News Report Tonight

After teasing it for months, Filipino automaker Francisco Motors finally launched its first electric vehicle, the Elektron SUV. The Elektron SUV will be available in three variants. The cheapest one is called the Basic model, which comes with a range of over 400 kilometers with its 54.9kWh lithium iron phosphate battery. There’s the Fashion variant that has a range of over 500 kilometers with its 63.2kWh battery, and finally, there’s the top-of-the-line Deluxe variant with an 81.5kWh battery, as well as dual electric motors and all-wheel drive. The Deluxe’s motors can provide 340 kilowatts of power and 640Nm of torque, propelling you from 0 to 100km/h in just 4.3 seconds and achieving a top speed of 180km/h. Meanwhile, the Basic and Fashion variants rely on a single electric motor that can do 0-100km/h in 7.7 seconds with a top speed of 160km/h. In terms of size, the crossover SUV has dimensions of 4,640mm x 1,870mm x 1,655mm, with a whee...

TECNO has unveiled the MegaPad 2 LTE, a budget-friendly tablet that’s also now available in the Philippines. The TECNO MegaPad 2 LTE features a large 11-inch 2.5K IPS display with a smooth 90Hz refresh rate, 550-nit peak brightness, and a TUV Rheinland certification for being flicker-free and low blue light emission. Under the hood, it is powered by the trusty MediaTek Helio G99 processor, a 6nm chip equipped with 4G LTE connectivity so you can stay online even without access to WiFi. It then has a decent 8,200mAh battery, with an included 18W fast charger. TECNO boasted its ultra-thin design of just 6.6mm. We then have an 8-megapixel camera on the front and an 8-megapixel sensor on the back with an LED flash. You also get four speakers with Dolby Atmos and the latest Android 16-based HiOS 16 interface. From July 27 to 30, you can get the TECNO MegaPad 2 LTE for only Php13,266 for the 6GB/128GB model and Php15,799 for the 8GB/256GB. It comes...

Meta has started removing videos from Instagram that were filmed secretly using its own smart glasses. The company is banning accounts that post content where people are recorded without knowing it. According to the report by Business Insider , the decision comes after many reports of men using the glasses to film women in public spaces without their permission. Some creators have also been filming service workers as part of so-called pranks that often feel more like harassment. As a result, the glasses have gained some bad nicknames because of how some people use them. This has become a problem for Meta’s brand image. Students are using smart AI glasses to cheat on tests Several accounts that made a habit of recording women without consent have already been shut down. Meta confirmed these bans were linked to harassment content filmed with the company’s glasses. However, the total number of removed videos has not been shared. Meta also made a techn...

Valve has just made some big changes to how gifting works on Steam . The new updates mean you can now buy and send games to people without jumping through as many hoops. The biggest change is that you no longer need a Steam account to buy a game for someone else. Last year, Valve tested this for gift cards and hardware. Now it works for every game on the platform. You can just share your wishlist with someone, and they can buy you a game as a guest. No account needed on their end. There is also a new way to send gifts through email. Instead of needing a person’s Steam username, you can just type in their email address. They will get a link in their inbox. If that email is linked to their Steam account, they can sign in and claim the game right away. But there are a few things to keep in mind. The person has 30 days to accept the gift. After that, Steam will give the buyer their money back. You also cannot set a gift to arrive on a specific date. And both you and t...

The European Commission (EU) has granted exemptions to six device categories, meaning they won’t need to feature user-replaceable batteries. These include smartwatches, fitness bands, smart glasses, certain medical tools, electronic toys, thermometers, and devices used in hazardous areas. The original regulation, introduced in 2023 under the European Green Deal, was designed to cut electronic waste by making batteries easier to swap out. That rule was supposed to kick in by 2027 . However, officials have now decided that for some products, letting users open up the device could hurt performance or safety. For example, water resistance or durability might suffer if the battery is too easy to access. Even though these gadgets are exempt, they still must be repairable by qualified technicians. Wireless earbuds, like Apple’s AirPods, may also qualify for this exception if the Commission decides that user access to the battery poses risks. Smartphones are not exempt. They st...

Filipinos who reserve a Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra , Z Fold8 , or Z Flip8 through Smart Postpaid or Infinity from July 22 to August 13 get a complimentary 512GB bump and stacked device perks. Smart Communications has opened pre-orders for Samsung’s Galaxy Z8 Series in the Philippines, running from July 22 to August 13, 2026, ahead of an August 7 general retail launch. The lineup, unveiled at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22, includes three foldables: the new passport-shaped Galaxy Z Fold8, the first Ultra-branded Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, and the clamshell Galaxy Z Flip8. Both Folds run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. The standard Fold8 tips the scales at 201 grams and carries a 4,800 mAh battery, while the Ultra adds a 5,000 mAh silicon-carbon cell, a 200-megapixel main camera, and Samsung’s new “Flex Titanium” display structure. Philippine SRPs across storage tiers: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra — 256GB at Php123,9...

You can now play classic console games on your modern gaming PC or handheld console with Xbox Backward Compatibility. The Xbox Backward Compatibility has arrived on Windows PC and ASUS ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X . The feature is now available with an early preview for these supported titles: Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Conker: Live and Reloaded Fuzion Frenzy BLiNX: The Time Sweeper Apart from allowing you to play these classic games on your modern machine, the titles on the list will also come with new features that are said to offer a better gaming experience. Those additional features include customizable graphics settings like 4x resolution upscaling, support for VSync, anisotropic filtering, better anti-aliasing, and more. These new games are now available for purchase on PC and have been added to the XBOX Game Pass library and are available on any plan. The best part is, if you already own any of these games, you can use that...