Author Archives: JC Torres

Now that Samsung's "most powerful Galaxy" products have been revealed, all eyes will be turning to its next big event in about three months. That will be, of course, the pair of foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the latter reportedly skipping a number to match the former. Many of their expected features have already been leaked but now a few marketing materials show off some of those, including what may be an under-display camera for the Galaxy Z Fold 3.

Continue Reading

Clubhouse has become social media's newest darling and, naturally, everyone's out to copy and kill it. Those rivals actually have a lot of opportunities to do that, considering Clubhouse still has limited reach in terms of invites and platforms. That said, not everyone wants to copy it feature for feature and some are trying to put a different spin on the audio-only social platform. That includes Facebook-owned Instagram that just silently rolled out an audio-only option to its shiny new Live Rooms.

Continue Reading

Thanks to its more open nature, the Google Play Store has hundreds if not thousands of apps, many of them offering similar functionality or, in the case of clones, even identical assets. In an attempt to stand out from the rest, Android app developers can get pretty creative but not in a good way. After years of letting the status quo stay, Google is finally setting its foot down on what is appropriate to use as app names, titles, and icons as well as screenshots, graphics, and videos used to preview them.

Continue Reading

OnePlus always prided itself on being able to quickly iterate over its software. It also boasts of listening closely to its community and, when possible, giving in to their requests. One of those revolves around an Android 11 update for the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. It turns out that it will indeed still happen but it won't be surprising if it doesn't happen until sometime early next year or later this year at the earliest.

Continue Reading

Although there are still linger doubts over its long-term survival and profitability, game streaming service Stadia remains in operation. Those doubts mostly stem from Google, notorious for suddenly pulling the plug out of products, even popular ones that people pay for. As a Google product that utilizes the Internet, Stadia is also expected to have some staples that made Google a household name that it is today. However, it is only now that Stadia is gaining a way to search for what's available in its collection and the irony isn't lost on the Internet.

Continue Reading

Although video conferencing has become almost a fact of life these days and "Zoom fatigue" has started to become a real problem, there are still companies and services that are trying to compete or even unseat the leaders in that space. And it's not just the usual culprits of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft either but other more focused services are also jumping on board. The latest that will be joining the bandwagon is Telegram who will be putting a different twist to the idea next month.

Continue Reading

Smart assistants sound almost magical in what they're able to do at our command but they are all powered by computers and code behind the scenes. Unfortunately, computers can actually be quite dumb sometimes, especially with things we take for granted because they come so naturally to us humans. That's especially true with the names we give to our friends and acquaintances. Unsurprisingly, that has also been one of Google Assistant's weaknesses but Google will soon let you fix that by teaching it how those names really sound.

Continue Reading

From an age of apps, we seem to now be living in an age of streaming. Spotify and Netflix popularized and conquered the music and video streaming markets, respectively, and the likes of Google Stadia and Amazon Luna are competing for the game streaming space. Now a startup is trying to start a trend that aims to address one of the biggest annoyances among computer users. Mighty wants to make Chrome faster but it is doing so by not making Chrome run on your computer at all.

Continue Reading

Some joke that people these days use their phones and the Internet for almost anything except making phone calls but that's only partially true. One particular piece of technology actually does make use of the Internet when making calls, even if you're not calling via services like Messenger or WhatsApp. This Wi-Fi Calling has been around for years and it's no surprise that T-Mobile is retiring an older version of the tech that's only used in older phones anyway.

Continue Reading

Desktop computers haven't really gone away and neither have their cables. Even those that live on laptops often have monitors and hubs to connect to at home or that the office. Cable management has always been a problem and yet few computer and gaming desks are designed for that purpose. Singapore-based Secretlab, perhaps better known for its gaming chairs, is taking a stab at that market with its first-ever PC desk that puts magnets to some unique uses.

Continue Reading

They say two heads are better than one but sometimes even geniuses get stumped by unsolvable problems. That apparently happened years ago when the creator of iOS and the developer of Flash tried to make the two mix. Apparently, even the combined expertise of Apple and Adobe couldn't make Flash work on iPhones and iPads in an even bearable way, perhaps helping set Flash on the road to its eventual demise.

Continue Reading

Budget or "wallet-friendly" smartphones get a lot of flak for cutting too many corners to bring prices down. In recent times, however, some hardware components have become so common and accessible that even what some may call "cheap" phones are able to offer higher-end features. Take the ZTE Blade 11 Prime, for example. While it might not be equipped with 5G support, its features may still look juicy, especially for the price it's asking for.

Continue Reading