Telegram brings new features to iOS app

Over the weekend, Telegram introduced some new useful features to its iOS app, including enhanced dark themes, Silent Messages, and Slow Mode. With improved Night Mode, you get new accent colours to choose from, allowing you to customize the theme to your liking. Meanwhile, Silent Messages lets you send a message to someone without a sound. It doesn't matter what their notification settings on their device are. They will still get a notification, but it won't come the sound. This would prove to be useful if you're messaging them in the middle of the night or when they're at an important meeting or date.

Slow Mode for group chats will let an administrator limit people to sending one message per the interval they choose. For example, they can set it so that people could only send one message every 30 seconds. The app also allows for custom titles for group admins. You can also toggle looped playback for animated stickers in the Settings. And if you want, you can send a single :heart: :thumbsup: :meh: :wow: or :party:  to add an animated emoji to the chat.

Source: 9to5Mac

Google smartens up dark mode for the next version of Chrome for Android

The new beta release for Google Chrome on Android wants to make the dark mode a bit smarter. The aim is to make the site look more normal when dark mode is forced. Chrome 77 for Android is less likely to invert the color of images, even if their backgrounds are mostly white. This beta update is also less likely to turn gray text bright white, so it'll be a more comfortable reading experience. And it'll be closer to what the site's creators originally intended.

When dark mode first came to Android, it was simply a way to invert the colors of an entire site. But when it comes to photos, this would sometimes render them indecipherable. The previous version of Chrome automatically activated a dark version of a site if one is already available, and it only reversed the colors if there's no alternative. 

Source: Tech Radar

Samsung launches its 108-megapixel smartphone camera sensor

The future of smartphone cameras features hundreds of megapixels. Samsung and Xiaomi partnered to develop the 108-megapixel ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor. It's one of the largest smartphone sensors ever at 1/1.33-inches. That is about three quarters the size of the 1-inch sensor on Sony's RX100 VII compact camera and just a bit smaller than the sensor on Nokia's legendary Pureview 808 phone. The sensor will still feature small pixels. By default and with Samsung's Tetracell tech, it will gather the light from four pixels and transform this into a 27-megapixel photo. If you want to take 108-megapixel photos, you'll need to make sure the room is brightly lit, so you can get decent shots. The sensor also allows for recording 6k video at 30fps.

With Samsung's Smart-ISO mechanism, it'll automatically select lower ISOs in brighter light and high ISO in dim areas. Samsung has been criticized in the past for inferior low-light performance when compared to its competitors like the Huawei P30 Pro and other models that use Sony chips. But by putting in a bigger sensor, the company might finally have an answer. Production of the chip will start later this month.

Source: Engadget

'Minecraft' design overhaul has been axed

Mojang/Microsoft

Minecraft won't stick with its look forever, but it looks like it's going to take some time before it gets an overhaul. Mojang just announced that it won't release the Super Duper Graphics Pack visual redesign. After two years of delays, the developer decided that it was "too technically demanding" to implement. And the company wasn't "happy" with the upgrade's performance across platforms. Instead of providing inconsistent quality across platforms, Mojang decided to just shut down the project.

The promise was to enable 4K on the Xbox One X as well as introduce more sophisticated visuals effects for areas like the atmosphere, highlights, and water. It doesn't mean that Minecraft won't get a redesign, though. Mojang is still "looking into other ways" to give Minecraft a new look. And that it has news on optimizing the constructive games on different platforms "very soon."

Source: Engadget