Month: August 2022

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has begun a new WhatsApp privacy campaign by announcing three new upcoming features. The new features arriving on WhatsApp will include blocking people from taking screenshots of a photo or video when you’ve used the existing ‘view once’ feature to share it, exit group chats without notifying everyone, and controlling who can see when you’re on-line.

The new features were announced by WhatsApp Head, Will Cathcart, and Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, on Tuesday, August 9.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced new privacy features for @WhatsApp

✨ New Features ✨
– Leave Groups Silently
– Choose Who Can See When You’re Online
– Screenshot Blocking for View Once Messages pic.twitter.com/UPbZbUd3Ze

– Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) August 9, 2022

Last Seen Status

While earlier, users could only hide their ‘last seen status, the new feature now allows you to hide your ‘online’ indicator or choose whom you want to share the position with. You can either completely hide the last seen online status from everyone, only unknown numbers, specific contacts, or from nobody. The feature will add a new ‘who can see when I’m online’ option under the last seen settings, with two options – ‘everyone’ and ‘same as last seen.’

Read More: Introducing Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 and Galaxy Z Fold4

Leave Groups Silently

Users can now leave group chats silently, without WhatsApp showing a ‘person left the group’ alert on the chat. The app alerts all group chat members to someone leaving or being removed by default. With the new feature, WhatsApp will only notify the group admin about a user leaving the group.

Viewed Once

The ‘view once’ messages allow users to send media files that are only viewable once. However, these still allowed people to take screenshots of the media file. Now, WhatsApp has added a screenshot blocking feature on ‘view once’ messages that will enable users to stop people from taking screenshots of their images.

As the campaign unfolds, we expect to hear more about existing and planned WhatsApp privacy features.

Read More: OPPO to Showcase Technology Innovations Including Ray Tracing and Heterogeneous Computing

What are your thoughts about these features? Let us know in the comments below.

stay tuned to Brandsynario for the latest news and updates.

All of today’s best deals are now up for the taking and headlined by $80 Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro discounts. That’s on top of NVIDIA Shield TV Pro/Stick from $125 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic LTE models starting at $300. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break.

Amazon clears out Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro with $80 discount

After seeing the new Galaxy Buds Pro 2 debut earlier in the week, Amazon is now offering the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro for $120 in two styles. Typically fetching $200, today’s clearance offer matches the Prime Day discount from last month and is $10 under our previous mention. This is also matching the all-time low at $80 off.

Just as you’d expect from their pro designation, Samsung’s now previous-generation earbuds arrive with improved active noise cancellation alongside an Ambient Mode. Other notable features enter as 28-hour battery life on a single charge, a workout-ready form-factor thanks to IPX7 water-resistance, and seamless pairing to your Galaxy handset. We noted that they are “simply excellent” in our hands-on review, as well.

Be sure to join 9to5Toys live over on our official YouTube channel as we cover all of the week’s best news, reviews, and deals starting at 12 p.m. EST.

NVIDIA Shield TV Pro/Stick return to 2022 lows from $125

Amazon is now discounting both of NVIDIA’s streaming media players, with the flagship Shield Android TV Pro leading the way at $170. Down from the $200 you’ll regularly pay, today’s offer amounts to $30 in savings. This is only the third discount of the year and matches the 2022 low set back on Prime Day.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV Pro arrives as one of the more high-end streaming media players on the market with plenty of notable features. First and foremost is onboard Plex support with hardware transcoding, allowing you to create a server just by plugging in a USB hard drive or connecting to a NAS. Of course, there’s access to all of the usual streaming services on top of 4K HDR playback, Alexa support, and more. A new update also rolled out that brings low-latency playback, night listening, and more to the Android 11 experience.

Save $100 on Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic LTE models

Earlier this week, Samsung debuted the new Galaxy Watch 5/Pro models and now Amazon is looking to clear out previous-generation stock with some deep discounts attached. Those who don’t need the latest and greatest can now instead bring the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic to their wrist starting at $300 for the 42mm LTE style. Normally fetching $400, this is $100 in savings and a new all-time low at $20 under the previous mention. The 46mm model is also on sale and sitting at the all-time low of $330, down from $430. Galaxy Watch 4 Classic delivers a more premium build than usual with a stylish stainless steel case. The fitness tracking experience is also well-equipped with all of the usual workout monitoring tech, heart rate and ECG readings, and much more. Dive into our hands-on review for a closer look.

Sony’s unique new true wireless LinkBuds at $158

Amazon now offers the Sony LinkBuds True Wireless Earbuds for $158 in two colors. Normally fetching $178, today’s offer amounts to $20 in savings and matches the second-best price to date. This is still only the fourth price cut since launching earlier this year and comes within $10 of the all-time low.

Taking a hardware approach to the software transparency mode feature, Sony’s new LinkBuds are centered around open ring-style drivers that all sound to naturally pass through from the outside world. Our hands-on review explores what to expect on that front, though the spoiler is that these are ideal for public transportation commuters and the like. The Sony V1 processor balances the sound profile and rounds out the package alongside 20-hour battery life, IPX4 water-resistance, and an ultra-compact charging case.

Synology’s popular DS220j 2-Bay NAS hits $150

Amazon currently offers the Synology DS220j 2-Bay NAS for $150. Normally fetching $190, today’s offer is marking only the second discount of the year and beating our previous mention from back in May by $20. While this model originally sold for $170, the ongoing chip shortage raised the standard price, making today’s discount all the more notable for getting in on the always-on storage game at $40 off.

As one of the more entry-level offers in the Synology stable, its DS220j NAS arrives with two hard drive bays and support for up to 32TB of storage. Ideal for everything from configuring a routine backup server, playing around with smart home services like Home Assistant, and more, there’s a 1.4GHz processor and single Gigabit Ethernet port to deliver 112MB/s speeds. Learn more in our hands-on review from World Backup Day.

Best trade-in deals

9to5Google also keeps tabs on all the best trade-in deals on Android smartphones and more every month. Be sure to check out this month’s best trade-in deals when you decide it’s time to upgrade your device, or simply head over to our trade-in partner directly if you want to recycle, trade, or sell your used devices for cash and support 9to5Google along the way!

Subscribe to the 9to5Toys YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!

Insta360 Link review: The new webcam king [Video]

Apex Pro Mini Wireless review: SteelSeries delivers adjustable switches in a 60% board [Video]

Review: Valve’s Steam Deck changes the handheld game [Video]

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One contentious feature common in third-person action-adventure games is Motion Blur, and while many might not mind this graphical setting in Tower of Fantasy, some may dislike it. For those unfamiliar with the term, Motion Blur is a feature that causes the visuals around a player character to become a blurry haze. Primarily, this option is used to reduce the chances of the game’s framerate dropping or hide any potential screen tearing while the screen is turning. For some, this effect might make the visuals cleaner, while others will detest the blurry appearance of their world. However, it will benefit fans to know how to turn off Motion Blur in Tower of Fantasy.

Disabling Motion Blur In Tower Of Fantasy

Unfortunately, the in-game settings do not offer an option to toggle Motion Blur in Tower of Fantasy. This predicament might seem like a hopeless case, but luckily a clever Reddit user has found a way to modify the game’s files to resolve this graphical dilemma.

Related:

Tower of Fantasy: How to Equip a Vehicle

According to Reddit user Maharahji in r/TowerofFantasy, Wanderers can disable their Motion Blur in Tower of Fantasy by conducting the following steps:

• Step 1: Open the in-game menu by pressing Esc or clicking on the tri-hexagon icon in the upper-right corner of the HUD.
• Step 2: Select Settings, and choose Display, the second tab within the list of options.
• Step 3: Scroll down to Post Production and select the lowest possible setting: “Low.”
• Step 4: Next, the player will need to manually enter the game’s files by using the following address: “C:Users%USERNAME%AppDataLocalHottaSavedConfigWindowsNoEditor”
• Step 5: Open the Engine.ini file using a text editor such as Notepad and then add this text to the file’s contents: “[SystemSettings] r.DefaultFeature.MotionBlur=0”
• Step 6: Save the changes to the file and close the document.
• Step 7: Launch Tower of Fantasy to confirm if Motion Blur has been disabled successfully.

To reverse this process, all players must do is reopen the same file and delete the added text above. Keep in mind that modifying the game’s files should be done at one’s own risk. While this solution should resolve the issue for most usersthose on mobile or a separate OS might have trouble disabling Motion Blur in Tower of Fantasy. The only option for those who prefer not to mess with the data files is to turn down the Post Production and tweak other settings to alleviate Motion Blur’s effect.

Tower of Fantasy is available on PC, Android, and iOS.

Source: r/TowerofFantasy

Today we’re taking another look at Intel Arc 3 A380, but this time with a 51 game benchmark head to head against AMD’s $150 Radeon RX 6400. This will give us a better idea of ​​how the Arc A380 performs across a wide range of titles and — spoiler alert — it wasn’t all smooth sailing, but there were some positive signs as well, it’s a very mixed bag and we’re keen to show you the results.

If you missed it earlier, we covered the A380 for the first time about 2 weeks ago with our standard review format, which looked at performance in a dozen games, compared it with a range of other budget GPUs, while also evaluating power consumption and thermals .

The aim for this comparison is to take that testing a big step further with a 51 game benchmark covering 1080p and 900p (1600×900) resolutions using dialed down quality settings. At some point we might also look at overclocking performance as a lot of you have requested, but first we wanted to prioritize stock performance to get a clear baseline for how the Intel Arc 3 A380 performs.

As of writing, Intel has yet to release the A380 outside of China, so for most gamers this is still an unreleased product. But this is less about buying advice and more just taking a look at what’s going on with the first Intel Arc GPU which is targeting the entry-level market.

For testing we’re using our Ryzen 7 5800X3D GPU test system, and yes, we know no one is going to pair a budget graphics card with this CPU, but the point is to test pure GPU performance while avoiding to introduce a CPU bottleneck which would skew the data.

For low-end to entry-level graphics testing we typically use medium quality settings in games, or settings that make sense for a given title. Also please note, for this testing both the A380 and RX 6400 were tested exclusively with Resizable BAR enabled. As we found in our original A380 review, ReBAR is mandatory for this product as performance is simply horrible without it.

On the drivers front, we’re using AMD’s Adrenalin Edition 22.7.1 and Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.101.1743. As mentioned before, benchmarks were run at 1080p and 900p and we’ll go over about a dozen or so titles individually before getting into the 51 game breakdown graphs.

Gaming Benchmarks

Starting with Death Stranding, we find comparable performance between these two GPUs which is not a bad result for the A380 if it ends up costing ~$50 less than the Radeon 6400.

At 900p the Intel GPU was 3% faster and then at 1080p the average frame rate performance was much the same, though the A380 did offer 20% stronger 1% lows.

The A380 was incredible relative to the Radeon 6400 in Hitman 3, delivering over 70% more performance at both tested resolutions. The game was noticeably smoother and much more enjoyable with the Arc GPU, hitting 77 fps at 900p and just shy of 60 fps at 1080p, while the RX 6400 was good for just 34 fps.

Quite a remarkable result here, and while we did see other similar examples, I regret to inform you that they were few and far between…

Another great showing for the Intel A380 was The Division 2, where it was 64% faster than the Radeon 6400 at 1080p, taking the average frame rate from a laggy 45 fps to a rather smooth 74 fps with 1% lows of 62 fps.

The experience using the Arc GPU was worlds better and it’s a shame we didn’t see more of this.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood was another successful title for the Arc GPU. Both the A380 and RX 6400 performed very well at 900p with over 100 fps on average, though the Radeon GPU did end up coming out on top by a 10% margin.

However, we were able to use the ‘Ultra’ quality preset and this gave the A380 and its larger 6GB VRAM buffer an advantage at 1080p, allowing it to pull ahead by a 36% margin to deliver a very respectable 75fps on average.

We hit our first road block with the A380 when trying to fire up Dirt 5 which flat out just doesn’t work with the Intel GPU, the game won’t even load, you just get served an error message.

Obviously that’s an unfortunate software issue, but it’s also a shame as this modern title runs very well on lower end hardware using modest quality settings, and as such is highly playable using the RX 6400.

Next we have Apex Legends, and here the A380 was competitive with the Radeon 6400, trailing it by just a few frames and that means both were good for over 90 fps at 1080p. A good result for the A380, especially if it does end up being cheaper than the RX 6400.

It’s a similar story in F1 22, here the A380 was 10% slower at 1080p which isn’t too bad, though the 16% margin it trailed by a 900p is starting to get up there and for those with high refresh rate monitors you’ I’ll certainly notice the difference here.

Battlefield V ran much better using the Radeon GPU at 900p, the A380 was 15% slower when looking at the average frame rate and 20% slower for the 1% lows.

The margins did close up at 1080p, but even then the Intel GPU was 10% slower. Overall the game was playable, but you’d rather play it with the RX 6400 if you had a choice.

We’ve heard how Intel has prioritized support for new APIs such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan, so perhaps these results shouldn’t come as a surprise. Still CSGO is a wildly popular game, so these results are going to be a complete and utter deal breaker for a good many of you.

You’re looking at more than twice the performance with the Radeon 6400 in CSGO versus the Intel A380…

You’re looking at more than twice the performance with the Radeon 6400 and while the A380 still looks very playable, stability was a real concern here.

Twice during our testing the game crashed to desktop, and that’s not something that has ever happened with a Radeon GPU, at least not in the last few years of benchmarking with this title. Intel has a lot of driver work to do here still.

Another title where the Intel A380 struggled was Fortnite. Granted, these frame rates are playable, but they’re less than ideal for a competitive shooter and what we received from the Radeon 6400 was significantly more impressive, and far more desirable for those of you rocking a high refresh rate monitor.

Halo Infinite using the lowest quality settings saw the A380 fail to hit 60 fps, even at 900p, so overall performance was disappointing, especially considering that at 1080p the Radeon 6400 was almost 40% faster.

Moving on to Red Dead Redemption 2, where we ran into more driver related issues. This time the Vulkan API caused crashes, it was possible to run our benchmark but it did take a number of passes to get the results, basically the game was completely unstable.

However, DirectX 12 appeared to run without issue so the A380 was benchmarked using DX12 while the RX 6400 was tested using Vulkan. The end result being a 26% performance advantage for the Radeon at 900p and 22% at 1080p.

The God of War experience with the A380 was interesting because at first we thought this was going to be another non-starter. The game did load, but the initial menus were extremely slow and almost impossible to navigate, but once we managed to hit the ‘continue’ button the game loaded and was quite playable.

Like with CSGO, we did experience a few crashes while testing, so although we managed to gather our results they’re only for reference given the stability issues.

In World War Z Aftermath we ran into more issues. For some reason it wasn’t possible to use Vulkan in this title either. We could only run with DX11 and while the game ran fine, it would crash on exit and hang the entire system for 30-60 seconds, so that was fun.

This all means that the Radeon 6400 was tested using Vulkan while we ran the A380 using DirectX 11. The performance was horrible, especially relative to the RX 6400 which offered over twice the performance.

Far Cry 6 also suffered from a menu bug which resulted in very slow navigation, making it difficult to change settings or even get into the game. That aside, the game didn’t crash, at least during our testing and overall performance was decent. This was one of the strongest results for the A380.

Performance Summary

We’ve looked at the individual results of 15 of the 51 games tested, now it’s time to see how the Arc 3 A380 and Radeon RX 6400 compare in all 51 games at 900p and 1080p…

Starting with the 900p data, we see how much of a mixed bag the Arc 3 A380 is and sadly it’s a bit more “bad” than it is “good.” As seen earlier, the A380 showed impressive returns in a handful of games including Hitman 3, The Division 2, Doom Eternal, Rainbow Six Extraction and Metro Exodus…

In 7 of the games tested performance was highly competitive with margins within 5%. Unfortunately though, 14 of the games saw the A380 trail by a 20% margin or greater with most seeing a 10% or larger margin for an 11% difference on average.

Of course, these results omit Dirt 5 where the A380 failed to launch while playing games such as God of War and CSGO suffered from stability issues.

The margin at 1080p moves slightly in favor of the Intel A380 where it was 7% slower on average. But again, that doesn’t give us the full picture as we’re looking at a mixed bag of results, and that’s ignoring the titles that either didn’t run or had some kind of game breaking issue.

What We Learned

We have to admit the Intel Arc 3 A380 didn’t perform as poorly as we had expected in this 51 game benchmark, but that’s not to say the experience was good overall. There were a few titles where the experience was great and many where it was just decent, but there were many where the performance was horrible or stability was a problem, or even both.

There’s also two sides to Intel driver problem… first, there’s game support which we’ve just tested and clearly there’s a lot of work remaining to improve performance, compatibility, and stability. The other side of the driver equation is the control utility, or Intel’s version of Nvidia’s GeForce Experience or AMD’s Adrenalin software.

Intel’s Arc Control is horrible with so many issues we simply can’t cover them all in this review. It would require its own dedicated space, case in point, that’s what Gamers Nexus did with a video titled “Worst We’ve Tested: Broken Intel Arc GPU Drivers” and we can confirm we’ve experienced almost all of the issues discussed there. So it’s broken and Intel has a mountain of work ahead of them, especially if they plan to release Arc later this year in “official capacity.”

It’s also worth noting that the Radeon RX 6400 is a truly terrible product, so we’ve intentionally set the bar extremely low for Intel at the entry-level. Right now the RX 6400 costs at least $150 and is only a justifiable purchase for those who require a single-slot low-profile graphics card. Outside of that you’re either best off saving up for a Radeon RX 6600 or shopping second hand.

In our A380 review we said we’d be tempted to roll the dice on the A380 in the hope that Intel comes through with the driver support, but after spending more time with it, we’re not so confident about willing to take that bet . With half decent drivers it would be a much better product than the Radeon 6400, but if and when they’ll get there it’s hard to say.

Put in a situation where we required an entry-level graphics card, we think we’d take to eBay or a similar site in search of a second hand GeForce GTX 1650, Radeon RX 580 or something along those lines. We really hope Intel can turn things around, but it’s going to take some major changes and we’re not sure Intel is capable of that. Only time will tell.

Shopping Shortcuts:

• AMD Radeon RX 6600 on Amazon
• AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT on Amazon
• AMD Radeon RX 6400 on Amazon
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 on Amazon
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT on Amazon
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti on Amazon
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 on Amazon
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600 on Amazon