Latest news

Microsoft has finally officially announced the Xbox Series S. Most of the limelight is directed at the upcoming Xbox Series X but for a long time we've known that the Redmond giant has a secondary, more affordable gaming console in the development.

Now the Series S has been revealed, and the company has confirmed that it joins Xbox Series X at launch.

As expected, the Series S is a slightly less powerful, cheaper, and also, according to Microsoft, the smallest Xbox in history. It will retail for $299.

While it is much more inexpensive than one would imagine from a next-generation console, Microsoft promises next-gen performance.

Microsoft also announced the price of Xbox Series X. The bigger brother will retail for $499, which is just about what we've gathered from rumors and leaks.

We're still waiting from Sony, who've yet to announce PlayStation 5 pricing. It wouldn't be surprising if Sony would hit the same price points with their duo of next-gen consoles, the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition. That is what the previously mentioned leak also suggested.

Chinese manufacturer OnePlus is making a strong push towards the higher echelon on smartphone manufacturers with the latest models upping the specs, quality and price.

While OnePlus 8 series is still fairly new, we know that soon enough we'll get to experience another OnePlus phone thanks to the company's two model a year strategy.

The latter half of the year produces usually a slight upgrade over the first model of the year marked by the addition of T in the name. This years model is expected to be OnePlus 8T.

There's no word yet whether the company will announce both the mid priced OnePlus 8T as well as a truly flagship tier OnePlus 8T Pro. However, new leak reveals a lot about the former.

According to Android Central, we should expect an announcement late September or early October.

Specs-wise there's some nice upgrades to the current generation model. While the OnePlus 8T display is going to be the same size, refresh rate is going to be upped to 120 Hz, which is on par with OnePlus 8 Pro. There's no word on resolution but we'd guess it's going to remain Full HD+.

Nintendo has today announced quite the selection of Mario games for the Switch. Of course the Mario announcements didn't come out of the blue, it's all because of the 35 year anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. released in 1985.

Mario Kart franchise will get a new take on the classic kart racing game. The new Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit combines remote controlled cars with mixed reality.

As the player you are controlling a remote controlled car with a camera around a virtual race track built in your home. The game will be available on October 16.

If you don't really understand how all of that works, here's the trailer.

Finnish WordPress developer company Seravo Oy has found a serious vulnerability in WordPress plug-in that is used by more than 700'000 websites globally.

Plugin, called WP File Manager, has a 0-day vulnerability that allows attackers to upload files to websites without authorization and execute code remotely on all WordPress instances that have the said plugin installed.

Basically utilizing the vulnerability, attackers can steal data, destroy sites or add their own code to websites, which could mine cryptocurrencies or distribute harmful code to website users' computers.

Both, the basic version of WP File Manager and also the paid-for version, WP File Manager Pro are affected. In total, these plugins have more than 700k active installations globally.

Developers were alerted of the issue and they released a updated version v6.9 that fixes the security problem. It is adviced to update WP File Manager to 6.9 or above - or uninstall it immediately.

More info: Seravo Oy press release

WordPress is by far the most popular publishing platform in the world, with millions of websites using it as their content management system and more.

As the relations between two huge countries, India and China, have been sour for most part of this year, the situation also has effects on digital world.

India has recently made it very clear that its attitude nowadays, especially with digital and consumer electronic products is that "everything that is made in China is bad". This has extended to digital products, such as games and apps. India just recently banned pile of Chinese apps from app stores available in India, including popular social media app TikTok.

Now, countryu has banned further 118 Chinese apps. One of those apps happens to be PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, an fps game that is currently the most popular app in India - and a huge success globally. Developer of the game is Chinese Tencent.

breaking: the Indian government has banned PUBG Mobile (Tencent) and 117 other Chinese apps

PUBG is the #1 app in India pic.twitter.com/HH3qacKNMu

-- Rod Breslau (@Slasher) September 2, 2020

Countries have recently locked horns again and again over border issues, power in Asia and more. The anti-China sentiment is rising in India.

Following many other countries' suit, Finland, launched today its official COVID-19 tracking application for iOS and Android platforms. App is called Koronavilkku (literally, coronavirus blink).

App, much like its many siblings in other countries, uses Apple's and Google's joint API that was created to track and trace novel coronavirus infections and alert about them.

Privacy?

App requires no registration or login details whatsoever and its privacy details were audited (link in Finnish) by Finland's National Cyber Security Centre, which found no privacy problems with the app.

App is anonymous and it wont pass any identifiable details of the user to the authorities, as its purpose is simply to alert the user if there user has been in close contact with a person who has COVID-19 infection.

How does it technically work?

To put it simply: through Bluetooth.

App doesn't use GPS or any other location data, but relies on close proximity of other Bluetooth devices.

Basically the app generates a random string for each device and distributes that data through Bluetooth data to other devices that have the same app installed - and vice versa. This random value is recreated every few hours to ensure privacy.

In a rather surprising move, Netflix has opened its service to be watched for free. Of course, this doesn't include everything Netflix has listed, but some of its hit series and original movies are now available for free.

There's no word whether the campaign is temporary one or permanent, but it is available globally as of now. Titles that can be watched for free include hits such as Stranger Things and Bird Box.

And no, registration is not needed in order to watch the titles. However, series have been limited to the first episode of each season, but movies can be watched in full.

Bird Box trailer

Free offering is available at here:

Netflix: Watch free

Obviously, the idea is to demonstrate how much good quality shows Netflix has and hope that people get hooked and subscribe to the service.

Smartphone design has followed one trend for a very long time. The design goal of smartphones pretty much ever since the very first iPhone has been to minimize gadgets distracting from the large touch screen display.

First it was mostly directed towards reducing unnecessary bezels, then displays started pushing towards selfie cameras creating either a notch or a hole for the camera, and home buttons were removed and fingerprint sensors were moved under the screen.

Inscreen fingerprint sensors are still developing and haven't hit the accuracy and speed of the regular ones, but it seems inevitable that nearly all, at least higher end, smartphones will move to that direction in the future.

Xiaomi, one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturer from China, has been working on a similar tech for selfie cameras. This would mean that the screen would be entirely undisrupted, and without a need of a motorized selfie camera that pops out when you need it, like on some Asus and OnePlus phones.

The technology is in its third generation already, Xiaomi says, and the company is now ready to start making the transition to production models. According to them, the first phone to feature this tech is expected next year.

OnePlus has been an up and coming smartphone maker for a few years now. At this point the company has grown to challenge even the likes of Samsung with its flagship phones.

The company's latest OnePlus 8 series offers high-end specs, but to keep up with their initial mission of providing affordable smartphones out compromises, first time ever, they had to announce a cheaper model alongside the flagship series.

However, the 399€ (there's no US release as of now) OnePlus Nord won't be the cheapest OnePlus for long. A new leak has detailed an upcoming OnePlus device that could retail for around $200.

Android Central has managed to get their hands on the specs sheet of what is called OnePlus Clover. There's nothing tremendously impressive about the specs of this cheap phone, except for one thing: the battery.

The battery inside the phone is massive. A 6000 milliamp hour battery is something you don't see often in smartphones. Pair this up with a 6.52 inch 720p screen and you've got a indisputable battery champ in the making.

Considering that it is nearly 50% bigger than in OnePlus 8 while having to power much less intensive hardware, this should provide at least a two-day battery life without breaking a sweat. It's, however, not going to feature OnePlus 8's market-leading fast charging tech but does offer 18 watt fast charging.

Next generation of console gaming is soon upon us. While we still don't have an official launch date for either Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, we know they both want to release their consoles just in time to absorb all of our Holiday dollars.

One of the more important things about both consoles that we don't already know, is the price. Rumors have suggested prices ranging from as low as $399 to closer to a thousand dollars. Both of which are likely to be wrong, at least for the regular versions.

However, DualShockers has noticed a curious little detail that might give an inkling on both consoles pricing.

According to them, both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 pages on Best Buy's website feature a financing option. This 18-month financing expires on Christmas day, December 25 2020, and it is only available for purchases worth $499 or more.

For most of us Bill Gates is still the quintessential billionaire, and for a good reason. The man has been at the top of the richest people in the world since the 90s, although has been dethroned a few times.

In recent years one man has, however, made it to the top of totem pole from not having a position in the top 10. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos passed Bill Gates a couple years back, and was the first to surpass $100 billion after Bill Gates did it in '99.

Now, according to Forbes, Bezos has taken a lead that is hard to catch up to. Report says Bezos has managed to increase his worth to $204.6 billion, nearly double that of Bill Gates' measly $116 billion worth.

Possessions of such magnitude are hard to even comprehend. With just a simple calculation we can determine that Bezos could spend a million dollars on a new home (or car, or boat) every day and he could to that consecutively for over 500 years before would run out.

As middle-aged (and older) people have flocked to Facebook-owned Instagram, teens have escaped the service and seem to have landed to Chinese social media superstar, TikTok.

According to ComScore United States usage stats, TikTok had half the monthly audience of Instagram's in July, 2020. But.. The service clocked more than 2x usage minutes compared to Instagram. According to latest stats, TikTok had appx. 100 million active monthly users in United States.

Apparently one of the very reasons for this difference is the TikTok's praised recommendation algorithm that tends to deliver "more to watch" features that people actually want to watch after one reel has finished.

According to Comscore data Americans spent 5 billion more minutes with TikTok from June to July. While TikTok has half the audience of Instagram its users spend DOUBLE the amount of time on the platform.

-- Flora ESPN Research (@ESPNFlora) August 25, 2020

Elon Musk has been working on a lot of different things. Currently he's most known for his electric car company Tesla and space exploration marvel SpaceX. However, one his latest ventures might make an even bigger impact on people, if its wildest promises are met.

Neuralink is Musk's project where they try to accomplish a working computer-brain interface. Founded in 2016, Neuralink has been working on a device that attaches behind your ear and connects to the brain using the thinnest electrodes.

Previously the company has worked with animals to prove the concept and managed to monitor rat's brain activity and even given a monkey the ability to control a computer via the interface.

Now Musk has announced that this Friday the company is ready to give a live demonstration of its Neuralink device. The tweet also reveals that they will be telling more about human trials in 2020.

Computer-brain interface could provide immense amounts of useful data and functionality. The first and perhaps the most important use case is in healthcare. If everything goes to plan this might even give people back their sight among other things.

Most of us know that movies and TV series can be downloaded from those shady corners of the Internet, like from various BitTorrent websites, etc. But how the movies and TV series arrive to such services?

Nope, typically the latest movies and TV shows aren't put online by "entertainment wants to be free" enthusiasts, but actual, organized groups, belonging to something that is collectively called the "The Scene" or even more precisely, "The Warez Scene" or "The Pirate Scene".

That "scene" is built from various groups that are more or less organized in order to have the capacity to get the latest movie / TV show releases as soon as possible and then to distribute those movies, illegally, as quickly as possible to specific online services.

Now, some of the core groups of that world have been hit by law enforcement agencies in several countries. Police have raided individuals and servers in at least United States, Norway and Sweden in order to tackle operations of a group dubbed as SPARKS and its affiliated groups called b>GECKOS, DRONES, ROVERS and SPLINTERS.

It seems that the main target of such raids has been the so-called topsites, (S)FTP servers belonging to SPARKS or its affiliates. Such servers are basically extremely private online services where individuals can "drop" the latest pirated movies and where distributors then collect the latest loot and share it to wider audience through better-known services, such as The Pirate Bay et al.

4K has been a household feature of TV sets for years now. The current gaming consoles have moved to 4K ready gaming too.

Sony and Microsoft are planning on offering ever higher definition gaming in their next generation of gaming consoles, due later this year.

Nintendo has been reluctant to join the spec wars with the two, and probably for a good reason. However, hardware advancements are taken as needed with Nintendo's gaming products when they make sense.

According to a report by Bloomberg, next year is going to make sense for Nintendo to move to 4K. The report claims that Nintendo is planning a new version of the Switch for 2021.

The sources cited say that the new Switch will adds 4K resolution among other, presumably less important, things. While other details are still scarce, rumor also has that Nintendo is trying to also improve next year's game lineup with company's own games as well as games from some of the partners.

With 4K capabilities you can expect a boost in computing power too and likely actual performance wherever 4K is not used.