 "Tech wrap May 31: God of War Ragnarok coming to PCs, new IG features & more")
Sony at its State of Play event on May 31 treated gaming enthusiasts with updates on various upcoming video game titles for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2 gaming consoles. However, the highlight remained the arrival of God of War: Ragnarok on Windows PC platform. Sony said that the videogame will arrive on PCs on September 19, joining the likes of God of War (2018), Marvel’s Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima and other PlayStation Exclusive games that debuted as PlayStation exclusive but later made it to the Steam platform for PCs.
Meta-owned social media platform Instagram has enhanced the “Notes” features with support for likes, mentions, and the ability to post prompts for others to respond. Essentially, Instagram now allows users to like notes, mention others using @handles in their notes, and use prompts to initiate a conversation directly within notes.
Instagram is expanding its “limit interaction” feature, which now allows restricting interactions with everyone apart from users that are on the “Close Friends” list. As spotted by The Verge, the “limit interaction” menu on the settings page in Instagram has a new “Everyone but your Close Friends” option. Earlier, the feature was limited to closing down interactions with “Recent followers” and “Accounts that don't follow you”.
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Samsung dominated the global generative AI-capable smartphone market in the Jan-March quarter of this year, reported market tracker Counterpoint Research. According to the report, all three models in the Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series secured top three spots in the top ten for best-selling smartphones with generative AI capabilities in the said quarter.
Semiconductors based on Arm architecture have traditionally been associated with smartphones and portable mobile devices. However, there is a notable trend where more laptops and desktop PCs are now being equipped with Arm chips. Traditionally, most of these computing devices have relied on x86 architecture-based processors. This brings up an important question: why is there a sudden shift towards Arm architecture, especially in PCs market? And what exactly are Arm chips, and how do they differ from x86 processors?
Google has announced a May feature drop for Android that brings several new features related to Messages, hotspot, Meet, Google Home, Wear OS, Gboard, and more. Among the notable ones is the new option in Messages that will let users edit sent messages. Other notable features include hotspot sharing and casting option in Google Meet for easy switching between devices while on video call.
AI Overviews were announced at the Google I/O event a few days ago exclusively to users in the US with the promise of higher satisfaction with its search results by suggesting info and webpages closest to the search query. This new feature was a result of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), launched last year.
Chinese smartphone brand POCO could soon launch the POCO M6 Plus in India. The smartphone, reportedly, has been spotted on India's BIS (Bureau of Indian Standard) that hints at possible launch in the country soon. However, there has been no official confirmation yet on the launch from the brand.
Google has started rolling out the new Gmail app for Android that features a new design and an option for quick replies. The “Quick Reply” option on Gmail app for Android lets you reply to emails without necessitating the steps to open full-screen compose mail.
ASUS has scheduled the ROG Ally X’s launch for June 2. Ahead of the launch, however, most of the details of the upcoming handheld gaming console are out in public domain – thanks to a retailer in Taiwan that has listed the product on the web. Available details on the listing page corroborate with the information ASUS had shared earlier about the product while announcing the launch date. Moreover, the listing page confirms the key features and specifications of the ROG Ally X, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Chinese smartphone maker Honor’s India distributor HTech is set to introduce the Honor 200 series smartphones in the country. The Honor series encompasses the Honor 200 and the Honor 200 Pro, both of which were launched in the brand's home country a few days back. HTech has not disclosed the Honor 200 series smartphones launch date, yet, but it has posted a teaser image on its official handle on X (formerly Twitter) confirming the arrival of the Honor 200 series in India soon.
Apple Inc. is planning to overhaul its Siri virtual assistant with more advanced artificial intelligence, a move that will let users control individual app functions with their voice, according to people with knowledge of the matter.