If you are targeted by a WhatsApp spammer or get numerous calls and/or texts from specific numbers, you might want to block the number. Fortunately on both Android and iOS (iPhone) it is a fairly easy task.
Let us walk you through.
Blocking calls and text messages on Android
Android smartphones come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and brands, which might make it a little bit harder to find exactly what you are looking for. With these tips you should, however, find the right setting in most of the Samsung Galaxy phones as well as several other manufacturers' devices.
Whether you want to block a number from your contacts or a previously unknown number, you should open up the Phone app. On the top right corner you should find the menu (three dots), click Settings (in some cases Contacts Manager).
In this menu you should find an option called Blocked numbers which should have a list of your currently blocked numbers, and an option to add a new number to the list.
After the number is added to the list, you should no longer receive either texts or calls from that number.
Blocking calls and text messages on iPhone On all the iPhones, no matter the generation, the blocking of numbers is done in the same fashion. If you have already received a call or a text message from the number you want to block, open the Phone app (or Messages) and select the number to block from Recents list.
World's largest social media platform, Facebook, is constantly looking for new ways to monetize its user base of two billion. Now the company is negotiating with HBO to delivering pay TV to customers.
If negotiations go as planned, Facebook intends to sell and deliver Facebook users with HBO and other pay TV content. This might happen as soon as next year, Recode reports.
Facebook is somewhat late to the party, the likes of Google with YouTube are already selling TV subscriptions and delivering TV on their internet platforms.
Probably the hardest part of the equation is that cable companies want to promote their own platforms, and deliver exclusive content on there alone.
In addition to YouTube, competitors include Amazon with Prime Video and Apple, who are planning to revamp their TV service with exclusive content as well as content from cable companies.
Facebook has been in discussions with at least Showtime and Starz in addition to HBO.
For years upon years processors have been built largely in the same fashion. Technology has improved the precision and nanometers are chipping away as companies perfect techniques to built smaller and smaller chips.
Intel has learned it can built the transistors in three dimensional space rather than just placing them next to each other in a level plane of silicon (like in the picture).
As simple as it may seem, previously building transistors on top of each other hasn't been easily accessible. The new technology Intel calls Foveros could unlock a true breakthrough in chip manufacturing, Wired reports.
It uses the same kind of technique used already in memory chips, where three dimensional manufacturing has been achieved. Foveros allows chips to include different kinds of chips in system-on-chips – for example modem, GPU or CPU – to be stacked.
This saves space which translates to more efficiency and more performance in the real life, especially in applications like mobile computing.
Foveros also allowes Intel to customize the layout for different kind of requirements and isn't stuck to one chip setup.
Intel's lead in the desktop CPU space has been sufficient that there hasn't been any major strides made in the past few years. Perhaps it is feeling the pressure of Ryzens now, as next year's update seems more interesting.
The chip manufacturer has announced next year's new CPU architecture that is known as Sunny Cove. Sunny Cove brings along a significant upgrade as it is the first desktop CPU Intel produces with 10nm technology.
This improves the efficiency in a multitude of ways, one of which will be the compression performance. Intel claims that the upcoming processors improve on compression speeds by up to 75 percent over previous generation chips.
Performance improvements can be seen also in cryptography, including of course both encryption and decryption.
Architecturally Sunny Cove is a close cousin of Skylake but there are some important distinctions that make it perform better. Intel has improved it to perform instructions better in parallel and with lower latency.
Also the L1 cache has been increased by 50%.
The architecture is now out but there is still no actual CPUs to talk about. Intel is promising first Core branded Sunny Cove chips to be revealed in the latter half of 2019.
It was iPad that was supposed to be the savior of the press whose beloved paper was in deep decline already in 2010 when Steve Jobs introduced the tablet.
Virtual newspapers never caught on like many anticipated, and most of the news money has flown to internet conglomerates. A total of six billion dollars has disappeared from newspaper revenue in just three years in the States.
Apple is looking to grab some of the money in transition, and, according to Bloomberg, has a new service in development.
The Cupertino giant has been slowly inching its way towards content business, and especially subscription services. Apple Music was the biggest move, similar things are happening in the video entertainment space, and now Apple is planning to release a subscription news service.
Apple acquired Texture, a digital magazine service, last March which might be the basis the upcoming subscription service is built upon. According to the information, Apple intends to include the new service as a premium option inside its current Apple News app.
The guess is that Apple will launch new subscription news service in the spring of 2019.
Puma introduced a futuristic running shoe in the 80s it called the RS-Computer. The company called these their first computerized running shoes.
The product was meant for serious runners who wanted data, such as distance travelled and calories spent, from their running efforts. Now Puma has been struck by a retro spark as they are re-releasing the RS-Computer to the market.
The new edition of Puma RS-Computer look almost identical to the original ones, and there's still the awkward bump in the back for the computer part.
Obviously this would no longer be needed in "computerized shoes" as technology can fit in much smaller spaces, but Puma has decided to respect the original retro look from the 1980s.
Puma has, however, updated the tech. There's now a three-axis accelerometer for improved movement recognition, LED indicators, one USB port for charging, and Bluetooth for wireless connectivity.
The release of the new RS-Computer is set for December 13, but there will only be 86 pairs sold, so unless you are really lucky, or wealthy. You might want to look elsewhere.
Perhaps Adidas will bring their first ever computerized shoes, the original Adidas Micropacer, back from 1984.
Mozilla has released a new update to their web browser Firefox. The new versio, v64.0, doesn't bring any major features, but there is a few new features and plenty of other improvements.
This includes improvements to performance and easier performance management. You'll now find a new Task Manager page from about:performance, which allows you to get a better picture of power consumption by tab.
New enhanced tab management on the other hand allows you to select multiple tabs from the tab bar and close, move, bookmark, or pin them quickly.
Mozilla has also improved the recommendations engine that will now suggest new and relevant Firefox features, services, and extensions based on how you use the web. This feature is only enabled in regular browsing and doesn't affect private browsing.
Other updates include changes to web developer tools including WebVR support and macOS keyboard fixes among other things.
As the year closes to an end, Google has released their traditional list of top searches for the year. There's a clear trend, and it's a rather gloomy one.
Good news don't seem to be anywhere, so it is not a surprise that many of the top spots in Google searches were celebrities that died this year.
Whether it was the untimely death of a 28-year-old DJ Avicii, the suicide of troubled chef Anthony Bourdain or the unfortunate although more expected passing of a legendary Stan Lee, top ten was filled with demise.
Google, however, took the results to a different direction in their video "Year in Search 2018" where they did feature few of the celebrities that passed this year, including Stephen Hawking and Anthony Bourdain. The video is more hopeful and focuses on people searching for good things, which apparently they did more than ever.
The top spot was taken by World Cup, which was held in Russia this year, and the only other non-person taking a spot in top 10 was the movie Black Panther. News category included searches like Royal Wedding, Hurricane Florence, and Election Results.
You can find more about the top global searches here.
OnePlus held a launch event today in Woking, UK where it joined McLaren in their McLaren Technology Centre to unveil the latest and most definitely greatest smartphone to date.
New OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition is a take on the company's current flagship where speed is bumped up even further. For those who don't know much about the latest OnePlus device, it is focused on speed already.
The new McLaren Edition comes with a tagline Salute to Speed, and brings a few more improvements to quickness. While the main chip is the same Snapdragon 845, there is an improvement on RAM.
The McLaren version has a whopping 10 gigabytes of random access memory, an upgrade to an already impressive 8 GB on the regular OnePlus 6T. OnePlus has been pushing boundaries in RAM for years now, and they seem to be determined to be on the leading edge.
In addition to speeding up the multitasking with more RAM, the OnePlus 6T McLaren has a new Warp Charge 30 technology, which charges the phone with lightning speed.
OnePlus 6T is already one of the fastest charging phones on the planet, and this might make the new version the ultimate champion in charging speeds.
It means that only a 20 minute charge will top the battery with a day's power, this usually means with OnePlus phones 60 to 70% charge, without even heating the phone excessively.
Google revealed two months ago that it was time to shut down their social media platform Google+.
For years Google+ has been considered a dead platform, even though it still has some 100 million users. In October, the search giant announced that it would close Google+ by next August.
Now, after learning about a security hole in Google+ code, they've decided that it should be run down quicker than originally intended.
New schedule is that Google+ will shut down four months earlier in April, 2019. The reason of closure is still the low usage base, but after finding a bug in the code last month that could pose a threat to information security, Google wants to limit the chances of any kind of breach.
The bug was fixes on the spot, and there is no known abuses of the security hole it created. The bug gave app developers access to users' data that wasn't meant public, including names, birth dates and email addresses.
Obviously Google+ has not been the company's priority for quite some time, and thus there's a worry that other bugs might be found, too.
Apple and Qualcomm have been duking it out in the court rooms over patents. It used to be Apple and Samsung but nowadays American chip manufacturer is Apple's key rival, it seems.
Now a court in China has ruled against Apple in a case regarding two patents, WSJ reports. This will potentially bring a halt to some iPhone imports.
Fortunately ruling does not affect the most recent iPhone generation, but all the models from iPhone 6s to last years iPhone X are under threat of not being allowed to be sold in the country.
The case was about software patents so nothing physical on the device is disallowing the sales of the iPhones, and Apple could change their operating system to accommodate the patents.
One of the patents has to do with resizing a picture and another app management using a touch screen.
Apple stressed that this is just Qualcomm's ploy to misdirect from its own wrongdoings. The court battle will continue indefinitely and more rulings and appeals are expected.
For now Apple seems confident, and claims that all its iPhone models will stay on sale.
Windows has been the operating system of choice for computers almost since its inception but Microsoft has never managed to scale it down to lighter, smaller, and less powerful devices in the same way.
Whether it is Windows Mobile, Windows RT, or even the latest Windows 10 S for more portable computers, Microsoft's lighter OS offerings have never gotten popular.
Microsoft has a new ace up its sleeve, according to Petri.com.
This time around it is known as Windows 10 Lite, and according to the information it is designed from the ground up to dethrone Chromebooks as the go to cheap computers.
Windows 10 Lite is supposedly designed to run with low power, turn instantly on and be always connected in the same way as ChromeOS. It replaces Windows 10 S, which is upgradeable to full-fledged Windows 10.
There is no word on whether Windows 10 Lite is also upgradeable as well, but seeing that it doesn't support traditional Windows executables, only UWP and PWA apps, it seems obvious that it is a completely separate experience.
Also, it will likely not be sold separately. Only OEMs will have access to it for it to be pre-installed, which makes sense.
All the major smartphone events for the year are long gone, except for a Nokia event today in Dubai, so it is perhaps time to start focusing on next years early offerings.
Qualcomm agrees and has today announced new products that will land on many of the upcoming year's greatest smartphones.
At their Snapdragon Summit in Maui, the company is debuting the new top-of-the-line Snapdragon system-on-chip and other products.
The new Snapdragon 855 is, of course, Qualcomm's flagship product and will be heading to dozens of top notch Android smartphones next year. So what can we expect?
Well, first off Qualcomm calls it "the world's first commercial mobile platform supporting multi-gigabit 5G." In addition to supporting 5G it will improve AI performance up to 3x.
According to TechCrunch, Qualcomm is also designing a designated gamer version of the chip called "Snapdragon Elite Gaming", although other details are still not revealed.
Another interesting announcement out of Maui is a new ultasonic fingerprint sensor, which will likely be seen in the upcoming Galaxy S10, just like the new Snapdragon chip.
Ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint sensors are promising to be faster than last years in-screen sensors. In addition it should work even when the finger or display are dirty is the screen has a screen protector, TechCrunch reports.
One of the largest Q&A website in the world, Quora, has been hacked. The company has released a statement saying that an unauthorized entry was made an attained user information from the database.
A security breach by a malicious source resulted in leakage of information from approximately 100 million user accounts. That's a third of the websites 300 million user base.
According to the company, they've hired a security team to help them investigate the breach, informed the law enforcement, and are in the process of informing all affected users.
The leaked date includes personal information such as names, email addresses, encrypted (hashed) passwords, and data imported from linked networks when authorized by users.
The database that was breached also stored the questions, comments, answers as well as private messages.
Quora has logged out all affected users and reset the passwords for users that use password as an authentication method.
No social security numbers, credit card information or other extremely sensitive information were stored on Quora's databases.
Quora believes it has found the security hole but the investigation is still on-going.
Microsoft is taking big steps to renew Windows 10 and some of its core apps and functions. Updating the iconography of Office, and eventually entire Windows 10, is one of the most recent steps.
New updates, due next year, to PowerPoint on the other hand will bring new AI functions. This means that PowerPoint will support real-time translating.
Real-time translating is used to generate captions for slides from one language to another. You can use it also to turn your speech into caption in the same language.
To easily make a more inclusive presentation, you can switch the translation depending on the audience and thus use the same slides for different audiences.
Microsoft is also bringing the real-time translation and subtitling to Skype calls which might be an even more useful feature.
Real-time translating is said to arrive in January 2019, and it will land on both Windows and Mac, as well as the cloud version, Office 365.
If you are targeted by a WhatsApp spammer or get numerous calls and/or texts from specific numbers, you might want to block the number. Fortunately on both Android and iOS (iPhone) it is a fairly easy task.
World's largest social media platform, Facebook, is constantly looking for new ways to monetize its user base of two billion. Now the company is negotiating with HBO to delivering pay TV to customers.
For years upon years processors have been built largely in the same fashion. Technology has improved the precision and nanometers are chipping away as companies perfect techniques to built smaller and smaller chips.
