OnePlus will also employ the Turbo Write and Host Performance Booster technologies to further enhance the memory performance on the OnePlus 8 series.
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The changelog mentions one common update and that is March 2020 security patch.
The post OnePlus 7 series, 7T Pro 5G starts receiving OxygenOS update with March 2020 security patch appeared first on Pocketnow.
HUAWEI has reported solid business.
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Microsoft has unveiled major changes to its software offerings by rebranding existing consumer-facing Office 365 subscriptions with an all-new offering under the Microsoft 365 brand.
The new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans will be available on April 21, with users automatically carried over.
So far there's only US pricing available, with a single-user Personal account priced at $6.99 per month, and a Family subscription, which can be accessed by up to six users, costing $9.99 a month.
Microsoft says that around 38 million people worldwide currently subscribe to Office 365 across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. These users will be moved over to the new Microsoft 365 service soon, keeping the 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage per person at no extra cost.
Described as, "the subscription service for your life," the new offering still include access to the full suite of Office programs such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint, with Microsoft promising a number of new features gradually rolling over the coming months.
This includes a new Microsoft Family Safety app which will let families share their location, sending notifications when your family member leaves home, work, or school, as well as letting parents track driving routes to make sure kids arrive home safely.
The services, which will also be available as an iOS and Android app for Microsoft 365 subscribers, also lets parents manage screen time across Windows PCs, Android, and Xbox.
Microsoft Teams is also set to get a consumer-friendly makeover, allowing families to plan activities, trips and share their calendars together.
The new Teams will still allow for group chats, video calls and real-time collaboration, but instead of spreadsheets or business presentations, looks to help with items such as shopping lists and birthday planning.
Elsewhere, there is also a major update to Microsoft Editor, which can now offer rewriting suggestions to essays or dissertations. The service can now insert citations to existing works with just a click, helping cut down on plagiarism, allowing students and teachers a smoother editing experience.
For those that need to then present their documents, PowerPoint offers a new Presenter Coach feature, which looks to help make you a better public speaker. Offering feedback in real time, the tool monitors your tone of voice, speed of speaking and how often you stop or stutter in order to improve all aspects of your presentations.
Excel now makes it easier to manage finances and budgeting with a new Money in Excel feature. Developed alongside money management firm Plaid, this allows users to track spending, connecting to your bank accounts to bring in transactions and balances, as well as sending alerts on spending or changes.
Lastly, Outlook now allows users to link a personal calendar to your work calendar, making sure you never miss an appointment for family matters, and there's an Android launch for Play My Emails, which sees Cortana read out your messages, so you can catch up on emails hands-free, even when driving or travelling.
As their touted ‘holiday 2020’ release windows draw closer, we’re learning more and more about the PS5 and Xbox Series X - and this week we're seeing exactly why we can't believe 'leaked' PS5 prices.
As new console hype starts to build, gamers tend to look to their wallets next. However, despite a solid understanding of the consoles internal specs (if not the external design, in the case of the PS5), one vital factor still eludes us: the PS5 price.
The internet is rife with armchair economists doing the maths on what all these components will cost, and web-crawling sleuths spotting any sign of a pre-order page on retailers, and spouting the price tag as a coded message from the Sony and Microsoft gods on high.
But they can’t be trusted – and this week we've seen perfect evidence that retailers 'leaking' prices just should never be believed until Sony itself announces the cost.
Two leaks this week in particular have had the fanboys and fangirls in a frenzy over the PS5’s potential price – and both could not be more distant from each other.
First, a look at Danish retailer føtex. It’s listing the PlayStation 5 for a pre-order price of 6,989 Danish krone, which converts to around $1043/ £837. That’s an eye-watering price – especially compared to the PS4’s launch cost of $399 / £349.
Next up is Canadian retailer Play N Trade Vancouver Island, which has kicked off pre-orders for the PS5 at CA$559.99. That’s roughly US$396 or £318. Which by comparison to even the PS4 is an absolute steal. And as such, just as much of a shot in the dark as the Danish price tag.
It’s an obvious point, but the fact is that, until Sony (and for that matter, Microsoft) give an official word on the next-gen console pricing, we’ll be no surer of the price than if we’d asked the ‘psychic’ octopus that predicts sports scores.
The year 2020, as it progresses, is turning into one of the most difficult of all time to make economic predictions.
Though both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are said to be on course for their intended release dates, the Covid-19 pandemic is decimating workforces across the globe, and disrupting supply chains required to create any sort of gadgetry.
The knock-on effect to component prices, and potential shortages, is yet to be felt – and as such, yet to be reflected in a price tag.
Both Sony and Microsoft will likely wait until the very last minute to finalise pricing as a result, as they assess the most accurate projections on the margins they will achieve on their hardware sales.
It’s telling that there’s still yet to be a reveal of the PS5’s exterior design – and the coronavirus outbreak has almost undoubtedly disrupted plans to do so there, too.
As for the retailers, they’re just as eager for news as the gaming fans themselves, but for very different reasons. The sooner they can start listing a price, the sooner they can start saving money to allow for it.
They’ll be aware that the first run of stock for a new console often falls short of demand, and that gamers will be happy to stump up the cash early in order to guarantee a day-one machine.
Whether the price is higher or lower than the final RRP makes little difference – there will be T&Cs, in most cases, that keep both retailer and customer safe in the event of any huge discrepancy in cost. Retailers can tweak what they're demanding in terms of pricing to stay competitive once a set price is revealed, and gamers are unlikely to withdraw an order once placed for fear of missing out on inevitably low stock if they do so.
And so wildly varying pre-order price tags will remain the norm until Sony shows its true hand.
For now then, relax. We’ve got our own price estimations over at our PS5 news and rumors hub guide – and we’d be remiss if not to suggest that you take even our carefully-researched estimations with a pinch of salt.
The new BenQ TH685 projector is shaping up to be a great new AV option for console gaming in your home.
With an incredibly bright 3,500 lumens, 4K HDR projection, and 8.3ms input lag, the TH685 is designed to show off console games in vivid detail and colors – with any HDMI-connected console such as the PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch being easy to hook up to the projector.
The low input lag is the most notable spec here, given televisions often struggle to get below 20ms, and a larger lag means the gameplay isn’t as smooth and responsive to controller inputs as it could be.
Now retailing for $799 (around £650 / AU$1,300), the TH685 joins a long line of BenQ projectors for a variety of home entertainment needs. We recently reviewed the BenQ TK850, an almost-as-bright projector for sports viewing that comes with a specialized motion smooth algorithm – though even that model was more than capable for HDR gaming in the home.
In the US, the BenQ TH685 is currently available at Amazon, BestBuy, Projector People, B&H and Newegg in the US – with UK / AU pricing yet to be confirmed.
Fancy a sports-specific projector? Check out these BenQ TK850 deals below:
Since the HT3550 / W2700 projector model we reviewed last year, BenQ has supported HDR projection on a variety of devices, with its HDR Pro technology being compatible with HDR10 (the basic HDR format) and HLG (hybrid log gamma, the SDR/HDR broadcasting format).
Games are especially conducive to HDR viewing, given the uptick in vivid colors and enhancements to contrast – making enemies, NPCs (non-player characters), and environmental details stand out even clearer and livelier than before.
We expect the Xbox Series X to really lean into HDR gaming – even if this console generation was largely fought on 4K gaming instead.
As most of us find ourselves staying at home, people have increasingly been looking for entertainment options.
And what better entertainment then finding a new TV series you want to binge watch? Be it a reality TV series or a new Netflix original.
The issue is, due to the current global situation and pandemic, a couple of TV providers have (understandably) put a pause on deliveries for health and safety reasons. As they are attempting to socially distance themselves.
In fact, while you can still get broadband and TV deals from some providers, such as Virgin Media, Now TV and BT, TV alone has become a difficult package to obtain.
Instead, we've listed the best alternative TV packages available if you just need to get your movie fix in this time. And for those in need of broadband as well, you can find that further down.
Looking for broadband and TV? We've got you covered, whilst there may be far fewer providers installing just TV, there are plenty of others doing both. And they've got some pretty sweet deals and offers too, whether you're looking for freebies or superfast fibre, just scroll below to see the available deals.
Linux gaming could soon get better for those using Intel graphics on their PC, thanks to tweaks which have reportedly boosted performance by around 10%.
How has this happened? As Phoronix.com, that ever-present source of Linux info, reports, Jason Ekstrand – a member of Intel’s open source driver development team – has ported over an optimization taken from the ACO compiler (‘AMD COmpiler’, a project in which Valve is collaborating with AMD) to the Intel driver on Linux.
The resulting honed Intel driver is apparently delivering a 10% boost in frame-rates for some OpenGL and Vulkan games running under Linux.
Some of the games which have seen the most impressive increases in terms of running more smoothly include Doom, Shadow of Mordor, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider among others. According to Ekstrand, it’s the Tomb Raider games which have benefited the most.
With any luck, this work should be validated and included in a future driver from Intel.
This should be another promising step forward for gaming on Linux, then, at least for those who are using an Intel GPU (in other words, integrated graphics – although Intel does have discrete Xe graphics cards in the pipeline for the future at some point, which we’ve been hearing a lot about in recent times).
Of course, Valve has been pushing hard elsewhere in the Linux gaming arena, most notably with the release of Proton (back in 2018) for allowing Steam (Windows) games to be played on Linux systems with a minimum of overhead and performance loss.
Via PC Gamer
It could be launched in April.
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Huawei Technologies rotating Chairman Eric Xu said that 2020 will be the most difficult and challenging year for the company despite reporting a 19.1% increase in revenues and a 5.6% in net profit in 2019.
In a virtual press conference held in Shenzhen, he said that 2019 was a challenger year due to political headwinds.
“As we are a subject to US Entity List throughout this year, our supply inventory is running out and can it work in an effective way this year. On top of that, the outbreak of coronavirus is something unexpected and we don’t know how the demand is going to be due to economic downturn,” he said.
On May 16, Huawei was added to the Entity List by the US.
“In 2020, we will do all we can to continue to survive so that we can release our annual report next year,” he said.
Huawei reported a 19.1% year-over-year increase in revenue to 858.8b yuan ($121 billion) in 2019 compared to 721.2b yuan ($101.69) a year ago.
The company’s net profit grew 5.6% in yuan terms to 62.7b yuan ($8.8b) compared to 59.3b yuan ($8.36b) in 2018, compared to 25% increase a year ago.
“Consumer business grew rapidly and carrier business maintained steady growth while enterprise business growth slowed,” Xu said.
The Chinese firm’s consumer business, which includes smartphones, grew 34% in yuan terms to 467.3b yuan ($65.82b) in 2019 compared to 348.9b yuan ($49.15b) a year ago.
Huawei shipped more than 240m smartphones in 2019 compared to 206m devices a year ago.
Its carrier business, which sells core networking equipment for 5G cellular technologies, grew only 3.8% to 296.7b yuan ($41.8b) compared to 285.8b yuan ($40.26b) as it was not unable to acquire US parts and software or sell its products in the US.
The US, Australia, Japan and New Zealand have all blocked Huawei’s equipment to provide the 5G networks.
The telecom giant’s revenue from 5G last year stood at more than $3b, Xu said, as many countries did not deploy the cellular technology on a wide scale.
There are reports that the Trump administration is considering changing its regulations on Foreign Direct Product Rule to allow it to block shipments of chips to Huawei Technologies and seek US license before supplying Huawei from companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit, Apple and Qualcomm.
Regarding this, Xu said that Chinese government is not going to stand by and see Huawei get slaughtered on the chopping board.
“I believe that China will also take some counter measures. If the US chip ban happens, we and other Chinese companies can buy chipsets from Samsung and other companies in Japan. Even in the long term, Huawei was denied access to chip manufacturing but I believe that many Chinese companies will be working on manufacturing its own chipsets,” he said.
If the US changes its Foreign Direct Product Rule, he said that it will be destruction to the global technology ecosystem but does not believe it is true.
“If the Chinese government also takes countermeasures, you can imagine what kind of impact it would have on the industry. We hope that the global industry can work together, focus on the challenges and come up with trustworthy products,” he said.
He does not see a production impact in the short term as its production facilities have generally been restored after they were shut down in China due to coronavirus.
However, he said if the pandemic outside China could not be contained, then the company may face a long-term impact on its supply chain.
“It will cause long-term challenges and uncertainty over whether Huawei can continue to supply the market if supply shortages of components happen,” Xu said.
Huawei has invested 131.7b yuan, 15.3% of its sales revenues, on R&D in 2019 compared to 101.5b yuan, registering a 29.7% year-on-year increase in 2019.
“Patents held by Huawei grew by 16,243 in 2019 to more than 85,000 globally. 54% of its 2019 patents were granted in Europe and the US. In 2019, 11, 096 patents were granted outside of China,” Xu said.
Any government plan to use anonymised mobile phone location data to help tackle the spread of coronavirus would be legal, the UK privacy regulator has ruled.
Many countries are using location and satellite data to monitor citizen movements and tailor measures designed to control the outbreak. However this practice has raised security and privacy concerns, with some fearing governments could use the data to enable state surveillance.
Last week, several major European telecoms groups agreed to shared data with the EU, with the data deleted once the crisis is over, and reports have suggested the UK government is eager to follow suit.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said that the practice would be legal in the UK so long as data is not identifiable.
“Generalised location data trend analysis is helping to tackle the coronavirus crisis. Where this data is properly anonymised and aggregated, it does not fall under data protection law because no individual is identified,” said ICO Deputy Commissioner Steve Wood.
“In these circumstances, privacy laws are not breached as long as the appropriate safeguards are in place.
“The ICO has provided advice about how data protection law can continue to apply flexibly to protect lives and data. The safety and security of the public remains our primary concern. We will continue to work alongside Government to provide advice about the application of data protection law during these unprecedented times.”
Last week, the government took the unprecedented step of asking all four operators to send a text message to every mobile phone in the country. The message contained information about the new measures designed to tackle the spread of coronavirus.
The government lacks the capability to do this itself. Despite trials of an emergency warning system earlier in the decade, the system has never been implemented.
Sony doesn’t offer as many LCD sets as, say, Samsung – the world’s largest TV maker – but there’s still a smattering of LCD TVs here to get your eyes on, with the cheapest (X70) starting at just £599 for the 43-inch model.
The XH81 and XH80 are the more notable sets here, complete with Google Assistant / Alexa compatibility and a souped-up 4K HDR Processor X1. They don't quite have the processing chops of Sony’s higher-end OLED TVs, but still offer 4K resolution and support for the dynamic Dolby Vision HDR format. There’s support for Dolby Atmos audio, too.
These sets both come with the Google Play Store and Chromecast built-in as well, meaning you’ll have a range of streaming apps from Netflix to Disney Plus – though not Amazon Prime Video, sadly.
The XH81 starts at £699 for the 43-inch model, and is available in 49, 55, and 65-inch models too. The XH80 starts at £649 for the 43-inch TV size, and is available in 49, 55, 65, 75, and 85-inch sizes. 55-inch and larger models will come with a more advanced X-Balanced speaker system too (for both ranges).
The X70 will offer a step down in terms of picture quality and smart features – with a more basic “no frills” smart platform, though still with Netflix, YouTube, and an internet browser to use. It’s available in 43, 49, 55, and 65-inch sizes.
Microsoft is making a major change to the way Edge looks and works, which could be enough to tempt you away from Google Chrome.
At its annual Digital Briefing event, where it lays out its plans for its software over the coming year, Microsoft revealed several new features for the new Chromium-based Edge, including the ability to switch from vertical tabs along the top of the browser to vertical ones along the left-hand edge.
"If you are like me when you research online, you find yourself with dozens of tabs open at any given time," explained Liat Ben-Zur, corporate vice president of Microsoft Edge. "When that happens, there’s less space for me to see which tab is which. I find myself losing track or I’ll accidentally close a tab as a result. Utterly frustrating as that is usually exactly the one page I needed."
When you have a lot of tabs open horizontally, you may find yourself having to identify them by just a couple of letters of their title, or even just a favicon. Vertical tabs give more space for the title of each page, making them easier to navigate.
Edge isn't the first browser to offer vertical tabs (it's been an option in Vivaldi, another browser based on Chromium) for many years) but it's the first time we've seen it as an option in a mainstream browser.
Vertical tabs will be appearing on Microsoft Edge Insider channels (Beta, Dev and Canary) for testing in the coming months.
Collections are another new Edge feature designed to help you organize your browsing. These are groups of webpages, images and text on a related subject, which you can sort, export into other Microsoft applications (such as Office) and return to later. They are more convenient than building a list of bookmarks or keeping a bundle of tabs open, and work more like a miniature version of Pinterest.
Collections are available now on the desktop for Microsoft Edge Insider channels, and will be coming to the stable release and mobile devices soon.
Other new features on the way soon include Smart Copy, which lets you copy a chunk of a web page and paste it into Microsoft Word without losing any of the formatting, improved tracking cookie protection, and a new Password Monitor, which works like Firefox Monitor to warn you if your login credentials appear in any published lists of leaked usernames and passwords.
Another tool seemingly borrowed from Firefox is a new Immersive Reader mode, which strips non-essential page elements and formatting, making it easier to scan text. Edge will soon be able to read content aloud as well. Both these features should be a real boon for the many people who struggle to read text on a screen, particularly when websites use low-contrast font and background colors.
Chromium-based Edge is available to download now, and will replace the legacy version of Edge on Windows 10 PCs.
The investment for the next five years will be focused on converting one of its South Korean LCD line.
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The world may be coming to terms with new social isolation orders to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but some companies are taking to it like ducks to water – iPhone maker Apple among them.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple employees, despite now working remotely, are going full steam ahead to get the company's 2020 slate of products into the hands of consumers, despite the disruption to their usual working practices.
From new iPhones to iPads, new iMac to new MacBooks, the perennials are all accounted for. But perhaps more interestingly, the report suggests that 2020 will see the debut of a HomePod 2 smart speaker and a new Apple TV set-top box – the oft-overlooked members of the Apple hardware family.
While the details of each product of course remain shrouded in secrecy, the report states that all remain intended for 2020 release dates.
It seems that Apple is having to relax certain elements of its standard working practices in order to achieve this, too. Ever since a prototype iPhone 4 was lost in a bar by an Apple employee back in 2010, it's had strict rules on how its new devices can be used out in the real world.
But according to the report, Apple has "started allowing engineers to take home early versions of future devices to continue work during the lockdown period. Previously, the company allowed select employees to take home nearly compete devices such as iPhones for real world testing."