There might be trouble looming in HTC’s future

The HTC U11 is the company's latest attempt at winning over the public

It looks like HTC is in enough trouble to want to consider strategic options. At least that’s what a new report from Bloomberg suggests. The Taiwanese company is supposedly looking at its strategic options, which, in business speak, is they’re looking to put the company up for sale because of financial issues. The options HTC is supposedly looking into is spinning off its VR arm or selling off the company itself. According to people familiar with the matter, HTC has supposedly held talks with companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Considered one of the pioneers of Android smartphones, HTC has been struggling in the current mobile market as Samsung and Apple dominate the premium market and its Chinese competitors like OnePlus and Xiaomi introducing budget-friendly yet spec-heavy smartphones. It also doesn’t seem to be doing so hot in the virtual reality space. The Vive VR system recently got a US$200 price cut to help improve sales. IDC estimates HTC has sold around 190,000 units in the first quarter of the year, putting it in third behind Samsung (489,000) and Sony (429,000 units) in the same period. Whether this deal pushes through, we can’t say yet. HTC and Google have declined to comment on this report.

Samsung is outing a more budget-friendly, dual camera-toting smartphone

Samsung’s J series is one of their more budget-friendly lines of smartphones. But that doesn’t mean it might not be feature-packed, too. In fact, it’s getting a new model with a feature that has just been launched with the flagship Galaxy Note8: a dual camera setup. The upcoming Galaxy J7+, which just got leaked in Thailand, will be the next Samsung device to feature a dual camera setup. It’ll supposedly have a 13-megapixel main shooter with f/1.7 aperture and a second 5-megapixel camera with f/1.9 aperture. It’ll support Samsung’s new Live Focus portrait mode. The front camera won’t be a slouch either with a 16-megapixel selfie camera.

On top of that, it’ll get Bixby support and its own Bixby button on the left. It’ll have a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen with 1080p resolution, an octa-core chipset (GSMArena speculates it’ll be the Exynos 7870 octa found in the Galaxy J7), and 4GB of RAM. Storage will reportedly be 32GB with microSD expansion option. It’ll also have a fingerprint scanner, a 3,000mAH battery, and dual SIM support. It’ll come in Black, Gold, and Pink. No word yet on pricing. 

Google Chrome will soon let you mute websites

We’re confident it’s happened to you before. You have multiple tabs open in Chrome and then a page loads and you suddenly get assaulted by really loud music. And if this has annoyed you to no end, Google is working on something to make sure you don’t have to hear autoplaying videos in the background anymore. The company is testing out in their experimental Canary build for the browser a way to permanently mute websites. But as Google’s François Beaufort says, they are still “experimenting with a setting to mute / unmute a website directly from the Page Info bubble.”

Right now you can already mute tabs by just right clicking on them and selecting “Mute tab” but this is a temporary fix because the sound will start playing again the next time you open the tab or Chrome.

Source: The Verge

Google Home now gets CBS All Access support

Google Home has already been a voice-enabled remote control of sorts for Netflix. Now it’s adding that support for CBS All Access and CW TV accounts in the US. The CBS All Access support will be particularly useful when the streaming service makes its way here next year. You can start streaming if you have a Chromecast connected to your TV or a Chromecast-enabled TV and, of course, if you have a subscription to the services. You can link this through the Videos and Photos section in the Google Home app. The feature is rolling out so keep an eye out for it.

Source: Engadget