Popular open-source video player, VLC, has been updated to v3.0.1 version.
The new version is mostly a bug fix release after the player's major v3.0 release recently. This version improves HEVC video playback support on macOS, Android and iOS platforms. It also speeds up and fixes issues with Chromecast support on all platforms, including Windows.
Furthermore, MKV seeking is finally significantly faster. There's also bunch of minor bugs that have been fixed, like the one that caused the software to crash after closing it on some Windows versions.
You can download the Windows versions from AfterDawn's own download servers:
Samsung has today revealed the next generation of Galaxy S smartphones. As expected the Galaxy S9 and its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S9+, retain much of the design from their predecessors, but there are a few key differences and why you might want to buy one of them.
The new flagships have the same glass sandwich design with aluminum body. The buttons (even Bixby), connectors, and speakers seem to be exactly where they were, but there's one minor but oh-so-important change in the design. Samsung has moved the fingerprint reader from next to the camera to below the camera, which might have been the single most requested change to the predecessor.
Design aside there's plenty to talk about about the new phones. Upgraded CPU, now Snapdragon 845, is more powerful and energy efficient, the phone has stereo speakers thanks to earpiece acting as another speaker, and you can extend the fairly limited 64GB now up to 400GB with a microSD card.
Those aren't huge changes, though, and differences are miniscule in display tech as well. Galaxy S9 has the same 5.8" and S9+ the 6.2" QHD+ AMOLED display as previous models. IP68 dust and water resistance is intact as well.
When it comes to camera, however, you have major improvements, or distinctions at least. The Galaxy S9+ has a dual camera setup with zoom capabilities thanks to a wide and telephoto lens. But the magic is found even in the single camera on the smaller Galaxy S9.
Nokia has been back with a vengeance for the past year or two releasing Android phones for many different price points. They even brought back a classic from year 2000, the 3110, in last year's Mobile World Congress.
This time around Nokia revived the banana phone that was made famous not only by its iconic design but The Matrix. HMD Global, the company behind today's Nokia Android phones, has just concluded its MWC keynote where it announced a slew of new phones.
The most surprising was definitely the new Nokia 8110 4G. This new banana phone is 4G enabled , as you might imagine from the name, and features a little bit improved specs compared to the original one, although reaching the operator might not be as easy.
It has a 2 megapixel camera, 2.45 inch 240 by 320 color display, 4GB of storage space, half a gig of RAM, and a Snapdragon 205 chip. It runs a feature phone OS but you wouldn't expect Android with those specs, right? All this is fairly irrelevant, though, since you won't be buying the phone for its specs, you are going to get it because it looks awesome in either black or yellow of course, so here are some pics:
Microsoft made it fairly clear last summer that it's not really interested in Windows phones any more by dropping support from almost all Lumia models. Just days later, IDC's figures revealed why: Windows 10 marketshare was 0.1% in Q1 of 2017 fiscal year.
However, Windows Latest, a site focusing on Windows content as you might imagine, has revealed something very, very interesting. They've noticed that Microsoft's website sells multiple Lumia models currently.
One might think there's probably a mistake, perhaps some kind of accidental rollback in the store section of the website. No, the phones are actually for sale, and according to Microsoft have been for a little bit.
SpaceX and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has quit an artificial intelligence ethics group that he originally co-founded.
Having once said that AI is the biggest existential threat to humanity, Musk was part of the formation of OpenAI. The research group aims to promote and develop non-threatening artificial intelligence for the betterment of humanity.
Musk and others founded and donated money to the group largely due to concerns over the use of AI for destructive purposes, such as automous killer robots.
The decision to quit OpenAI is down to a potential future conflict of interest, as Tesla is developing its own artificial intelligence technology for its self-driving vehicles push. However, Musk will continue to donate and advise and OpenAI group.
Concerns have been raised about a potential arms race using emerging artificial intelligence technology.
Disney has been dealt a blow in its copyright lawsuit movie rental firm Redbox, which sought to halt the firm from reselling digital movie download codes.
Redbox is a kiosk movie rental service. It places thousouds of its DVD rental kiosks in public allowing customers to pick up a DVD copy of a film. Among its collection are many Disney films, which it purchased in retail DVD format.
Those retail Disney DVDs also come with an attachment digital movie download code, which can be redeemed for a free digital download of the same film on DVD. Redbox decided to repackage these download codes and sell them separately, prompting a lawsuit from Disney.
The entertainment conglomarate cited language on the packaging that states the download codes are not for resale or for transfer, but a California judge disagrees.
Judge Pregerson said that the wording on the packaging does not constitute an enforceable contract between the parties, and agreed with Redbox' assertion that Disney is misuing copyright.
A hearing in March will consider Redbox' motion to dismiss the case.
BitTorrent and its lighter version, uTorrent have a serious security flaw.
Google researcher found a technique that allows attackers to direct DNS requests to user's computer, allowing to spoof the download sources, download files, add them to startup folder and more.
All versions of uTorrent and BitTorrent are affected and bug is only fixed in latest beta.
"On December 4, 2017, we were made aware of several vulnerabilities in the uTorrent and BitTorrent Windows desktop clients. We began work immediately to address the issue. Our fix is complete and is available in the most recent beta release (build 3.5.3.44352 released on 16 Feb 2018). This week, we will begin to deliver it to our installed base of users. All users will be updated with the fix automatically over the following days. The nature of the exploit is such that an attacker could craft a URL that would cause actions to trigger in the client without the user's consent (e.g. adding a torrent).
BitTorrent was also made aware yesterday that it's new beta product, uTorrent Web, is vulnerable to a similar bug. "
You can download the latest beta of uTorrent from our software section:
'My PlayStation' is the new social destination on the Web for your PlayStation profile.
You can now login to the official PlayStation website and access My PlayStation from a link in the top right corner. This will bring you to a Facebook-like (though much more minimalist in appearance) profile. From here, you can access key PSN features from your web browser; Find friends, edit your PSN profile, view Trophies and more.
Previously you would have to do these things from your PS4 console or from an app on a mobile device. My PlayStation works with most major web browsers on Windows 10, MacOS 10, iOS 10 or above, Android 5 or above.
You can view your own Trophies and compare to those of your contacts, or send direct messages, too.
My PlayStation on the web is very minimalist and blank in appearance for the time being, but Sony promises it will continue to enhance and add more features to My PlayStation on a regular basis.
Tesla is investigating a reported hack of its cloud computing platform in order to stealthy mine cryptocurrency.
The all-electric automaker is assuring customers that there has been no hack or breach of customer data or of their vehicles. Instead, the instrustion seems to have been limited to internally used engineering test cars.
The breach was discovered and reported to Tesla by RedLock, and stems from the leak of login credentials to Tesla's Amazon Web Services environment. It was traced to a Kubernetes console, a system designed by Google for application management.
Cryptojacking - the practice of hacking computer systems and networks and mining cryptocurrency from their processing power - is become more common with interest in digital currencies at an all-time high. Past corporate victims of such attacks include Starbucks and even YouTube.
Cryptocurrency mining requires a lot of processing power, which in turn consumes a lot of electricity. Hackers can pass the cost extra electrical costs onto victims and mine digital currency using their systems without their knowledge or consent.
Apple has pushed updates across all of its devices to stop devices from crashing when processing a specific Telugu character.
A character from the native Indian language was found to cause Apple devices to freeze due to a memory corruption error. When the flaw became public, pranksters used text messages, social media and even Uber to cause devices to encounter the rare character and freeze.
Apple has issued updates for iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, smartwatches and TV boxes.
The latest version of iOS is 11.2.6.
The latest version of macOS is 10.13.3.
The latest version of tvOS is 11.2.6.
The latest version of watchOS is 4.2.3.
The problem was discovered by the developers of the Aloha mobile browser and reported on February 12.
Samsung breaks the storage capacity record for a single solid state drive with a new 30.72TB drive for enterprise solutions.
It had previously broken the world record in 2016 with a 15.36TB SSD. The new PM1643 drive is built on Samsung's latest V-NAND technology with 64-layer, 3-bit 512-gigabit (Gb) chips, delivering twice the capacity and performance of the previous 15.3TB line-up.
The PM1643 comprises 32 of the new 1TB NAND flash packages, each comprised of 16 stacked layers of 512Gb V-NAND chips, packed into the 2.5-inch frame.
Based on a 12Gb/s SAS interface, the new PM1643 drive features random read and write speeds of up to 400,000 IOPS and 50,000 IOPS, and sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,100MB/s and 1,700 MB/s, respectively.
"With our launch of the 30.72TB SSD, we are once again shattering the enterprise storage capacity barrier, and in the process, opening up new horizons for ultra-high capacity storage systems worldwide," said Jaesoo Han, executive vice president, Memory Sales & Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics.
"Samsung will continue to move aggressively in meeting the shifting demand toward SSDs over 10TB and at the same time, accelerating adoption of our trail-blazing storage solutions in a new age of enterprise systems."
If you are a proper PC gamer then you consider Intel a CPU manufacturer and only a CPU manufacturer. However, obviously the company does a lot more and it includes GPUs.
However, the Intel GPUs are nothing to write home about in terms of gaming prowess, so you probably have ignored what they can do altogether. Obviously they are improving in performance year after year, and might even be able to run some less graphics intensive games.
Intel definitely believes that, and that is why they've released new drivers for their integrated graphics chips that includes optimization engine for games. The new v15.65 Windows drivers now come with a Graphics Control Panel, not entirely unlike Nvidia's GeForce Experience for example, that provides automatic game optimization.
Currently the feature is limited to Skylake, that is the 6th generation CPUs and integrated HD Graphics 620, and newer. According to PC World this includes the new AMD's Radeon Vega powered 8th gen Kaby Lake G setups which obviously are far better at gaming.
The feature is still in beta so results will most definitely vary but you should be able to use it for at least the following games: Battlefield 1, Battlefield 4, American Truck Simulator, Call of Duty WWII, Destiny 2, DOTA 2, Grand Theft Auto V, League of Legends, Overwatch, World of Tanks, Fortnite, Battle Royale, They Are Billions, Lost Sphear, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, OK KO: Let's Play Heroes, Subnautica, Legrand Legacy, Tale of the Fatebounds, and Dragon Ball FighterZ.
While many people prefer to read the news via browser, some prefer apps instead. Thus, we've finally released our own AfterDawn news app for Android.
Our app supports all Android versions starting from Android v4.4 and behaves in both landspace and portrait mode, on phones and larger tablets. This app is for news consumption only: you can browse and read our news - latest news or even the really, really old news items back to the 1990s.
For those of you who prefer to have a quick look at the headlines, we also have a widget (that comes in three different color themes: dark, light and transparent to suit your homescreen background) that displays the latest headlines from our site.
Every year Apple takes home nearly every penny of global smartphone profits. Thanks to huge margins no one has been able to replicate, it only leaves crumbles to Samsung and others. Obviously Samsung is competing in number of smartphones but most of them are way cheaper and barely make them any money.
However, what are the actual revenue numbers? How far behind is Samsung, and others, in terms of pure monetary value of smartphones sold? Well, very far.
A new report from Strategy Analytics has revealed the revenues of last quarter of the 2016 fiscal year. The numbers are very much in favor of Apple, which shouldn't really be a surprise for the largest company in the world by market cap.
Apple racked a total of 51 percent or $61.4 billion of the historically large smartphone market revenue of $120.2 billion. As mentioned, the gap between Apple and the second place holder, Samsung, was very wide.
However, Samsung, like Huawei on third place, managed to enlarge their slices of the pie. Samsung's share was 15.7% and Huawei's 7% with $18.9 billion and $8.4 billion respectively.
Everything comes down to the average prices really. As a typical smartphone manufacturer gets away with $200, maybe $300, average price, Apple manages to sell a phone with the average price of 800 dollars.
Google's Chrome web browser started blocking ads on February 15, 2018. It comes into effect for all of its billions of users, without any extensions, plug-ins or settings to tweak with. Ad blocking for all Chrome users, on by default.
This might sound weird given that Google is the largest ad company in the world: almost all of its massive revenue comes from ads. But there's a logic behind all of this. Google figured out that the reason why Joe Average ever installs a third-party ad blocker is because of the annoying ads, and not simply because Joe hates ads in general. He hates those that obstruct his web browsing and/or annoy him. The problem is that most third-party ad blockers, when installed, block everything from all the websites in the world. So you get frustrated because the hobby site you're visiting has auto-play, audio-on video ads in every corner and install a third-party ad blocker. The result? You block every ad from every site you visit. Sure, you could adjust the settings to allow ads through for specific sites, but only a handful of people ever do that.
Google's thinking is this: If we can remove the annoying ads, people will be happy with the remaining, non-obstructive ads. So, they developed their own ad blocker and built it directly into Chrome.
A few days ago a new, and fairly severe, iOS bug was revealed. The problem occurs system wide but especially plagues the messaging and email apps, and crashes either the app itself or the entire operating system.
The problem is rather simple: iOS receives a text message, instant message or an email with a symbol from the Telugu language, a language spoken in India by some tens of millions, and can't compute it.
If the symbol is shown in a notification it will crash the phone and you'll have to reboot. If it is shown on iMessage, WhatsApp, or Gmail for example, it crashes the app and you'll have to reboot the app and somehow get rid of the message.
Now, that seems like a simple fix since it only happens with this specific symbol. And there is a fairly simple solution: iOS 11.3. However, the newest version of iOS is only available for the beta testers currently, but fortunately a fix will be coming "soon" according to Apple, The Verge reports.
Apple is not expediting iOS 11.3, though, which includes plenty of other updates that are still under development. Instead you'll be getting a midway update, perhaps something like 11.2.6, which would be the slightest update over current 11.2.5.
Apple's latest iteration of iPhone, or the greatest one should say since iPhone X and iPhone 8 were released simultaneously, utilizes a new type of camera setup. However, it's not the back camera, mostly used for photographs that was significantly improved.
The front-facing camera, the selfie shooter, was upgraded with never-before-seen technology that Apple's marketing team calls TrueDepth. It allowed Apple to get away with the fingerprint sensor, Touch ID, and rely solely on identification via facial recognition.
Face ID couldn't have been done without the innovations behind the TrueDepth camera. Obviously there are face recognition implementations that are available on Android, and are faster too, but they aren't nearly as accurate, or more importantly secure.
You can, however, use the 3D camera tech for other things too. Forget that Apple decided to showcase it by introducing animojis, the animated emojis that follow your facial motions, there is so much more you could do with a 3D mapping camera.
And thus analysts believe that Apple is going to expand the TrueDepth capabilities to iPhone's back camera, Apple Insider reports. The Cupertino-based company is said to be developing new versions of TrueDepth camera that could bring for example AR experiences to a new level.
Sony is seeking similar success it had with its holiday PlayStation VR discounts with a new temporary price cut.
PlayStation VR prices are being cut by $100 temporarily as Sony seeks to clear out winter stocks. The promotion will run from February 18 to March 3. Under the deal you can purchase the standalone PlayStation VR headset for $199.99 during the time period.
You can also purchase the PlayStation VR Doom VFR Bundle, including the PlayStation VR headset, PlayStation Camera, the PS VR Demo Disc 2.0 and the Doom VFR Blu-ray Disc. The bundle would set you back $299.99 MSRP.
Alternatively, you can get the PlayStation VR Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR Bundle with the PS VR headset, PlayStation Camera, two PlayStation Move controllers, the PS VR Demo Disc 2.0 and Skyrim VR (+ addons). During the promo the bundle will sell for $349.99 MSRP.
There are also reports that you can pick up the Gran Turismo Sport bundle for just $199.99, but availability would be an issue if true.
Microsoft has posted another update on its official Windows blog about future Windows 10 builds. The post reveals new emojis but also touches on what is a new power scheme for workstations.
The new mode found in the Power settings of Windows 10 is called Ultimate Performance, and does exactly what you would imagine a setting by that name would do. It makes sure that the operating systems takes advantage of as much of your hardware as possible. Currently Windows 10 includes a High Performance power mode but the new mode will further improve efficacy.
According to Microsoft, Ultimate Performance is developed from High Performance by "eliminate micro-latencies associated with fine grained power management techniques" which means that it could likely result in consuming more power.
Unfortunately not everyone will be able to use the new setting as it is limited to a single Windows 10 version. Ultimate Performance can be used only in Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.
Microsoft says that the update is due somewhere in March or April.
Windows 10 Pro for Workstations on tarkoitettu ympäristöihin, joissa käsitellään paljon isoja data-aineistoja ja tehdään vaativaa laskentaa edellyttäviä tehtäviä. Kotiolosuhteisiin tai edes pelikoneisiin sitä ei ole tarkoitettu lainkaan.
Last year a new virtual reality, or more aptly Augmented Reality, startup was introduced. The company calls itself Magic Leap and has been developing an AR headset that is poised to revolutionize mixed reality content.
In Decembe, Magic Leap revealed what the glasses, and they do actually look like glasses this time around, will likely look like. As the above picture shows, Magic Leap headset has a very unique look with two lenses, and displays, as well as myriad of cameras and other sensors.
Now the CEO and founder of Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, has sat down with Recode and talked about the future. According to Abovitz, the headset will become available in a couple different setups that are meant for distinct price points.
He says current plans are that the most affordable, and thus the least feature rich, version of the AR headset will cost around the price of a high-end smartphone. One could argue that there are high-end smartphones that cost around $500 but many would bet safe and take the latest, and greatest, iPhone as a reference. So it is very possible that the cheapest version will retail $999 just like the iPhone X.
EA is now giving away the 2008 horror shooter classic Dead Space for free.
The offer is available only for limited time, but once you download the game, it will remain free forever. So, no gotchas there, other than the fact that you need to have an account with Origin in order to get the game.
Google plans to dramatically change the way email and your inbox works. With its AMP for Email project, Google is making email messages interactive, allowing users to perform various actions directly within the message.
With AMP for Email, each email message could have interactive features. One could, for example, book a flight directly within the email when receiving an offer from an airline. Or to reply to a discussion thread directly from within the email when receiving a notification about new messages in a subscribed forum thread.
Traditionally, actions such as these would require visiting an external webpage through a hyperlink. As Google focuses on making things as fast as possible, especially for mobile users, it makes sense to remove this additional step if you can.
The project is open source and obviously Google is hoping to get as wide support for it as it gained with its Accelerated Mobile Pages project. It is now open for developers and can be accessed/viewed if one has signed up for developer preview edition of Gmail.
Apple finally managed to release their smart speaker to the public last week. First shown to the public last summer, Apple HomePod, was supposed to be launched by Holiday season where it would wreck havoc, or that's what Apple hoped for at least.
Now that the device has landed on many reviewer's desks, it has been torn apart, although for now only figurative as we wait for JerryRigEverything or iFixit to grab one. A company by the name of Loup Ventures, that calls itself "a research-driven venture capital firm", has compared the new speaker and its assistant to the competition.
HomePod has been receiving quite a bit of criticism from reviewers for not having any connections or supporting Bluetooth. It also is not meant only for the most extreme Apple enthusiast, since it doesn't support Android phones or even really Apple Music competitors like the twice as popular Spotify.
However, most are very impressed with the sound quality that might not be as loud or as bass-y as on Google Home Max, but offers a really balanced good audio experience.
When it comes to comparing Siri, Loup's test seems to be the best so far. A fairly scientific test included a total of 782 inquiries on four of the most popular assistants on four different smart speakers. They had the Amazon's Echo with Alexa, Google Home with Google Assistant, Apple's HomePod with Siri, as well as a Harman Kardon Invoke with Microsoft's Cortana.
VLC, or as some may know it VideoLAN Client, has updated their app universally. The new versio of the popular media player has finally reached v3.0, and it brings some new and highly anticipated features.
The new versio is available for all VLC supported platforms, both mobile and desktop. You'll be able to enjoy HDR videos and support for hardware encoding is now available for all platforms. However, the most important new feature is probably support for Google's media device Chromecast.
People have been long requesting the feature to, what for many is, the ultimate media player. VLC has finally added a beta version of this feature to VLC 3.0, but unfortunately you can't take advantage it on all platforms.
Currently Google's Cast feature is available only on the Android and Chrome OS, while VLC is also available on Android TV, Linux, macOS, iOS, Apple TV, and Windows. Also not that as the feature is still in beta it means that you might encounter some problems and bugs.
Perhaps by v3.5 we'll have a more wide range of platforms to choose when it comes to Chromecast support and hopefully the beta label has been stripped.
A few days earlier Nvidia released their quarterly reports which happened to be a fairly nice read to those who've invested in the company. Revenue was up to a new record, $2.91 billion, and everything seems rosy.
However, while Nvidia might be dancing on rose petals there is an underlying issue that is stopping the company from getting an even sweeter result. As people buying a new PC, or at least a GPU, recently might have noticed, there seems to be a lack of graphics cards.
In many cases you can't just walk in to a store and get your preferred model off the shelf. You might have to wait a bit, weeks even.
Nvidia acknowledges, reports Polygon, that GPUs are few and far in between, which is obviously because demand has overtaken supply. The reason seems to be the cryptocurrency boom that really took off last year.
Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrency, miners are buying all the GPUs they can get their hands on if it means that they are able to make a profit. Extreme demand not only means that you aren't getting your GPUs as fast as you want, but you also have to pay more for them.
Android's default messaging apps are probably used by a minority small enough to fit on a palm of a regular sized human hand. Yes, no one uses them.
In most cases you either pick up WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger – both owned by Facebook, mind you – and only open up Messages, or whatever it's called, when absolutely necessary.
Now, this isn't the case on iOS. Apple has managed to capture many, perhaps even most, iPhone users with their iMessage. And I say capture, because it really limits their options moving forwards as there is no iMessage for Android, and likely never will.
So Apple knows that they have built a walled garden, with oh so delicious blue dots and off-putting green ones.
Obviously Google wants to be part of this messaging game. After all, Google wants to play all the games. However, every single approach since Gchat, later Hangouts, have been utter failures in the grand scheme of things. Google seems to be horrible at implementing social media and messaging.
Another try might be on the way, as Android Police have found proof, albeit very unofficial, about a new iteration of messaging on Android.
Google's crusade for a safer, more secure web has been taking place for years. Especially after the Snowden leaks everyone has been more interested of encrypted messaging and secure web traffic.
It is no surprise then that Google is about to take another step securing the entire web. The company has now announced on their Chromium blog that their upcoming browser will mark all HTTP sites as "not secure."
Starting with Chrome 68, Google's Chrome browsers will notify the user, albeit not intrusively, if they are using a website that doesn't support HTTPS connections. Currently Chrome does not inform the user about non-secure websites unless they click the information button next to the URL.
When users browse secure websites with HTTPS connection they are already notified that the connection is secure on the address bar.
Many popular websites have already transitioned to HTTPS, and that includes AfterDawn.com, but even on the top 100 websites 19 do not support HTTPS yet. Google tightening the noose around HTTP is bound to bring that closer to 100, and of course increase the overall HTTPS penetration, which currently stands at 68% on Windows and Android and 78% on Mac and Chrome OS.
Even though Google's mobile operating system, Android, is arguably not as open source as the company wants you to think, many of the building blocks of it, thanks to AOPS or Android Open Source Project, are everybody's game. This is not the case in Apple's world as most of iOS is completely closed off from anyone outside Apple.
This also means that changing how iOS operates requires some high-level hacking, and as many of us know jailbreaking is quite the hassle compared to Android. Thus it was probably quite a shock to Apple when they found out one of the most important, if not the most important, parts of iOS source code was leaked.
Motherboard reports that part of iOS source code found its way to GitHub, a hosting service for git version control often used for source code. This part, called iBoot, is the one responsible for starting up the device before the user has any control over it.
It's the same part that in Android devices is fairly accessible and it allows custom Android ROM's to be installed. One could imagine that hackers and jailbreakers are going to be enjoying a life of Riley.
According to reports, Google is developing its own game streaming service that would allow users to pay a monthly fee and play all the games available in the service. Basically a Spotify/Netflix meets gaming.
Streaming is apparently Google's choice rather than hopping into processing power competition against the likes of Sony and Microsoft. Games would be streamed over the internet and played with relatively cheap device.
Reports say that originally Google had thought about extending Chromecast to allow gaming, but now also the Android-based console is in the plans. Releasing its own Android-based console would put Google directly against the Nvidia's Shield and other Android-based gaming projects.
Project, codenamed Yeti, has been in works for some time now and was expected to be launched back in 2017, but has gone through series of rethinking ever since. Google recently hired a former Microsoft and Sony veteran, Phil Harrison to oversee the project.
The world's largest consumer electronic show, aptly name CES or Consumer Electronics Show, just ended few weeks ago and we're already approaching the largest mobile trade show, Mobile World Congress.
What we saw in terms of televisions at CES, although there was plenty more, we'll see in a few week about smartphones at MWC 2018. It usually starts with a bang as many of the biggest players on the market reveal their latest and greatest smartphones.
Last year, though, arguably the biggest of them all was missing as Galaxy S8 was released a month later in a standalone event. This year, Samsung returns to Barcelona's show floors with added flair as it is gearing up for the release of Galaxy S9.
Rumors and leaks around Galaxy S9 have been tightening the noose around the neck of Samsung's secrecy. Now, new leaks have revealed the devices, the normal and the plus-sized model, in full, and another set of rumors might reveal even the price point.
The duo of devices to be revealed on February 25th, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9, carry a very similar design. They seem to have the same glass sandwich design from last year, that is beautiful but fragile.
If you want to look for surprises, you could maybe call the camera setups one. The normal S9 has a single shooter, while the bigger one employs a dual-camera setup. Also Samsung has definitely learned a lesson with the fingerprint sensor, that was previously placed too high next to the camera. Perhaps the most complained about feature of last years model seems now fixed.
Adobe has announced that there's a "Level 1" security vulnerabiltiy in Adobe Flash plug-in.
The vulnerability allows attacker to gain control of the host computer. Adobe said it will publish a patcj on 5th of February to fix the issue. Meanwhile, it is recommended to avoid using Flash.
Vulnerability affects all major platforms, including:
Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime for Windows and Mac
Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS
Adobe Flash Player for Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 10 and 8.1
Kids nowadays might not even remember, but most of the music was sold in physical format still back in last decade or so. Actually, in 2001, the U.S. CD sales peaked at 800 million copies sold - having collapsed to mere 89 million in 2017.
During the CD's heyday, Best Buy was one of the major CD retailers in the U.S. Now, Best Buy has decided to cease selling CDs altogether as they generate only $40 in revenue. In June, CDs will disappear from all Best Buy stores across the U.S.
At the same time, another large retail chain, Target, is pressuring record labels to agree to buy back the unsold CDs it cannot sell through its stores. Traditionally, the unsold inventory has been retailer's problem, not labels' problem, but as CD sales continue to plummet, Target wants to change that.
According to IFPI's global stats, physical records still generate appx 34 percent of the global sales and are still somewhat strong in certain geographical areas, like in Japan and Germany. But digital revenue, driven by Spotify and YouTube grew as much as 177 percent in 2016 and are unlikely to slow down.
So, the concept of owning a physical piece of plastic that has music on it, is about to end. Sure, vinyl records and CDs will be made also in future. But you wont find those from local convenience stores, supermarkets or gas stations anymore. You have to find a specialist record store - physical one or an e-commerce site - to buy one.
Ever since the mid-December peak of nearly $20 000 Bitcoin has been in somewhat disorderly decline. It has dropped under $10 000 a few times this year already but it took the lowest dip today since mid-November.
Bitcoin price dropped shortly to under $8000 which it hasn't done since November 18 according to Coindesk. The year has not been good for Bitcoin so far, as even after a short recovery to over $17 000 in early January it has lost half of its value.
The drop under $8000 only lasted for an hour though, and now Bitcoin is again closing on $9000, but it is uncertain when, if ever, it will break again even the $10 000 barrier.
The price drop is attributed to Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck being raided as well as general atmosphere around increased regulations. Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency to have had a rough start to the year.
The top dollar for Bitcoin was recorded on December 18th when it hit approximately $19 500 per coin.
Last fall Google released their new data-saving YouTube Go app. If you are fortunate enough to have an unlimited data plan on your smartphone then this probably isn't the app for you – although one could argue there's still use for it – but many do not have such privilege and that's where YouTube Go might save you a small hunk of money.
YouTube Go is obviously a YouTube app that is meant for mainly developing countries where data is more precious than in the US or especially many part of Western Europe. Thus it is increasingly important that YouTube Go is available widely, and the new announcement from Google does just that.
Google has expanded the availability of YouTube Go to over 130 countries. Most of these new additions come from Southeast Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, as well as Africa.
The app supports downloading YouTube videos on your smartphone or on a SD card for offline viewing and you can share videos with people nearby with the help of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct.
If you'd like to try it out and have found a reason to use a data-saving, albeit a bit dumbed-down, version of YouTube, you can head to APK Mirror to download it unofficially.
Microsoft revealed last fall that it will soon introduce a new version of its super popular office suite. The selection of office programs is called Office 2019 and includes new versions of its iconic software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, SharePoint, Exchange, as well as Skype for Business.
Now it has been revealed that the new Office 2019 will not be available for any other version of the Windows family except for the newest iteration. This means that only Windows 10 and Windows 10S users will be able to use the latest and greatest Office tools.
No support is thus included for Windows 7 or even Windows 8.1 which is only four years old at this moment. You'll obviously still have the older version of Office to use or you can upgrade to Office 365 which offers online tools.
The preliminary version of Office 2019 will become available somewhere around summer but at this point we don't have an official, final release date. Microsoft will keep developing the tools until they're passing the company's quality checks after which they will release the final version of Office 2019.
Office for Mac is considered within Microsoft a different product and thus this restriction is not applied to products on Apple computers.
Apple has today released the latest quarterly results ending in December. The first quarter results for fiscal year 2018 have smashed both revenue and profit records of years past.
The quarter ending after the holidays resulted first time ever in revenue of more than $80 billion. The 13 percent rise in revenue meant a record-setting $88.3 billion figure largely thanks to the new high-end iPhone model, the iPhone X.
Another record was rewritten as Apple managed to break the streak of stalling profits as it first time ever passed the $20 billion mark. For three years Apple's profits have been hovering around $18 billion no matter the increase in revenue. Perhaps the introduction of a more expensive iPhone (iPhone X starting at $999) and thus improved margins were the most important factor in hiking up the profits.
This time around the profits increased almost as much as revenue – 12% vs 13%.
The revenue streams were very similar to past year's first quarter. The iPhone took approximately 70% share while the rest was divided more or less evenly (between iPad, Services, Mac, and Other) with Services leading the pack with nearly 10% and Other just topping 6%.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told that iPhone X popularity was a surprise even to them and it has managed to hold on to the title of the most popular iPhone to this day. He also revealed that the company soared past 1.3 billion devices in January, which means an increase of over 30 percent in just two years.
Popular open-source video player, VLC, has been updated to v3.0.1 version.
Samsung has today revealed the next generation of Galaxy S smartphones. As expected the Galaxy S9 and its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S9+, retain much of the design from their predecessors, but there are a few key differences and why you might want to buy one of them.
Nokia has been back with a vengeance for the past year or two releasing Android phones for many different price points. They even brought back a classic from year 2000, the 3110, in last year's Mobile World Congress.
