Author Archives: Ewdison Then

It seems that Internet services promoting this period of forced or voluntary quarantine as a perfect opportunity to catch up on videos and games may have been a tad premature. In Europe, the Internet is groaning under the sudden strain coming from significantly increased use both for work and especially for play. That has prompted many streaming services to throttle their quality to give way to more important uses and Sony's PlayStation Network is no exception.

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The hype and gushing over Netflix's interpretation of The Witcher game seems to have faded a bit but its never too late to ride on that new wave of interest for the franchise. Except when it is actually months too late considering how GWENT, the Witcher card game, is seemingly falling on hard times at least on consoles. That game still runs on PCs and iOS with Android remaining a promise. That is until now as CD Projekt is finally letting Android phone owners toss a card to their favorite Witcher.

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LG has been pretty silent in the mobile space save from a brief moment in the spotlight last month. It announced the LG V60 ThinQ, the only flagship phone it has so far for this half of 2020. People were expecting that, just like last year, it would unveil the LG G9 ThinQ beside it. It may still do so eventually but it will no longer be the high-end handset that LG's customers and fans have come to expect from that line.

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Remember the Galaxy S10 Lite? Yeah, that odd "in-between" smartphone that prefigured part of the new design that Samsung would adopt in the Galaxy S20. Apparently, Samsung thinks that design is a winner, at least for a mid-range market. That may or may not be the reason it is bringing that exact same appearance to what is believed to be the Galaxy M51, perhaps giving some consumers a chance to hold a flagship looking device without breaking their bank accounts.

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Text messaging apps aren't exactly sophisticated and feature-rich. There's very little you can really do with the SMS protocol unless the app also supports the more or less defunct MMS system or, in Google's case, the new RCS that some are trying to push. That's not to say those apps can't go wrong, just like Google's Messages app that has apparently been making messages disappear for almost a year now.

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5G may be all the rage but those pushing for its mass adoption aren't exactly making it easy to get. Never mind how limited the coverage of 5G networks continues to be, which will now go even slower thanks to a virus pandemic. While devices that do support 5G are growing in number, they are also growing in price. For 5G to truly become widely adopted, 5G phones need to be more accessible to consumers, which is exactly the proposition that ZTE is making with the Axon 11 5G, at least for those who can actually buy and use it.

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Although it has yet to reclaim its name in the high-end flagship race, Motorola has so far been able to retain its hold in the mid-range and entry-level markets. That's mostly thanks to a flood of G and E series phones, with each generation having multiple variants carrying different themes. For the 8th generation of the Moto G series, it seems that Motorola is preparing yet another one that only has one thing in common with the Moto G8 Power, its battery.

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A lot of people are now talking about how the work you thought couldn't be done or even taken home has now proven to be otherwise out of necessity. Working from home has suddenly become more than a luxury but an essential way to stay in employment even during lockdowns and quarantines. Unfortunately, our Internet infrastructure and services might not have been prepared for a sudden flood of users, forcing many video streaming services, now including Facebook, to throttle their quality to prevent taking down Europe's Internet because of congestion.

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The COVID-19 situation has produced so much information, misinformation, fake news, and confusion that people are naturally at a loss for what to do. The biggest question on people's minds may be whether they are infected or not. In normal circumstances, seeing a professional is the advised course of action but health workers are already spread thin trying to care for confirmed cases. To help take a load off their shoulders, some, like Google sister company Verily, have created tools to help triage cases and Apple's Siri is one of the latest to be added in that arsenal.

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Windows 10 is the most dynamic version of Windows yet. Not only does it get rolling updates in between bi-annual major feature updates, Microsoft has also changed its appearance, albeit in small bits and pieces only. Windows 10, however, is due for a major visual overhaul, along with some behavior changes. Microsoft has been teasing bits and pieces of that future but Panos Panay has just given the public its biggest peek yet.

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Against all odds, Apple launched two new iPad Pros this week, though the expected iPhone SE 2 or iPhone 8 and its larger sibling remain absent. That may give a feeling that everything is OK in Apple land, at least until people try to buy these and other Apple products from the company's online store. For now, buyers are being limited in the number of iPhones and iPads they can buy under a single name, one of the first visible signs of the COVID-19 coronavirus' effects in the industry.

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Nokia has announced a flood of new smartphones for all walks of life and price tiers. For some people, however, even the Android Go Nokia 1.3 might be overkill for their basic needs. When those basic needs simply involve voice calls, SMS, and music, the Nokia 5310 may be the affordable phone you'll want. And if that name sounds familiar, that's because it's a revival of yet another Nokia classic phone that made the XpressMusic brand a thing.

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