The Trump administration is further tightening restrictions on Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei, making it more difficult for the company to get chips for its devices. And a temporary general license that offered a reprieve for Huawei customers has now expired and won’t be extended, making it harder for older Huawei devices to receive Android updates from Google.
The US Commerce Department said…
Google today announced Chrome for Android’s context menu will show “Fast page” labels for webpages deemed to have good performance. The label will be determined using Google’s Web Vitals, an initiative the company announced in May to provide web developers and…
Epic’s Fortnite standoff is putting Apple’s cash cow at risk
August 17, 2020
Apple and Epic Games have gone to war, with the two companies clashing over Apple’s App Store policies. Epic, in protest of Apple’s 30 percent fee for any digital transactions on its iOS platform, attempted to circumvent things with a direct payment option in Fortnite…
ZTE is set to become first to market with a smartphone featuring an under-display camera. The Chinese company announced today that it’s launching the ZTE Axon 20 5G in its domestic market on September 1.
Smartphone makers have for several years dabbled with designs to increase screen real estate by hiding or working around the front-facing camera. Solutions have included pop-ups, slide-ups…
At the Hot Chips 2020 conference, which was held virtually this year, IBM announced the IBM Power10. It’s the successor to the Power9 and represents the next generation of the company’s processor family. IBM claims that the Power10 delivers up to three times greater…
Telegram launches one-on-one video calls on iOS and Android
August 16, 2020
Secure messaging app Telegram has launched an alpha version of one-on-one video calls on both its Android and iOS apps, the company announced, saying 2020 had “highlighted the need for face-to-face communication.”
In a blog post marking its seventh anniversary, Telegram…
Apple stumbled into a war with the gaming industry, and the future of iOS is at stake
August 15, 2020
Apple has always had a complicated relationship with the game industry, but this month that relationship slid into a bitter and very public legal and regulatory war that could shape the future of iPhone apps. The first escalation occurred when Apple laid out in clear terms why it has no plans to ever approve cloud gaming services from its tech rivals Google and Microsoft. The second was when Apple…
GamesBeat Decides 159: Epic vs. Apple, Halo delay, and NPD
August 15, 2020
GamesBeat Decides is here once again to shout that you’ve activated Tim Sweeney’s trap card. That’s right, Epic pulled some Yu-Gi-Oh moves on Apple and Google this week, and now we all have to choose the billion- or trillion-dollar corporation we’re gonna root for.
Activision has teased its Call of Duty 2020 game, believed to be Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, in the Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale spinoff.
The publisher hasn’t revealed it yet, but Doritos accidentally leaked information and the title about the next game…
Aside from staying alive and healthy, the biggest concern most people have during the pandemic is the future of their jobs. Unemployment in the U.S. has skyrocketed, from 5.8 million in February 2020 to 16.3 million in July 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it’s not only the lost jobs that are reshaping work in the wake of COVID-19; the of many of the remaining jobs has…