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• 8849 Tank 4 offers a large 11,600mAh battery for endurance
• Supports triple rear cameras including night vision
• 8849 Tank 4 supports 66W fast charging and 25W reverse charging

The rugged smartphone market is evolving, with many brands now integrating large batteries and even portable projectors into their devices.

Chinese brand 8849 is known for such devices, having previously released models like the 8499 Tank 2 Pro and Tank 3 Pro.

The company has now announced the 8849 Tank 4, a business smartphone that features a 100-lumen 720p DLP projector. It supports laser-assisted auto-focus up to 4 meters, micro-laser ranging, night vision camera, and an RGB camping light.

Projector phones are carving a niche

The 8849 Tank 4 sports a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1200 x 2650 and a 120Hz refresh rate. Measuring 174.3 x 85.4 x 23.9 mm and weighing 538g, it is only slightly smaller than the best rugged tablets on the market.

This phone is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chip, paired with 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of internal storage, expandable via TF card.

It houses an 11,600mAh battery, which is about half the capacity of the Tank 3 Pro, but still large for daily use. The device also supports 66W wired fast charging. While it lacks wireless charging, it compensates with 25W reverse charging via its Type-C 2.0 port.

For photography, the phone is equipped with a triple rear camera setup, including a 50MP Sony main sensor, a 64MP OmniVision night vision camera with infrared fill lights, and an 8MP 3x zoom lens.

Like other rugged smartphones, this device supports IP68 water and dust resistance. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6, dual SIM support, and compatibility with GSM to 5G NR networks, offering download speeds of up to 2.34Gbps.

Samsung once dabbled in the projector phone category with the Galaxy Beam released over a decade ago. However, the company ultimately exited the space due to high costs and limited adoption at the time.

Nevertheless, with new offerings like the 8849 Tank 4, as well as similar products like Oukitel WP100 Titan and Doogee V Max Play, projector phones may be poised for a comeback.

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• Ulefone Armor 30 Pro combines ruggedness with productivity
• A triple-camera setup in a rugged smartphone isn't that common
• 64MP camera and a 4W speaker reflect a shift in what rugged smartphones aim to offer

The best rugged smartphones often focus on strength and battery life, but in recent years, they’ve started to include features such as portable projectors and even dual displays.

The Ulefone Armor 30 Pro is a dual-screen rugged device featuring a 6.95-inch FHD+ main display with a 120Hz refresh rate. On the rear, it sports a 3.4-inch secondary screen with a 960x412 resolution, protected by Gorilla Glass.

While the displays can’t be operated independently, both run on Android, and the rear screen allows users to take selfies and video calls using the main camera system.

Big battery and a MediaTek processor

The device is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset, paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. It supports 5G connectivity and AI-powered features.

As with many rugged devices, it houses a large 12,800mAh battery that promises extended usage. It supports 66W fast charging for quick top-ups and offers 10W reverse charging to power smaller devices like smartwatches or earbuds.

One major surprise feature is the Ulefone Armor 30 Pro's triple rear camera setup - which is pretty uncommon in this category. It includes a 50MP main sensor, a 50MP ultra-wide shooter, and a 64MP infrared night vision camera supported by four IR LED blasters.

The Armor 30 Pro is built for more than just survival in harsh environments. It features pogo pin connectors for accessories like endoscopes and microscopes, along with a dedicated shutter button for quickphoto capture.

Another unusual inclusion is a waterproof 4W loudspeaker, embedded in the hexagonal camera bump, that's capable of reaching up to 118dB. It’s an unusual choice for a device in this category, suggesting a shift toward entertainment and daily use, making it feel closer to a business smartphone than a traditional field device.

While not a typical productivity smartphone, the dual-screen layout and advanced sensor suite elevate its potential as a rugged tablet replacement for those who need portability with function.

The Armor 30 Pro will be available from April 14, priced at $379.99 on Aliexpress, $549.99 on the official store, €499.99 on Amazon, 33,015₽ on Ozon, and $499.99 on Mercado Livre.

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• UK-based Fractile is backed by NATO and wants to build faster and cheaper in-memory AI compute
• Nvidia's bruteforce GPU approach consumes too much power and is held back by memory
• Fractile's numbers focused on a cluster of H100 GPU comparison, not the mainstream H200

Nvidia sits comfortably at the top of the AI hardware food chain, dominating the market with its high-performance GPUs and CUDA software stack, which have quickly become the default tools for training and running large AI models - but that dominance comes at a cost - namely, a growing target on its back.

Hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta are pouring resources into developing their own custom silicon in an effort to reduce their dependence on Nvidia’s chips and cut costs. At the same time, a wave of AI hardware startups is trying to capitalize on rising demand for specialized accelerators, hoping to offer more efficient or affordable alternatives and, ultimately, to displace Nvidia.

You may not have heard of UK-based Fractile yet, but the startup, which claims its revolutionary approach to computing can run the world’s largest language models 100x faster and at 1/10th the cost of existing systems, has some pretty noteworthy backers, including NATO and the former CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger.

Removing every bottleneck

“We are building the hardware that will remove every bottleneck to the fastest possible inference of the largest transformer networks," Fractile says.

"This means the biggest LLMs in the world running faster than you can read, and a universe of completely new capabilities and possibilities for how we work that will be unlocked by near-instant inference of models with superhuman intelligence.”

It’s worth pointing out, before you get too excited, that Fractile’s performance numbers are based on comparisons with clusters of Nvidia H100 GPUs using 8-bit quantization and TensorRT-LLM, running Llama 2 70B - not the newer H200 chips.

In a LinkedIn posting, Gelsinger, who recently joined VC firm Playground Global as a General Partner, wrote, “Inference of frontier AI models is bottlenecked by hardware. Even before test-time compute scaling, cost and latency were huge challenges for large scale LLM deployments... To achieve our aspirations for AI, we will need radically faster, cheaper and much lower power inference.”

“I’m pleased to share that I’ve recently invested in Fractile, a UK-founded AI hardware company who are pursuing a path that’s radical enough to offer such a leap," he then revealed.

"Their in-memory compute approach to inference acceleration jointly tackles the two bottlenecks to scaling inference, overcoming both the memory bottleneck that holds back today’s GPUs, while decimating power consumption, the single biggest physical constraint we face over the next decade in scaling up data center capacity. In fact, some of the ideas I was exploring in my graduate work at Stanford University will now come to mainstream AI computing!”

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• Two US Senators have asked tech giants for more information on AI deals
• Even partial acquisitions could harm competition
• The FTC also noted potential competition issues

Two tech industry titans that have been the subjects of many an anticompetitive investigation are now being questioned over their partnerships with AI companies.

Democratic US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden are reportedly demanding information about the deals Google and Microsoft have with companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence.

The concern is that these strong partnerships could impact competition within the industry, violate antitrust laws, and ultimately lead to both fewer choices and higher prices for customers.

Microsoft and Google questioned over AI deals

In question are Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI and Google’s deal with Anthropic, with the Senators seeking financial details of payments made by AI firms to their cloud providers and information on whether the companies have exclusive rights to certain AI models.

Warren and Wyden also want to know whether Google or Microsoft have any intentions to acquire their respective AI partners.

“Partnerships between CSPs and AI developers, if left unchecked, may accelerate consolidation of the AI sector, ultimately driving up prices and choking off innovation,” the two said in their letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (via Reuters), and in their second letter to Microsoft and OpenAI’s CEOs, Satya Nadella and Sam Altman.

This isn’t the first time these specific companies have come under fire for their involvement with leading AI firms.

A separate January 2025 report by the Federal Trade Commission had already studied such partnerships, raising concerns about potential acquisitions which could spell out disaster for competition.

“As noted in the FTC and Department of Justice (DOJ)’s merger guidelines, even partial acquisitions may present 'significant competitive concerns' because of the effects on firms’ incentives and strategy,” the Senators continue.

TechRadar Pro has contacted all four companies for comments and context, but we have not received any responses as yet.

Via Reuters

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• A critical flaw was discovered in file transfer tool CrushFTP
• Experts claim the issue was being abused in the wild
• CISA added the flaw to its KEV catalog

A critical-severity vulnerability plaguing file transfer software CrushFTP was found being actively exploited in the wild.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the software, commonly used by organizations to handle large-scale file transfers, contained an authentication bypass vulnerability which allowed unauthenticated attackers to gain administrative access.

By specifically targeting the crushadmin account, threat actors could abuse the flaw to compromise the target system entirely.

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CISA adds it to KEV

The flaw is now tracked as CVE-2025-31161, and was given a severity score of 9.8/10 (critical)

It affects CrushFTP versions 10 before 10.8.4 and 11 before 11.3.1. Users are strongly advised to update to these versions immediately, and if they can’t, enabling the DMZ proxy instance can serve as a temporary workaround.

Security researchers have warned that the bugs were used in the wild to install remote management tools like AnyDesk and MeshAgent, The Hacker News reported.

CISA has also picked up on the news, adding the bug to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (KEV). This means that Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies have a three-week deadline (until April 28) to apply the patch, or stop using CrushFTP entirely.

Cybercriminals often target managed file transfer software vulnerabilities, since they could allow access to sensitive corporate files and databases. In fact, one of the most devastating cyberattacks in recent history happened in 2023, when ransomware operator Cl0p abused a previously unknown SQL injection vulnerability in MOVEit managed file transfer software to breach hundreds of corporations around the world.

A year before that, GoAnywhere MFT was breached and used to steal sensitive data from almost 130 organizations, and in January 2024, the same software was found to be vulnerable to a critical path traversal weakness flaw.

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• Hades 2 will be a Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 exclusive at launch
• Supergiant Games announced the news alongside a new Creator's Voice video shared today
• Hades 2 will be coming to other platforms at a later time

Supergiant Games has announced that Hades 2 will be a Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive at launch.

Hades 2 has been in Early Access for almost a year now and we recently learned that the sequel to the popular roguelike game will also be heading to the Nintendo Switch 2 when it's ready for a full release.

Now, alongside a new Creator's Voice video showcasing the behind-the-scenes development of the game, Supergiant has revealed that the game will be exclusive to the Switch and Switch 2 when it releases but that it's still planned for other consoles and PC post-launch.

Supergiant shared the news on X / Twitter, saying, "While we have no set date just yet for v1.0 of HADES II, we can confirm its console launch will be on #NintendoSwitch2 as well as the original Nintendo Switch, where HADES got its start."

Battle beyond the Underworld using dark sorcery to take on the Titan of Time in #HadesII. This bewitching sequel is coming first on console to both Nintendo Switch and #NintendoSwitch2. pic.twitter.com/dpsJZ56hLvApril 2, 2025

During the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct last week, a bunch of other Switch 2 exclusives were also revealed, including Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and The Duskbloods.

We also learned that the console will be released on June 5, 2025, for $449.99 / £395.99 or $499.99 / £429.99 for a Mario Kart World bundle.

Switch 2 pre-orders are officially live in the UK, but fans in the US will need to wait a little longer to secure theirs as Nintendo has delayed Switch 2 pre-orders from its original April 9 date to assess the potential impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration.

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• Turkey plans to expand the authorities' power to block access to social media on the grounds of "national security"
• Global companies with over 1 million users in Turkey will also be required to set up a local company
• Messaging platforms are also included in the so-called "over-the-top service providers" expected to follow the new rules

Turkey plans to expand authorities' power to block access to social media and messaging platforms on "national security" grounds without a court order.

As per a report by the Turkish news site Ekonomim and reported by Bianet English, the draft amendment would also require these so-called "over-the-top service providers" to establish a local company when they have more than 1 million users in Turkey.

The draft law follows a 42-hour social media shutdown, amid protests sparked by the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, that forced citizens to turn to the best VPN apps. Unrest is still ongoing across the country at the time of writing.

Turkey's internet control

Turkey is infamous for seeking control over the internet. VPN provider Surfshark, for instance, recorded a total of 17 instances in which authorities enforced some form of internet restriction since 2015. Instagram, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram are the main targets.

Examples include a block on X at a time when people needed it most – the aftermath of the deadly earthquake that shook both Turkey and Syria in February 2023. Social media and messaging apps went dark during times of political turmoil in 2024, too.

Do you know?

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Turkish authorities have also been cracking down on VPN services, the most popular tool to bypass government-imposed internet restrictions, since at least December 2023. People have reportedly managed to evade this ban, however, as most VPNs, like Proton VPN, keep recording usage spikes across the country.

Halting the spread of hate speech and disinformation is usually the motive behind these temporary blocks to people's online communications, as per current regulations upon obtaining a court order.

The draft amendment would, however, empower the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) to directly restrict access to social media and messaging apps "on grounds of national security, public order, public health, or similar public interest considerations," Bianet English reported.

As the news site points out, BTK already has the power to throttle bandwidth by up to 90 percent for up to 24 hours during emergencies, de facto making accessing targeted websites and apps almost impossible.

The amendment could also expand on existing requirements to appoint a local representative, mandating a new obligation to set up a local company for providers with more than 1 million users in Turkey.

Mass censorship & information control is spreading worldwide. Turkey’s new “cybersecurity” law is widely seen as another censorship tool.Setting up a @signalapp proxy server helps keep private communication alive even when regimes try to shut it down.https://t.co/hpfgwQtrut pic.twitter.com/2Fl7doIEA0March 30, 2025

The news of the draft amendment comes at a delicate time of political turmoil. Protests over the arrest of the major opposition leaders are still ongoing, in fact, with journalists increasingly facing arrest.

X accounts of protesters and opposition figures have also been reportedly blocked at Erdogan's orders.

Additionally, on March 13, 2025, a new cybersecurity law was also enforced, introducing new powers to fight back against cybercrime in the country. These include "two to five years in prison for falsely claiming that a cybersecurity-related data leak has occurred," Bianet English reported.

Yet, digital rights now fear these new powers are too broad and could be used to restrict independent reporting and stifle dissent, the Global Voices reported. This could de facto increase internet censorship levels even further.

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