Qualcomm has revealed a new artificial intelligence (AI) engine as part of a wave of MWC 2018 announcements today. While the engine is more of a background player, you’ll likely see improvements on your mobile device wherever the engine is implemented. The Qualcomm AI Engine isn’t made up of new parts, Gary Brotman, Qualcomm’s director of product management, said in a briefing. It brings together different hardware and software components to enable faster AI user experiences through on-device pr

Qualcomm is back with a new virtual reality (VR) reference design headset, this time featuring its latest and greatest chip, the Snapdragon 845. Just as with the Snapdragon 835 VR Developer Kit, the Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR Reference Design’s purpose is to provide a starting point from which other manufacturers can develop their own unique headsets. What’s more, Swart said that with the Snapdragon 845, VR headsets can support 2K x 2K displays per eye. More information on the Snapdragon 845 VR he

As highlighted by VentureBeat, a recent online survey conducted in the UK found that 60% of respondents believed that loot boxes should be regulated as gambling (and obviously enough, the remaining 40% felt they weren’t gambling and shouldn’t be regulated). In short, more Brits believe loot boxes count as ‘proper’ gambling in the same vein as pushing the buttons on a slot machine. Inevitably, the industry will have to change.”He further observed that more jurisdictions would start protecting peo

uTorrent’s Windows desktop and web clients both contain vulnerabilities that leave users at risk of hacking. Project Zero gives software vendors 90 days to fix vulnerabilities before making them public. Fearing BitTorrent wouldn’t make the deadline, he reached out to founder Bram Cohen on Twitter, prompting the company to act. The web version of uTorrent has already been repaired, according to Dave Rees, vice president of engineering at BitTorrent. “We highly encourage all uTorrent Web customers

With its Unpacked 2018 event less than a week away, Samsung is having a tough time keeping its upcoming flagship handsets, the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, under wraps. According to XDA Developers, the South Korean electronics giant will use its Unpacked 2018 app to show off its Galaxy S9 handset in Augmented Reality during the official reveal at MWC 2018. One anxious Redditor has already torn down the app prior to the event, revealing exactly how the AR functionality works. The images also show a sin

After announcing plans to allow 3D objects in Facebook posts at last year’s Oculus Connect conference, Facebook is finally showing off the technology in action. LEGO, Jurassic Park, Sony, Wayfair and other brands all released posts today with embedded, rotatable 3D objects. Facebook Product Manager Aykud Gönen said in a blog post the 3D objects use “industry-standard gITF 2.0” formatting, and that artists will be able to directly drag and drop 3D images into Facebook posts. With the 3D Connect a

(Lead image credit: Evan Blass)The Samsung Galaxy S9 launch is upon us, set to be announced at MWC 2018 in Barcelona on February 25. Leading up to the release of S9 and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, we will conduct tests of our own, and will be updating this article with only the very best cases available on the market. Check out the case right here: (Galaxy S9) (Galaxy S9 Plus)Olixar X-Ranger Survival CaseOlixar’s case packs in a surprising amount of functionality given that it’s primary goal is to m

The $99.95 / £99.95 price is great for entry-level DIY design, but you’ll need littleBits’ other, more expensive kits for true customization. And the Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit makes learning the inputs and outputs of computing remarkably fun by giving kids (and adults) the chance to build an R2-D2 robot by hand. littleBits’ Droid Inventor app, during the Control Hub mission. While you can move littleBits’ R2-D2 in any direction forwards or backwards, its movement definitely isn’t as fast or m

Ever since Intel poached AMD’s Radeon Tech Group Leader Raja Koduri, we suspected that it would be getting into the discrete graphics world. At the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Intel unveiled a prototype GPU based on a 14nm process. According to PC Watch, the prototype GPU contains 1.542 billion transistors split between two chips; one being the actual graphics processor unit and the other a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The inclusion of an FGPA suggests that this

Growing up, I would drive my favorite die-cast Hot Wheels on some epic imaginary adventures around the house and on the racing track. Now, Mattel is helping kids imagine what they imagine their Hot Wheels races look like, through the help of an augmented reality (AR) racing interface. At this year’s Toy Fair in New York City, I visited Mattel’s showcase, where the company is celebrating Hot Wheels’ 50th anniversary. Plus, it adds some skill and interactivity to Hot Wheels’ non-RC tracks, which t

Building a quality web store could help you sell it to the masses, and it’s easier than you think. Even basic shared hosting plans will often include core e-commerce functionality: templates for web stores, PayPal integration, easy installs for popular shopping carts. While these products can be packed with features, even the high-end e-commerce plans are designed to be simple to use. Whether you’re a total e-commerce newbie or you’re already running a busy web store, we’ve found five excellent

Firefox Quantum is the biggest update to Mozilla’s browser since its launch in 2004, and introduced a totally new way of handling add-ons. You might even find that Firefox Quantum makes a lot of your favorite add-ons redundant. For everything else, read on…Keep all your logins secure, along with notes, files and form dataLike all modern browsers, Firefox Quantum includes a password manager for storing your logins. Evernote Web Clipper for Firefox Quantum is ideal. This Firefox Quantum add-on d

Swype Keyboard, a popular third-party keyboard for Android, has been discontinued. The Microsoft-owned SwiftKey Keyboard is still supported and doing well in the Google Play Store. But according to a statement made on Reddit by Swype Keyboard creator Nuance, the company is shifting its focus elsewhere for the time being, saying that it will “…no longer be updating the Swype+Dragon keyboard for Android. Voice recognition paired with machine learning helps these assistants make life easier – som

After realising that it was more than slightly unnecessary for Android Pay and Google Wallet to be completely separate services, Google has started rolling out its new unified payment service, Google Pay. In the meantime, Google has, for some reason, rebranded Google Wallet as Google Pay Send, which will allow you to continue to send and request payments. This is clearly just the first step for Google Pay, though, and it seems that the company has big plans for the service. In the near future, f

Were you a big fan of Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Revealed in a trailer-packed tweet from the Star Wars Twitter account, Disney has revealed that the Star Wars: The Last Jedi 4K Blu-ray release date has been set for March 27. Explore the mythology of the Force and why Rian Johnson chose to interpret its role in such a unique way. With an introduction and optional commentary by writer-director Rian Johnson. You can pre-order Star Wars: The Last Jedi 4K Blu-ray from Amazon here.

In April 2017, Spotify posted some job listings which gave us our first sign that the streaming service was looking to break into hardware. The listings included a Senior Product Manager of Hardware who would be working on “a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles”. But a recent group of job listings suggests that Spotify is now preparing to start the manufacturing process. These adverts show that Spotify is looking to hire an Operations Manager, a Senio

Asus has announced that its Windows Mixed Reality Headset is now available over in the US with a recommended price of $429. You’ll be able to purchase it direct from Asus or other leading retailers in the US, the company notes. Asus’s Windows Mixed Reality Headset (model HC102) boasts a 2,880 x 1,440 resolution – 1,440 x 1,440-pixels per eye – and up to a 90Hz refresh rate, which should keep things nice and smooth. This headset is one of the niftier looking Windows Mixed Reality models, aestheti

Good news for designers and artists – Microsoft has patented a haptic feedback system for the Surface Pen, which will make drawing on the screen a much more tactile experience. According to the patent, the pen’s tip will retract when pressed against the screen, compressing a coil that will act as an electromagnet and cause movement inside the pen’s housing. The haptic feedback could be initiated by pressure applied on the tip of the Surface Pen, the angle at which it’s tilted, its velocity, any

Now, let’s be clear – £1,399.99 (around $1,950, or AU$2,475 when directly converted) isn’t chump change by anyone’s measurements. But when it comes to picking up a 4K HDR projector, that’s a relatively measly sum – and all that Optoma is asking for its new UHD300X projector, now hitting the shelves. Offering 4K UHD resolution with the brightness peaks of the latest HDR (high dynamic range) features, it’s a well spec’d device for the price tag. Despite the price tag, the specs sound pretty solid

And, rather surreally, this comes at a time when action film actor Steven Seagal is endorsing a cryptocurrency which would appear to want to position itself as the successor to Bitcoin, given the name: ‘Bitcoiin2Gen’. As the Telegraph reports, talking to students at London’s Regent’s University, Carney said: “It has pretty much failed thus far on … the traditional aspects of money. Nobody uses it as a medium of exchange.”Essentially, then, Carney’s argument is that nobody is buying things with