What just happened? Lots of industries have been hit hard during the Covid-19 pandemic, but some have benefitted from the situation. Aside from the obvious areas such as streaming and gaming, one somewhat surprising market that’s seen a rise in sales is smartwatches, which grew 20 percent year-on-year in Q1.

According to a new report from market research firm Strategy Analytics , 13.7 million smartwatches were shipped in the first quarter of the year, up from 11.

Why it matters: After a series of teasers and announcements, LG finally launched the mid-range Velvet in its home market. The company is yet to decide on the phone's international availability, but local pre-orders are going live tomorrow, with sales commencing from Friday next week.

The Android market has gained an interesting new entry with the LG Velvet, even if the phone's

In brief: Do you enable Game Mode in Windows 10 to improve your gaming experience? You might want to disable it, as the feature is reportedly causing issues in several different titles.

Introduced with the Creators Update back in the Spring of 2017, Game Mode is designed to improve gaming performance by isolating CPU resources that can be devoted exclusively to optimizing a game. It also limits background tasks and gives games more GPU cycles, all of which are supposed to bring a minor boost, though this is

In a nutshell: Are you looking to buy a Z490 motherboard to pair with an Intel 10th-generation Comet Lake CPU? If you’ve got plenty of cash to spare, want something showy, and move fast enough, you could grab one of ASRock’s amazing Z490 Aqua mobos, which costs $1,099.99 and is limited to just 999 units.

While we already knew Z490 motherboards were going to be more

WTF?! Conspiracy theories that link 5G to the spread of novel coronavirus may have been debunked, but many people still believe it. The claim has led to cell towers being destroyed, and some vigilantes have gone even further: spitting in the face of an engineer, who is now suspected of having contracted Covid-19.

Claims that 5G cell towers somehow cause Covid-19 or damage humans’ immune systems have been spreading on social media for a few months now, despite being called biologically impossible

In a nutshell: Microsoft's Surface Book lineup was overdue for a refresh, and it's finally here. The new Surface Book 3 keeps the same elegant exterior for both the 13.5-inch and 15-inch models, but the updated hardware inside is ~50% faster while keeping the same battery life. A new Surface Dock also adds support for two 4

In context: Whether you love it, hate it, or love to hate it, there's no denying that Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world right now. The sheer number of players that flock to the title on a daily basis is hard for many people to fathom, and unlike some other popular titles, the Fortnite train hasn't lost much steam lately.

Indeed, Fortnite seemingly continues to grow and fill Epic's already-deep pockets even further. This allows the company

The big picture: Google seems poised to compete directly with Amazon, Apple, and Roku with a new Chromecast Ultra. This may also bring drastic changes to how Android TV is presented and put Google in competition with the very hardware vendors it needs to increase Android TV's reach into the market.

Though not as prevalent as Roku, Apple TV, or Amazon Fire devices, Android TV still remains a competent and capable television experience. That said, Google's next foray into the living room will likely be Nest

In brief: With Cyberpunk 2077's release date still about four months away, there aren't many new games around to scratch that cyberpunk itch. However, first-person cyberpunk action title "Ghostrunner" offers the next best thing in the form of a newly-released playable demo.

While I haven't gotten the chance to take the game out for a test drive myself -- yet -- it looks like an excellent blend between games like Dishonored and Mirror's Edge, which