Technology

Microsoft appears to be readying a matte black version of the Surface Go 3. Leaked images from Aggiornamenti Lumia on Twitter show the 10.5-inch Surface Go 3 with a new matte black finish. The device looks identical to the Surface Go 3 otherwise, and the marketing images could suggest a launch is imminent. Microsoft first launched the Surface Go 3 in September, with new Intel processor options. The Surface Go 3 can be configured with an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y or Core i3-10100Y, upgrades over the Surface Go 2, which launched with a Pentium Gold 4425Y or a Core m3 chip. Little else changed with the Surface Go 3 over the previous model, though. LTE versions of the Surface Go 3 are expected to arrive very soon, as Microsoft originally promised in September that these models would appear “in ...

Former Huawei sub-brand Honor has just announced its first foldable smartphone, the Honor Magic V. It uses a similar folding form factor to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold devices, combining a large internal folding display with a smaller external display that can be used while the device is folded. Today is the foldable’s Chinese launch, where its price starts at ¥9,999 (around $1,569) for its 256GB storage model. It will go on open sale on January 18th. The Magic V’s flagship feature, its internal folding screen, measures 7.9 inches from corner to corner, has a resolution of 2272 x 1984 with a refresh rate of 90Hz, and an aspect ratio of 10:9. That’s slightly bigger than Samsung’s Z Fold 3, whose internal screen is 7.6 inches with a resolution of 2208 x 1768. Honor says the Magic V’s internal sc...

Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher that owns Rockstar and 2K Games, is set to acquire social game developer Zynga in a deal valued at $12.7 billion (via The Wall Street Journal). The cash and stock transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023, pending regulatory approval. Take-Two Interactive’s acquisition of Zynga marks the company’s foray into the mobile game market. Take-Two is behind some of the most well-known game series, including Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, Borderlands, and NBA 2K. Take-Two’s $12.7 billion acquisition is one of the biggest in video game history Meanwhile, Zynga has a pretty impressive portfolio of its own, defining a genre by planting some of its earliest games, like FarmVille, on Facebook. The mobile game developer...

Last year, Sonos raised its prices for some of its most popular products due to the pandemic’s negative effect on the supply chain. But one of its latest releases, the Sonos Beam 2 soundbar in white, is almost $50 off when you buy refurbished at Best Buy right now. It comes with a 90-day warranty via Best Buy, and the Beam 2 includes all original accessories, including the soundbar itself, a power cable, an HDMI 2.0 cable, and a Sonos optical audio adapter. Sonos touts Dolby Atmos as being the Beam 2’s big spec upgrade over the first-generation model. But my colleague Chris Welch stated in his review that Atmos shouldn’t be the sole reason why you buy it. It does feature wider, more expansive sound than the first iteration, but it’s the sleeker design (ditching fabric for cleaner-looking p...

Key specs for Samsung Display’s new QD-OLED TVs have been revealed by third-party certification company SGS, the South Korean display manufacturer has announced. According to SGS the new panels are capable of hitting a brightness of 1,000 nits, and can display over 90 percent of the BT.2020 color space, which both represent substantial improvements over current OLED TVs on the market, otherwise known as WOLEDs. The figures are in line with those that were put out by YouTube channel LinusTechTips (LTT) last week, in a video that was sponsored by Samsung Display. So it’s notable that these relatively impressive specs have now been validated by an independent certification company, albeit only partially. LinusTechTip’s video compares the QD-OLED’s specs with LG’s G1 OLED, which was its flagsh...

Google has accused Apple of benefiting from bullying as part of a deliberate strategy to make Android users into second-class citizens on the iPhone-maker’s iMessage service. Apple’s messaging service includes a number of iOS-exclusive features, like Memoji, and famously turns texts from Android users green instead of the iOS-native blue. This has turned iMessage into a status symbol among US teens, creating peer pressure for young people to buy iPhones and sometimes leading to the ostracization of Android users. Showing up in a group chat as a green bubble has become, for some, a social faux pas. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal highlighted this dynamic and prompted a response from both the Android team and Google’s head of Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer. “iMessage should not benef...

Apple is reportedly looking to announce its new iPhone SE model this spring. The rumors come once again from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, who now says that the tech giant will be revealing the third generation of its budget iPhone model during its annual spring event, with the new device supporting 5G connectivity. The timing corresponds with other leaks earlier last year, and Gurman also says that the smartphone will now carry a new processor, seemingly confirming a MacRumors leak back in December that the iPhone SE 3 will carry the Apple’s A15 chip. Other details regarding the smartphone remain scarce at this point, but Gurman also believes the phone will carry a similar design as its predecessor as well as the iPhone 8, while MacRumors also suggests an upgraded camera. As usual, A...

Last week, Leica took to Instagram to tease an upcoming launch on January 13. While there hasn’t been any official mention of the model featured, rumors of a new Leica M11 have been going around since last year with videos leaked on Vimeo. Now new pictures and detailed specifications have surfaced. The leaked pictures and specifications indicate that the new Leica M11 will be available in black and silver, with basic updates including a 60MP sensor, a new Visoflex with higher resolution, an electronic shutter of 1/16,000, and an ISO range of 64 (native) to 50,000. In addition, photos of new accessories along with the new camera’s pricing in Europe have also been revealed — the new Leica M11 is priced at $8,350 EUR (approximately $9,460 USD), the new Visoflex 2 for $695 EUR (approximately $...

Bitcoin has started off the year with one of its greatest slumps with nearly a week-long losing streak. After a six-day downdraft, the largest cryptocurrency was able to snap the continuous loss barely making it above $40,000 USD. This past weekend, Bitcoin’s six-day decline marked the cryptocurrency’s worst-ever starts to a year. As of writing, CoinDesk reports that BTC was exchanging around $42,100 USD which was up 2% from the past 24 hours. Had it continued on its fall, Bitcoin would have seen a seven-day losing streak, making it the longest period since 2018. Thanks to the small upward trajectory since, Bitcoin did not fall below the $40K USD mark, which they saw last September. While January has often been “seasonally weak” for Bitcoin, 2022 has started off particularly harsh with the...

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta lets you choose from three driving “profiles” that dictate how the car will react to certain situations on the road. Each mode, “Chill,” “Average,” and “Assertive,” varies in terms of aggressiveness (and potentially safety). The feature was included in the October 2021 version 10.3 update, which was pulled two days after it started rolling out due to an issue with left turns at traffic lights. Tesla issued version 10.3.1 one day later, which still includes FSD profiles, as shown on the release notes posted on Not a Tesla App. Based on these notes, FSD profiles are described as a way “to control behaviors like rolling stops, speed-based lane changes, following distance and yellow light headway.” A separate image posted to Twitter gives us a more detailed...

A developer appears to have purposefully corrupted a pair of open-source libraries on GitHub and software registry npm — “faker.js” and “colors.js” — that thousands of users depend on, rendering any project that contains these libraries useless, as reported by Bleeping Computer. While it looks like color.js has been updated to a working version, faker.js still appears to be affected, but the issue can be worked around by downgrading to a previous version (5.5.3). The sabotaged versions cause applications to infinitely output strange letters and symbols Bleeping Computer found that the developer of these two libraries, Marak Squires, introduced a malignant commit (a file revision on GitHub) to colors.js that adds “a new American flag module,” as well as rolled out version 6.6.6 of faker.js,...

Cryptocurrency exchange BitMart promised a full reimbursement to the victims of the platform-wide $200 million hack, but some users still haven’t gotten their money back, according to a report from CNBC. Hackers made off with a variety of tokens on December 4th after using a stolen privacy key to gain access to one of BitMart’s hot wallets, otherwise known as a crypto wallet that’s connected to the internet. Shortly after the incident, BitMart announced that it would use its own funding “to cover the incident and compensate affected users.” However, as CNBC reports, there are still several frustrated users who have yet to see their funds returned. CNBC’s report details the experience of an Iranian refugee who says he stored $53,000 worth of SafeMoon on BitMart, $40,000 of which is from a l...