General Tech

Back in May 2017, a former TSMC engineer was accused of stealing trade secrets relating to the company's 28nm process technology. Now, a similar situation has come to light this year, with another former TSMC employee charged with stealing trade secrets and attempting to take them to a new job …

Microsoft has been pretty heavy handed with its efforts to bring its aging Skype application up to modern standards, forcing users to ditch the older interface in favour of a comprehensive redesign. Realising that Snapchat-like functionality is not what its user base wanted, Microsoft has announced that it will once …

Generation of smartphone brings ever more advanced photographic systems to millions of people across the globe. Whilst most people will be happy with the functionality that comes built into the smart phone there will always be professional and semiprofessional users who want more from the phone they already have. That’s …

We had the chance to swing by the LG booth at IFA this morning to catch a glimpse of what the future has in store for us. There was plenty of talk about 8K TVs, with LG showing off the world's first 88-inch 8K OLED, but the company has a …

Panasonic has kicked of its 100th anniversary celebration by unveiling its plans to bolster IoT efforts in Europe, announcing a partnership with British network provider Vodafone. Additionally, the firm has revealed its line-up of HDR10+ compatible displays in partnership with Samsung and 20th Century Fox. One of Panasonics core focuses …

Back in June, the HDR10+ standard finally began rolling out, giving TV makers royalty-free access to the higher quality HDR certification. With HDR10+, we'll start to see more TVs rival the quality provided by Dolby Vision and the first models will be with us very soon, with Samsung and Panasonic …

Between carefully-crafted listings of photographs of items sold as if they were the actual product and mystery boxes filled to the brim with garbage sourced from resellers and local dollar stores, the early days of eBay were a mess. A highly amusing mess for outsiders, but still a mess. We …

Following a plethora of controversial social media campaigns, online retailer GameSeek quietly entered administration back in May, reportedly a surprise to everyone behind the scenes. Founder Stephen Staley isn’t deterred from the market, however, shifting his focus towards ToySeek in an attempt to plug the gap left by Toys “R” …

Although voice assistants such as Google Home, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby and Siri are all getting progressively smarter in their responses, all have one disadvantage in common – understanding a thicker dialect. Enthusiasts intent on continuing their use of the devices could begin to lose their regional accents in the long-term …

While it’s clear that software has an impact on YouTube’s performance, it seems as though Google is turning towards hardware in order to improve stream quality, launching its new “Device Report” service. The site categorises smartphones in terms of viewing experience, dubbing the best of the best ‘Signature Devices’. Getting …

Amazon’s signature “next day delivery” has been under fire from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) since last December ever since complaints arose surrounding the accuracy of its self-titled promise. Now, it seems the investigation has deemed the retailer to be falsely advertising its One Day Delivery option, and will force …

In November 2017, the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled that broadband providers would have to start advertising average speeds to customers, rather than top speeds. As always, it takes a while for these rules to properly fall into place, but the switch has now happened, and it looks like …

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins has broken many records on Amazon’s streaming platform, Twitch, currently holding the record for most concurrent viewers at 667,000. The superstar streamer isn’t stopping there, however, as Mr Blevins has become the first Twitch user to reach 10 million followers. Ninja took to Twitter to share his …

Ever since March 2015, analysts have been predicting that Apple will go on to become the world's first company to be valued at $1 trillion. Over the last few years, Apple has creeped closer and closer to that milestone, and last night, it finally hit the mark. Apple has become …

Moving on from his endeavours with flamethrowers, Elon Musk has since expressed interest in working with developers to eventually bring original video game content to Tesla vehicles. This has prompted quite the response from prominent figures in the industry, including Jackbox Games, PUBG and Razer. Tesla is launching Version 9.0 …

Facebook hasn’t had the best year for security and privacy following the reveal of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with founder Mark Zuckerberg often trying to talk his way out of a jam. Now, the platform’s security chief Alex Stamos will be leaving and it looks like Facebook won’t be replacing …

YouTube has been struggling to get its paid original content off the ground since 2016, with stiff competition from other premium video services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. In an attempt to boost its paying subscribers, the folks over at YouTube will be targeting less saturate markets in the …

Firefox is currently undergoing a system overhaul, with creator Mozilla looking to create new, cohesive branding for its browser and other related ventures. In an attempt to avoid the same backlash it received for its impromptu Moz://a stylisation, the firm wants to know what users think based on pre-established criteria. …

We've known for years now that Samsung is working on fully flexible displays. There have been rumours about this technology landing in smartphones almost every year for the last four years. However, it is starting to look like 2019 might finally be the year, as Samsung Display has announced that …

The Summer season is still in full swing here in the UK and the heat wave isn't slowing down. To celebrate the good weather, Overclockers UK is holding a ‘Red Hot' sale, with graphics cards, peripherals, full systems and other bits of hardware all getting price cuts. While Overclockers UK …

Sky Q is pretty much the best (and most expensive) TV experience in the UK. With already a vast choice of 4K content to choose from, Sky is the leader when it comes to 4K TV content availability. Sky is looking to improve further by adding HDR support next year, …

AMD has had a lot of success over the last 18 months, in large part thanks to the launch of Ryzen, Threadripper and EPYC CPUs. AMD kept the pressure on with Ryzen 2nd Gen and new APUs earlier this year and all of that work is paying off nicely, as …

Twitter has had a very public problem when it comes to spam, bots, and various other types of platform abuse. Twitter is now looking to crack down on these issues with added API restrictions to make sure only legitimate developers are using its tools. Twitter is in the process of …

The cost of PC components is often in flux, with graphics cards, RAM and storage in particular soaring in price throughout the past two years. While prices are beginning to come down, it looks like Amazon could have you covered in future as it launches a trial for interest-free finance …

Back in early 2017, the European Commission began investigating several hardware companies for price fixing, including ASUS, Philips, Pioneer and Denon & Marantz. Now that investigation has come to a close, with €111 million in fines being handed down. The European Commission announced today that it has issued fines in …

Despite its disastrous implementation throughout this year, the UK government and Metropolitan Police have set in motion plans to expand their efforts with real-time facial recognition in order to catch criminals. This has prompted concern from non-profit privacy advocate, Big Brother Watch, which is now crowdfunding in order to combat …

Elgato has revolutionised livestreaming with its Stream Deck, allowing content creators to seamlessly boot programs and transition scenes in a sleek and stylish way. Introducing the Stream Deck Mini, Elgato has trimmed its celebrated controller from 15 LCD buttons to a simplified 6. The Stream Deck Mini functions much like …

Earlier in the month, it was revealed that the UK had fallen to 35th place from 31st in the global broadband table. Very little movement has happened within the country since the Openreach rollout years ago, and finally, the UK government is planning to do something about it. A new …

Facebook has been at the centre of a few major controversies recently. The social network has been embroiled in everything from privacy scandals to politics. Another long-criticised aspect of Facebook is the inconsistent moderation of offensive material. Similar to the undercover Cambridge Analytica investigation, an undercover reporter has since tackled …

In the first of our new 'Briony Games' series - reviewer and gaming addict Briony Hannam takes a look at 'PC Building Simulator' - a new title which is designed to let people build their own virtual PC system. It could be used as a way of checking how a rig looks before buying the real, physical components online. Briony had never loaded this simulator before producing this video - it was recorded live as she played about with the software herself at home.