Tech Talk

We're now just a week away from the September 7 launch of the iPhone 14 line, but the rumors haven’t stopped rolling in, with a new expansive leak covering everything from the colors to the battery sizes, charging speeds, storage, and more. This comes from Lanzuk – a known leaker – on Naver , a South Korean blogging platform, and spotted by BGR . The leaker’s information apparently originates from a “US developer source” – presumably they mean a developer who works for Apple, but that’s not specified. In any case, among the many things listed here is that the new A16 Bionic chipset will unsurprisingly offer better performance than the A15 Bionic; with the improvements apparently largely coming from superior thermal management – meaning it can keep cool under pressure, so performance isn’t throttled. It’s worth remembering though that reports suggest only the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will get this new chipset, while the vanilla models will retain the A15 found on th

Apple’s iPhone SE (2022) may have only launched a couple of months ago, but there’s already talk about the next iteration in the budget smartphone line – and the latest rumor suggests that we might once again be saying farewell to the iconic home button. The current iPhone SE model bears a striking resemblance to the iPhone 6 , which was released all the way back in 2014. It offers a 5.4-inch display and single rear camera, and houses the iPhone’s iconic home button (with in-built Touch ID) at the bottom of the screen.  However, on the Geared Up Podcast , guest Jon Prosser has hinted that the iPhone SE 4 will instead mimic the iPhone XR . It’ll likely still be stuck with one camera, but should get a slightly larger 6.1-inch screen, and will swap out the physical home button and Touch ID for Face ID. Apple removed the home button from its flagship smartphones with the launch of the iPhone X in November 2017, and for a brief time after it discontinued the original iPhone SE in Septe

Image: LG LG has announced its first bendable OLED TV which works either completely flat or as a curved display. The LG OLED Flex (model LX3) is a 42-inch OLED TV that bends into a curved (900R) TV thanks to LG’s latest display technology. Curved displays are suited for a more immersive gaming experience, while flat screens are better for watching TV broadcasts or streaming services. LG OLED Flex owners can automatically bend and adjust the TV into its curved mode using a dedicated button on the TV remote. (As opposed to some morphing monitors which have to be manually adjusted ). There are two presets or owners can adjust the curve of the display in five percent increments through 20 different levels. Image: LG LG is focusing on gamers for its Flex TV. LG is really marketing its 42-inch bendable display towards gamers, thanks to a host of features that console or PC gamers will find appealing. The LX3 supports Dolby Vision gaming at 4K 120Hz, and includes all the latest HDMI

Image: Samsung Samsung’s bringing more content to TV Plus, its free, ad-supported streaming package that’s built into a range of Samsung devices and available on the web. The update introduces several new shows, such as Top Gear , Law & Order Special Victims Unit , NCIS , and Chicago Fire . In addition to the new shows, TV Plus is getting two exclusive Samsung-owned channels: Ride or Drive, a station geared toward car fans, and Samsung Showcase, a channel dedicated to “concerts, events, and special programming.” It’s also partnering with A&E to launch a new home improvement-focused channel, called Home.Made.Nation. And while Samsung already offers several local and nationwide news channels, including ABC News Live, CBS News, NBC News Now, and more, Samsung says it plans on extending local news and weather coverage to more areas of the US. It also wants to double its video-on-demand library in 2023 by utilizing “new and expanded partnerships” with Lionsgate, Vice Media, an

That’s a lot of Dishy McFlatfaces. | Image: Royal Caribbean Royal Caribbean, the cruise company that also operates Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises, has announced that it’ll be outfitting its fleet of ships with SpaceX’s Starlink internet service ( via TechCrunch ). The company says the service will make the internet experience while at sea faster and more reliable. Royal Caribbean seems to be moving full steam ahead with deploying Starlink — it trialed the service on one of its ships over the summer, and will be officially launching it on September 5th, starting with a ship called the Celebrity Beyond. The company expects to have the service fully deployed across its fleet by the first quarter of 2023. Royal Caribbean’s announcement doesn’t include technical details, like how many Starlink dishes its ships would use, or how much bandwidth would be split between a few thousand passengers. However, the company does promise that people will be able to use streaming service

In the wake of a tepid response, Netflix decided to can their TV show adaptation of Resident Evil on Friday - and many have breathed a sigh of relief. The series garnered a rating of 3.9 on Rotten Tomatoes , reflecting the largely negative response of many diehard fans of the Resident Evil Capcom game franchise, which made its PlayStation debut back in 1996. If you're dejected by its cancellation, however, you can rest assured that Albert Wesker will be back soon in Dead By Daylight's upcoming Project W chapter. A bitter taste In a Deadline exclusive, it was announced that the popular streaming service decided not to renew the action-horror show after its first season failed to break the skin for many viewers. On Saturday, actor Lance Reddick, who played the iconic villain and Umbrella Corporation heavyweight Albert Wesker, posted a heartfelt message to the show's supporters on his Twitter account. "The haters and the trolls notwithstanding, I wanted to gi

TechRadar is headed to Berlin for IFA 2022 , which runs from September 2-6. It's one of the biggest tech expos of the year, and alongside global brands like Samsung and LG, who make everything from laptops to TVs as well as devices for the home, smart home and appliance specialists like SharkNinja and Ring will be showing off their wares. From a Homes point of view, we're expecting exciting new product launches and new category announcements. We're also looking forward to seeing, and getting hands-on with, the latest innovations at the various show-arounds and live product demos. We're still finalizing our itinerary for event, but we've already pinned down a few key brands that we'll be meeting with. Here's who – and what – we're looking forward to seeing. Who are we looking forward to seeing at IFA Berlin 2022? (Image credit: TechRadar) Arçelik The global home appliances manufacturer, Arçelik, will be showcasing innovations from across the

AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X, the incoming flagship for next-gen Zen 4 processors , has been spotted boosting up to 5.85GHz – but there are caveats to be observed here. This latest Zen 4 leak comes from a Weibo user (a social media platform in China), so must be treated with more caution than usual, and it was flagged up by HXL on Twitter (a regular source of hardware leakage, with the tweet being highlighted by VideoCardz ). Raphael 2x Durango CCD 16x Persephone CoreRyzen 9 7950X 5.7GHz (PBO/XFR 5.85GHz)5.85 vs 5.8（Intel RPL）https://t.co/BZM5fHaU5G pic.twitter.com/Uc5VDMZ0bK August 28, 2022 See more As you can see, the leaker purportedly has a Ryzen 9 7950X that hits 5.85GHz as mentioned – huge amounts of salt required, of course, and exactly what that speed means, we’ll discuss shortly – and Intel’s Raptor Lake flagship will apparently reach 5.8GHz at top speed in comparison. The speed of 5.85GHz does line up with a previous top speed floated for the Zen 4 flagship by Angstronomic

We know that Apple has a launch event scheduled for September 7 , at which we might well see the Apple Watch 8 as well as the iPhone 14 – but it now seems likely that another new Apple smartwatch is going to make an appearance too. A new post up at Macotakara (via MacRumors ) points to the existence and the imminent arrival of an Apple Watch Pro. The wearable is said to have a larger 47 mm casing, and is also rumored to come with a flatter design than the standard Apple Watch. We've heard leaks about such a device before, but this seems to be more evidence that those previous predictions were actually accurate. A more durable titanium casing and longer battery life have also been mentioned in relation to this new wearable. Pro or Rugged? A tweaked, flatter design for the Apple Watch 8 has been rumored for a while , and indeed was first tipped to appear with the Apple Watch 7 . Now it would appear that the updated aesthetic is going to be exclusive to a new model in the seri

Yes, it looks as weird as it sounds, but it works well as a basic smart lock  The $99 SwitchBot Lock is the first smart door lock I’ve tested that doesn’t replace any part of your existing lock. Instead, it attaches to the back of your door over the top of the thumb turn. This removes a major pain point of smart locks: an involved installation. But the SwitchBot Lock is really odd looking — my husband literally stopped in his tracks and said, “What is that thing?” I had a similar reaction when I first saw it and was wholly unconvinced this large piece of black plastic would have the power to unlock my deadbolt. I was surprised to discover that the SwitchBot Lock moves that thumb turn just as well as I can, and it stayed firmly put during my two weeks of testing, despite being attached solely by double-sided sticky tape. (No word yet on long-term durability, but it looks promising so far). The downsides are that it’s not very smart and it’s missing a few key features (haha). You als

Based on the latest from the rumor mill, we're still going to get brand new iPad Pro tablets from Apple for 2022 – but the jump forward in specs and performance might not quite be as significant as it could have been. The well known (and usually well informed) Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the new iPad Pro models are going to go into the mass production stage in the last quarter of 2022 (so that's October, November and December). However, Kuo also states that Apple supplier TSMC isn't going to have its 3nm chips ready before 2023, so the iPad Pro will be sticking with a 5nm chipset. That number is a size in nanometers, and the smaller it is, the more performance can be packed into a processor. Crunching the numbers While Kuo says the iPad Pros will indeed be getting new chipsets inside – the current models currently run the M1 chip – they'll stick to the current 5nm architecture. The recently launched M2 chip is a 5nm processor as well, and may well featur

Even when AAA game releases wind down until the next big release season, there are still plenty of delectable indie morsels that can tide you over or even create its own tasty and uniquely flavored meal. This week we have plenty of indie games to suit any palette, from the monochrome horror of Silt to the dark rogue-like action of Cult of the Lamb or the retro game love letter Arcade Paradise.  So if you're looking for some of the best PC games we're playing here at TechRadar, check out our list and dive right into the buffet of delicious PC games. Silt  (Image credit: Fireshine Games) Silt is described as a surreal underwater puzzle-adventure game, in which you control a deep sea diver as they explored the murky depths of the pitch black ocean to uncover its mysteries. Its monochrome palette paired with its frightening yet almost children’s picture book graphical style creates a unique blend of tension that sticks with you long after the game’s completion. Silt

Creative Assembly, the studio behind the Total War strategy series and survival horror game Alien Isolation, is working on a new project. Following the release of Total War: Warhammer 3 earlier this year, the studio confirmed in a blog post that it’s developing an “action project that will establish a new franchise”. The post suggests the as-yet-unnamed game will be played in third-person and built in Unreal Engine 5. Creative Assembly was eager to temper expectations, saying it will be “a significant wait before further details are revealed”. While the game is being developed by Total War Saga: Troy maker CA Sofia, the studio's work on future Total War releases won’t stop, as a separate internal team picks up this new title. No stranger to action (Image credit: Sega) Although Creative Assembly is best known for its acclaimed run of Total War strategy games, it’s no stranger to action. The first games it put out in the late ‘80s were platformer-shooters, and it’s gon

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images After a hearing on discovery requests from lawyers representing both Elon Musk and Twitter, Judge Kathaleen McCormick gave a firm “no” to the Musk team’s “absurdly broad” request in favor of a much smaller set of information. However, Twitter must hand over some additional data relating to how it calculates the “monetizable daily active users” (mDAU) statistic and its associated bot activity estimate that Musk argues is fraudulent. Musk’s lawyers wanted “all of the data Twitter might possibly store for each of the approximately 200 million accounts included in its mDAU count every day for nearly three years,” covering trillions of data points, McCormick wrote in her ruling . “Plaintiff [Twitter] has difficulty quantifying the burden of responding to that request because no one in their right mind has ever tried to undertake such an effort. It suffices to say, Plaintiff has demonstrated that such a request is overly burdensom

Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images Wordle is now available in The New York Time s Crossword app for both iOS and Android users. The addictive guessing game joins both The New York Times Crossword variants, Spelling Bee, and more. Users can also continue to play the game on their desktop and through the mobile website. The word-guessing game became an immediate phenomenon after it was released in October 2021. The Times then acquired Wordle from its creator Josh Wardle in January . That decision was not without complaints, as users began speculating that the game had become harder and some of their streaks were ruined . Despite complaints after its acquisition, The Times said that the game allowed The Times to see a jump in new subscribers at its earnings meeting in May and now says that as of July, about 10 percent of “active” players have played more than 145 games of Wordle. Other than tackling the complaints, The Times has been tweaking the game dur

Google Play Games will allow users to play natively on their PCs | Image: Google Starting today, users in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Australia will be able to register for the open beta for Google Play Games on their PCs . Normally, this catalog of games would be restricted to Chromebooks or other Android-enabled devices, but it will soon be available able to run natively on PCs for users in those select countries. The open beta will have a limited number of slots, and accounts will be added on a first-come, first-served basis, but additional slots are set to become available on a rolling basis. The open beta isn’t currently available to users in other markets, even though Windows 11 users have had access to Android apps from the Amazon app store for some time. Google originally announced that it would be bringing its catalog of Android games to Windows PCs back in December of last year. Image: Google You’ll be able to sync your saves across multiple devices wit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I’ve been using the Steam iOS app quite a bit since getting a Steam Deck, but every time I opened the app, I had to deal with an interface that just felt old — the overall design hadn’t been updated in a very long time . It seems Valve felt that way, too, because it’s now beta testing a new version of the app that looks dramatically different and, if you ask me, dramatically better. In a blog post , Valve mentioned the new design as one of the key new features of the app, and the improvements, at least in my brief testing on iOS, are immediately obvious. For example, the app now has a navigation bar on the bottom of the screen where you can navigate to things like the store, your news feed, and the Steam Guard section. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge The library view in the new app. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Look at those modern menus! But the app doesn’t just have a refreshed coat of paint; it’s built on a

Photo by Roy Rochlin / Getty Images The lawsuits are piling up for Pandora, which has been accused by comedians, including Lewis Black and Andrew Dice Clay, of streaming their works without the proper license. Now, George Lopez is joining the fray, seeking $5.5 million from the streamer. Lopez filed suit on Tuesday, claiming that Pandora streamed two of his comedy albums, Right Now Right Now and Team Leader , without paying him royalties or obtaining the proper licenses from him. “[Pandora] decided it would infringe now to ensure it had this very valuable intellectual property on its platform to remain competitive, and deal with the consequences later,” the filing said. “Later is now.” A representative for Pandora’s parent company, SiriusXM, did not immediately respond to request for comment. Like in the previous suits , Lopez’s lawyer (Richard Busch, who represents the other plaintiffs) argues that his work is entitled to two copyrights — one for the recording and one for the un