Technology

It’s difficult to recommend that anyone in the West go buy a Huawei phone right now, since the Chinese tech giant is forbidden from shipping Google apps and services on its products. Their technical chops, however, should be in no doubt. I reviewed the flagship P40 Pro phone earlier this year and came away very impressed with the screen, camera, performance, and battery life — basically everything but the software, which is largely out of Huawei’s hands. More recently, I’ve been testing the P40 Pro Plus, the higher-end version of the P40 Pro. Buying recommendations aside, it’s worth taking a look at because of its truly unique camera. Telephoto lenses are getting more commonplace on phones, but there aren’t any others that can match up to this one. The P40 Pro Plus is essentially indisting...

There are a couple of questions I ask myself before I spend money on a game. How long is it? Can my PC run it? And if there’s a dog in it, can I pet it? In the case of Humble Bundle’s latest collection of games the answer to the last question is a resounding “Yes!” The store has partnered with the Twitter account “Can You Pet the Dog?” for its latest bundle, which includes a total of eight games which are guaranteed to include a least one virtual dog, ripe for the petting. By now you almost certainly know what the deal is with Humble Bundles, but the standard pay-what-you-want rules apply. You can pay a minimum price of $1 to unlock four of the bundle’s games (Scribblenauts Unlimited, Beyond Eyes, Dog Sled Saga, and Bulb Boy), pay more than the average price (currently $4.75) to add Shenmu...

The US Commerce Department intends to issue a new order on Friday that will ban people in the US from downloading the popular video-sharing app TikTok from app stores as early as Sunday, September 20th, Reuters first reported Friday. Over the last few weeks, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has been engaged in talks with US companies like Microsoft and Oracle to create a new company, TikTok Global, that would meet the Trump administration’s concerns over user data security. Earlier this month, President Trump sparked negotiations after calling for US TikTok operations to be shut down unless sold to a US company by September 15th. Microsoft has dropped out of the bidding, leaving Oracle and Walmart as the leading candidates to hold stake in the new TikTok company. Still, the admi...

Google is still trying to iron out connectivity issues with its Pixel Buds. The company has confirmed that it has identified the cause of a strange, frustrating bug that caused audio to drop out for some users every one minute and 50 seconds — on the dot. I’ve gotten numerous emails about this issue from Pixel Buds owners, so it’s good to see that Google has managed to resolve it. According to a post on the company’s support forums, a new firmware update is currently rolling out to the true wireless earbuds that will eliminate the pause after every 1:50. In case you’re unfamiliar with the update process, Google has this guide for installing Pixel Buds firmware. If you’re not using your Pixel Buds with an Android phone — well, that’s an unusual use case, for one — but Google says you should...

Google is correcting a “typo” in its Play Store “stalkerware” policy that currently suggests that apps can be used to track spouses. Stalkerware and other tracking software is dangerous, campaigners say, because it can facilitate domestic abuse and harassment of partners. As it’s written, the policy also mistakenly says parents cannot track their children. The updated developer policy, which comes into effect on October 1st, now explicitly says that Play Store apps which allow parents to track their children are acceptable, but that they cannot be used to track adults (like a spouse) without their knowledge or permission. Here’s the relevant section from the current developer policy which is due to be corrected (emphasis added): Legitimate forms of these apps cannot be used by parents to t...

As part of its PlayStation 5 launch event yesterday, Sony said Final Fantasy XVI and Demon’s Souls weren’t just strictly PS5 exclusives — trailers for both games revealed they would also be coming to PC. At the time, that meant the biggest game announced during Sony’s showcase as well as one of the PS5’s most notable launch titles wouldn’t require a PS5 to play them. If you added the fact that both Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Horizon Forbidden West will also be coming to PS4, you might well have decided to wait on picking up a PS5 at launch. But shortly after the event, Sony and Square Enix went into damage control, saying that Final Fantasy XVI and Demon’s Souls actually aren’t coming to PC after all. An intriguing coincidence It’s an odd coincidence, and it makes the PS5’s lineup look ...

If you ever purchased a Lego set, you’ll know the box comes with an uncomfortable amount of plastic bags to separate each set of pieces included. Personally, I felt it was way too much plastic for just one product, and it’s nice to now see Lego has finally come to its senses: the company plans to ditch the single-use packaging starting next year, Lego announced on its website earlier this week. Going forward, Lego plans to package its tiny bricks in recycled paper bags. The company says they are looking to make “all packaging sustainable by 2025.” Lego CEO Niels Christiansen said the company received “many letters” from kids asking the toymaker to stop using plastic bags in their packaging. Alongside its plans to use sustainable packaging, Lego is also working on sustainable bricks no long...

Sony’s PlayStation 5 will launch on November 12th in the US starting at $399.99. That price will get you the digital edition of the console that doesn’t have a Blu-ray disc drive. If you want a disc drive for playing disc-based PS5 games, 4K Blu-ray movies, and PS4 games that may end up being compatible, there’s a larger version of the console that has that for $499. Preorders are now available, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find one. The stock that was available at retailers like Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Sam’s Club, and Walmart came and went incredibly fast. It’s been a whole fiasco. These are the stores most likely to get more preorders in stock down the line, so as unproductive as it might seem, you might want to check back from time to time to see if you have any l...

Earlier this year, Nvidia released RTX Voice, a beta software to process audio and suppress almost all background noise, and it worked amazingly well. My colleague Jon Porter made the sound of his clacking mechanical keyboard completely disappear. Today, Nvidia has released a successor app called Broadcast, and it’s available to download now. Nvidia Broadcast is a follow-up to the RTX Voice beta and introduces two new AI-powered features: Virtual Background and Auto Frame. Nvidia says that the noise removal feature also now has a reduced performance cost and supports triple the number of noise profiles. Nvidia Broadcast is a follow-up to the RTX Voice beta The new Virtual Background allows you to remove the background of your webcam feed and replace it either with game footage or an image ...

Amazon has removed dozens of listings for peptides, drugs that can be used for doping, after an investigation from The Markup found 66 examples of such products on the site. Peptides are made naturally in the body, but synthetic versions, which can be sold in vials and then reconstituted and injected, are often used as performance-enhancing drugs since they can speed recovery from injuries. According to The Markup, in recent weeks Amazon had been carrying listings for peptides not on the US Food and Drug Administration’s list of approved drugs, months after telling the publication in May that it would start cracking down, and several of those drugs have been classified by the World Anti-Doping Agency as doping drugs. The drugs were labeled for “research” or “lab” uses, but questions on the...

Microsoft is revealing today the exact time you’ll be able to preorder an Xbox Series X or Series S console on September 22nd — and in the hours since we initially wrote this post, it’s now expanded the list to include those details for many other countries as well. In the US, preorders will start at 11AM ET / 8AM PT on September 22nd at Amazon, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Costco, Sam’s Club, Gamestop, Newegg, and Army and Airforce Exchange Service. In Canada, they’ll also start at 11AM ET / 8AM PT on September 22nd at the Microsoft Store, Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, EB Games, The Source, and “other participating retailers.” In the UK, it’ll be 8AM BST at the Microsoft Store, GAME, Amazon, Dixons, Currys PC World, Argos, John Lewis, Smyths Toys, and “other participating retailers.” In Austra...

Apple bought music recognition app Shazam in 2018, and now it’s integrating it into iOS in another big way — a new Music Recognition feature can identify songs playing around you as well as in apps on your phone. And it even works when you’re listening to music on your headphones. The new feature is available as a toggle in Control Center, but it does require a developer beta of iOS 14.2 if you want to try it right now. That toggle will look like a little Shazam icon, and you just need to tap it for your iPhone to start listening. Image: Apple You could already use Siri to summon Shazam and identify songs playing around you, but being able to identify music in your apps could be handy too — if, say, you’re wondering what song that creator picked for their TikTok or YouTube video. Interesti...