ranked Archives

BetaBeacon

June 3, 2026

Pokemon Champions for iOS, Android launches June 17

Pokemon Champions, a free-to-play battle game, will launch on iOS and Android on June 17, with cross-platform play between Switch and mobile devices. Players can receive Raichu, Raichunite X, and Raichunite Y by checking their in-game mailbox from June 17 to September 2.

BetaBeacon

June 1, 2026

All Mobile Games Releasing in June 2026: RF Online Next, Guild Wars Reforged, Fruit Ninja Adventure, and More Coming to Android and iOS

- Among the Sleep is a horror game where players experience the world through the eyes of a two-year-old child, focusing on atmosphere, sound design, and exploration rather than combat.

Tech Optimizer

May 29, 2026

This compact antivirus protection package is now less than £25 — Norton 360 has everything you need to secure your devices against malware, ransomware, and hacking

Norton 360 Standard is currently available for £25, down from its regular price of £70 for the first year. It protects up to three devices from threats like malware and ransomware and includes features such as cloud backup, a VPN, and a password manager. It has a Scam Protection feature that identifies scams in messages and deepfake videos, and an AI Genie for user support. Norton 360 is consistently ranked among the top three antivirus solutions and has received high marks from AV-Comparatives and AV-TEST. It secures internet traffic on public Wi-Fi networks and offers 10GB of cloud backup to protect important files. The deal auto-renews at the standard price after the first year.

BetaBeacon

May 29, 2026

Battle Waves: Mobile is out now on iOS & Android

- The game Battle Waves: Mobile had 160,000 pre-registrations on Google Play and became the #1 Card Game in iOS pre-orders worldwide. - Six critical gameplay crashes were identified and resolved during a two-week Open Beta.

Tech Optimizer

May 29, 2026

NordVPN isn’t just a VPN anymore, but a full security suite – here’s what you get now

NordVPN is transforming its VPN application to integrate modern threat protection capabilities, focusing on three core pillars: connect, protect, and monitor. The company is consolidating its security features, including browser protection, anti-malware, dark web monitoring, and phishing protection, into a comprehensive security app. In April 2026, NordVPN's threat protection and antivirus service blocked 4.8 million threats, highlighting the need for an evolved approach to cybersecurity. The new app aims to provide proactive protection against various online threats, reducing the complexity of managing multiple security applications. NordVPN's subscriptions start at a few dollars per month, with different tiers offering varying levels of security features, including a Basic plan, Complete plan, and Prime tier for comprehensive cybersecurity.

AppWizard

May 28, 2026

Victims of cheaters in Marvel Rivals will be refunded all the ranked points they lost if they report them thanks to NetEase’s new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System

Marvel Rivals is experiencing a significant increase in cheating incidents, prompting NetEase to initiate a ban wave and announce updates to its anti-cheat system. Many players believe these measures are inadequate. To address player frustration, NetEase will introduce a new Anti-Cheat Rank Compensation System, allowing players to receive a full refund of Ranked Points lost if they report a confirmed cheater, although this does not apply to Placement Matches. This system, called the "Victim Compensation Protocol," is similar to those in other games like Overwatch and Valorant. However, players remain concerned that current punitive measures are insufficient to deter cheaters, especially since Marvel Rivals is free-to-play, making account bans ineffective. More stringent measures, such as hardware or IP bans, may be necessary, but these harsher penalties are only a small part of the overall ban efforts.

AppWizard

May 26, 2026

Google ranks the best AI for building Android apps, and the winner isn’t Gemini

Google launched the Android Bench benchmarking portal in March to help software developers evaluate AI models for Android app development. The leaderboard was updated last week to include open-weight models and new metrics for latency, tokens, and cost. Matthew McCullough, Google's VP of Product for Android Development, stated that the goal is to provide a benchmark for evaluating large language models (LLMs) in Android development. As of May 18, GPT 5.5 is the top AI model for Android app development, with Gemini 3.1 Pro and GPT 5.4 ranked as joint leaders. Android Bench evaluates LLMs based on real-world challenges and tasks sourced from public GitHub repositories. Other benchmarking tools in the Android ecosystem include Jetpack Microbenchmark, Jetpack Macrobenchmark, Firebase Performance Monitoring, Android Vitals, Apptim, and Android Performance Analyzer. The overall benchmark score on Android Bench is calculated using four core values: Confidence Interval Range, Average Latency Score, Average Total Tokens Score, and Average Cost. The test harness for Android Bench is publicly available on GitHub.

BetaBeacon

May 20, 2026

The Best Android Games to Download This Summer 2026

Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deckbuilder game that has no aggressive monetization or energy systems, allowing players to pay once and own it.

Tech Optimizer

May 18, 2026

Google Pushes AI for PostgreSQL Development

Google is integrating artificial intelligence into PostgreSQL engineering while ensuring engineers remain responsible for their code contributions. This initiative aims to improve productivity and streamline processes, particularly in version upgrades, replication behavior, and production recovery. Sailesh Krishnamurthy, Google Cloud's VP of Databases, emphasized the importance of human oversight in this AI-driven approach. Between July and December 2025, Google's PostgreSQL engineering focused on logical replication, improvements to pg_upgrade, and upstream bug fixes. Logical replication allows selective database change transfers, which is beneficial for migrations and upgrades. The roadmap includes Automatic Conflict Detection and logical replication of sequences to minimize manual synchronization issues. Enterprise teams are particularly interested in these developments due to the challenges posed by write collisions and misaligned sequence values. The demand for PostgreSQL services at Google is increasing due to migration needs from Oracle and SQL Server. Recent data shows PostgreSQL's rising popularity, ranking fourth in the DB-Engines ranking and gaining 8.37 points year over year, while its competitors experienced declines.

AppWizard

May 14, 2026

Bungie is turning Marathon’s loot dial to 11 ahead of its first wipe, opening up Cryo Archive 24/7

Marathon's upcoming "end of season" update will be released on May 19 and will include several key changes to improve gameplay. Locked room keys will now be guaranteed rewards from on-map events, allowing access to coveted loot rooms on Tau Ceti. Map events such as Intercept, Lockdown, Warden spawns, Convoy, and Anomaly will be guaranteed on each run. Warden bosses will appear in more locations, increasing the frequency of room keys. The Cryo Archive entrance restrictions will be removed, and a new Ranked Cryo Archive playlist will be introduced. Faction experience gains will increase, key templates will remain intact if players are downed, wall safes will have a chance to yield deluxe keys, and the Signal Mask ability will have an extended duration while sprinting. Season 2: Nightfall will launch on June 2, introducing a new Night Marsh zone, a fresh Runner shell, new weaponry, and a system for customizing Runner shell stats. Full details will be revealed during the week of May 25.