Business Articles

Google Stadia has already proven itself as a video game streaming service, with triple-A titles like Cyberpunk 2077 having made the jump to the platform. However, its big breakthrough remains a long way off, and the closure of the in-house Stadia Games & Entertainment points to a re-focusing of Stadia just 14 months after its launch.

The ThinkPad X1 series has already been updated by Lenovo, but not the regular T & X series ThinkPad laptops. A listing at the TCO certification site reveals the first details about the upcoming ThinkPads: The X13 Gen 2 adopts the taller 16:10 aspect ratio, like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The bigger T series meanwhile continues to use wider 16:9 screens.

The brand POCO has certified a new device with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a number of other regulators. There is some evidence that this phone will be revealed as the Pro version of the X3 on its launch. To date, most of its specs remain a mystery, however, although its leaks point to NFC support, at least.

Microsoft has now confirmed that stock levels of its next-generation Xbox consoles will not be getting better anytime soon. According to the company, it will be at least June before the Series S, and Series X are easier to purchase through official retail channels.

Stealth has unveiled its latest robust machine, which is also waterproof. The WPC-905 mini-PC runs silently too and comes in four processor configurations. The Stealth WPC-905 starts at US$3,195, which is extraordinarily expensive by mini-PC standards.

Sales of the Nintendo Switch family are close to eclipsing the lifetime sales of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with 79.87 million Switch consoles having been sold since March 2017. Sadly, Nintendo has confirmed that it does not plan to announce a new Switch model 'anytime soon'.

MediaTek has posted an arguable win by securing a contract with Apple to supply it with components for next-gen audio accessories. Then again, these products are not future AirPods, but those of the Beats series instead. This would be the first incidence of this product line not being made with completely in-house hardware.

A new leak pertaining to AMD's upcoming EPYC Milan server lineup has revealed more information about the processor's naming scheme and also a list of SKUs that are like to launch in the coming weeks. The Milan lineup will start with the 8C/16T EPYC 72F3 and tops-out with the EPYC 7763 featuring 64 cores and 128 threads.

The POCO M3 is the global version of the impressively successful Redmi Note 9 4G/LTE that launched in China in 2020. Now, it is finally coming to India, and in its 6GB RAM flavor no less, whereas it sells as a 4GB phone in some other markets. It will launch via Flipkart in February 2020.

A PlayStation 5 restock and sale in a Tokyo retailer has ended in disappointment for many as crowd disturbance forced police to shut down the event. Sales figures for the PS5 in Japan have been reported at being over 44 times greater than those for the Xbox Series X|S, although both pale into comparison with the Nintendo Switch.

Samsung's Display division recently held its earnings call for the last quarter of 2020 (4Q2020), which apparently involved profits that grew nearly 800% year-on-year and revenues equivalent to about US$8.9 billion. It also announced that it would indeed get into emerging panel types, including rollable ones, so as to stay competitive in 2021 and beyond.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has only just begun to validate hardware with the newest 6E wireless-data standard. This is good news for MediaTek, which has had its latest access point and client-side wireless solutions picked up for use in this official body's new test bed. Therefore, the company might now find it easier to pitch these components to OEMs who make routers, broadband equipment or PCs.

Xiaomi has lodged a complaint with a US court against the same country's government for placing it on an investment blacklist earlier in 2021. The company asserts that the action against it is unwarranted, as it is based on an association with the Chinese military which (according to Xiaomi) does not in fact exist. This, in turn, has apparently affected its ability to do business in the electronics market as usual.

Microsoft recently opened up a 90,000 square feet IDC (India Development Center) in Delhi. The new location is set to a hub for AI and cloud computing research and highlights the increasing relevance of India-based R&D efforts for Microsoft and other multinationals.

An AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U and Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U have made their first appearances thanks to a benchmark and a manufacturer. The Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U was spotted in an EliteBook 845 G8 laptop on UserBenchmark while it seems HP managed to unveil the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U via a prematurely published support page.

Supply shortages for desktop CPUs, GPUs, and game consoles such as the Sony PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are likely to continue up to 2H 2021, according to AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su. Dr. Su expects gaming hardware and low-cost PCs to have supply issues while higher-margin hardware is more likely to be available at retail.

Intel's Raja Koduri showed off a die shot of the 2-tile Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC GPU, which is said to feature seven advanced silicon technologies including the 16 compute units that are fabbed on Intel's own 7 nm process. The other key technologies in Xe HPC include Xe Link I/O, HBM2 VRAM, Rambo Cache, EMIB, 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin, and Foveros 3D packaging technology.

The latest market research report from Canalys shows that the PC market enjoyed success not seen in years during 2020. It posted shipment volumes not seen since 2015, hitting 143.7 million units (a 35% year-on-year (YoY) increase) in the last quarter (4Q2020). Tablet and Chromebook shipments also saw record increases, with the latter doubling in number compared to 2019.

The new US administration has only been in office for nine days, but it is apparently already reconsidering Huawei's position on its economic blacklist. The Chinese company may still be prevented from accessing US telecommunications networks, though.

Xiaomi has just gone public with its working prototype of groundbreaking over-the-air (or remote) wireless charging. However, it seems Motorola is hot on its heels with its own take on this "Mi Air Charge". A YouTube demonstration appears to show it working with 2 modified smartphones placed at 0.8 and 1 meter away from a single transmitter.

Apple ended 2020 on a historic high by shipping over 90 million smartphones in the quarter. That achievement—an all-time record—saw the American company overthrow Samsung to become the number one smartphone maker in the world across the quarter.

The thinnest ThinkPad laptop ever is available for purchase: The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is orderable in the USA since yesterday. The mark-up for early adopters is hefty however, as the 3:2 convertible with its Titanium top cover costs nearly $3,000.

The 48-core, 96-thread AMD EPYC 7643 server chip has been tested on Geekbench 4 and has come up with a gigantic multi-core score of 121,080 points. The Zen 3 Milan part also wields 256 MB L3 cache and has clock rates of 2.30 GHz to 3.60 GHz. Astonishingly, AMD has even more-powerful CPUs than the EPYC 7643 waiting in the wings.

An HP Enterprise dual processor server with a couple of 32-core AMD EPYC 7513 Milan chips inside it has been spotted on Geekbench. The upcoming Zen 3 parts teamed up to produce a huge result that was +8% over the average recorded by the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X. The EPYC 7513 processors paced themselves at a base rate of 2.60 GHz.

Intel has unveiled the Iris Xe desktop graphics card, better known by its codename of DG1. The Iris Xe Graphics has a 30 W TDP, 4 GB of VRAM and will only be available via OEMs. The Iris Xe DG1 will probably compete against NVIDIA's budget cards, such as the Pascal-based GeForce GT 1010.
Updated: VRAM details and Colorful statement added.

Realme is mostly known for its phones and audio devices; however, like Xiaomi and Huawei before it, it is now rumored to get into the laptop game as well. According to a well-known leaker, the first of these new products will debut in June 2021. Meanwhile, the OEM has teased a new initiative called TechLife, which will launch in February.

MediaTek invented a whole new tier of its high-end mobile chipsets with the introduction of the Dimensity 1100 alongside its outright flagship counterpart the 1200. A new leak indicates that Vivo has a device with this new premium-ish mid-range processor in the works. It is to have 12GB of RAM and an FHD+ display.

A new report suggests that Intel has outsourced a good chunk of its future manufacturing to TSMC. Production is expected to kick off when TSMC's 3nm node is fully operational, which is expected to happen sometime in H2 2022. Intel is reportedly assisting TSMC in its 2nm R&D too.

The Redmi K40 series has been all but confirmed to ship without a charger by default and it appears the Redmi Note 10 series could also tow that path. Redmi executive Lu Weibing has now heavily hinted as much, which could pave the way for budget and mid-range phones to also not ship without a charging brick.

There are pros and cons for sure, but the advantages arguably outweigh any losses especially since many retailers would avoid listing "Max-Q" anyway and that some Max-Q laptops would even outperform Max-P ones.

Micron has launched its latest form of DRAM, which is also now in volume production. It is based on the company's 1-alpha (1α, or fourth-generation) 10 nanometer (nm) node, and also incorporates 176-layer NAND for the first time. Micron asserts that has up to 40% more memory cells, and is up to 15% more power-efficient, than its predecessor.

Today (27 January 2021), OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei launched his first company formed since leaving that OEM in 2020, and it's...Nothing. This new brand-name apparently applies to new and innovative tech Pei and his team plan to build from the ground up with no reference to what has gone before. However, there is still no word on what forms these products are to take yet.

Apple has updated some product safety material found in the Support section of its website to clarify the potential of its new MagSafe feature to interfere with pacemakers. It notes that, while the extra magnetism involved should not make the technology more dangerous than the average wireless-charging device or accessory, a user with a medical device should keep it a certain distance away from the relevant devices.

Scheduled to hit Europe this March with a price tag of over US$8,850, the Sony Alpha 1 features a new 50.1 MP full-frame stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor, an upgraded BIONZ XZ imaging processing engine, world's first anti-flicker shooting with both mechanical and electronic shutter, 8K video recording, and much more.

Wireless smart tags for possession-tracking seem to be one of the major trends for mobile device OEMs in 2021. According to a new patent application discovered on the CNIPA database, OPPO may be the next to jump onto this bandwagon. Its new Bluetooth tag looks much like that of Samsung's, although there are no indications as yet that the two would work in the exact same way.

The DOOGEE S88 Pro stood out among toughphones with its 10,000mAh battery and the "robot-eye" LEDs in its rear panel. The new S88 Plus retains these, but also comes with 8GB of RAM, as opposed to 6GB in its predecessor. It also packs reverse wireless charging so as to share its giant capacity in an emergency, and has a special introductory price for its launch on AliExpress.

A few months after the latest reports concerning its arrival, the next-gen Samsung Galaxy XCover surfaces on Geekbench. The list of specs does not include 5G, or at least the 5G variant is not ready yet. The SM-G525F handset runs on Android 11 and is powered by Samsung's Exynos 850 processor, paired with 4 GB of memory.

Dell has given almost 1000 Alienware gaming PCs, monitors, headsets, and peripherals to Team Liquid over the past 10 years. It's no surprise that league wants to continue working with Dell for the next 10 years moving forward.

Apple has replaced Dan Riccio with John Ternus. Riccio has been moved into a special project role while Ternus will now take up the position previously held by Riccio as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering.

Lenovo updates the inexpensive ThinkPad L series without a big announcement. Both the new Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 2 and ThinkPad L15 Gen 2 are optimized for enterprise customers. They keep the same design as their predecessors, but contain the new Intel Tiger Lake chips.

Samsung has partnered with Tesla to supply its cars with processors for their "auto-pilot" functions in the past, although the silicon in question has come from 14 nanometer (nm) process nodes. However, a Korean news outlet now asserts that these automotive SoCs are to evolve all the way to 5nm soon. They might control in-car entertainment as well as self-driving abilities in the future.

According to a new report, Vicarious Visions will be developing Blizzard games from now on. The developer will commence with a remake of Diablo 2, which apparently was known as Diablo II: Resurrected. The merger of the 200-strong studio follows Blizzard Entertainment dismantling one of its internal development teams in the wake of the poorly-received Warcraft III: Reforged.

Is the GPU 90 W or 135 W? With "Max-Q" gone, performance hunters will be asking this question left and right to make sure they are buying the fastest possible laptop graphics. Fortunately, XMG is looking ahead by stating the numbers directly on the specifications list.

Tencent Holdings Limited is reportedly raising billions of dollars to acquire a US or South Korea-based gaming studio. Rumor is that the Chinese gaming major could be looking at acquiring Take-Two Interactive or Electronic Arts. There's also the other possibility that Tencent is raising funds to develop its own GTA competitor.

Sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters that Huawei is planning to sell the Huawei P and Huawei Mate line of smartphones to a consortium of investors affiliated with the Shanghai Government. Huawei has denied said report and states that it has no plans of selling any more of its assets.

Xiaomi has announced that it sold over a million units of the Mi 11 in just 21 days. This comes after selling 350,000 units on the first day, and over 500,000 by the tenth. All of this translates into over US$600 million of revenue from Mi 11 sales alone, with the phone still yet to make its way outside China.

Millions of people search for news on Google or Facebook; therefore, those tech behemoths should pay media outlets for their content. At least, this is the Australian government's position in a dispute with the companies in question. Google has responded by threatening to deprive the country of its Search service.