Author: Stuff writer

If you had any doubts about the Apple Watch getting an annual upgrade, much like Apple’s other touch devices, maybe this will change your mind: a report claims that the company already has an event planned to debut the successor. And that event will take place in March 2016, if 9to5Mac’s sources are correct. The site routinely delivers scoops prior to big Apple announcements, and in this case, the timing lines up well: last month, an Apple supplier suggested that a second-gen Watch would be on the market by the end of Q2 2016. While 9to5Mac’s report doesn’t have any…

Earlier this year, Ubisoft announced plans to release a whole trilogy of Assassin’s Creed Chronicles games in 2015. The first entry debuted in April for multiple platforms, but then we heard nothing more as the publisher shifted its attention to the full-bodied Syndicate. Given the so-so reaction to Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, we wondered if the rest of the trilogy had been canceled. But that’s not the case at all: Ubisoft has detailed plans to release the other games early next year, as well as bring the entire trilogy to another system. Assassin’s Creed: India is next up, putting you…

Not content with the latest Samsung Galaxy S7 rumour? No problem, here’s an iPhone 8 one for you to lap up too. Japanese website Nikkan Kogyo Shumbin reports that Apple screen supplier Japan Display will begin mass producing OLED smartphone displays in 2018. And just like that, we have our first iPhone 8 rumour. Apple currently uses an AMOLED panel in its Apple Watch, but this will be the first time the company has used the display technology in its smartphones – assuming that the information is accurate of course. The Samsung Galaxy S6’s AMOLED display is one of the…

Sony could be releasing five Xperia Z6 flagships. That’s right. Five. According to Chinese site Weibo, the Japanese tech giant will be offering its 2016 flagship in a variety of screen sizes. If the rumours are true, then expect to see a 4in Xperia Z6 Mini, a 4.6in Z6 Compact, a 5.2in Z6, a 5.8in Z6 Plus, and a gargantuan 6.4in Z6 Ultra. Got all that? Good. Specs and form factor remain a mystery for the time being, but we expect Sony will stick to its traditional Xperia design guns, with small tweaks and improvements. An iPhone 6s-like 3D Touch…

Rumours of the HTC smartwatch have died down over the past few months, but it looks like the embers have flared back to life. The internet’s favourite leaker @evleaks has tweeted to HTC fans stating that they’ll “…finally have One watch to call [their] own come February”. If that’s not pointing to an HTC One smartwatch launching at MWC in Barcelona, then we’ll eat our SIM cards. HTC was listed on the Android Wear manufacturer roster when it was initially announced, but we’ve yet to see it bring out a rival to the LG G Watch Urbane or Motorola Moto…

Apple’s iPhone 6 line has done remarkably well, outselling previous generations by significant amounts and finally appeasing fans who itched for larger handsets. But not everyone wants a big phone. While the iPhone 5s remains available for the smaller-handed of us, an older device isn’t nearly as appealing as a newer one. Rumours have swirled for months that Apple plans to make an iPhone 6c with a 4in screen to appeal to users who want a smaller, cheaper phone, and a new report has some additional details on what to expect. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, he…

Microsoft’s HoloLens headset is one of the most amazing things we’ve seen all year, although the need to wear a large headset could be a detriment to that augmented reality attempt. Amazon has another solution, however. It appears that Amazon is designing an augmented reality system that uses a ceiling-mounted device to display images around your room via light beams. This comes via a couple of newly unearthed patent applications, as well as a report from Forbes based on conversations with an employee. Amazon’s Lab126 is reportedly working on the endeavour, with multiple solutions being tested. As the patent describes…

Four years ago, we started to see the first smartphones land with 1GB of RAM. Oh how we marvelled at them, quipping at how they managed to out-spec our first PCs. Fast forward to today, and we’ve got the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and LG V10, both of which are rocking 4GB of RAM. You’d think that was more than enough, of course, but we all know that tech only ever moves in one direction. That direction, as it turns out, appears to be heading towards 2016 flagships sporting 6-8GB of RAM, according to sources in China.…

Over the last year-plus, Microsoft has gotten its mojo back – and part of that has come with cooler hardware, including the Surface Pro 3 and Surface Book. But it’s HoloLens that puts some futuristic wow power into the company’s lineup. The augmented reality headset has been impressively demoed since the start of the year, including a mind-blowing look at Minecraft – but there’s more going on in the gaming space when it comes to HoloLens. Today, we got a glimpse at another possibility. As part of an officially sanctioned Twitter hashtag campaign called #MadeWithHoloLens, Microsoft is letting its developers…

Sony has apparently unlocked an extra core in the PlayStation 4’s eight-core CPU, which could potentially have positive ramifications for gamers. Members of the Beyond3D forum spotted a mention of the unlocked CPU core in some release notes – “PS4 – Added FMOD_THREAD_CORE6 to allow access to the newly unlocked 7th core” – although Sony has yet to confirm anything as yet. It’s likely that the seventh core has been unlocked for developers only for the time being, and we don’t expect any existing games to make use of the extra power, at least without a patch. Up till now,…