The journey of an Android-based crowd-funded open games console comes to an end on June 25.
In 2012, Ouya raised millions of dollars in a Kickstarter. The idea was appealing to many; an affordable games console that runs on open Android software and would be easy to develop video games and apps for. When it arrived, it was rough around the edges to say the least.
It some performance issues when trying to run games and owners complained about the usability of the controller, as well as a cheap-feeling finish.
In 2015, Ouya was bought by Razer which stopped sales of new Ouya consoles and incorporated the Ouya gaming content and platform into its Forge TV set-top-boxes instead. Ouya console owners could still enjoy support for the console however, but that's about to end.
Razer is discontinuing support for Forge TV and support for Ouya is going with it. After June 25, Ouya owners will only be able to play games they have already downloaded to the device. Razer will be deleting all user accounts permanently and halting all online services.
A federal grand jury in the United States returned an 18-count superseding indictment today charging Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with offenses related to one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.
Assange is currently serving a 50-week prison sentence in the United Kingdom for jumping bail, and is fighting an extradition request from the United States. The 47-year-old Australian made headlines worldwide from 2009 as Wikileaks published tens of thousands of classified documents and cables.
He had been staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for years before the Ecuadorian government revoked his asylum status in April, leading to his arrest by British authorities.
The United States sought Assange's extradition to face charges related to the acquisition of classified material. Assange is alleged to have actively encouraged and aided Chelsea Manning in obtaining tens of thousands of pieces of classified information which was later uploaded to Wikileaks.
In a press release outlining the charges, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges that Assange conspired with Manning to obtain classified information with reason to believe that the information was to be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of a foreign nation. It then alleges that Wikileaks published classified documents that contained the unredacted names of human sources who provided information to United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to U.S. State Department diplomats around the world.
Apple has agreed to warn users of older iPhone models about the potential performance impact from software in updates installed on the devices.
Apple was criticized in 2017 when it admitted that software updates installed on the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE models could impact overall device performance. The software was intended to manage demands on aging batteries in iPhones, impacting performance to deal with battery degradation.
Consumer protection authorities suggested that Apple should have made it clear that such throttling and management software was included in the updates. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) points out that consumers may have felt compelled to repair or replace devices due to the drop in performance after upgrading.
According to the CMA, Apple has committed to be clearler and more upfront about battery health and performance going forward, and said the company has already started being clearer to users on the issue.
The Cupertino-based firm was also fined by authorities in Italy last year over the same issue.
Google has made a couple of changes to its Search results pages that will deliver some additional information for the user.
When you search with Google, typically you get a ranked set of Search results in plain text (putting aside ads, image results etc.). While you can see part of the URL under the headline and snippet in the search result, Google wanted to make it clearer where the Search result is actually coming from.
For that purpose, Google has added the website logo and name to the top of each Search result card. In the case of ads, Google also now show a bold ad label and the URL.
Additionally, Google will also add actions to the Search result page, such as playing a podcast or purchasing a movie ticket. At the moment, the Search design changes are only rolling out for mobile devices so keep an eye out for them.
Under fire Chinese firm Huawei is dealt another major blow as chip designer ARM halts business activity with the firm.
The latest shock to hit Huawei comes after Intel and Qualcomm both ceased doing business with the company. Huawei licenses chip designs from ARM to fabricate processors and graphics technology for use in its smartphones.
"ARM is complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the U.S. government," an ARM spokesman said, reports Reuters. "No further comment at this time."
According to internal memos, ARM's designs contain technology with a U.S. origin, and so it believes it is affected by the Trump administrations ban on doing business with the Chinese tech giant.
Huawei reacted to the latest setback by saying it is confident that the situation will be resolved.
"We value our close relationships with our partners, but recognize the pressure some of them are under, as a result of politically motivated decisions," a Huawei spokesman said.
"We are confident this regrettable situation can be resolved and our priority remains to continue to deliver world-class technology and products to our customers around the world."
After yesterday's decision by Google to revoke Huawei's Android license, more bad news are piling for Huawei. Now, U.S. semiconductor giants Intel and Qualcomm have stopped supplying parts to Huawei.
Even though Huawei has its own chip manufacturing business that produced Kirin chips and others for mobile phones, the company still relies heavily on U.S. chips for most of its other products. Effectively, the decision by Qualcomm and Intel will mean that the Huawei's PC manufacturing business ceases to exist. Only U.S. companies produce chips needed to build x86 compatible computers, at least in scale that is required by a giant like Huawei.
Furthermore, some of the Huawei's phone models - especially those in the high end - use at least some U.S. -made chips - and this will mean trouble for those models, too.
The decision is based on U.S. administration putting Huawei officially to its trade blacklist on Thursday, making it illegal for any U.S. company to do business with Huawei.
Google has confirmed the yesterday's news about Google revoking Huawei's Android license.
Company said that the decision is based on United States adding Huawei officially to the country's trade blacklist on Thursday and that it is simply obeying the decision made by the U.S. It also states that the decision wont affect the current Huawei phones and that those will still have access to Google's services and updates. However, it is not clear whether the current Huawei phones will continue to receive Android updates or updates to Google services.
Huawei losing its Android license means that it has to rely on open sourced version of Android (AOSP) for its Android updates. This means that all new Android versions will arrive to Huawei models with considerable delay - sometimes the delays between the official Android update and AOSP update have been almost a year or so.
United States has waged a war against Chinese telecom giant Huawei for some time now. But now the big guys are joining the fight. According to reports, Google will stop all collaboration with Huawei.
Decision means that Huawei phones wont get any new Android updates, ever. It also means that all future Huawei phones will be blocked from accessing Google services. No access to Gmail, no access to Google Play store, etc.
Huawei will still have an access to open sourced versions of Android, but without the access to Google's proprietary services and APIs. Google will also cease all collaboration and support for Huawei that involves Android development and testing, Reuters' sources say.
Google's decision comes shortly after United States officially added Huawei to the U.S. trade blacklist.
Huawei also owns popular sister phone brand, Honor, and the decision applies to that brand, too.
Android offers a wide range of features that many of the competing platforms, including most importantly of course Apple's iOS, do not have.
One of these features is a traditional and feature rich file system that is easily accessible with built-in tools as well as 3rd party apps.
This allows downloading files to your smartphone's and tablet's memory, and further management of the files almost as easily as with a desktop or laptop computer. For example you can download media files from the web and manage them within the file system.
Note! This also means that you can download things that are harmful easier than on iOS devices.
While downloading is usually easy as clicking a link on a website, finding the file or document might not be as straight forward, especially if you aren't too familiar with Android.
Microsoft and Sony have been fighting in the console wars for nearly 20 years ever after the introduction of the original Xbox.
Xbox was of course competing against PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 against PlayStation 3, and now Xbox One has been duking it out against PlayStation 4. One would think that Microsoft and Sony are at this point archenemies of the highest order.
Well, turns out that the two companies can still agree on something, as they've just signed a cloud gaming and AI deal.
According to the new agreement, the companies join forces in developing cloud gaming systems on top of Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. This means that Sony's current cloud gaming service will use Microsoft Azure, and the development continues there.
Some parts of the Microsoft's upcoming cloud gaming platform, dubbed xCloud, might be used in Sony's services as well.
While the partnership seems out of ordinary for such long-standing competitors, it's clear that perhaps both have been worried about other competitors, whether it'd be Amazon with cloud services or Google with their new gaming service Stadia.
Yesterday Asus, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer mostly known for computers, announced their latest flagship smartphone. The company's new ZenFone 6 is mostly just a regular 2019 notch-less smartphone, but there is one very unique feature that distinguishes it from the rest.
First, let's get the specs out of the way. The phone comes with a 6.4-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD
display, Snapdragon 855, 6 or 8 gigs of RAM, and 64/128/256 GB storage options. Thus far, very familiar, right?
Well the phone also comes with a massive 5,000 mAh battery, which definitely should last a day, like fairly long into the second one as well, and maybe even whole 2 days that is marketed. But even more importantly the new ZenFone 6 features a new type of camera the company calls Flip Camera.
The came acts both as the default one in the back as well as the selfie shooter in the front. To achieve this, the company has built a mechanism that flips the camera over the top of the device.
The dual camera setup features a 48 MP Sony sensor, also used in the recently announced OnePlus 7 Pro, as well as a 13 megapixel and 125 degree wide angle camera. You can use both of them in both default as well as selfie mode.
One of the bigger tech patent disputes in recent years was the one between Apple and semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm. After problems with their modem partner Intel, Apple had to settle the differences, and get a modem deal with them, and pay $4.5 billion.
After this, and previous year Apple and Samsung settling, one of the more significant disputes that remained was between two of the current largest smartphone manufacturers by marketshare, Samsung and Huawei. The companies have been fighting over patents for three year, but now they have settled on a truce, Nikkei Asian Review reports.
Unfortunately there aren't clear details on how this went down, but the reports say that the dispute was settled in Guangdong High People's Court. The report speculates that this might be due to global challenges in the smartphone market, which both companies want to focus on.
It has to be said, though, that the tough markets haven't been a similar struggle to everyone. While Samsung hasn't been nosediving or in free fall, that figure of speech is definitely more appropriate with Apple. Huawei on the other hand has been thriving even in these circumstances.
The specialty glass manufacturer Corning has released a new product. The company is most known for its Gorilla Glass, which is found on most smartphones.
Multiple iterations of Gorilla Glass have found their ways from the original iPhone to almost every single smartphone on the market at the moment. Now after six generations of Gorilla Glass they have announced a new product called Corning Astra Glass.
The product is designed for larger devices, or as the company says "optimized for mid-to-large-size". This includes tablets, notebooks, and even TVs. The company specifically mentions "high-performance tablet" and "8K TVs", which makes the new glass sound expensive.
However, according to the press release, Astra Glass is indeed designed to support the higher pixel density of such devices, providing clarity for higher definition while keeping the properties of durability.
According to the director of business at Corning, Ham Yim, Astra Glass provides "low total pitch variation, low total thickness variation, and low sag" in an oxide display glass that is needed in 8K TVs.
Just a few months ago we wrote about the new microSD cards coming to the stores near you in the summer of 2019. Well, depending on where you live, the summer is here.
Those pinkie fingernail sized memory cards that can store a whopping one terabyte of data are now available. One of the leading flash memory brand, Sandisk, has announced that their new terabyte microSD card is in stores now.
Obviously not everyone is going to need a terabyte of storage in a such a tiny fashion, traditionally in a smartphone.
However, if you live on storage capacity on your mobile device, this will make your live much easier. That is, if you are willing to shell out around $450.
The specs are within the UHS Speed Class 3 (U3), which means it's fast enough for 4K video recording, which it might be the most useful for.
While you might not be up for paying hundreds of dollars for the largest commercial microSD card available, as with everything, the prices will eventually go down. Now it's just a matter of time when you'll have potentially one full day of 4K footage on your fingertips.
As Apple has been struggling to move as many iPhones as it did the previous year for a while now, the company has had to resort to a different avenue of increasing profits.
Apple has been developing more and more of its hardware in-house, this lowers the cost of the phone, increasing the profits of the device, and allows better customization. One of the remaining chips that is yet to turn into an Apple designed semiconductor are modems.
That is what the company has invested in the most recently. Issue, like ones with Intel and Qualcomm, furthermore make it important for Apple to advance in their quest for an in-house modem.
As Intel failed with their 5G deployment, and Qualcomm has already been an expensive partner for Apple, shareholders have hopes on a quick development in the Apple modem camp.
Unfortunately it might be that Apple isn't as far into development as some might have thought. Report by The Information suggests, that they are still ways off from inserting their own modem inside iPhone.
The journey of an Android-based crowd-funded open games console comes to an end on June 25.
A federal grand jury in the United States returned an 18-count superseding indictment today charging Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with offenses related to one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.
Apple has agreed to warn users of older iPhone models about the potential performance impact from software in updates installed on the devices.
