Google’s big Launch Night In event Wednesday was the latest in a flurry of September tech announcements. The virtual event, which saw the unveiling of the Pixel 5 and Google’s first entry into the 5G space, followed its unveiling of the Pixel 4A budget phone in August. That event confirmed the existence of Google’s next flagship phone, the Pixel …

Google’s Pixel 5 flagship smartphone was unveiled earlier this week at its virtual “Launch Night In” event, which also introduced the Pixel 4A 5G, a new Chromecast and Nest Audio, a new smart speaker that will replace the Google Home. Among the new flagship phone’s specs and features announced at the event are some pretty big changes to its camera setup: …

A year after Google launched Stadia, Amazon seems like it’s doing the same thing for cloud gaming. The just-announced Amazon Luna service is entering a streaming games market that’s suddenly quite crowded, alongside Stadia, Microsoft’s Game Pass Ultimate and Sony’s PlayStation Now. Luna has a controller, like Stadia. It has Alexa on it, like Stadia has Google Assistant. Luna has big …

Google is rolling out a measure in its latest Pixel phones that’s designed to curb the negative impact of unrealistic beauty standards. Starting with the Pixel 5, Pixel 4A and Pixel 4A 5G, the company is turning off face retouching options by default in the camera app, it said in a Thursday blog post.  People can still access the retouching features …

Looking for a fun project to keep you occupied during quarantine lockdowns? Building a PC from scratch might seem like a daunting task if you’re a beginner — or in my case, if you haven’t built a computer since high school. But it doesn’t have to be. A custom-built machine is the best way to get all the components you …

It seems like laptops with 3:2 screen ratios are officially a trend. The HP Spectre x360 14 is the company’s first Spectre two-in-one with a taller display than the 16:9 widescreen displays you’re probably used to seeing. Acer has already released a laptop and a two-in-one with 3:2 displays and, Thursday Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Go with the same screen ratio, which …

Verizon has announced an expansion of its newly launched LTE Home Internet service, with the network footprint now reaching 189 regions across 48 states. As of Thursday, Verizon said, the service is available in some rural areas of every US state except Alaska and Vermont. Verizon launched the new LTE Home service in July, aiming to bring better home internet …

Xiaomi on Wednesday launched its latest flagship line, the Mi10T, alongside a new smartwatch as the Chinese company continues to bet on its lucrative premium phone business. Mi 10T phones are designed to be sold outside of China and Xiaomi says they “power your creativity.” This series is different from the Mi 10 phones launched several months ago, which is …

Google’s original Chromecast helped popularize streaming to TVs when it first came out in 2013. The $35 device allowed you to “cast” video from apps on your phone, like YouTube, Hulu and Netflix, to watch on a big TV. That’s a common feature in TVs now, but subsequent iterations of the dongle have gained new capabilities like 4K streaming. On Wednesday Google …

Google announced on Thursday a new initiative to pay publishers $1 billion over the next three years for news content. The payments will be compensation for news content that will appear on the new app, Google News Showcase.  The app will feature the “editorial curation of award-winning newsrooms to give readers more insight on the stories that matter, and in …

Disney’s Mulan will become more widely available Tuesday after it had been a Disney Plus exclusive since Sept. 4, with other online stores like Amazon Video, Vudu and Fandango Now already offering preorders Thursday for the $30 digital movie purchase. By going on sale outside Disney Plus and no longer requiring a $7-a-month membership for a purchase, the movie will essentially be …

In 2016, Google’s newly appointed hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, stood on a stage in San Francisco and unveiled a product that many people in the industry never thought would come: a Google-branded phone.  For years, a “GPhone” to compete with the iPhone had been a mythic prospect — a device that Android fanboys believed could properly take on Apple’s smartphone. …

Twitter appeared to have a service disruption on Thursday morning, as some people reported that the social network was down or not loading some features. The phrase “Did Twitter” began trending as the social network returned, with people asking if anyone else had been hit by the outage.  Problems with Twitter began around 6:43 a.m. PT, according to outage monitoring …

This story is part of Elections 2020, CNET’s coverage of the voting in November and its aftermath. Snapchat has helped over 1 million people register to vote through its app this year, a spokesperson said Thursday. The popular app, known for its disappearing messages and face filters, estimates 56% of the people it helped register this year are first-time voters …

Google is reportedly planning to produce only 800,000 Pixel 5 phones this year, because it has lower expectations on sales due to the coronavirus pandemic and slow sales last year. Google sold 7.2 million Pixel phones last year, according to IDC. But it’s planning to produce just 3 million units this year in total across the Pixel 5, Pixel 4A 5G …