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Asus upgrades its ROG gaming phone with a faster CPU and a color rear display
The ROG Phone 5s and 5s Pro will be released next month
Asus' bombastic ROG Phone 5 is only five months old, but it's already getting a mid-cycle refresh. Say hello to the ROG Phone 5s and 5s Pro, which look very nearly identical to the original. That's because they are: aside from a slight bump with the latest Snapdragon 888+ chipset and a marginally improved 360hz touch sampling rate on their 144Hz AMOLED screens, they're pretty much the same. The 5s sticks with the decorative dot matrix RGB graphics on the rear, while the 5s Pro (above) upgrades the black-and-white rear screen from the ROG 5 Ultimate to a new color OLED display.
The Pixel 4a 5G finally became available for pre-order in the US a week ago, and now other countries are following suit. Though Japan got it first on October 15th, it's now available for pre-order in France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and Taiwan, filling out the list of available countries announced at the Launch Night In.
Google Pay adds support for 24 new banks in 23 countries
Forget your wallet, grab your phone — you've got Google Pay
Google Pay continues to expand its support to additional international banks. To help you keep track of which financial institutions have added their credit and debit cards to the service, we've compiled a list of recent additions. Since we last looked in July, Google's added 24 new banks in 23 countries.
Spotify has been working on proper lyrics support for ages. It likely takes this long to implement the seemingly simple feature in part due to licensing issues surrounding songtexts, which already led to a lawsuit against Google. Spotify seems to have finally found a suitable solution, as TechCrunch reports that the company is planning to roll out lyrics synced with music to 26 markets today. The US, Canada, and the UK aren't among these, though.
Taiwan's Pokémon GO Grandpa is back with 64 phones mounted on his bike
Forget the game, watch where you're going!
The legendary Pokémon GO Grandpa — known for biking the streets of New Taipei City, Taiwan, with his "peacock of phones" — has gone public with his biggest, baddest rig yet. In 2018, he had 15 phones mounted to his handlebar. This year, he's up to 64.
HTC unveils mid-range U20 5G and Desire 20 Pro with massive batteries and quad cams
The brand's first 5G phone is currently exclusive to its home market
Sure, HTC doesn’t run a booming smartphone business anymore, but its sporadic efforts remind us the company's not quite done for good. In line with its plan to introduce its first 5G phone this year and a recent teaser, the Taiwanese brand has just unveiled a pair of mid-rangers with lot in common, from their battery sizes to the camera count: the U20 5G and Desire 20 Pro.
For a company that's been on a years-long downhill toboggan, HTC still has hopes of playing catch-up in 2020. There's a 5G phone in the works, we're tracking another entry in the budget-minded Desire series, and now, for some reason, we're looking at some AirPod clones.
Google's handy Pixel Update and Software Repair tool now available in more countries
Still only works with the Pixel 3 and later, though
Google's Pixel Update and Software Repair tool is a mouthful, but it's an easy way to update or reinstall the software loaded on recent Pixel phones, and sometime recently it got a small tweak: Now the tool is available to people in more countries, with individual support for tons of specific carriers in each.
Android Auto expands wireless compatibility to most supported countries
Only Japan and Russia are excluded
Some cars and head units are capable of displaying Android Auto from your phone wirelessly, but there are additional restrictions to the functionality — other than owning a compatible handset, you also need to live in one of the regions where the wireless connection is available. Luckily, the list of supported countries is expanding, and now you can use wireless Android Auto in almost all locations where the wired version is available, with only two exceptions: Japan and Russia.
Google Play Points availability expands to Taiwan and Hong Kong
The program is now available in five regions
Google Play's loyalty program, Play Points, launched in Japan in late 2018 before making its way to South Korea the following spring and the US in the fall. Now, the program is expanding to two additional Asian regions: Taiwan and Hong Kong.
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Although Taiwan wasn't indicated on the map of Assistant's expansion or in the list of countries Google promised support for before the end of the year, the Google Pixel 3 is the first Pixel to be officially available in Taiwan. Since a major appeal of its experience is Assistant, the virtual helper had to come to the country too.
After a lot of controversy over disappearing credit, Google has finally started rectifying the situation by being more transparent about when your earned credit via Opinion Rewards expires. Putting that behind it, the company is ready to expand the paid surveys's availability to another market: Taiwan.
YouTube Music and Premium are continuing their expansion across the world. After adding eight Middle Eastern countries in September, the service is now spreading to seven more markets in Asia. Most notable among these additions is Indonesia, the fourth most populated country in the world, and a potentially huge market for Google.
Two months back, HTC announced its intention to update the U11, U11+, and U12+ phones to Android 9 Pie. Although it has missed its original "late June" estimate for the U12+ (not to mention the issues it's having with the U11) it would appear that the Pie update for the U12+ is finally rolling out — but only in Taiwan, for now.
A hole punch front camera with an almost bezel-free display is the dominant smartphone design trend for 2019, whether you like it or not. HMD Global's new Nokia-branded device is the latest to go with this setup, and it certainly looks handsome for it. The mid-ranger has been announced for the Asian market, launching first in Taiwan.
Google Assistant can do a lot of awesome things, but that list would be much shorter without developer support. That's what Actions on Google is all about—it helps developers integrate apps and services with Assistant. Thus, you can shout at your phone and smart speakers more often. Now, developers can start supporting the Chinese (traditional) language in their Actions.
The Taiwan branch of Samsung Electronics has just announced what is roughly translated as a "First Snow White" version of its popular Galaxy Note9. The new color is timed to welcome the winter season, and for the time being it's not only a Taiwan exclusive, but sale is limited to just a handful of stores in the country.
Do you love Pokémon GO? Do you really, really love it? If you answered yes, you may need to rethink your passion to the game when you see how far ahead of you this Taiwanese grandpa is. If catching 'em all is possible, I bet he'd be the one to do it and we'll all be just standing here applauding.
So many times we hear readers complain about Google's focus being way too US-centered. Sure, the company started here and has a significant user base, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when new products and services debut, only to be US exclusives. While that favoritism isn't going to vanish any time soon, little by little we see Google expand its offerings in nations abroad, and today we're checking in with the latest developments in the international world of Google Pay.
HTC isn't doing particularly well these days, and the few people out there who purchased a U12+ likely weren't too pleased with the last bit of news about their devices announced: 'CryptoKitties.' Luckily, HTC is releasing an update for the U12+, starting with the Taiwanese dual-SIM model and coming soon to US and European versions.