LG unveils new UltraGear gaming monitor with curved 240Hz OLED display
LG just announced a world’s first ahead of IFA, which kicks off in Berlin next month. The company unveiled the UltraGear OLED gaming monitor (45GR95QE) featuring the “first curved OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate,” according to LG. The screen stands out because OLED displays have previously maxed out at 120Hz. Pricing and a release date for the new monitor haven’t been shared, but LG plans to show off the UltraGear OLED gaming monitor at IFA.
The new ultrawide gaming monitor has a 21:9 aspect ratio and a WQHD resolution (3,440 x 1,440). The 45-inch display has an 800R curvature as well to increase immersion. The 240Hz refresh rate and 0.1 gray-to-gray response time should make the best PC games appear smooth, assuming you have a system that can drive titles at such high rates.
The screen of the UltraGear gaming monitor has LG’s Anti-glare & Low Reflection coating as well.
From Windows Central
Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 SE price confirmed
Xiaomi announced the new Redmi Note 11 SE for the Indian market a couple of days ago, although it’s a bit of a stretch to call it new. The handset is practically identical to the Redmi Note 10S from last year.
Now the company has finally confirmed the pricing of the phone – a detail that was missing initially. The 11 SE comes in Bifrost Blue, Cosmic White, Space Black and Thunder Purple colors and it starts at INR 14,999 ($190), but Flipkart is selling it for INR 13,499 ($170) to early adopters. It will be made available on August 31 on Xiaomi’s official web store and Flipkart.
From Gsmarena
AMD to bring suped-up gaming performance in early 2023 with Ryzen 9 7950X3D
The first round of AMD’s ‘Zen 4’ Ryzen 7000 CPUs will be arriving very soon, with a September release all but confirmed by Team Red ahead of its livestream event on August 29. But more interestingly for many gamers, YouTuber and leaker Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID) has stated that we can expect to see the suped-up 3D V-Cache Ryzen 7000 chips in Q1 2023.
We already knew that AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology would be making an appearance in Ryzen 7000, but this leak gives us greater insight into what we can expect. According to MLID, AMD is readying two chips: the Ryzen 7 7850X3D, and the uber-powerful Ryzen 9 7950X3D.
The 3D V-Cache technology is a boon for gamers, as it allows AMD to ‘stack’ L3 cache memory on the processor die, which provides boosted performance in games. The first CPU to receive this tech was the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which was incredibly able to outperform the more expensive Intel Core i9-12900K in some games thanks to its whopping 100MB cache.
From Techradar
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra could have one key visual difference to the S22 Ultra
We heard recently that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra would look very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, with almost identical dimensions and some similar specs too. Now, the source of that claim has revealed more design details, which point to both similarities and differences.
According to @UniverseIce – a leaker with a good track record – the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is “100% confirmed” to have exactly the same camera design as the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
We’d obviously take this with a pinch of salt, but they seem very sure of it, meaning Samsung’s floating lens design might stick around for at least one more generation of phone.
They do note one thing that might change in the design of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra though, and that’s the shape, with the top and bottom edges – or “fuselage” as they call it – apparently being less curvy on the S23 Ultra.
That could make for a blockier appearance, with a more squared-off look, as you can see below.
But this will apparently be the “biggest difference” visually between the S22 Ultra and the S23 Ultra, so if @UniverseIce is right, these two phones will look extremely similar.
From Techradar
New iQOO Z6 arrives with 80W fast charging, Z6x tags along with a 6,000 mAh battery
The iQOO Z6 series has been available for some time in India, but now the vivo sub-brand also brought it home in China. However, the iQOO Z6 smartphone announced today is very different from its international namesake, with one of the notable changes being the 80W fast charging.
The event also saw the arrival of the more affordable iQOO Z6x, which impresses with its 6,000mAh battery.
From Gsmarena
OnePlus Nord Wired Earphones are launching on August 27
OnePlus currently sells two Nord-branded earphones in India – Nord Buds and Nord Buds CE. These will be joined by a third pair of Nord earphones tomorrow, dubbed OnePlus Nord Wired Earphones.
From Gsmarena
vivo X Fold S expected to launch imminently with upgraded specs
It’s only been a few months since vivo launched its first foldable smartphone, the X Fold, but the company is already preparing to release its successor, a slightly upgraded version that is rumored to be named vivo X Fold S.
This was first mentioned in the leakerverse earlier this month, and today we get information about what upgrades to expect compared to the non-S version that’s already on sale. Spoiler alert: none of these will blow your mind.
From Gsmarena
WhatsApp may revamp the group chats layout with future update
The last few months have been quite busy for WhatsApp, as it is playing catchup in most departments with the rival messaging platforms. Most of the new features, that are under testing or development have been based around group chats. WhatsApp pushed the Communities feature this week for beta testers, and now there is a new improvement that is lined up to most probably arrive in a future update.
According to new info by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is spotted with a new group chat layout that part ways with the forum-like discussion layout for group chats. Apparently, when you have a group chat on WhatsApp, you see no profile picture and the conversation continues in a forum-like layout. Now the evidence in WhatsApp’s latest iOS release, 22.18.0.72, shows WhatsApp could include the participant’s profile picture next to their messages in group chats.
From Sammobile
Battery made of aluminum, sulfur and salt proves fast, safe and low-cost
Engineers at MIT have developed a new battery design using common materials – aluminum, sulfur and salt. Not only is the battery low-cost, but it’s resistant to fire and failures, and can be charged very fast, which could make it useful for powering a home or charging electric vehicles.
Lithium-ion batteries have dominated the field for the last few decades, thanks to their reliability and high energy density. However, lithium is becoming scarcer and more expensive, and the cells can be hazardous, exploding or bursting into flames if damaged or improperly used. Cheaper, safer alternatives are needed, especially as the world transitions towards renewable energy and electric vehicles.
So the MIT team set out to design a new type of battery out of readily available, inexpensive materials. After a search and some trial and error, they settled on aluminum for one electrode and sulfur for the other, topped off with an electrolyte of molten chloro-aluminate salt. Not only are all of these ingredients cheap and common, but they’re not flammable, so there’s no risk of fire or explosion.
From New Atlas
Predatory loan apps in India rake in huge fees, and are driving some users to suicide
In a clear afternoon, Laxmi (name changed) was sitting in her office in Gujarat, India, when she received a message from her distant relative, saying that they received some of her “morphed” nude photos from multiple phone numbers on WhatsApp along with a text that reads, “loan thief.”
“I was numbed and clueless,” she said.
It was the first time the 32-year-old customer service executive was informed about the circulation of her roughly edited photos after taking her mugshots from the government ID she had initially submitted to get credit from a mobile loan app called Fast Coin.
However, before that particular call, she received scores of threatening and abusive phone calls and messages from men who identified themselves as loan recovery agents.
All this started just a week after she applied for a small loan of around $100 that she needed due to a severe financial crisis earlier this year.
Laxmi turned to a startup loan platform rather than a bank for many of the same reasons others do: she did not have the minimum salary typically needed for banks and other financial institutions in India to disburse loans; and upstarts generally not only require less vetting but their turnaround times are faster, and she needed to get the money in a single day to pay for her house rent. So instead of going to a bank, she chose to get the loan from Fast Coin, an app her office colleague suggested.
She had repaid the loan within a couple of weeks of getting her salary the following month, but she claims that in the following months, she paid a further $630 over and above the original loan amount to get rid of abusive calls and messages. Yet the threats have continued.
Apps offering instant loans have grown since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, with hundreds of millions of dollars so far disbursed through them.
Fueled by a nationwide lockdown, India has been in the midst of a wider economic downturn. Unemployment in the country hit 23.52% of its total labor force in April 2020, per data shared by the Mumbai-based economic think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Those numbers are going in the right direction now: the rate dipped to 6.80% in July this year from the 6.96% reported in the same month last year and the 7.40% in July 2020, but they are all still rates higher than the U.S., U.K. and China, and point to why these loan apps get the traction they do.
Various stakeholders, including the government and Google, have been taking action against some of the most egregious loan apps in order to limit their impact in late 2020 and 2021. Law enforcement agencies in the country are also taking some efforts to raise awareness.
From Techcrunch
