Microsoft has brought location tracking and app usage monitoring to its Android Launcher. The new family tracking feature, currently available in preview, lets Microsoft Launcher users track the last known location of their family members. The launcher also includes an activity report of what apps are being used on a device and for how long, similar to Microsoft's family account feature.

Apple says it plans introduce a new feature for iPhones and iPads called "Digital Health," to help cure people of their iPhone addiction, Bloomberg said on Thursday. Digital Health — said to launch as part of Apple's new iOS 12 operating system — will reportedly help users manage how much time they spend on their iPhones and iPads with tools that show how long users spend inside apps, according to Bloomberg.

Apple is releasing iOS 11.4, the latest version of its mobile operating system for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. The release comes nearly two months after Apple released the first beta versions of iOS 11.4, macOS 10.13.5, tvOS 11.4, and watchOS 4.3.1. Most notable in the new iOS release is long-awaited support for AirPlay 2, Apple’s proprietary streaming protocol, which is expected to enable synchronized audio playback through multiple HomePod speakers.

Wireless tech that uses only lasers to charge battery-operated devices like phones are being developed. The charger uses safe lasers that take about as long to charge a phone as a USB cable would.

This breakthrough development is being worked on by engineers at the University of Washington (UW) and the study has been published in the journal "Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable & Ubiquitous Technologies", according to Phys.org. A narrow, invisible beam of 'red' laser light, the team found, is sufficient to charge a mobile phone wirelessly from across the room.

By attaching a thin power cell to the back of a smartphone, researchers were able to generate power from a laser pointed at it. To bleed off excess heat from the laser, the device also has a flat metal heatsink. The laser will also cut off when the charger is not in line with the beam.

2018 AI-enabled LG TVs including OLEDs, LCD-based Super UHDs will now support voice commands routed through users existing Alexa gadgets including the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Spot, and Echo Plus devices. This will comprise all the vital TV controls including, volume, play/pause, start, stop, fast-forward, searching for content, and changing channels.

Sometimes delays can be benefic for laptops, since at least some of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835-powered Windows 10 portables that were expected to arrive this year will use the faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor instead, which also has a noticeably faster frequency than when used in smartphones.