We’ve reached the end of the week once again and that means we need to round up all of the articles we’ve published on the site. Again, Google has been at the forefront of the news, tabling a deal with Samsung to promote the Play Store and Assistant, allowing their employees to work from home until Summer 2021, and joining forces with other tech giants to fight competition laws. While Google was the dominant news focus we also wrote a whole host of interesting pieces spanning the tech industry. We saw Konami release a trio of PCs, Qualcomm showcasing their impressive new charging tech, Joe Biden banning Tik Tok, and much more. We’re going to give you a small insight into these pieces but if you fancy reading the full stories, head over to the individual articles.
Let’s jump straight into that Google news. In a report from Bloomberg, they stated that Google has put a deal forward to Samsung to prioritize the Google Assistant and Play Store over any of Samsung’s own software. While Samsung phones use Google’s operating system, they’ve been trying to build their own ecosystem on said devices, including services such as Bixby and Galaxy App Store, their take on an AI assistant and application marketplace but Google now wants to quell that. We’ll have to wait and see if that deal goes through in due course. In other Google news, they’ve announced that employees have the option to work from home until August of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Google first closed its offices in March 2020 and originally announced to reopen their offices on July 6th. In light of an increase in coronavirus cases in southern California, Google then opted to push this back to September 2020. Last week, CEO of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Sundai Pichai, decided to establish a more specific time frame for remote working. Part of the reason for this decision is to give employees with families more certainty about how long they would be working from home as, according to the WSJ, many are struggling with inconsistent direction from school districts. Great to see that Google is keeping its workers’ safety in mind, long may it continue. Finally, Google has banded together with a bunch of other tech giants to influence US lawmakers to fall on their side rather than put a stop to their ‘power abuse’. These firms are under heavy scrutiny in terms of fair competition laws and if this push back is successful, it’ll set the precedent for the future.
Now we’ve got all of that Google stuff out the way, let’s look at the other stories we’ve published.
Konami, the Japanese developer beloved by so many for so many classics throughout the ages, has decided to branch out – into the PC hardware market. The three PCs are the standard Arespear C300, the high-end C700, and high-end plus C700+. At the moment the release seems to be Japan only but that has been Konami’s initial model for pretty much everything until interest is high enough for a Western release. They certainly look eye-catching enough, but it’s a very crowded market and with Konami not even playing on the profile of their own brand name, it does seem a little odd.
In more hardware news, it seems Qualcomm is attempting to one-up Oppo by developing incredibly powerful charging technology. There’s been a three-year gap since Qualcomm has made ay advancements to Quick Charge but with this latest announcement of Quick Charge 5, it seems they’ve been working hard behind the scenes, developing tech that seems far superior to anything that’s been revealed. In tests, Qualcomm is stating that they’ve been able to charge a 4500mAh battery to 50 percent in 5 minutes, making it 70 percent faster than Quick Charge 4, the previous iteration, and “10 times the power delivery of Quick Charge 1.” We’ll have to wait and see when this insanely fast charging technology hits the market but hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later.
Finally, it seems Joe Biden really isn’t a fan of Tik Tok as he puts a ban in place on all of his staff on downloading and using the app. In an email from Biden’s general counsel, Dana Remus – which was obtained by Bloomberg – campaign staffers were told to “refrain from downloading and using TikTok on work and personal devices.” It has become apparent that TikTok can access your phone’s clipboard on iOS, which may spell trouble for anyone keeping sensitive login information or using a password manager on their devices. Besides this, TikTok has been accused of censoring content critical of China and having too much of an influence in the United States. Probably a smart move on Biden’s part, especially since there have been big question marks over Trump’s collusion with China.
We’ve gone through a number of news stories here but there’s been much more posted on the site. Here are some examples:
- After Quest 2 images leak, so might have the release date
- Play Doom on a Windows 95 PC in Minecraft? Mind officially blown.
- Internet helps photographer track down a Happy Couple
- AI creates brand new Led Zeppelin song
- Remote Desktop brings Windows 10 PC to your Android device
Now, to our more helpful pieces; features and how-tos. In terms of how-tos, as alluded to in last week’s roundup, we’ve had a big focus on helping you combat problems you may be having with your monitor. We looked at refresh rates, both in terms of how to change your monitor’s refresh rate as well as how to overclock your monitor, maximizing the refresh rate you can squeeze out of the display. Moreover, we also looked at how to clean a monitor screen, while it might sound like a simple task, it’s a little more complicated and something that should definitely be researched. Top tip here, don’t submerge it in water.
Moving to the features, we published an in-depth article on how you can become a YouTuber with some helpful hints and tips from those who have succeeded. Head over to that piece if you’re an aspiring content creator that wants to make a breakthrough in the industry.
All in all, it’s been a pretty varied week on PCGuide and we hope you’ll not only come away informed on the latest developments in the tech world but also some knowledge on getting the most out of your monitor. See you next week for more, with a bunch of breaking news as well as further expansion on YouTube hints and tips.