Author Archives: Chris Burns

After an announcement of a Disney content pull from Netflix, the company further expressed the possibility of doing so with Lucasfilm and Marvel content. Not that they'd necessarily pull the content that's been licensed under Netflix brand specifically, but that they're considering more separate streaming services. If they do decide to split these other brands, we'd have one whole heck of a lot of streaming brands to choose from - or perhaps we'll see it the other way - that we've got too many services to pay for.

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AMD's ultra-high-end Ryzen CPU platform THREADRIPPER is here, and early reviews suggest it's a monster. AMD's latest release adds to their full CPU refresh with Zen architecture for all markets: mainstream, budget, and enthusiast. With AMD Ryzen Threadripper, the company offers up to 16 cores, 32 threads, and 64 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 connectivity. And the hardware itself is as big as your hand.

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Pokemon GO's latest SHINY Pokemon has been confirmed as SHINY Pikachu, and it's out in the wild right this minute! As reported well before the fact by SlashGear back on the 28th of June, the next Pokemon to get the SHINY effect is indeed the most famous Pokemon of all. Our information was ever-so-slightly off on the date - by just about a month. All good things come to those that wait!

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A complicated, mixed up password is not any more secure than a password that's all lower-cased letters. The reason the internet told us (and continues to tell us) to make a password with numbers and capital and lower-cased characters and punctuation in it is a paper called "Digital Identity Guidelines." This nightmare of a paper was published at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the rules therein were based on pre-digital age security nonsense.

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The T-Mobile REVVL is a smartphone that leads the pack of JUMP phones offered by the brand for cheap. Rumor has it this device was manufactured by TCL, the came company that makes Alcatel phones and some BlackBerry phones - and by the looks of it, that assessment seems right on point. The REVVL is one of a set of low-cost smartphones released with T-Mobile JUMP that users are able to lease.

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Published today is a list of the worst of the worst apps and services for Android battery drain. This list comes from Avast, a group whose Android App Performance and Trend Report lends insight into the various apps that drain Android battery as well as how and where they make this drain happen. This includes complicated answers like Google Play Music being a big battery drainer, but only when used at the same time as an Ad Blocker app - the two clash quite badly.

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This week the folks at Samsung Display are reported to be ramping up production of OLED displays for Apple's next iPhone. That device, commonly referred to as the iPhone 8 until Apple's official reveal, will quite likely take advantage of Samsung Display's biggest increase in OLED display production in its short history. While Apple's launch of the iPhone 8 could potentially cannibalize iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus sales (those devices also likely part of Apple's next event reveal), this may well be Apple's biggest iPhone launch ever.

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was reported today to include Samsung's version of 3D-touch for its touchscreen. This device will, if the report holds true, feature the same method of enacting 3D Touch or Force Touch that the Galaxy S8 features. This means a pressure-sensitive strip sits under the bottom edge of the screen to replace the home button, back button, and app-switching button.

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Browsing a new update to Google's Google Play Protect re-brand I happened upon the "Switch" page for Android. There, the company shows users how to switch from iPhone to Android devices in as few steps as possible. This webpage is not new, nor are the images on it - and yet what we're seeing here isn't exactly a Pixel. What we're seeing here is a Huawei-made device.

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The next public update to Android will allow itself to update without requiring massive amounts of data storage to do so. Instead of storing all the update data for changes to the Android device's OS, this "Streaming OS Updates" feature will do something new. As Google's Android developers have outlined this week, Android 8.0 comes with "the necessary platform changes to conduct streaming updates."

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Today we took a peek at the many ways in which Zapdos could be defeated in Pokemon GO. This research began with listing the Pokemon that were best to beat this Legendary Bird. Next we went through the best way to roll up on Zapdos and catch his sharp behind with a set of Premiere Balls - spinners! Finally, we sat down with Zapdos and did a brief run-down about why she is the best Pokemon in the Legendary Bird set so far.

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The Moto E4 Plus Review we've got on deck today rolls through the basics of its hardware and software and offers judgement on its overall value. While the hardware is decent - especially for this price - it's within the long-lasting battery that this device truly shines. Can a device whose display, camera, and processor would be home in the mid-range two years ago survive as a low-end smartphone here in 2017? How about if it has a 5000mAh battery, 2.5x the size of the battery of the latest iPhone?

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