Geek News

HTC said it would return to dual rear cameras in 2018, and we now have an idea as to when that might happen. LlabTooFer, a historically accurate source of HTC-related leaks, has posted what's claimed to be specs for the Imagine (aka U12), and its centerpiece would be a dual rear camera system with 12- and 16-megapixel sensors. It's not explained how this would work, but the size difference is usually meant to allow cropping for portrait or zoom modes without losing detail. The device wouldn't lean solely on this feature, either. The Imagine/U12 would also tout an "HTC Face Unlock" feature (albeit using a lone 8MP camera at the front), a speedy Snapdragon 845 chip, a tall 6-inch QHD+ screen (possibly comparable to the U11+ ), up to 6GB of RAM, a peak 256GB of internal storage, a 3,420mAh battery and IP68-level water resistance. Edge Sense 2.0 would evolve HTC's squeeze-based control. Even software updates would play an important role -- HTC reportedly plan...

Songwriters just claimed a major victory in the fight for better pay from streaming giants like Apple and Spotify. The US Copyright Royalty Board has ruled for an increase in songwriter rates that will give them a 43.8 percent pay raise over the next 5 years. They also won't have to jump through hoops to figure out how much they're owed: they'll claim either a percentage of revenue or the total content costs, whichever pays the most. There are no longer caps on writer rates, for that matter. This isn't exactly what writers wanted. They were hoping to be paid per stream, which would give them a direct stake in the success of a popular tune. However, the National Music Publishers Association's David Israelite called it the "best songwriters have ever had" under the current compulsory license system. There's no guarantee this will make writers happy. Musicians frequently complain about low royalties from streaming services, and songwriters frequent...