirmed the request in an interview given to Bloomberg.

France's system would let it glean more information about participating smartphone owners than Apple and its partner Google want to allow.

Privacy experts view it as a test case.

"Apple has no reason to agree to this demand and it would open the door to many other requests from other countrie ...

Netflix sign-ups jump during coronavirus lockdowns

Netflix has seen subscriber numbers surge this year, as lockdowns around the world keep people at home where they want to be entertained.

Almost 16 million people created accounts in the first three months of the year, the firm said.

That is almost double the new sign-ups it saw in the final months of 2019.

However, the streaming service, which is behind some multi-million dollar productions, said shutdowns have halted "almost all" filming around the world.

And sharp declines in the value of many currencies has meant new subscribers outside of the U ...

Mumsnet launches subscription plea in 'squeaky-bum time'

Mumsnet, the UK's biggest parent platform, has launched a subscription service following a steep decline in ad revenue.

The £4.99 monthly fee is not compulsory, and does not yet offer any bonus features, although Mumsnet said it would look at building extra tools.

Founder and CEO Justine Roberts said: "Frankly, it is squeaky-bum time."

She has taken a salary holiday and other staff have volunteered to reduce their hours, she added.

Ms Roberts said there had been "a great response" so far to the request, and said she did not want people to ...

The stealthy little drones that fly like insects

When Storm Ciara swept across the UK in February, Alex Caccia was strolling on Oxford's Port Meadow watching birds take to the air.

He marvelled at their indifference to high winds: "While airliners were grounded by the weather the birds couldn't care less!"

It was more than just a passing thought for Mr Caccia, who is the chief executive of Animal Dynamics, a technology start-up applying lessons from wildlife to drone design.

Formed in 2015 to pursue the science known as biomechanics, his company already has two drones to show for an intimate study of bird ...

Coronavirus: Why are there doubts over contact-tracing apps?

There are growing tensions over the best approach to coronavirus contact-tracing apps and whether or not the technology can live up to its promise.

Smartphone software is being developed to alert users when someone they were recently near becomes infected.

But the Ada Lovelace Institute has said there is "an absence of evidence" such tools are practical, accurate or technically capable.

Others stress the initiative must be backed up by an army of human checkers.

To further complicate matters, a schism has emerged among technologists working together ...

Facebook bans events that violate social distancing orders

Facebook has banned event listings that violate government social distancing policies.

On Monday, the social media giant removed the listing for anti-quarantine protests in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska.

The discussion sparked outrage from some including the son of President Donald Trump who claimed the company's move violated free speech.

Protests have been planned for across the US calling for the lifting of stay-at-home orders.

Facebook said it consulted with local governments and would only take down events that violated states' guidelines.

...

Facebook reveals Gaming app to rival Twitch and YouTube

Facebook has launched a dedicated gaming app earlier than planned, in its latest attempt to grow its presence in the online gaming world.

Facebook said the "accelerated" launch was a direct response to the Covid-19 lockdown.

The app lets users follow high-profile gamers, watch live gaming streams and leave comments without interacting with the rest of Facebook.

It also lets gamers broadcast their own smartphone screen.

While Facebook remains the largest social network on the planet, it has struggled to compete against dominant players Twitch and You ...

Coronavirus: AI steps up in battle against Covid-19

It feels as if a superhuman effort is needed to help ease the global pandemic killing so many.

Artificial intelligence may have been hyped - but when it comes to medicine, it already has a proven track record.

So can machine learning rise to this challenge of finding a cure for this terrible disease?

There is no shortage of companies trying to solve the dilemma.

Oxford-based Exscientia, the first to put an AI-discovered drug into human trial, is trawling through 15,000 drugs held by the Scripps research institute, in California.

And Healx, a Cambridge ...

Coronavirus: UK's first 'TikTok house' opens during outbreak

Six of the UK’s most popular TikTok content creators have moved in together and are trying to meet a surge in demand from teenagers in lockdown, despite some doubts about the timing.

The Bytehouse collective planned the move prior to the coronavirus pandemic and completed it before the UK lockdown on 23 March. It is the UK's first "TikTok house", a phenomenon already established in the US.

The video-makers are proceeding despite their families and others having expressed reservations about the timing of the initiative.

One industry expert has also suggested ...

Coronavirus: Will Covid-19 speed up the use of robots to replace human workers?

As a pandemic grips the world, a person could be forgiven if they had forgotten about another threat to humanity's way of life - the rise of robots.

For better or worse the robots are going to replace many humans in their jobs, analysts say, and the coronavirus outbreak is speeding up the process.

"People usually say they want a human element to their interactions but Covid-19 has changed that," says Martin Ford, a futurist who has written about the ways robots will be integrated into the economy in the coming decades.

"[Covid-19] is going to change co ...

Google blocking 18m coronavirus scam emails every day

Scammers are sending 18 million hoax emails about Covid-19 to Gmail users every day, according to Google.

The tech giant says the pandemic has led to an explosion of phishing attacks in which criminals try to trick users into revealing personal data.

The company said it was blocking more than 100 million phishing emails a day. Over the past week, almost a fifth were scam emails related to coronavirus.

The virus may now be the biggest phishing topic ever, tech firms say.

Google's Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people.

Individuals are being sent a huge va ...

Coronavirus: Electricity use up during day as nation works from home

Home energy use is up by up to 30% during the middle of the day, new analysis by energy firms reveals.

Much of the population is working from home and schools have closed, meaning home computers and televisions are busier than ever.

The highest peak is at lunchtime, when cooking is added to the power consumption of working from home.

But overall, the country is actually using less energy because of businesses being closed.

The National Grid reports that morning and afternoon electricity demand is down by nearly 20%. But most of that is due to lower demand fro ...

Tech Tent: Learning to code during lockdown

Could one of the few upsides to the current health crisis be that a generation of young people acquire new digital skills?

On this week's Tech Tent podcast, we hear how parents are using the lockdown to get children interested in coding.

Listen to the latest Tech Tent podcast on BBC Sounds
Listen live every Friday at 15.00 GMT on the BBC World Service
Take Ruth Moore and her sons Reuben and Jonah, aged eight and five.

Stuck at home in Oxford and looking to vary the boys' diet of schoolwork, Ruth - who, full disclosure, is my wife's niece - started think ...

Coronavirus: AI steps up in battle against Covid-19

It feels as if a superhuman effort is needed to help ease the global pandemic killing so many.

Artificial intelligence may have been hyped - but when it comes to medicine, it already has a proven track record.

So can machine learning rise to this challenge of finding a cure for this terrible disease?

There is no shortage of companies trying to solve the dilemma.

Oxford-based Exscientia, the first to put an AI-discovered drug into human trial, is trawling through 15,000 drugs held by the Scripps research institute, in California.

And Healx, a Cambridge ...

Google blocking 18m coronavirus scam emails every day

Scammers are sending 18 million hoax emails about Covid-19 to Gmail users every day, according to Google.

The tech giant says the pandemic has led to an explosion of phishing attacks in which criminals try to trick users into revealing personal data.

The company said it was blocking more than 100 million phishing emails a day. Over the past week, almost a fifth were scam emails related to coronavirus.

The virus may now be the biggest phishing topic ever, tech firms say.

Google's Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people.

Individuals are being sent a huge va ...

Coronavirus: NHS contact tracing app to target 80% of smartphone users

A contact-tracing app could help stop the coronavirus pandemic, but 80% of current smartphone owners would need to use it, say experts advising the NHS.

The University of Oxford's Big Data Institute has modelled a city of one million people to simulate the software's impact.

If there is lower uptake, academics say the app would still help slow the spread of Covid-19.

They add that letting people self-diagnose the illness could be critical.

That means users would only have to answer an on-screen questionnaire before being judged to be at significant risk of in ...

Coronavirus: Facebook alters virus policy after damning misinformation report

Facebook is changing how it treats Covid-19 misinformation after a damning report into its handling of the virus.

Users who have read, watched or shared false coronavirus content will receive a pop-up alert urging them to go the World Health Organisation's website.

A study had indicated Facebook was frequently failing to clamp down on false posts, particularly when they were in languages other than English.

Facebook said the research did not reflect the work it had done recently.

The California tech firm says it will start showing the messages at the top of n ...

Selena Gomez sues fashion game for 'using face'

Actress and singer Selena Gomez is suing the makers of a smartphone game, alleging they used her likeness without permission.

The Clothes Forever Styling Game app lets players dress celebrity avatars that resemble stars such as the Kardashians, Adele and Gomez.

But Gomez's legal action calls it "reprehensible" and a "gross violation" of her publicity rights.

And it asks for a jury trial to hear the case.

The app store describes Clothes Forever as the "hottest new fashion game".

"Kardashian, Gigi, Beyonce, Taylor and ...

TikTok bans under-16s from private messaging

New rules on the hugely popular TikTok app mean under-16s will no longer be allowed to send or receive direct messages.

It is the first time a major social-media platform has blocked private messaging by teenagers, on a global scale.

A survey by UK regulator Ofcom suggested TikTok was used by 13% of 12- to 15-year-olds last year.

Critics say the new rules will not stop children lying about their age online.

'Bold move'
Until now, all users have been able to send direct messages to others, when both accounts follow each other.

The change means t ...

Epic Games delays the release of Fortnite's new season

Epic Games has delayed the release of its new season of Fortnite until June.

Chapter 2, Season 3 of Fortnite was scheduled to be released in just two weeks, but the company said it would extend the current season instead.

Fortnite is one of the world's most popular video games, attracting millions of players and viewers.

Epic Games would not say why the delay had occurred or if it was related to coronavirus restrictions that have forced developers to work from home.

This is not the first time though that Fortnite has pushed back the release of a season.

Apple announces new iPhone SE to target mid-range market

Apple has announced a new iPhone SE, reviving a mid-market brand it had discontinued in 2018.

It resembles the form of 2016's iPhone 7 with a 4.7in screen, and a fingerprint ID sensor but not a depth camera for facial recognition.

It is powered by the same processor as the flagship iPhone 11 Pro, but lacks multiple rear cameras.

The handset costs the same as the original SE in the US, but is more expensive in other markets.

The iPhone SE is priced at $399 in the US and £419 in the UK.

One analyst said that having a mid-range phone again could help App ...

BT delays removal of Huawei from EE's core network by two years

Huawei's involvement in the most sensitive parts of EE's mobile network is to continue longer than planned.

In December 2018, owner BT said it would take just two years to remove Huawei equipment from its core network.

But it now says "100% of core mobile traffic" will be on its new Ericsson-built equipment by 2023, the government deadline announced in January 2020.

And it blames the government for also ruling 65% of the network's periphery must be rid of Huawei equipment too.

Huawei set for limited role in UK 5G networks
Huawei warns UK agai ...

Coronavirus: Apple tracks changes in travel behaviour

Apple has launched a tool that reveals changes in the travel behaviour of people who use its Maps app.

The Mobility Trends Report produces three daily percentage figures, showing how many fewer people are driving, walking and using public transport compared with on 13 January, before the coronavirus lockdowns came into effect.

It covers major cities and national figures for 63 countries. Hong Kong is included but not mainland China.

It follows a similar effort by Google.

Google's Covid-19 Community Mobility reports are arguably more detailed - they cover 130 ...

Coronavirus: 20 suspected phone mast attacks over Easter

The UK's mobile networks have reported a further 20 cases of phone masts being targeted in suspected arson attacks over the Easter weekend.

Trade group Mobile UK said it had been notified of incidents in England, Wales and Scotland.

One of the targeted sites provides mobile connectivity to a hospital in Birmingham.

The figure represents a lower incidence rate than had been the case the previous weekend.

Mobile UK added it had received no reports of staff being targeted over the period.

Attacks on 5G masts pre-date the coronavirus pandemic. But there a ...

Coronavirus: Apple tracks changes in travel behaviour

Apple has launched a tool that reveals changes in the travel behaviour of people who use its Maps app.

The Mobility Trends Report produces three daily percentage figures, showing how many fewer people are driving, walking and using public transport compared with on 13 January, before the coronavirus lockdowns came into effect.

It covers major cities and national figures for 63 countries. Hong Kong is included but not mainland China.

It follows a similar effort by Google.

Google's Covid-19 Community Mobility reports are arguably more detailed - they cover 130 ...

Epic Games delays the release of Fortnite's new season

Epic Games has delayed the release of its new season of Fortnite until June.

Chapter 2, Season 3 of Fortnite was scheduled to be released in just two weeks, but the company said it would extend the current season instead.

Fortnite is one of the world's most popular video games, attracting millions of players and viewers.

Epic Games would not say why the delay had occurred or if it was related to coronavirus restrictions that have forced developers to work from home.

This is not the first time though that Fortnite has pushed back the release of a season.

Coronavirus: Microsoft offers protection to healthcare staff

Microsoft will provide security tools to healthcare organisations around the world amid a spike in attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic.

AccountGuard will be free to healthcare, human rights, and humanitarian groups during the crisis.

The program tells users when Microsoft has detected an attack, and provides guidance on stopping it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been among the victims of attempted cyber-attacks over the last month.

MPs summon China-owned firm execs over security concerns
Coronavirus: Huawei urges UK not to make 5G U-turn aft ...

Coronavirus: Trump berates media at jaw-dropping briefing

On Monday morning I had a delivery to my apartment from the nearby off-licence - or liquor store, as they say over here.

And I put a jokey picture on Twitter of a bottle of gin and eight bottles of tonic, with the caption that at least I had the next week sorted.

After leaving the White House Briefing Room on Monday evening following a marathon two-hour 24-minute press conference, I felt I could have knocked off the whole lot in one sitting.

This has been the most dizzying, jaw dropping, eyeball popping, head spinning news conference I have ever attended. And I was a ...

Coronavirus: Raspberry Pi-powered ventilator to be tested in Colombia

A team in Colombia is to test a ventilator made with a Raspberry Pi computer and easy-to-source parts.

The design and computer code were posted online in March by a man in California, who had no prior experience at creating medical equipment.

Marco Mascorro, a robotics engineer, said he built the ventilator because knew the machines were in high demand to treat Covid-19.

His post prompted a flood of feedback from healthcare workers.

He has used the advice to make improvements.

"I am a true believer that technology can solve a lot of the problems ...

MPs summon China-owned firm execs over security concerns

A leading UK-based firm will be summoned on Tuesday by MPs to answer questions over security concerns.

There are concerns that the Chinese owner of Imagination Technologies has renewed efforts to transfer ownership of sensitive security software to companies controlled by China.

Lawmakers worry the coronavirus crisis is diverting attention from controversial technology transfers.

The fear is that networks in the UK, Europe and the US could be compromised.

Speaking to the BBC, Tom Tugendhat, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said he was concern ...

Coronavirus: Churches live-stream to reach worshipers

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, religion is offering spiritual calm for some.

But with mass gatherings banned, communities from many religions are unable to come together in the way they normally would.

As some Christians prepare to celebrate Easter Sunday, BBC Click’s Sophia Smith-Galer finds out how some churches are connecting with their congregations online.

Coronavirus: Apple and Google team up to contact trace Covid-19

Apple and Google are jointly developing technology to alert people if they have recently come into contact with others found to be infected with coronavirus.

They hope to initially help third-party contact-tracing apps run efficiently.

But ultimately, they aim to do away with the need to download dedicated apps, to encourage the practice.

The two companies believe their approach - designed to keep users, whose participation would be voluntary, anonymous - addresses privacy concerns.

Their contact-tracing method would work by using a smartphone's Bluetooth sig ...

Coronavirus: Phone and tablet donations help patients speak to families

People are donating tablet computers and mobile phones so hospital patients and care home residents can speak to family they may not see again.

Highly restrictive visiting policies - including visitor bans - have been imposed by health boards and local authorities because of coronavirus.

Sara Platt started a Facebook group which facilitates the donation of items to NHS staff, wards and patients.

Ms Platt said she had received emergency requests for the devices.

The NHS Kindness Wishlist Facebook group has gained more than 16,000 members in less than two weeks ...

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 'This is not just for the players of the original'

Cloud Strife and his iconic mop of spiked blonde hair emerge through the rising steam of an overcrowded city.

The main character of Final Fantasy 7 has his distinctive buster sword strapped to his back.

This time, however, he's not a pixelated image as seen in the 1997 PlayStation original - he's been fully rendered in life-like modern graphics.

It's been five years since gamers got a first glimpse of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, when the first trailer dropped.

The remake, which is out now, is a completely rebuilt version of a role-playing game that has sold m ...

Coronavirus: Airbnb restricts UK bookings to coronavirus key workers

Home rental firm Airbnb is to temporarily restrict UK bookings to key workers and “essential stays” because of the coronavirus crisis.

The firm said that the measure would last until at least 18 April.

Key workers - such as NHS and social care staff, and transport and food retail employees - can still book through a programme called Frontline Stays.

The decision comes after the government criticised opportunistic hosts.

The BBC had reported on Monday that some listings were letting customers use the “instant book” function without requiring them to be vetted. ...

Coronavirus: UK tech sector begs for help - but does it need it?

The UK's high-growth tech companies say they need help from the government to get through the coronavirus crisis - and at the moment they are not getting it.

That was the message of a letter to the chancellor from 12 leaders of some of the country's best-known tech businesses.

They include Babylon, Citymapper, Deliveroo and Improbable.

But just hours after the letter arrived at the Treasury, there is confusion about what it intends to achieve and some criticism - even from within the tech sector - of an appeal for government money from firms that may not actually nee ...

Coronavirus: Ofcom formally probes David Icke TV interview

The UK's media watchdog has launched a formal investigation into a TV network's broadcast of an interview with conspiracy theorist David Icke about coronavirus.

Ofcom acted after London Live screened the programme on Wednesday evening.

The regulator received more than 40 complaints following the broadcast.

It follows YouTube's introduction of stricter misinformation rules after a later interview with Mr Icke by the same team was streamed on its platform.

"We have assessed this programme, and we are concerned that it raises potential issues under our rule ...

Coronavirus: Google Duplex AI arrives in UK to ask about opening hours

Google’s AI phone assistant Duplex is contacting businesses across the UK and asking them what their coronavirus business hours are.

It is using the responses to update company listings shown on Google Search and Google Maps.

The Duplex AI assistant can be used by people in the US and New Zealand to make restaurant bookings and other reservations.

But those features are not yet coming to the UK.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post that Google was planning to start using Duplex “where possible” to contact businesses about opening times....

Coronavirus: Covid-19 detecting apps face teething problems

Two leading universities are trying to develop apps that listen to users' coughs and voices to predict whether they are infected with the coronavirus.

But the two projects are taking different approaches to privacy.

The Cambridge University effort seeks to keep volunteers anonymous, but says this is currently limiting its work.

Meanwhile, a team at Carnegie Mellon University says it is critical that users register themselves, but it has had to temporarily go offline.

The two initiatives are independent of one another.

Both rely on machine learning, a ...

Facebook and Samsung donate thousands of devices to NHS

Mobile giant Samsung is donating 2,000 smartphones to the NHS, for staff to use in Nightingale hospitals.

It will provide Galaxy XCover 4s phones, which are designed to be more robust and can be used while wearing gloves.

Samsung said NHS England had already ordered an extra 20,000 phones and tablets, which it had agreed to supply at cost price, without taking a profit.

Facebook is also donating 2,050 of its Portal video-calling screens.

The Portals are designed to enhance video chats by using artificial intelligence to keep callers in view as they move about ...

Coronavirus: Call for apps to get fake Covid-19 news button

Social networks need a dedicated button to flag up bogus coronavirus-related posts, an advocacy group has said.

The Campaign for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said the apps had "missed a trick" in combating the problem.

The call coincides with a study that indicates 46% of internet-using adults in the UK saw false or misleading information about the virus in the first week of the country's lockdown.

Ofcom said the figure rose to 58% among 18-to-24-year-olds.

The communications watchdog said the most common piece of false advice seen during the week ...

Tesla cuts staff pay as coronavirus halts production

Electric car-maker Tesla will reduce staff pay and put non-essential workers on furlough while production of its vehicles is stopped due to coronavirus.

Work at its factory in Fremont, California halted on 23 March.

In a letter to staff, the company said it hoped to resume operations on 4 May, "barring any significant changes".

Most remaining workers will face a pay cut of 10%, while director pay will be cut by 20% and vice-presidents and above will lose 30% of their salary.

The letter was shared with business news site CNBC.

Furloughing is ...

Zoom banned by Taiwan's government over China security fears

Zoom has been banned from government business in Taiwan in the latest setback for the hugely popular video-calling app.

It follows revelations that some Zoom traffic was "mistakenly" routed through China, which does not recognise Taiwan's independence.

Taiwan's government said public bodies should not use products with security concerns "such as Zoom".

But competitors like Google and Microsoft were acceptable, it said.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway rebel province, destined to be reunited with the mainland.

China links 'may mak ...

Coronavirus: YouTube tightens rules after David Icke 5G interview

YouTube has banned all conspiracy theory videos falsely linking coronavirus symptoms to 5G networks.

The Google-owned service will now delete videos violating the policy. It had previously limited itself to reducing the frequency it recommended them in its Up Next section.

The move follows a live-streamed interview with conspiracy theorist David Icke on Monday, in which he had linked the technology to the pandemic.

YouTube said the video would be wiped.

During the interview, Mr Icke falsely claimed there "is a link between 5G and this health crisis" ...

Coronavirus: Twitter boss pledges $1bn for relief effort

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and payment app Square, has said he will donate $1bn (£810m) towards efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Mr Dorsey, the donation represented approximately 28% of his wealth.

He made the announcement on Twitter, writing that the "needs are increasingly urgent".

Mr Dorsey did not lay out exactly where the funds would be sent to help in the battle against Covid-19.

In the US there is a shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment, and business and individuals are also struggling econ ...

Apps to help you stay social during lockdown

Having a social life while having to stay indoors could be a challenge.

BBC Click's Chris Fox comes to the rescue highlighting the apps and technology you can use to make a variety of video calls, play games with other people online, go dating and even share VR experiences.

Airbnb hosts defy lockdown laws with 'Covid-19 retreats'

Airbnb hosts advertising properties as coronavirus hideouts are "dangerous and irresponsible", the government says.

Owners have listed homes as being "Covid-19 retreats" and "perfect for isolating with family" in the British countryside.

New coronavirus laws say holiday accommodation should be provided only to keyworkers needing to self-isolate.

But some listings on the site allow instant booking of rentals without any vetting, BBC News discovered.

The properties advertised as places to self-isolate include an "idyllic cotta ...

Coronavirus: Offline sex workers forced to start again online

Most sex workers meet customers in person. For them, the coronavirus spells economic ruin.

"The virus is a disaster for client-facing businesses - and sex work is no different," says Goddess Cleo, a dominatrix from London.

"Most of my income is generated from one-on-one sessions and events. I [normally] only make a bit of money through online avenues."

But like many others, Cleo has switched focus to digital since the lockdown came into effect.

Online dominatrix Eva de Vil says: "There's lots of new girls joining the scene right now - ...

Short-form streaming app Quibi launches to rival Netflix

The mobile-first streaming service Quibi launched in the US on Monday, despite concerns the coronavirus outbreak might impact its viewership.

The company has raised $1.8bn (£1.47bn) for the project intended to rival Netflix and YouTube.

Quibi's shows are 10 minutes or shorter and movies are broken into segments.

It has lined up a host of Hollywood and showbiz stars including Idris Elba, Sophie Turner, Steven Spielberg, Chrissy Teigen and Jennifer Lopez.

Viewers are meant to watch the shows on their mobile phones, and a feature called Turnstile allows the vide ...

Coronavirus: Exercise bike firm Peloton stops live classes

Exercise bike company Peloton has cancelled its live classes, days after one of its employees tested positive for coronavirus.

It sells exercise bikes, the cheapest of which costs nearly £2,000, for use with its online classes.

Users must purchase a subscription for £39 a month to access both live-streamed and recorded classes.

Peloton emailed members to announce it had suspended production in its New York and London studios until 30 April.

Until May, members can only access pre-recorded classes.

“We had continued to operate both our New York and Lond ...

Pixar pioneers behind Toy Story animation win 'Nobel Prize' of computing

In the opening scene of Toy Story, released in 1995, a cluster of boxes is scattered across a child's bedroom. The sun streams into the room as a Mr Potato Head doll demands money from a seemingly stricken cast of plastic and plush toys outside a cardboard bank.

Into the picture arrives the hero - a cowboy sheriff made of plastic and fabric with a pull-string to make him speak. The sheriff casts a shadow over the villainous potato who flees from the law.

It's a scene plucked from a child's imagination. It was also the culmination of decades of development in computer animati ...

Coronavirus: Tech firms summoned over 'crackpot' 5G conspiracies

The culture secretary is to order social media companies to be more aggressive in their response to conspiracy theories linking 5G networks to the coronavirus pandemic.

Oliver Dowden plans to hold virtual meetings with representatives from several tech firms next week to discuss the matter.

It follows a number of 5G masts apparently being set on fire.

The issue will test the companies' commitments to free speech.

Earlier in the week, blazes were reported at masts in Birmingham, Liverpool and Melling in Merseyside.

A spokesman for Vodafone's mobile net ...

Coronavirus: Video games add 'stay at home' Covid-19 adverts

Three of the UK's leading video games developers are to display coronavirus safety advice within their titles.

Candy Crush Saga, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Sniper Elite 4 are among the games that will feature the messaging.

The initial ads will focus on the theme: "Stay home. Save lives."

Rebellion - one of the companies involved - also publishes 2000AD among other comics, and has also offered space in these for the government's campaign.

"I reached out to DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] a few days ago to say is there anything w ...

Coronavirus: 'Not smart' memo shows Amazon's union stance

Leaked notes from an internal Amazon meeting throw light on how executives are dealing with increased worker unrest during the Covid-19 crisis.

A lawyer suggested focusing on a sacked worker, who had organised a protest about safety in his New York warehouse.

Christian Smalls was described as "not smart, or articulate."

He should be the story, rather than the wider questions about conditions, the lawyer said.

According to the memo, seen by technology news website Vice and not disputed by Amazon, general counsel David Zapolsky advised: "He is no ...

Coronavirus: Garden centres switch to virtual personal shopping

Garden centres and nurseries are offering online personal shopping services to reduce wastage.

Companies have been livestreaming videos of their centres and FaceTiming and emailing customers to offer advice and guidance on orders during lockdown.

The industry has warned millions of plants, shrubs and trees could be thrown out in the coming weeks.

Some 2,000 garden centres and nurseries have been shut down at what is usually their busiest time of year.

Independent traders have said that adapting business to online orders, delivery and collection is enabling th ...

Zoom 'unsuitable' for government secrets, researchers say

The hugely popular video meetings app Zoom has "significant weaknesses" which might make it unsuitable for secrets.

A team at The Citizen Lab found that Zoom was using a non-standard type of encryption, and transmitting information through China.

Government use - such as Boris Johnson's use of the app for Cabinet meetings - may not be wise, the researchers warned.

But the app is fine for keeping in touch for most people, they said.

Until recently, Zoom was used mainly by large businesses for video conference calls. But the explosion in users during ...

Coronavirus: 'Not smart' memo shows Amazon's union stance

Leaked notes from an internal Amazon meeting throw light on how executives are dealing with increased worker unrest during the Covid-19 crisis.

A lawyer suggested focusing on a sacked worker, who had organised a protest about safety in his New York warehouse.

Christian Smalls was described as "not smart, or articulate."

He should be the story, rather than the wider questions about conditions, the lawyer said.

According to the memo, seen by technology news website Vice and not disputed by Amazon, general counsel David Zapolsky advised: "He is no ...

Coronavirus: Google reveals travel habits during the pandemic

Google is to publicly track people's movements over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.

The tech firm will publish details of the different types of places people are going to on a county-by-county basis in the UK, as well as similar data for 130 other countries.

The plan is to issue a regular updates with the figures referring back to activity from two or three days prior.

The company has promised that individuals' privacy will be preserved.

The readings are based on location data gathered via the Google Maps app or one of the firm's other mobile service ...

Zoom boss apologises for security issues and promises fixes

Zoom is to pause the development of any new features to concentrate on safety and privacy issues, in the wake of criticism from users of the app.

In a blog, the chief executive of the video conferencing app apologised for "falling short" on security issues and promised to address concerns.

He said that the use of Zoom had soared in ways he could never have foreseen prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

One security expert said he hoped the company culture would change.

Zoom is now being used by millions of people for work and leisure, as lockdowns are ...

Coronavirus: Privacy in a pandemic

These are strange times. Germany, perhaps the most privacy conscious nation on earth, is considering a mobile phone app that would trace the contacts of anyone infected with Covid-19.

Earlier this week the British Prime Minister shared a picture of an online Cabinet meeting, complete with the Zoom meeting ID and the usernames of ministers. And millions of us are sharing views of our kitchens over this and other video-conferencing apps, without apparently being too concerned about poor privacy controls.

Meanwhile, the National Health Service in England has sent out a document ...

Coronavirus threatens the next generation of smartphones

Every Autumn, Mazen Kourouche heads to the biggest Apple Store in Sydney, Australia, and queues up for hours to be one of the first people in the world to get his hands on the latest iPhone.

"Since the iPhone 7 came out I've been lining up for the new Apple devices for a few reasons: firstly the hype associated with them, secondly because of the resale value, and thirdly because Australia is the first country to get access to the devices, so people are interested in hearing about it," he says.

According to Mr Kourouche, who develops software for the iPhone operatin ...

Coronavirus: Israeli spyware firm pitches to be Covid-19 saviour

A controversial Israeli cyber-security company is marketing software that uses mobile phone data to monitor and predict the spread of the coronavirus.

NSO Group says it is in talks with governments around the world, and claims some are already testing it.

The surveillance software-maker is being sued by WhatsApp for allegedly sending malware to the phones of human rights activists and journalists.

It has denied that allegation "in the strongest possible terms".

The company also faces a lawsuit in which it is accused of supplying software to the Saud ...

Coronavirus: Moscow rolls out patient-tracking app

Moscow is launching an app to track the movements of people in the capital diagnosed with coronavirus, who have been ordered to stay at home.

The city's IT chief said the service would become operational on Thursday.

The move coincides with a separate initiative to help European health authorities create virus-tracing apps that communicate with each other. This could help relax border restrictions.

Germany is expected to announce its own app that ties into the scheme shortly.

NHSX, which is working on something similar for the UK, has been in communication wi ...

Amazon Prime allows in-app purchases for Apple users

Amazon has begun allowing iPhone and Apple TV users to make in-app purchases and rent movies and shows from Amazon Prime.

The move is a reversal for Amazon which had forced Prime users to leave the app and go to Amazon's website via a browser to make purchases.

It is also a change for Apple which will allow Amazon to use its own payment system.

The changes apply to Amazon Prime users in the US, UK and Germany.

People using iPhones, iPads and iPod touches as well as Apple TVs began to see the changes on Wednesday.

A message from Amazon alerted users to ...

UK government defends PM's use of Zoom

The UK government has defended using Zoom to hold cabinet video conferences.

Questions had been raised about potential security risks after the prime minister tweeted a picture in which a meeting ID was visible.

"In the current unprecedented circumstances, the need for effective channels of communication is vital," a government spokeswoman told BBC News

A source added the app was quick to set up between the varying systems used by different government departments.

Over time, a more coherent system was expected to be introduced, the person said.

Coronavirus: Racist 'zoombombing' at virtual synagogue

A synagogue service being held online has been hijacked by racist accounts which posted anti-Semitic abuse to congregants, the BBC has learned.

The meeting was being held on video chat app Zoom.

"Zoombombing" - where uninvited guests enter meetings - is on the rise as more people use the app to stay in touch during the coronavirus restrictions.

Experts advised people to secure meetings against intruders.

A BBC employee who attended the meeting at a synagogue in London explained what happened: "There were about 205 of us logged on - including lo ...

Apple buys weather app Dark Sky

Apple has purchased the weather predicting app Dark Sky and plans to shut down the Android and Wear OS versions.

Dark Sky is known for its hyper-local weather predictions and ability to forecast minute by minute.

The app's creator Adam Grossman said the partnership would allow Dark Sky to reach "far more people".

Owners of Android phones or wearable devices not made by Apple will have access to the services until 1 July.

On social media, many users complained about Apple's decision to remove Dark Sky from Android.

Coronavirus: 3D-printer owners rally to create NHS face masks

Some 1,400 3D-printer owners have pledged to use their machines to help make face shields for the NHS.

Started by palliative-medicine doctor James Coxon, the 3DCrowd UK group is now looking to recruit more volunteers.

It says thousands of its 3D-printed masks have already been made and donated to hospitals, GPs, pharmacies, paramedics and social-care practices.

Healthcare workers say they are having to put themselves at risk because of a lack of personal protective equipment.

“We are basically asking all the people around the country with 3D printers to join ...

Coronavirus: Racist 'zoombombing' at virtual synagogue

A synagogue service being held online has been hijacked by racist accounts which posted anti-Semitic abuse to congregants, the BBC has learned.

The meeting was being held on video chat app Zoom.

"Zoombombing" - where uninvited guests enter meetings - is on the rise as more people use the app to stay in touch during the coronavirus restrictions.

Experts advised people to secure meetings against intruders.

A BBC employee who attended the meeting at a synagogue in London explained what happened: "There were about 205 of us logged on - including lo ...

Coronavirus: UK considers virus-tracing app to ease lockdown

A coronavirus app that alerts people if they have recently been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus "could play a critical role" in limiting lockdowns, scientists advising the government have said.

The location-tracking tech would enable a week's worth of manual detective work to be done in an instant, they say.

But the academics say no-one should be forced to enrol - at least initially.

UK health chiefs have confirmed they are exploring the idea.

"NHSX is looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking an ...

Coronavirus: Fake news crackdown by UK government

The government is cracking down on misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

A rapid response unit within the Cabinet Office is working with social media firms to remove fake news and harmful content.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said action was needed "to stem the spread of falsehoods and rumours, which could cost lives".

The specialist unit is dealing with as many as 10 incidents each day.

It will try to tackle a range of issues online, such as fake "experts" issuing false medical information and criminals running phishing scams. ...

Coronavirus: Tech firm Bloom Energy fixes broken US ventilators

A Californian company that usually makes green-energy fuel cells is due to deliver 170 repaired ventilators to Los Angeles later on Monday after transforming its manufacturing process.

An engineer at Bloom Energy downloaded the service manual and taught himself how to dismantle and rebuild them in a day, the Los Angeles Times reported.

They had been in storage since the H5N1 bird flu outbreak of the mid-2000s.

Bloom says it is now working to find other stockpiles of disused machines.

On Saturday, as California Governor Gavin Newsom visited the manufacturing p ...

Coronavirus: Start-ups use Zoom app to lay off staff

Tech start-ups worldwide are cutting jobs as the coronavirus pandemic undermines their ability to make money.

To make matters worse for staff, they are not being told face to face.

Electric scooter-maker Bird axed about 400 posts on Friday, about 30% of its staff. And the Californian company used a Zoom conference call to tell them.

Zoom can connect up to 1,000 users on a single call - but many of the workers were unable to log on and found out via messages from colleagues posted online.

Details of Bird's lay-offs first emerged via a second-hand report on Twi ...

Coronavirus: YouTube stars urge fans to stay at home

More than 100 YouTube stars have recorded a video message urging their fans to "stay home" during the coronavirus outbreak.

The video is introduced by entertainer JJ Olatunji, known online as KSI, who has more than 21 million subscribers on the video clip platform.

"We're here looking to spread awareness on the UK government's current advice to stay at home," he says.

The video was posted by the Sidemen, who have 7.6 million subscribers.

The group, which KSI is part of, came up with the idea for the montage themselves.

Skip Youtube ...

Coronavirus: What if this had happened in 2005?

We are living through the most disruptive period in our nation's history since the end of the war.

I just about remember seeing the newsflash about President Kennedy being shot. The fall of the Berlin wall and 9/11 are seared in my memory. But nothing compares to this pandemic in terms of the impact on everyday life.

But as I spend my day holding video-conferencing sessions with colleagues, FaceTiming my son and granddaughter stuck in a flat across London, and updating my various social networks, one thing strikes me: what if this had happened in 2005, just before the smartp ...

Coronavirus: YouTube stars urge fans to stay at home

More than 100 YouTube stars have recorded a video message urging their fans to "stay home" during the coronavirus outbreak.

The video is introduced by entertainer JJ Olatunji, known online as KSI, who has more than 21 million subscribers on the video clip platform.

"We're here looking to spread awareness on the UK government's current advice to stay at home," he says.

The video was posted by the Sidemen, who have 7.6 million subscribers.

The group, which KSI is part of, came up with the idea for the montage themselves.

As well as Y ...

Coronavirus: NHS turns to big tech to tackle Covid-19 hot spots

The NHS has confirmed it is teaming up with leading tech firms to ensure critical medical equipment is available to the facilities most in need during the coronavirus outbreak.

It blogged the firms would create computer dashboard screens to show the spread of the virus and the healthcare system's ability to deal with it.

These will draw on data gathered via 111 calls and Covid-19 test results.

The first should be made available to government decision-makers next week.

Four tech firms were named in the blog. Three are US-based: Microsoft, Google and Palantir. ...

Manufacturers cast doubt on ventilator target

The UK may not have all the ventilators it needs by the time coronavirus cases in the country reach their peak, engineering firms warned.

Health officials expect the UK to experience its highest number of infections in around two weeks' time.

The UK has just over 8,000 ventilators, significantly fewer than the 30,000 the government estimates are needed to cope with the fallout from the peak.

Manufacturers told the BBC they cannot produce enough to meet that deadline.

However, one firm involved in the plans to produce the life-saving machines, said that by ear ...

Coronavirus: Zoom is in everyone's living room - how safe is it?

Zoom, the video-conferencing app that has seen a huge rise in downloads since quarantines were imposed around the world, is now being used by millions for work and social gatherings.

This week Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a picture of himself chairing a Cabinet meeting via the app.

This led to questions about how secure it was for government meetings.

Zoom has angrily defended its security record, saying it would answer any questions the government had.

A 3D-printed ventilator designed for Spain's coronavirus patients

A Spanish team has rapidly designed an emergency-use ventilator out of 3D-printed parts.

It hopes the device will soon be approved to help the country's coronavirus patients.

Coronavirus: What if this had happened in 2005?

We are living through the most disruptive period in our nation's history since the end of the war.

I just about remember seeing the newsflash about President Kennedy being shot. The fall of the Berlin wall and 9/11 are seared in my memory. But nothing compares to this pandemic in terms of the impact on everyday life.

But as I spend my day holding video-conferencing sessions with colleagues, FaceTiming my son and granddaughter stuck in a flat across London, and updating my various social networks, one thing strikes me: what if this had happened in 2005, just before the smartp ...

Coronavirus: Tesla donates hundreds of ventilators to New York

Elon Musk has promised to provide New York with hundreds of ventilators to help meet demand from the growing coronavirus outbreak.

The Tesla chief executive said the first batch of donated machines would be delivered later on Friday.

The ventilators were purchased from US government-approved manufacturers in China.

The mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio thanked Mr Musk on Twitter writing "We're deeply grateful."

"We need every ventilator we can get our hands on these next few weeks to save lives," he tweeted.

The ventilators wil ...

Huawei P40 flagship phones launch amid Covid-19 crisis

Huawei has launched a range of new flagship smartphones despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The firm unveiled the P40 phones a day after the firm's founder announced that 90% of the company's 150,000 China-based employees had returned to work.

But experts say demand for the handsets will likely be weak outside of its home market, at least in the short-term.

They say many consumers and businesses are focused on buying laptops, PCs and tablets if they are spending at all.

"Smartphones are not a priority and certainly not premium ones," commented Marta P ...

The uncertain future for China's electric car makers

Han Zhu is on a mission to go green. The 29-year-old data analyst wants her next car to be electric. But her reasons for buying an electric vehicle are in part practical.

In the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, government restrictions on the number of petrol cars sold each year mean she would have to enter a lottery or auction to be able to buy a petrol vehicle.

"There is a possibility you may never get it. With the electric vehicle green licence, you don't have to wait in line," she says.

Shenzhen has become the showpiece capital for the Chinese electric ...

Coronavirus: NHS uses tech giants to plan crisis response