LG teases ‘Boombox’ speaker on the G7 ThinQ

LG is set to unveil the G7 ThinQ on May 2 but the company isn’t trying to keep it under wraps as they show off one of the key features of the new phone. The Korean company is teasing the new “Boombox” speaker coming with the phone. It’ll supposedly have “ten times the loudness” of its competitors thanks to the speaker increasing the “base sound level by more than 6dB.” Aside from that, it would supposedly produce twice the amount of bass as the typical smartphone speaker, which will be amplified if the phone is placed on a solid surface. According to LG, they were able to achieve this with a special “resonance chamber design.” We’re not sure how LG got this to work but from the image above, it looks like LG is using the entire body of the phone to help boost the sound.

It also seems the Hi-Fi Quad DAC seen in the likes of the V30 is making a comeback, which is great news for those who love high-end audio and those who want to know if the headphone jack is still going to be around. The G7 ThinQ will also reportedly get DTS-X support, which will bring 3D surround sound effects to a smartphone for the first time.

Source: 9to5Google

Samsung to release 128 GB and 256 GB versions of the Galaxy S9 and S9 +

Samsung is bringing larger capacity versions of the Samsung galaxy S9 and S9 + smartphones to the US this month. With 128GB and 256GB of storage, these new variants will be available for preorder on Samsung.com starting on May 1 and will start shipping by May 18. No news yet on whether these models will be sold in Canada.

Source: The Verge

Valve will delay release of ‘Dota 2’ patches during major tournaments

Hoping to avoid wreaking havoc on professional players who compete in Dota 2 tournaments, Valve has just announced that its rapid-fire, two-week patch schedule will be delayed when it coincides with a major esports tournament. A recent update affected players who were part of the Epicenter XL tournament and gave them less than a day to adapt to significant gameplay changes.

This isn’t the case with other games used in esports as they keep separate tournament modes that are a step or two behind the regular game to give players enough time to practice with the game. It’s a tricky balance for developers as they try to make sure to appease both regular gamers get to enjoy new tweaks and additions and the pro gamers who need a bit more consistency.

Source: Engadget

Facebook hopes you wouldn’t notice fake news by shrinking links to them

Facebook is continuing its battle against fake news and its latest attempt is lessening the “visual prominence” of these false stories on your timeline. At the same time, the social network will be giving an accurate story more attention with larger images and bolder text. How is the company able to weed out the fake news? Facebook is making use of machine learning to help with its fact checking. It’ll scan new articles for any false claims and prioritizes the suspicious ones for the company’s human reviewers to handle. This move will not only help them save time but also help them catch the fake news easily. While we don’t know the efficacy of this new approach, it does, as Engadget points out, shows that it’s trying to balance being able to fight fake news and avoid more controversy but at the same time not block content unless they really need to.