Business Articles

Phones that run neither Android nor iOS have been falling behind in terms of their browser and web-based support. Mozilla and KaiOS (the mobile platform most likely to run on such devices) have addressed this through a new partnership by which the former will keep devices running the latter much more up to date in their ability to use the internet.

The 20S is a mid-range variant of the Honor 20 smartphone series from 2019. Now, a promo for its successor has reportedly appeared on the labels of Sprite bottles sold in China. Some text found near its image hints at 5G for this new phone, too.

Google is well-known for its questionable tactics of cementing its market dominance, with the EU Commission fining the company for antitrust violations. Similarly, the Indian Competition Commission is investigating Google about potential monopolistic practices. Now it has emerged that Google is tying TV manufacturers to its services, thereby preventing them from also releasing Amazon Fire TV models.

The U.S. government is certainly aware that companies like Qualcomm and Google do not want any bans imposed on Huawei, since it will be very difficult to cover billions of USD in losses. Still, smaller companies like rural carriers are continuously encouraged to replace all Huawei equipment with hardware made in the U.S

Geekbench listings of what appears to be a 32-core (16-core dual-socket) Intel Ice Lake Server processor have surfaced. Ice Lake Server appears to put up a strong show against AMD's Epyc Rome 7702P in Geekbench 4 running on Windows Server 2019 with half the number of cores. AMD, however, has the core-count advantage, which still eludes Intel owing to lower yields on the 10nm process.

Google and Facebook are responding to price gouging surrounding the sales of medical face masks by banning ads for face masks. The bans are efforts to fight against the exploitative sale of medical supplies amidst growing fears surrounding the spread of the coronavirus.

OnePlus co-founder and CEO Pete Lau said that the company's upcoming launch will see the complete lineup supporting 5G. While the top-tier OnePlus 8 Pro and OnePlus 8 variants are confirmed and will have 5G support, it is not yet clear whether the purported OnePlus 8 Lite variant would feature 5G given the higher costs of implementing the standard.

Released yesterday, Firefox 74.0 can block Facebook from tracking its users and no longer allows third-party apps to install add-ons, but it also features DNS-over-HTTPS provided by Cloudflare (with NextDNS as an option). This update is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux/Unix users.

Xiaomi's Black Shark 3 series is the latest lines of gaming phones to be launched in 2020. Its base model is already on sale in China. It also has a Pro variant that was to be released to the market on March 17, 2020; however, the OEM has announced that this event has been postponed.

Xiaomi showed quite some ambition when it opened its own Apple Store-esque outlet in Shepherd's Bush, London. However, reports that this brick-and-mortar establishment has shut down have recently emerged. UK customers can still buy products from this OEM online, though.

HTC has released an outline of its latest earnings. This performance pertains to February 2020, and shows that the company's revenues are down nearly 33% year-on-year (YoY). Similarly, the OEM's total revenues have decreased by ~45% compared to the first 2 months of 2019.

Save yourself a few hundred dollars without sacrificing all that much processor performance. The brand new Intel 10th gen Core i7-10510U isn't all that much faster than the older Core i7-8565U or i7-8665U that Lenovo has been offering since early last year.

AMD held their 2020 Financial Analyst Day recently, with one of the highlights being their greatly improved financial situation compared to 2016, and impressively improved debt situation compared to all of the last few years.

A prior leak suggested that OnePlus would sell an upcoming phone, the 8, through the US carrier Verizon. Now, an analysis of code in this OEM's launcher for Android appears to back this up. It also points to a T-Mobile SKU of the same phone.

Huawei is currently compelled to generate its own in-house alternative to the Google Play Store - and to this platform's developer-side ecosystem in turn. Accordingly, it has publicly released details on the percentages app makers may expect to make through contributing to its new AppGallery.

Laptops are getting thinner, lighter and more compact every year. A positive trend – though it sometimes also results in the loss of valued features.

Global units of the Samsung Galaxy S20 and S20+ don't only differ from the others by virtue of the Exynos SoC they feature. Apparently, they also use a completely different main camera sensor from the Snapdragon models.

OPPO finally introduced its long-awaited Find X2 series today (March 6, 2020). However, it also had a "one more thing" moment: a new mobile-broadband device that could bring 5G speeds to the home or office. It is based on the Snapdragon X55 modem, and can deliver both mmWave and sub-6GHz reception.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra retails at an overwhelming US$1399 base price point. That's an unreasonable price tag, no? Perhaps. A new report by TechInsights has now provided some much-needed information on exactly how sensible the S20 Ultra 5G's huge MSRP actually is.

AMD's Financial Analyst Day 2020 is coming up, and rumour has it that there will be plenty for us to digest. Apparently, AMD and Microsoft will showcase Xbox Series X gameplay at the event, along with three RDNA 2-based GPUs.

You'll have to drive to the nearest store to pick up the item if you want the latest Microsoft laptop brand new for as cheap as possible.

Bloomberg reports that Nokia is coming to an end because of "fierce competition" from the likes of Ericsson and Huawei. The company is currently reviewing various, including asset sales and mergers. Nokia also states that it does not expect a major recovery in profits until next year at the earliest.

The Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro have proven immensely popular for Xiaomi, but so has the Redmi K30 series. The Redmi K30 4G and Redmi K30 5G have only been available for a month and two months respectively, but the series has already exceeded 1 million sales. With the Redmi K30 starting at CNY 1,599, that equates to at least US$230 million in sales. These figures do not include the POCO X2, either.

Base stations are crucial pieces of hardware for mobile networks, particularly 5G ones. Huawei is now reportedly in a position to sell versions of these devices based on their own proprietary chipsets, rather than those made by US companies as before. Therefore, this country's administration's efforts to lock this OEM out of the 5G market appear to have been thwarted, at least in part.

Google has released a blog post explaining why nearly 600 apps have just been removed from Android's Play Store. These apps were deemed guilty of "mobile ad fraud", which contravenes the Mountain View giant's policies. The apps in question include all those associated with the company Cheetah Mobile.

IDC India has released its report on the wearables market in this country for the last quarter of 2019 (4Q2019). It reveals that the 'audio' category of these electronics had the highest share for that period, overtaking band-type devices compared to 4Q2018. Xiaomi had the greatest share in the latter sector, whereas Apple's AirPods clearly dominated their own sub-segment.

Carbon Mobiles makes what it might sound like on the tin: a phone made of carbon fiber rather than a typical metal frame and glass rear panel. This build makes this device (the 1 Mark II) exceptionally light and thin. It has a MediaTek Helio P90 SoC, but not the price you might expect for that spec.

Cars that are capable of autonomous driving are often touted as the future. However, their actual ability to do so through perceiving the real world in 3D with sufficient accuracy is still in development. A new research paper published by a group from a South Korean university purports to detail the most sophisticated method to deliver these camera functions yet.

Casio has announced the release of titanium-cased versions of its PRO TREK outdoor watch line-up. They are also Bluetooth devices that feature Smartphone Link, which allows them to connect to the wearer's mobile device. This allows the user to view information such as steps taken, route logs or altitude.

Wireless charging is mainly relevant to smartphones and other similar portable electronics at present. However, a new analysis indicates that its market will benefit more and more from its application to electric vehicles. This may drive its value up to as much as US$71.21 billion by 2025.

The Mi 10 was released last week and fans may have been put off by its nigh-US$600 starting price tag. Here, we have a closer look at how much it may have cost Xiaomi to build the Mi 10, with the goal of ascertaining just how fair the phone's price tag actually is.

When the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 was announced this week, people were astounded that the Intel version of this ThinkPad laptop was said to feature RJ45 Ethernet and upgradable RAM, while the datasheet of the AMD version featured neither. We asked Lenovo if this was true - and it turns out that the spec-sheet released by Lenovo was wrong.

The MediaTek MT3620 is the first microcontroller unit (MCU) to directly integrate the Azure Sphere security platform from Microsoft. This solution is used to connect a business' internet-of-things (IoT) system with Azure's cloud services. MediaTek has now detailed the MT3620's success, which include its uptake by global corporations and brands.

Qualcomm has launched the Snapdragon XR2 Reference Design headset, the first such XR (as in, virtual, mixed or augmented reality) device that supports 5G. It does so via its in-built X55 modem, which is part of its latest hardware platform for this category of media. Therefore, OEMs may now start building their own headsets based on this new "boundless" artificial-reality tech.

NVIDIA has issued its TV devices with a new update. This version of SHIELD Experience (8.1.1) includes a host of new features and bug-fixes. The most prominent of these may be the limited-time opportunity to upgrade the free GeForce Now subscription to a Founder's membership instead. The upgrade also adds XBOX Elite 2 controller support, as well as improved multiple Bluetooth device connections.

The games distribution platform GOG updated its refund policy today, expanding it to a flat 30-day refund period. This even applies to games that have been played, though GOG has stated it retains the right to review individual refund requests and deny them should it find a reason to.

Recently, a GitHub driver page was spotted that lists upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. Among them are two models not announced or leaked before: The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Next and the ThinkPad X1 Nano. What could these devices be?

Sony and Samsung have taken to offering bigger, more impressive smartphone camera sensors of recent, with the IMX555, IMX686, ISOCELL Bright GW1, and ISOCELL Bright HMX billed to be some of the most popular premium sensors this year. OmniVision isn't keen on being left out, and its new sensors, the OV48C and OV64C, keep up with the competition—the former, in particular, delivering an impressive 2.4μm pixel size.

It may be two years old, but the 13.3-inch Dell laptop still offers a very wide range of features for its size including Thunderbolt 3, IR camera, WWAN, Smart Card reader, and even three-years of on-site warranty service at no extra charge.

Qualcomm announced that 17 mobile operators around the world will be supporting upcoming 5G Always On, Always Connected PCs powered by the Snapdragon Compute Platform that are expected to be available later this year. Apart from this, the company also announced that operators in 115 countries are investing in 5G infrastructure.

Samsung has announced that it has started to mass-produce DRAM chips of 16GB in size and LPDDR5 in quality. This next-gen mobile-device memory is capable of approximately 1.3 times higher speeds than the nearest LPDDR4X module made by this OEM. It may now find its way to 2020 or 2021 premium phones.

Huawei unveiled its vision for a complete, connected ecosystem of devices at its latest product launch. This involves the new AX3 series of routers, which is powered by this OEM's Gigahome SoCs for Wi-Fi 6 support (and more besides). The company also unveiled second-gen "Pro" 5G consumer premises equipment (CPE).

Sony held a virtual press conference today in order to unveil its latest premium mobile device. However, it also made references to an intriguing device that was not the Xperia 1 II. The Pro is to have the same display and camera quality as this phone, but will also support mmWave 5G and have an HDMI port. However, there are no images or further specs for this product at present.

In the year 2020, Lenovo is changing the naming of its mainstream ThinkPad laptop series. The three new T series ThinkPads that follow the new system are called ThinkPad T14, ThinkPad T14s and ThinkPad T15. All of them feature Intel Comet Lake CPUs and ThinkPad T14 & T14s will also be available with AMD Ryzen Pro 4000.

Two new X series ThinkPads are introduced today. The convertible Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Yoga will be available with an 4K UHD OLED screen, while the regular, non-convertible ThinkPad X13 introduces AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 to the ThinkPad X series.

Lenovo redesigns its affordable enterprise series, the ThinkPad L series. The new 2020 models ThinkPad L14 and ThinkPad L15 are therefore completely revamped compared to their predecessors. They also are the first affordable enterprise models from Lenovo with the Ryzen Pro 4000 CPUs.