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Activision has delayed the second season of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. Fans should have been able to access the next season on February 1, but now it looks like we won’t see it until February 15. 

Activision detailed the reason for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s short delay in a Twitter post (opens in new tab). “Our studio teams have been making several changes based on what we have heard from our player community”, said Activision.  

Following a tough year that saw IT spending drop across the globe, Gartner (opens in new tab) has released new projections claiming that things will return to growth as we head into 2023.

The analyst firm found 2022 worldwide IT spending dropped a touch compared with the year prior, recording an overall 0.2% reduction in the sector. 

Samsung has done well with foldable phones, but with the upcoming Google Pixel Fold it could have some serious competition, and a new video highlights the advantages Google’s debut foldable might offer.

YouTuber Dave2D (opens in new tab) has got hold of a blank reference model of the phone, which is supposedly dimensionally accurate. It’s the sort of thing case manufacturers might get access to so they can design accessories for a device, before it’s launched.

The official launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S23 smartphones is less than two weeks away, but the cat may already be out of the bag when it comes to the line’s pricing. 

According to leaked Verizon documents posted to Reddit (opens in new tab) (H/T 9to5Google (opens in new tab)), the Samsung Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra will retail for $799.99, $999.99 and $1,199.99 in the US, respectively. For context, those figures are identical to the launch prices of the Samsung Galaxy S22 series. 

The new HomePod, the second-generation one, comes with a temperature and humidity sensor, but did you know that the two-year-old HomePod mini also has it? Well, it was secret all along, but now Apple will push a software update, awakening the dormant sensor of the HomePod mini.
Apple silently updated the overview for HomePod mini two years after it was unveiled, adding a “temperature and humidity sensor” to the smart-home capabilities. Thus it can now sense the temperature of surroundings wherever it is kept, which is also one of the features highlights of the newly-introduced second-generation HomePod.
However, it is not the first time we are hearing about it. A few months after the HomePod mini arrived, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman highlighted that the smaller HomePod mini has a temperature and humidity sensor that Apple never talked about until now.
The temperature and humidity sensor inside the HomePod mini will be activated with a software update in the coming days, possibly with version 16.3, which is expected to arrive with the iOS 16.3 next week.
Here’s what the temperature sensor on HomePod mini, HomePod (second-gen) can do
The temperature and humidity sensor inside the HomePod mini and HomePod (second-gen) is optimised for domestic settings when kept inside, having an ambient temperature between 15 degrees to 30 degrees with humidity being around 30 to 70 per cent.
The sensor on the HomePod mini and HomePod will let you measure the temperature and humidity inside your room and also control smart home devices based on those conditions. So, let’s say it is getting too hot inside, you can ask Siri to turn on the fan or close the smart blinds.
However, there are some limitations. The accuracy may decrease when audio has been playing for too long at a high volume, which could reduce the sensor’s accuracy due to the heat generated by the device. Also, the HomePod will require a while to calibrate the sensors after starting up.
The second-generation HomePod comes at Rs 32,990 in India. Meanwhile, the HomePod mini has also received a price hike of Rs 1,000, now retailing for Rs 10,990.

It has been six months since Google launched Android 13 with a slew of new features. However, the adoption rate of Android’s latest OS version is remarkably low. According to a report by 9to5Google, Andoid 13 is currently running on 5.2% of smartphones. Brands like OnePlus, Samsung, and others have rolled out Android 13 on their devices but the number still remains low.

This is the most popular Android version

Android 11 still remains the most popular version with 24% of devices running on the OS version. Android 12, in fact, now runs on more devices compared to the last time Android adoption numbers were revealed. In August 2022, it was reported that Android 12 and 12L were running on 13.5% of devices. Now that number has increased to 18.9%. Google hasn’t revealed the distinction between Android 12 and Android 12L in terms of individual numbers.
Older versions of Android like Android 10 also remain quite popular with 19.5% of devices running on them. Android Oreo for the first time in a few years has dropped to less than 10% of devices. Android Nougat, Marshmallow and Lollipop are also running on more than 7% of devices combined.
Google officially rolled out Android 13 — first on Pixel phones — in August 2022. Brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Realme and have already started rolling out Android 13 on some of their smartphones. Most Android brands have also shared a timeline of the Android 13 rollout on their smartphones. Google has officially stopped sharing Android adoption figures for the last few years. The latest data comes from Android Studio.
In contrast, Apple’s latest operating system version for iPhones — iOS 16 — is estimated to be running on 69% of devices, at least till December 2022. Apple’s previous version of iOS 15 is estimated to be running on close to 24% of iPhones.

Top email marketing firm MailChimp has suffered a data breach after hackers managed to steal login credentials from its employees. 

The company confirmed the news in a notification sent out to affected customers, noting that threat actors pulled off a successful social engineering attack against its employees and contractors, giving them access to internal customer support and account administration tools. 

Sending private messages to your office friends (or enemies) using Microsoft Teams should soon be a lot more straightforward thanks to a new update.

The video conferencing service is adding a feature that will allow users to send in-meeting notifications to a specific person whilst on a call, allowing you to react or respond in a private way.

There are games that are over as soon as the end credits start rolling. Then there are games that stay with gamers, in their psyche, long after they’re done with them. Naughty Dog’s ‘The Last of Us’ is an exemplary work from the second category. Its popularity and influence spawned a remake game last year and a TV adaptation that was released earlier this month.
In a recent interview published on the official PlayStation blog, co-director Neil Druckmann revealed an interesting tidbit from the game’s development. It turns out that the beginning of the game was up in the air until the very last moment and was initially planned to let players control a different protagonist altogether.

The prologue was changed to show a different perspective
The original prologue involved players taking control of Joel, who is the protagonist for most of the game. According to Druckmann, “For a long time, the plan was to play as Joel, not to play as Sarah, and you as Joel would hear commotion over at your neighbour’s house, you would walk over there, you’d see they’re infected. Then you’d head back and grab your daughter … and then everything else [in the final game] was how it was planned.”
However, the developers decided to distinguish the beginning sequence – which set the main plot in motion – from the rest of the game. Evidently, seeing the chaos unfold through the eyes of Sarah, Joel’s daughter, accomplished this goal. Druckmann noted that after this change, “everything kind of fell into place.”

Experiencing the beginning through Sarah made it ‘scarier’ and emotionally ‘authentic’
For the developers, letting players control a child instead of a grown man rightly amplified the anxiety of the opening sequence and made it ‘scarier.’ Druckmann explained, “The fact that you’re seeing it through a very innocent child made everything creepier, scarier, and that became the north star.”
SIE’s sound director & lead audio Phil Kovats opined that Sarah’s perspective enabled them to stir up ‘authentic emotion.’ He also revealed how that level’s sound design was curated to achieve the desired result. He said, “That feeling of disconnection and worry had to be portrayed, [so we had] stark, quiet sounds mixed with, say, the TV that was loud, [or] the explosion that shook the room … Everything was there to create this uneasy tension that was palpable at that moment.”
The Last of Us has been in the news recently, thanks to the release of the namesake TV adaptation.

YouTube is rolling out updates to its TV’s live guide and library with an aim to help streamline the user’s experience. The revamped live guide now features a row of curated recommendations at the top along with a grid that shows more grids that have channels and programming on the screen. The new guide also gives users more information about each live show or movie.
“Users should begin seeing this redesign over the next few months,” said Esther Ahn, head of design for YouTube TV and Primetime Channels.
Talking about newly added features Ahn said, “Decision fatigue is real when you turn on your TV with even more apps and channels than ever before. Viewers are looking for easier ways to find the content most relevant to them, whether it’s jumping into a live game or seeing what’s trending right now.”

Furthermore, the updated library will now allow users to organise their content better. It has removed the side navigation, and now, there’s a new row of filters that features more specific content categories, such as daily shows. Additionally, there’s also a new “Catch up on your favourites” shelf, to help users easily find the content of their choice.
“Our team’s philosophy is that YouTube TV is ‘TV Made For You’, and this is threaded throughout the entire product experience across your Live, Library and Home,” the company said.
“Members have built up their libraries over time, but programs they were interested in several years ago might no longer be relevant to them. The more their libraries grew, the less usable they became due to the lack of tools to organize their shows, movies and sports,” he added.
The company further said that more changes will be rolled out soon. These changes may add more flexibility and interactivity during live playback making it easier for users to switch between user profiles. However, the company did not mention the timeline as to when these features would launch in future.
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