Business Articles

The securities firm Wedbush has reportedly written to investors advising them that Apple will find its iPhone-derived takings reduced compared to earlier estimates. They may be down by as much as 14% in 2020, and by 10% in 2021. This is related to current events that may put some customers off buying new devices.

The last few years have seen a scatter of articles about Surge, Xiaomi's supposed competitor to the Kirin or Exynos SoC series of the world in development. Now, however, there are indications that the Chinese OEM is finally giving up on this idea. However, it will continue with other, related projects that may produce chipsets for wireless communications.

Advanced Protection is a program offered by Google to those potentially in need of enhanced mobile-device security. The Mountain View giant has announced some new changes to its policies. They include a built-in blocker for side-loaded, non-Play Store apps.

The Steam Game Festival: Spring Edition may be the cure for your quarantine boredom. The festival, which kicks off today, will showcase over 40 demos of new and unreleased games, all of which will be available to download for free.

With COVID-19 forcing millions of employees to work from home, network software company DH2i just made its DxOdyssey “unVPN” free for stay-at-home workers until August 31st.

PlayGalaxy Link is a feature of some Samsung Galaxy flagships by which PC gaming can be done on these devices via a streaming connection. Or was, rather: the OEM has announced that it will wrap this resource up by March 27, 2020.

Say what you want about its design and its Snapdragon 720G chipset, but the Redmi Note 9 Pro is already proving a best-seller. Selling out in a just a few minutes, the Redmi Note 9 Pro will be available to purchase again from March 24.

There are indications that Asus may incorporate Zen 2-based APUs besides the Ryzen 7 4800HS in the new ROG Zephyrus G14 notebook. They include the 9 4900HS-based variant, which has been listed by a Danish e-tailer - as has the also-rumored 5 4600HS SKU. This site also now claims to have pre-sales pages for new TUF Gaming- and ROG Strix-series laptops.

In response to the growing spread of the novel coronavirus, Apple has decided to close all of its retail stores. Additionally, the company will allow office and corporate workers to pursue "flexible work arrangements." Apple has joined a growing list of companies that have drastically altered their business models in response to COVID-19.

Amazon announced yesterday that 100,000 new employees would be hired for warehouses, logistics and shipping. The number only refers to the USA. It is currently still unknown whether a similar increase is planned in other countries as well. In Europe too, the corona-afflicted people are increasingly turning to the Internet and online orders.

With 900 million devices running Windows 10 back in late September 2019, it was quite obvious that Microsoft would reach the next milestone this year. Yesterday, the Redmond giant announced that "over one billion people have chosen Windows 10 across 200 countries resulting in more than one billion active Windows 10 devices."

NVIDIA has decided to hold off any GTC 2020-related announcements for the time being. Previously, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was expected to deliver an online-only keynote but even that stands cancelled as of today given the increasing need for people to focus on personal health amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

LG's 2020 OLED TV line-up includes 8K models for the first time. These panels feature the CTA's 8K Ultra HD certification and an 88-inch option. However, their series also starts at a whopping US$19,999.

LG recently unveiled the V60 ThinQ 5G. Typically, though, the LG flagship that's launched this time of the year is the G-series phone, but there's been little to no word on the G9 ThinQ.

Since its launch in 2004, Call of Duty has amassed numerous new variants and widespread success worldwide. Now, new research shows that this line of games is ranked second in terms of console units sold as of January 2020. Black Ops 3 is mostly responsible for this achievement.

The Samsung Galaxy Book Ion raised some interest at SDC19 and CES 2020 as it purported to offer a QLED display in a more mid-range laptop. However, nothing had been heard about it in the US since then. Now, a listing with a USD price for this notebook has appeared on a retail website.

Xiaomi Malaysia has released teasers for the new Redmi Note 9S soon. It appears to have the same square quad-camera module as the rest of its series. However, the OEM has not released any details on its specs.

Apple has announced that its WWDC event will not be live as usual this year. Instead, it will have an online format. This will include a "full program" of sessions and a keynote that will appeal to developers, consumers and other interested parties.

Xiaomi has recently been highlighting the sales record of its Redmi Note devices on the company’s Twitter account. According to estimates provided by Canalys, the Chinese manufacturer has been successful in selling over 110 million Redmi Note smartphones around the world. The Redmi Note series was launched in 2014.

Huami is a wearables OEM that has recently made a name for its own brand, Amazfit. Besides this, it also has a role as an ODM to other brands such as Xiaomi to make their smart accessories. The company has reported a year-on-year (YoY) growth of no less than 72.4% in terms of shipments for 2019.

Microsoft has announced that those with Samsung Galaxy S20-series devices can also now use their Windows 10 PCs for rich communication services- (RCS) enabled messaging. This feature is apparently available in the latest Insider's Preview Build and to the public in general. The same Preview includes further new Your Phone features.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is stepping down from his role on the Microsoft board according to the company. Although Gates will still remain an advisor to current CEO Satya Nadella, he will instead now focus his energies on his philanthropic and climate change efforts.

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.