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Smart speakers have been one of the more popular tech trends in recent years. This odd coupling of audio equipment, smart home applications, and of course artificial intelligence, has been the focus of many of world's largest technology companies.

The trend was started by Amazon and their Echo line of smart speakers, and they've been wrecking havoc on the marketshare leaderboards ever since. Now couple years after Google has their Home lineup and Apple just entered the market with the new HomePod. Furthermore, the likes of Samsung are preparing to launch their own AI powered speakers.

It is now too, that Amazon has first time ever lost their lead in worldwide marketshare. Google has taken the number one spot, analytics firm Canalys reports.

Google sold a total of 3.2 million Google Home devices worldwide while Amazon managed to sell only 2.3 million units of their Echo lineup. The United States remained the leading market with 4.1 million smart speakers sold with China still distant 2nd and South Korea 3rd.

Just a year ago Amazon commanded the market with nearly 80 percent slice of the pie but it only hold 27.7% now. In addition to Google, Chinese manufacturer's including Alibaba and Xiaomi have gnawed on Amazon's share.

Amazon has launched a new feature for its users that allows them to track packages even more closely. In fact, the new feature lets you see where the package is currently on a map.

Map Tracking shows you the delivery truck's location on a small map in your neighborhood or at least nearby when it is closing in on a delivery. The tracking starts when the delivery is 10 stops away from you.

In the Map Tracking view you can find the approximate location as well as how many deliveries the truck will have to do before yours.

This allows you to either hurry home to receive your highly anticipated new toy or perhaps prepare for delivery (read: close the curtains, hide the bodies).

The feature was already available to selected few since last year but now it has reportedly been expanded to most if not all users. The Amazon app will remind you with a notification when Map Tracking is available.

Serious and potentially very annoying bug has been found in latest WhatsApp version. The bug allows previously blocked contacts to send messages and to see user's online status ("last seen").

Quite many people are familiar with the concept of permanently blocking annoying contacts who harass them via various online services. And just like most other such services, WhatsApp has easy ways to block unwanted contacts from contacting you.

However, now the previously set blocks have been, for unknown reason, failed and messages from previously blocked users have managed to come through.

WhatsApp itself hasn't announced the problem yet, but there seems to be an easy fix for this annoyance: unblock the previously blocked people and block them again. This seems to solve the problem.

The bug seems to be affecting both, iOS and Android users.

Head of IBM Research, Arvind Krishna, attended a panel discussion in San Francisco last week and shared his thoughts about quantum computing and current ancryption methods.

Quantum computing, a concept developed since 1980s, has taken massive leaps forward during the past couple of years, as technologies have advanced. Quantum computing isn't a "holy grail" for all kinds of computer solutions, but it is a technology that is extremely powerful in handling massive, large numbers. The problem? All modern encryption techniques are based on large numbers, namely, large prime numbers.

According to Mr. Krishna, in just five years' time, the quantum computers will be able to break even the strongest, "military-grade" encryptions instantly. This includes the "most secure" versions of AES and more.

Now, luckily, there seems to be a solution. So-called Lattice-based cryptography already exists and is considered to be "quantum-computing-safe". Thus, Mr. Krishna suggests that "if you want to keep your data secret ten years from now, you should change your encryption technology".

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus got its notoriety from years back when it vowed to destroy the flagship smartphones of its time with half the price. The company has since matured and dropped the flagship killer slogan but one could argue it really still is the same beast.

This week the company announced OnePlus 6, the latest of its impressive lineup of Android phones.

The device is the first glass sandwich design, which is water resistant but not IP certified, since the company's one-off cheaper model, OnePlus X, and it is definitely one of the more important changes in it. Obviously the system-on-chip has also been updated, and there are other slighter changes.

OnePlus 6 rocks the Snapdragon 845, 6 or 8 gigabytes of RAM, up to 256 GB of storage space, a dual camera setup, and a 6.28-inch Full HD+ resolution Optic AMOLED display covering 84 percent of the front panel which leaves you with a notch at the top, as you might expect.

The battery is the same 3300 milliamp unit from the previous model, and it supports the same super fast Dash Charging. Unlike rumors had it, there is no wireless charging despite the glass back.

The dual camera setup in the back is similar to OnePlus 5T but offers now larger sensors and thus larger pixel which translates to improved low light performance. Improving low light photography, as well as videos, OnePlus has also added an OIS. The megapixel counts are still 16 and 20.

Google has revealed a new service, or actually a renewed service, called the Google One. It is actually the good old Google Drive, one of the more popular cloud services, that has been rebranded and is a little bit easier on the wallet.

The search giant hasn't quite yet revealed the exact, official release date, and currently you can only register to receive news about the service on the website (one.google.com). However, Google does promise it in the coming months for the folks that already pay for Google Drive's storage.

At first Google One will be available in limited quantity which probably means that free tier Google Drive users will be stuck with the old service for a while.

If you've been thinking of getting some more cloud storage, though, you'll be happy to hear that Google One offer better deals than its predecessor. 100 GB package costs the same $1.99 but you now have a 200 GB and $2.99 option. The $9.99 tier has also been updated to hold twice as much stuff at 2 TB. Tiers above 2TB will stay the same price.

There's no news whether Google will kill Drive and when this would happen, but you'll probably be able to use it at least until Google One is available for all.

Google's I/O conference keynote was focused largely on the improvements of Android, its apps, and the new navigation scheme Android P will bring along. It's perhaps hard to pick one that was more important than the others, but there surely was one that was the most controversial.

That is, of course, Google Duplex. That is the upcoming feature of Google Assistant, the search giant's super advanced voice assistant. In fact, Duplex makes Assistant so smart that it can make calls for you.

Pretty much everyone was flabbergasted about how natural the calls sound, although you won't be listening them as Assistant does this in the background, but many were also puzzled whether this might have ethical consequences.

Should the recipient know that he or she is not talking to a human? With all the "umms" and "mmhmms" Google Assistant had seemed to passed the Turing test in demo calls played back at the I/O stage.

And now, in an interview with CNET, Google agrees. Agrees not only that Turing test might have been passed but that it is necessary to make sure the receiving end of the call is aware that they are talking to a robot.

Mozilla has today announced a new version of their web browser, one which was once considered one of the greats. Firefox's new version number suggests that it might be one of the bigger updates in recent history.

Firefox v60 does bring some new features alongside more general updates to security, privacy, and obviously stability.

According to the company, though, the security and privacy aspects are one of the more important updates in this iteration. And many of you would probably agree in that these days it seems to be integral to provide strong protection against all ilks of privacy and security infractions.

There aren't a lot of eye candy in this update, and you won't see revamped UI either.

The new version will, however, include new features such as redesigned Cookies and Site Storage settings, Web Authentication API supporting USB tokens, enhancements to New Tab and Firefox Home, application of faster Quantum CSS engine, and improved camera privacy indicators.

You can read more about the update here.

You can download Firefox v60 from our download section or from Mozilla

Microsoft's own developer conference Build 2018 ended yesterday, and while there were a myriad of updates to different tools within Windows, one of the updates that had the crowd cheering the most had to do with the little text editor called Notepad.

For years and years, actually a total of 33 years, Windows Notepad has been a pain in the behind for developers, and there's really one reason for it. It doesn't support the Linux operating system's line feed, that is it doesn't recognize when line is changed in the text.

Since 1985, that is the first version of Windows, the Notepad has served all sorts of users for taking notes and obviously even coding. However, never has it played well with other types of line feeds, including the ones Linux text editors use.

This means that in the worst case you'll just have one endless line, and everyone knows, or can imagine, how frustrating that is to edit.

While this seems like a minor problem, as the Microsoft presenter below notes (no pun intended), it's often the little things that matter the most. And thus, after decades of frustration from developers, Microsoft has fixed the Notepad and it finally supports Linux line feed.

You'll find the new, fixed and improved, Notepad in the upcoming updates of Windows 10.

Google Duplex enables Googles Assistant to make phone calls and book appointments, make reservations and more.

Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, said that it will launch as an experiment over the coming weeks. It will make phone calls in the background at the request of user's to book appointments, make reservations and more. To accomplish this task, the Google Assistant need to interact with humans over the phone and hold a seemingly natural conservation.

Pre-recorded demonstrations were shown at the Google IO conference today showing how natural the AI voice sounded, prompting some gasps from the audience. Rather than sounding robotic and artificial, the AI voice even uttered "um" and "um-humm" making the conversation appear natural.

At no point does the Assistant reveal itself as AI.

Here's a video showing the upcoming feature in action making an appointment for a haircut:

Google's annual I/O conference is at hand, and Sundar Pichai et al are talking in front of a crowd to reveal what new their upcoming Android operating has to offer. We already had an idea about a few of the updates, both major and minor, but now we have little more details.

Android P brings along updates that refresh the look and feel of Android, and even changes some major navigational elements. Google has decided to get rid of the app switcher button, but worry not, multitasking view hasn't been deleted. Now you access the multitasking view, which now shows cards horizontally, by swiping up from the home screen.

Google's annual developer conference Google I/O is about to start soon. Google usually reveals most of the new features coming to its next Android version at this event.

However, this time around it seems that at least some of those secrets have been revealed already - by a Philippines-based Google+ user who has shared tons of screenshots of the upcoming Android P Developer Preview 2 operating system version.

Bye-bye app switcher button

Most obvious change that will come with Android P is the disappearance of the third navigation button. The app switcher button ("the square") will disappear and will be replaced by home button ("the circle") gestures.

AfterDawn's official Android app has been updated. The new version, v1.50, now has the most-requested new feature: night mode (aka dark theme) for those of us who like to read news when it is way past the bedtime.

New version also fixes bunch of various little bugs and should stabilize the app quite a lot.

Through our app, you can access our news archives to all the way back to the 1999 when our site was founded. And of course, the app is completely free - and it doesn't require any suspicious permissions or anything like that.

So, go ahead and give it a try:

AfterDawn's official Android app

Currently our app's rating is pretty decent 4.6/5.0 stars, so you guys seem to genuinely like it. If you have any ideas on how to improve, let us know.

There's a nasty, malicious WhatsApp message spreading across the World that can freeze WhatsApp - or even your entire phone.

One of these messages is masked as a challenge and reads "If you touch the black point then your whatsapp will hang" - and if you do touch the black spot, your WhatsApp does exactly what the message "promises" it will.

The other message says "This is very interesting" and has a cry/laugh emoji. Tapping that message will have similar consequences.

Why such messages crash WhatsApp?

The message itself might seem short, but in reality, it consists thousands and thousands of encoded character in it that are just hidden, as they're mostly text directionality symbols, instructing which way to output the text. Thus, opening up such message will simply cause a memory leak in WhatsApp - and in some cases, with your phone.

So, never trust weird WhatsApp messages from people you don't know about.

Center for Internet Security has found a serious vulnerability in popular open-source (de-)compression tool, 7-Zip.

The vulnerability allows execution of malicious code, access to computer's files and user profiles. Further details of the vulnerability are listed on Center for Internet Security's website.

The good news is that there's already an update available for 7-Zip that will patch the vulnerability. Versions v18.05 and above are safe and patched.

You can download the latest, patched version of 7-Zip from our download servers:

7-Zip (64-bit Windows)
7-Zip (32-bit Windows)

...or through /-Zip's homepage.