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Samsung has today announced its newest flagship smartphones at the Barclays Center in New York City. As expected, this time around Samsung had two separate Galaxy Note models to offer.

The regular Galaxy Note10 is the smaller of the two, although sporting a fairly sizeable 6.3 inch screen. The larger Galaxy Note10+ features the largest ever screen on a Note smartphone at an impressive 6.8 inches.

The two displays are not only separated by size but also offer different resolutions. The smaller one has FHD+ resolution at 2280x1080 (like Galaxy S10e) and larger QHD+ at 3040x1440 (like Galaxy S10 or S10+). Both of them utilize Samsung's praised AMOLED technology.

While the international version of the Note10 will have an improved Exynos chip (over the S10), the US version has the same Snapdragon 855 as this years previous flagships. In Galaxy Note10 you'll get 8 GB of RAM, while the plus version offers 12 gigabytes.

There's also only one 256 GB storage option for the former, and the latter can be bought in both 256 GB and 512 GB variants.

In the camera department both have trio of cameras featuring a wide angle (77°) 12 MP f/1.5-2.4 default shooter, ultrawide (123°) 16 MP f/2.2 camera, and one with a telephoto lens (45°) with 12 megapixels and f/2.1. In addition, the Note 10+ has a ToF (Time of Flight) camera that can help with measuring real life objects.

Many of us thought that Apple would be slowly ending the reign of touch sensors in iPhones after they revealed iPhone X and definitely after the introduction of iPhone XS.

Even last year's cheaper iPhone XR had Face ID instead of a touch sensor for authentication. Seems like they were betting on facial recognition all the way instead of fingerprint.

Apparently this might not be the case entirely. A well-known and regarded Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo is suggesting that Apple is bringing Touch ID back.

According to his analysis, Apple is going to feature a under-screen version of its Touch ID sensors in one of its upcoming iPhones. It won't be this year, though, so expect to see another Face ID iPhone.

Kuo suggests that in-display Touch ID could be revealed in 2021, but that there would still be Face ID in iPhones as well. Seems rather odd that they would put both sensors in a single iPhone, so perhaps they are in different models.

The in-screen Touch ID would allow Apple to have a all screen front, if it removed all the camera and other sensors from the top of the phone, like many Android manufacturers have done. However, Apple probably isn't going to settle to current generation solutions for installing front-facing cameras.

As soon as the Trump ban was announced, making Android possibly unattainable for Huawei no longer, all kinds of rumors about Huawei's own mobile platform started surfacing.

This wasn't all projection, though. In fact, the company has been working on different types of operating systems for a long time, one of which was a 2015 launched IoT platform called LiteOS.

However, the new had much bigger ambitions as it had to replace Android.

The ban was later cancelled by Trump, and Huawei is back in business largely unharmed, but the close call might have made it more determined to get their OS ready.

Now report from Global Times, which might have stronger ties to the Chinese government than Huawei, says that the Hongmeng OS might see the light of day as soon as later this week.

This could happen at a Huawei developer conference held in Dongguan on August 9.

Huawei has said that the operating system is designed for IoT devices, like the earlier mentioned LiteOS, and wouldn't thus be used in smartphones. However, according to Global Times, Huawei is planning to introduce a Hongmend-powered Mate 30 series smartphone later this year.

Apple has decided to suspend its Siri recording for quality control worldwide after The Guardian last week brought up some of the problems with it.

Siri conversations were used to improve upon the quality of the service by recording and grading how the conversations went. This meant that Apple employees were listening to actual Siri conversations randomly in order to determine whether Siri was successful in aiding the user.

While Apple says that information that could be considered personal was removed prior to anyone listening to the recording, the employees were still listening to very personal conversations, even though they couldn't make the connection to the actual person, or have any information about them.

Regardless, the company has still decided to halt the process worldwide for now and do internal investigation in its quality control practices. They are planning on resuming the grading procedure on a later date after the investigation has concluded and measures needed been taken.

Next time around, however, Apple will ask for permission to use Siri conversations for quality control, rather assume consent.

Facebook hasn't got exactly the best connotation anymore. Especially ever after the Cambridge Analytica mess, the company's image has undoubtedly been tainted, although over billion people still use the service.

The company still seems to be confident that the brand can do good for its other apps. Rather than separating apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook is planning the opposite, The Information reports.

According to the report, Facebook is planning on adding Facebook's own name to both Instagram and WhatsApp. Seems rather odd, but in the future the services are supposedly called Instagram from Facebook and WhatsApp from Facebook.

This appears in App Store and Google Play but won't affect the name in your home screen, as it would be too long.

Perhaps there could be an argument made, that linking the services, viewed very positively one would imagine, it could show customers that Facebook is more than just a personal data selling behemoth.

In fact, Facebook says that it is doing this "to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook."

Facebook has been working on integrating the background technologies of its various platforms, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, for months.

One of the worst nightmares of a Windows users is having the system bricked. You'll have to either reinstall Windows or, if you are lucky enough, restore it via backup.

However, often times with a local backup, which is what most manufacturers use, the separate restore partition might be months or even years old.

Even if it is fairly up-to-date, the restoring process itself is not the most pleasant one.

Fortunately, Microsoft has finally decided that they need to fix this issue with a cloud solution. The company is adding new versions of Windows 10 an option to make a restoration from a cloud backup.

However, in addition to having the new version of Windows 10, the manufacturer has to support this option too with drivers. As it seems like a no-brainer for all manufacturers, we expect it to be widely available as soon as Microsoft releases it.

This is one the features that Apple's macOS already has, and Windows dearly needs.

Google made it official earlier this week that one of the new features we'll be seeing in the next-generation Pixel phones is Face Unlock.

It's the same old front camera system that we've already seen on iPhones. Hopefully Google can make it little swifter.

Now rumors have it that Google is not only adding the feature to its smartphones but bringing it to other devices as well. One might think that there's a Face Unlock enabled Pixel tablet in the works.

No, according to Chrome Unboxed, Google is about to release a new Chromebook alongside Pixel 4, codenamed Atlas, that is featuring Face Unlock.

According to some source code, Chromium project is readying support for what is called Face Detection. This could be the new Face Unlock feature on the future Atlas device, perhaps named Pixelbook 2.

This would likely also bring the new Motion Sense feature to Chromebooks as well. Motion Sense allows users to control their devices without touching it. Motion gestures can launch apps and for example take a picture depending on how you wave your hands.

Netflix is considered one of the pioneers in AB testing in the streaming service space, and the company has improved upon its layout, recommendations, and even rating system via customer data.

However, usually collecting data from customers isn't very controversial, unlike this time around. Twitter user by the name of Beto on Security has questioned Netflix's newest policy where they request physical activity data of the user.

The Netflix app has asked people to give permission to the smartphones physical activity data, which seems very odd to most. Why in the world would you need to give physical activity data to a streaming service?

Well, fortunately Netflix has revealed some of the thinking behind this request. According to Netflix, the company wants to improve upon the viewing experience by optimizing streaming performance of those on the move.

However, they've also realized this might not be the right way to go about it and have ended the testing, The Verge reports.

Would you be willing to reveal your activity data for improving the streaming capabilities?

Intel has revealed their first 10th gen Core processors. The new generation Ice Lake is said to boost the performance with same clock speed.

The new lineup includes 11 new U and Y Series Core chips that are based on the Sunny Cove architecture and 10 nm process. The new Core processors are able to perform 18 percent more instructions in one clock cycle. This means that there's essentially 18 percent performance boost while maintaining the same clock speed as the predecessor.

Obviously this is good news to portable solutions, and that is what the Y and U Series are for. The Y Series are the most low-powered ones with 9/12W TDP, and U Series chips are meant for more powerful laptops with 15/25W and even one 28W TDP

Both series include Core i3, i5, and i7 chips with various clockspeeds ranging from 3.2 to 3.8 GHz on Y chips and 3.4 to 4.1 GHz on U chips. The Gx code (G1, G4, G7) at the end of the model number reveals the graphics prowess, with G4 and G7 models including Intel Iris Plus Graphics. See below for more details.

The new processors will be available to the manufacturers right about now and first laptops with new chips will enter the market probably well in time for holiday season.

Android dwarfs iOS in terms of smartphone install base, and one could argue that Google's platform is beating iOS even in quality nowadays. However, there's no question that Apple has Google beat in tablets.

While iPhone sales is slumping, iPads are back on the menu like never before. The updated iPad Pro might have been one of the more important products recently, and Samsung has smelled blood in the water.

I guess Samsung never really stopped making tablets, but it's Galaxy Tab lineup of devices have pretty much fallen off the map when it comes to news coverage.

Now Samsung has released a new flagship tablet, Tab S6, skipping Tab S5 and just releasing a cheaper $400 Tab S5e. Tab S6, Samsung hopes, would compete against Apple's premium iPad, the iPad Pro.

It supports the new S Pen with remote control functionality and wireless charging. Perhaps more importantly the Tab S6 features a 10.5 inch Super AMOLED panel with WQXGA resolution (2560x1440), Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, 6/8 gigabytes of RAM, and 128/256 GB of storage.

It also has a 13/5MP dual camera in the back, and a 8MP shooter up front. Sound is produced by four AKG branded stereo speakers.

The device weighs 420 grams or 0.92 pounds, and at 5.7 mm or 0.22 inches is even slimmer than an iPad Pro.

Even with a struggle of a start, Surface has become an invaluable part of Microsoft's hardware strategy over the past few years.

Forgotten are the early RT devices, and Surface smartphones didn't even, well, surface. Now we have amazingly crafted Windows devices in multiple form factors, that challenge not only Windows OEMs but more importantly Apple's offerings.

One of them is this years Surface Laptop 2. Microsoft is aligning it directly against MacBook, which is evident in the most recent Surface ad.

In the ads, as seen below, they've recruited Mackenzie "Mac" Book, a real person they say, to review which is better, the MacBook or Surface Laptop 2.

As it turns out, surprise surprise, Mac Book chooses Surface Laptop over MacBook because of its stronger battery life, better performance, and touchscreen the latter doesn't have.

So there you have it, "Mac" Book chooses Surface. Ha.

Subscription services are the key to success these days. If you don't believe, ask Netflix, Spotify, or Amazon.

Of course mammoths like Google are working on multiple subscription services to try and capture people's hard-earned cash, too. These include YouTube TV and YouTube Music Premium, but there's a new subscription service in the testing that's just been revealed.

Google has confirmed to Android Police that it is working on a subscription service called Play Pass. The service is currently in testing phase.

Play Pass is a response to Apple Arcade, which allows limited access to apps and games for a monthly fee. The fee for Play Pass is expected to be $4.99, although it might still change before the official release.

It gives you access to apps and paid content wihtout ads. According to Android Police, the info page reads the following:

Explore a curated catalog spanning puzzle games to premium music apps and everything in between. From action hits to puzzles and fitness trackers, with Google Play Pass you unlock access to hundreds of premium apps and games without ads, download fees or in-app purchases.

Play Pass seems to offer not only games but access to things like premium music apps and fitness tracking. It also rids games of in-app purchases, although that would seem to limit the selection quite a bit. One can't imagine one of the more popular apps to allow unlimited in-app purchases for such a low price.

King of streaming music, Spotify, has released their quarterly earnings, and while there are things to be happy about, the financial figures are still underwhelming.

The company revealed that they've passed 108 million Premium subscribers, and are currently at a total of 232 million subscribers when you count the free tier, ad-supported customers.

Apple Music has just passed 60 million subscribers.

This, however, hasn't skyrocketed the company's profitability. Spotify's revenue rose 31% year-over-year (10% QoQ) to 1.67 billion euros (around $1.84 billion) but profit was once again evading them.

Spotify has been struggling to get to green, and it only briefly managed to post a operating profit in the last quarter of 2018 only to fall into red right after.

Operating loss was recorded at only 3 million euros (net loss at 76 million), when last quarter it was 47 million and last year's Q2 90 million euros.

While only 46 percent of listeners are Premium subscribers, nearly 90 percent of the revenue is created from those users' payments.

Google has updated their web browser with a new version that brings along a few significant changes and feature updates.

One of the more important changes in Chrome 76 is the improved Incognito Mode, which now is said to be properly private. Previously websites have been able to check whether the user is using the Incognito Mode, but no longer is it visible to the outsiders.

Many websites, most importantly perhaps new sites, have used this trick to block people from accessing their content. These soft paywalls often rely on counting how many articles have been read in any given time frame, and Incognito circumvents it.

From now on these websites have to rely on different kind of strategy to lock users out.

While changes to the Incognito Mode are perhaps the most significant, there are other smaller updates too. For example, Flash has now been blocked by default. You can still enable it from the settings, but it's clear that Google considers it obsolete enough that you can live without it.

This is due to the fact that next year Google intends to remove the Flash support from Chrome altogether. Naturally they are following the Flash developer Adobe, who no longer update or distribute Flash Player at the end of 2020.

Alongside Apple, Samsung has also posted their quarterly earnings. Like Apple, the company's smartphone division has problems maintaining the sales figures, but unlike Apple, there was really no division to mend it.

We already had an inkling of Samsung's not-so-great quarter, after the company issued their own estimate. Now that the April to June quarterly report has been officially released, we've got the actual figures, and the report alongside it, to figure out what happened.

Overall, the revenue of Samsung Electronics as a whole was down around 4% and operating profit more than halved year-over-year. Display Panel Business and IT & Mobile Communications were the ones that managed a upward trend compared to last years Q2, although the former was said to have benefited from a one-off gain.

The sharpest decline year-over-year was with Semiconductor Business but the company is happy about the rebound that it has made recently. In fact, alongside semiconductors every single division within Samsung Electronics, except for IT & Mobile Communications, increased revenue from previous quarter.

The company report said that high-end smartphones like Galaxy S10 didn't sell as well, while more mass market phones like the new Galaxy A series devices had stronger shipments.