Tech Spite

The end-of-financial-year sale is one of the biggest shopping events in Australia, with a wide range of products discounted quite steeply, including cars, household appliances and, of course consumer electronics. Shopping during Australia’s end-of-financial-year sales means you’ll be able to get your finances in order before filing your tax paperwork as a lot of the discounted items will be tax deductible. So not only will you save some cash on the purchase, you’ll also be able to pocket some extra savings in the form of your tax returns. And while lockdown restrictions are slowly being lifted, it’s still a very good idea to shop online. After all, you’ll be able to stay off your feet and shop from the comfort of your own home, and you’ll have more time and energy to trawl through various online storefronts for the best offers. Or, you could let us do the hard work. TechRadar’s Australian team is on hand to sift the chaff and find the best bargains on electronics over the entire mon...

Realme Buds Q, the latest pair of TWS from Realme which was launched in China recently will make its way to India soon. This news was confirmed by Realme India’s CMO himself on Twitter.  Francis Wang tweeted about the newly launched Air Buds Neo in which he mentioned the Realme Buds Q will be coming to India. Further, he also went ahead and confirmed that the TWS will be priced under Rs 2,000. The Realme Buds Q TWS was unveiled in China a week ago along with Realme X50 Pro Player Edition and six other products.  Check out the best TWS under Rs 10,000 Realme X3 series: Leaks, specs and launch date Unlike the Realme Buds Air and Buds Air Neo, the Realme Buds Q comes with an in-ear design. In China, the Buds Q is designed by Jose Levy, who is a popular designer. The Buds Q are completely True Wireless earbuds as it lacks a stem design. You also get eartips just like regular earphones. The Buds Q comes in White, Black, and Yellow color options.  The Buds Q harnesses...

As lockdowns are being replaced by unlock across India, the importance of social distancing as a means to curb contact spread of Covid-19 assumes greater importance. Google has now stepped in with an augmented reality based app that could help maintain safe distance.  The SODAR is currently available on Android phones. Users can simply open the Chrome browser and go to the webpage to get started. At present users do not need to download anything though it doesn't work on iOS or even on older Android devices.  Bugs bounty offered for India's Covid-19 tracing app Do Covid-19 tracking apps really have the capabilities ?  The phone starts using the augmented reality of the map around your location and then does a superimposition of a two meter radius circle on the camera's view. So, once you are logged on, you are constantly monitoring the camera on your phone.  While testing it out, I found the accuracy to be in the acceptable range though one did feel at times ...

Facebook, which seems to be on an app launching spree, has rolled out 'Venue', a new iOS and Android app through which it hopes to "bring passionate fans and expert commentators together to experience live events in a new interactive way." Facebook's Venue will look to capitalize on the emphasis around live streams that has been spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Venue is aimed to provide an interactive second-screen experience for live events like Twitter does naturally. The new app was understandably rolled out for NASCAR races earlier today. NASCAR is among the first major sports to return to events in the US despite lacking that ability to host a live audience.  Facebook Shops looks to help small businesses during global lockdown Facebook reports spike in posts taken down for promoting hate Facebook rebrands Libra digital currency wallet Launched by Facebook's New Product Experimentation Team, the app isn’t meant to live stream the events it fe...

Internet service provider Aussie Broadband has just launched access the NBN’s latest and fastest consumer NBN speed tier, a 1Gbps service offering unlimited downloads at speeds of up to 1000Mbps, and selling for a surprisingly affordable AU$149 a month . With a download speed of 1Gbps, this brand new 1000/50 tier is set to be four times faster than what was previously available to consumers, with top speeds formerly maxing out at 250Mbps. Given Aussie Broadband is the first in the market to offer NBN 1000, the ISP has warned it's as yet unable to provide definitive numbers on peak evening speeds, with managing director Phillip Britt saying it is a “best effort service”. “We think that the plan should achieve off-peak speeds of up to 80-90%, depending on the technology type,” says Britt. “For the moment, we will be advising customers our peak evening speeds for our 250Mbps plans as a baseline until we have collated enough data from our own network testing.” With the peak evenin...

Touchscreens are probably better suited to large laptops than small when it comes to collaborative working, so we went in search of the best available option. The HP Laptop-17Z is the most affordable 17-inch touchscreen laptop on the market, available at the time of writing for only $569.99 (roughly £465/AU$855). Aimed primarily at SMBs, the laptop comes with an AMD A9-9425 dual-core processor with Radeon R5 graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 17.3-inch SVA touchscreen display with a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. Check out our list of the best business laptops on the market Here's our list of the best programming laptops of 2020 We've built a list of the best linux laptops available It also features a 1TB SATA hard disk drive, 41Whr battery, dedicated numeric keypad, DVD writer (remember these), an HP TrueVision HD camera with digital microphone and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. However, an even better HP Laptop-17Z deal can be had for $598.99 (roughly £485/AU$900). It features an AM...

Anyone waiting for new Rick and Morty episodes after season 4 went on hiatus just before Christmas could be forgiven for getting a bit antsy in 2020. After all, it was radio silence for much of the year. Fortunately, we were all finally rewarded with new episodes of the madcap cartoon series this May - just when we need them now. Now, though, the good times are coming to an end again. Read on as we explain how to watch the Rick and Morty season 4 finale online and stream episode 10 wherever you are this week. Yes, the bizarre show has helped us get through some equally bizarre times. The part 2 trailer promised us all the unpredictability and madcap adventures we've come to expect, including manga-style superhero outfits, electrocutions, and light sabres. Perhaps the latter should have come as no surprise given that the first new episode of Rick and Morty season 4 - episode 6 'Never Ricking Morty' - was first released on May 3, just 24 hours before Star Wars Day 2020, in t...

[UPDATE: Monday, June 1 @ 10:20am]  The 10am allotment of Apple AirPods has (as expected) sold out in a flash, but there will be another 100 units on offer at 2pm , so if you missed out you can try your luck again this afternoon. Our original story continues below: For the entire month of June, eBay is giving its Plus members access to exclusive daily deals on highly sought-after products, with savings of up to 80% on offer.  The online marketplace's 'Plus Month' event starts on Monday and runs through to the end of the month, with a new Plus-exclusive deal launching at 10am each day.  To kick it off, up for grabs from 10am next Monday (June 1) are the always-popular second-generation Apple AirPods , now going for just AU$99 – that’s a hefty 60% price cut from the RRP of AU$249. Later this month, subscribers can also expect to see price drops on the AirPods Pro , the Nintendo Switch with Animal Crossing bundled in, and a half-price pre-order deal on The Last of ...

Eve and Villanelle's spy games finally seem set to come to a head, in what looks like being a chaotic finale for the hit Phoebe Waller-Bridge show. Read on to find out to watch the Killing Eve season 3 finale no matter where you are in the world - including for free where possible. With a host of loose ends to tie up, Eve and Villanelle have a lot of ground to cover in episode 8. Read on for full details of your viewing options for the Killing Eve season 3 finale - but please be aware that potential spoilers lie ahead. The tagline for episode 8 is “Are You Leading Or Am I?”, and its corresponding teaser trailer offers a few telling insights as to how events are set to play out. Not least, that the show's two main protagonists look to have finally been brought back together. Meanwhile, the official synopsis for the finale piles on the intrigue as to what the nature of their reunion will be like: "Konstantin makes a break for it. Carolyn might have finally found what she...

Will a makeover be in store for host Steve Harvey? Celebrity Family Feud returns with a showdown between two generations of Queer Eye cast members - read on to find out how to watch Celebrity Family Feud online and stream the show no matter where you are in the world. The new season kicks off by pitting the original Queer Eye crew, led by Carson Kressley, against the latest cast members from Netflix's version of the show, captained by Bobby Berk. Needless to say, we're in for a hilarious one-hour episode!  Joining Bobby in his team will be Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski, Tan France and Wesley Hamilton. Facing them will be Carson's Queer Eye OG team, featuring Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia and Jai Rodriguez. As ever, the show sees celebrities, along with their families and friends, go head-to-head in a contest to name the most popular responses to survey-type questions posed to 100 people to win money for a charity of their choice. Alongside the Queer Eye sp...

Law enforcement has more tools than ever to track your movements and access your communications. Here's how to protect your privacy if you plan to protest. from Wired https://ift.tt/2XgVxOm

  We’re certainly using our phones a bit differently while we shelter-in-place to ride out the outbreak – binging more media, chatting over video, and taking breaks from social media. But it took us a couple months to realize something else: since we’ve spent most of our time in our apartments and homes, we’re rarely out of Wi-Fi range, and our LTE data consumption has plummeted. Which has led us to a new suggestion: perhaps it’s time to dial down your data cap and save some money on your monthly plan, at least for the foreseeable future.  This advice isn’t for everyone: there are still plenty of you who are still leaving home often enough to keep your data plan right where it is, and are benefiting from US carriers relaxing late fees , UK carriers giving 10GB of extra data per month, or other such relief amid the outbreak.    Data use (in GB) by month: March, April, and May But we, working from home, found our cellular data use plummeting: one of our edi...

If you're after a powerful tablet for flexible work, streaming, or gaming, you'll want to check out the latest Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 deals at Best Buy. While an iPad Pro will set you back closer to $900 right now, you'll find these cheap tablets up for just $549 at the cheapest end .  That's the price of a 128GB Tab S6, but if you can stretch just a little further you can double your storage for just $619 this weekend . That's a $110 discount on the larger model, and a fantastic price cut on one of Samsung's most recent releases.  The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 combines a lightweight, slimline design with powerful octa-core processing and the flexibility of a more laptop-based design once a keyboard is attached. If you do opt for the cheaper model this weekend, you'll also be glad to know that you can always upgrade your capacity thanks to the microSD slot.  We're rounding up these Samsung Galaxy Tab deals below, but you can also find more Samsung tablet p...

Exploring strange new worlds, seeking new life and new civilisations, and boldly going where no one has gone before has been hardwired into Star Trek’s DNA since day one. Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard may have taken a more cynical – and serialized – view of the future, but recently announced spin-off Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is set to get back to basics… When (spoiler warning!) the crew of the USS Discovery warped into the distant future in the season 2 finale, Captain Christopher Pike, Science Officer Spock and first officer Number One stayed behind in the 23rd century. The trio were such a hit with fans, however, that they’re getting their own show, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a new series set on the USS Enterprise a decade before James T Kirk took control. “When we said we heard the fans’ outpouring of love for Pike, Number One and Spock when they boarded Star Trek: Discovery last season, we meant it,” executive producer and franchise overlord Ale...

Such studies could speed up the development of a vaccine—but would mean deliberately giving people a disease that could kill them. from Wired https://ift.tt/3ciAboa

The under-sung heroes of the country's rail system keep vigilant watch from colorful mini-castles. from Wired https://ift.tt/2TTtgLN

Right now Google Stadia only works on a limited number of smartphones, including newer Pixel models , but that could be about to change. Code spotted in the latest Stadia app for Android suggests support for devices that haven't been "certified" is coming. As discovered by 9to5Google , the change would mean you could at least give Stadia a go on any Android phone you like, even if it hasn't been specifically approved by Google. The new feature would likely be marked as experimental. While Stadia also works on TVs and the Chromecast Ultra, as well as in Google Chrome on computers, letting more phones into the fold would undoubtedly add to the game streaming service's appeal – and probably get more subscribers on board. Hidden gems for the Nintendo Switch Call of Duty: Warzone is getting new modes Everything we know about the Xbox Series X Google Stadia remains a work in progress to some extent, with new features and new games rolling out regularly. A few ...

Why the weighted exercise vest is the best piece of home workout gear you're not using. from Wired https://ift.tt/2ZQN8CY

Last week, social media did some sleuthing to figure out who recorded a haunting cover of the singer's “Look What You Made Me Do” for the BBC America show. from Wired https://ift.tt/2ArAtvq

Update (May 29): A new report suggests that it will be an entirely new model to launch in India. Update (May 31): The Mi Notebook "1C" will launch in India on June 11, according to Ishan Agarwal . At the start of 2020, Xiaomi had confirmed its plan to launch laptops in India. After months of silence, the company (and its officials) have finally started teasing the launch of its first laptop in India. Xiaomi’s Manu Kumar Jain just uploaded a teaser video on Twitter which shows him shut a laptop, followed by exclaiming “It’s time!”. He was quickly joined by other key people from the Mi team in sharing similar teasers. All of them used the same iconic matte grey laptop, clearly hinting at the long-due launch of Xiaomi laptops in India. Best 2-in-one laptops for 2020 in India Best laptops under Rs.40000 in India during May 2020 Best 13-inch laptops for May 2020 in India This certainly looks like a laptop from the house of Xiaomi. All the tweets also included #Whatsne...

The Justice League Snyder Cut is real, and it's coming to HBO Max in 2021. The film is a new version of 2017's pretty bad Justice League movie, finished by its original director Zack Snyder, who left the project during production at the time for personal reasons. Expect a vastly different and far longer film this time, possibly split into episodes.  Originally intended as the DC Comics equivalent to Marvel's enormously successful Avengers films, Justice League was a follow-up to Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice that didn't feel like it was part of the same series of films. The Snyder Cut should correct this, but whether it'll be a great film or not is yet to be seen. Expect a fascinating finished result, though. Here's what we know about the Justice League Snyder Cut so far, including its release date, budget, trailer and Darkseid's appearance in the movie.  What is the the Snyder Cut of Justice League? The Snyder Cut is a new versio...

Services like Google Translate only support 100 languages, give or take. What about the thousands of other languages—spoken by people just as vulnerable to this crisis? from Wired https://ift.tt/2McpbOv

Internet outages, blackouts, and other accidents can make working from home more complicated. Here's how to protect yourself. from Wired https://ift.tt/2AujUir

Streets arranged in grids, with few dead-ends, encourage walking and transit. But in developing countries, growing cities are taking the opposite route. from Wired https://ift.tt/36ITS7o

Intel’s Xe DG1 graphics card has been spotted in a 3DMark benchmark, or at least the rumor mill believes that result is for Intel’s first crack at a discrete GPU. As ever, we shouldn’t read too much into this given that it is just speculation that this is DG1, although the source is a reliable one, the ever-present TUM_APISAK. But even if the leak is on the money, remember that this is an early sample GPU, and won’t reflect the exact performance Intel may achieve with the final product. At any rate, the purported DG1 graphics cards scored 5,538 in 3DMark’s Fire Strike test (paired with an Intel Core i9-9900K processor) and hit a graphics score of 5,960. That’s not a massively impressive result, but as we’ve already mentioned, it must be treated with caution. It’s in the ballpark of a graphics card as old as the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, albeit a bit faster than that veteran GPU (which scored 5,402 for graphics in a 3DMark result highlighted on Twitter). Intel Tiger Lake release date, s...

Here's another reminder that the gadgets you buy aren't necessarily going to be supported forever: Amazon has decided to discontinue its Echo Look smart speaker/camera device, and existing Looks will stop working on July 24. As reported by Voicebot.ai , people who've bought an Echo Look should already have been notified about the move, and a lot of the functionality first offered by the device has since made its way into other Amazon apps and hardware. If you've never heard of the Echo Look before, the smart camera worked together with your phone and some computer learning magic to give you an assessment of how good your outfits looked. Hidden gems on the Nintendo Switch Smart speaker sales are slowing You can now hire Ubers by the hour The device and its companion app could also help you keep track of what you wore when, and of course tapped into Amazon's various shopping services to help you pick out new outfits to suit you as and when needed. Don't...

For football fans the past three months have been a strange, quiet time. What should have been another dramatic climax to an action-packed and VAR-influenced season was cut down in its prime back in early March. While the English Premier League doesn't return until June 17, there's good news if you can't wait for Premier League football to restart. You can treat your sporting soul to live games from around the world. Some of the top leagues are back playing right now, and you can even watch some of them live from the comfort of your home. Sky Sports and BT Sport reveal what the Premier League restart means for your bills Germany – Bundesliga Germany's top-flight league, The Bundesliga, is one of the best leagues in the world, with giants such as Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund on the fixture list and a host of world-class players.  The German Bundesliga restarted on May 16, 2020 and its bumper fixture list has games running through to the new season end date...

The SpaceX launch live stream video concludes with the capsule docking with the ISS (International Space Station) Sunday, almost exactly 19 hours after Saturday's liftoff. Docking takes place today, May 31 at 10:29am EDT, according to SpaceX, with the two NASA astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, preparing for a stay of up to three months. It's going to make for some exciting video to watch. What time is the SpaceX capsule docking with ISS in your region of the world? How can you watch yesterday's SpaceX launch video if you missed the liftoff live stream? We have a full list of otherworldly videos below, as well as the global docking times. SpaceX docking time with ISS The SpaceX Dragon capsule will dock with the International Space Station at 10:29am EDT (local liftoff timezone). Around the continental US, that's 9:29am CDT / 8:29am MDT, 7:29am PDT (local time zone for SpaceX's home in Hawthorne, California). In the UK, the docking time will be 3:29pm BST,...