Business Articles

Lego Group, the company behind the beloved plastic building bricks, has expertly trolled Tesla in regard to the recently revealed Cybertruck. Elon Musk unveiled the futuristic-looking electric vehicle a few days ago in a PR event that was overshadowed by the Cybertruck having its unbreakable windows shattered on stage. Lego has come up with a very attractive alternative for prospective buyers.

Recently, reports of Twitter's intentions to delete inactive accounts, starting December 2019, came to light. However, the company has come up against resistance to this idea from more vocal users. Their main objection appears to be that the move would result in the removal of the timelines of the dead.

YI is a home security brand with some Black Friday deals that have already been added to its own online store. However, it has announced that its weather-proof outdoor variant will be up to 40% through the chain Home Depot on the day itself. The camera comes with a 6-month subscription to a cloud service for video through this retailer.

LG has unveiled what it calls the "best prices of the year" on its OLED TVs sold through its site and authorized dealers in the US. It includes no less than US$2000 off one 77-inch model, and a 55-inch SKU that now goes for just $1199. These deals take effect today (November 27, 2019) and last until December 2.

Huawei and Honor began sending out the Android 10-based EMUI 10 and Magic UI 3.0 updates to their current-gen flagships. At the Honor V30 launch yesterday, Honor revealed its release roadmap for the Android 10 update and there are a few surprises in store, with just 13 devices billed to get the update.

Why is it that the GE75 can be configured with up the GeForce RTX 2080 while the WE75 is limited to the Quadro RTX 3000? MSI may be pushing ultra enthusiasts into purchasing the higher-end WT75 instead where users can find the RTX 4000 and 5000.

Reolink has announced its Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. It includes 31% off the Argus 2, which has been named the best 2019 home security camera (outdoor) by PCMag. There is also 25% off the 355-degree-panning E1 Pro Wi-Fi camera, and 30% off the 4G-capable Go.

North Pole Engineering has launched heartbeatz, a new device that acts as a bridge between an Apple Watch and any exercise bike or treadmill with ANT+. This enables the machine in question to display heart rate information directly from the wearable while in use. No more checking your wrist during a workout!

A new report from market analysts Canalys has revealed incredible results for Xiaomi in the European smartphone market: The Chinese manufacturer has witnessed annual growth of 73%. In India, Xiaomi is currently the number 1 smartphone brand for overall market share, on 27.1%. This is likely to increase with the impending release of the Mi Note 10 with its 108 MP camera.

MediaTek has revealed that it will be supplying Intel with modems for 5G-capable hardware in the future. These components may go into laptops, the first of which are projected to be made by HP and Dell. Those PCs may those targeted at both business and personal use.

Intel has reportedly patented its own game controller. It is liberally provisioned with joysticks, buttons, a D-pad and what could be shoulder triggers. Furthermore, its design also includes a touchpad, which is apparently associated with a patent of its own. This new in-house controller could be related to this company's cloud-gaming partnership with Tencent.

The Google Pay app has been updated so as to display a message should a given phone be ineligible to conduct transactions using this method. This notification would apply to users who have rooted or otherwise modified their devices in a way that causes it to fail SafetyNet requirements. In addition, upcoming updates to this app will also be able to PIN-protect online shopping done through it.

Canon has unveiled its Black Friday 2019 week deals, which include a number of high-end cameras, on its own website. This store also offers discounts on some lenses, as does Amazon at present. These listings also include Tamron or Sigma attachments.

Sony makes some of the best smartphone camera sensors, so one would expect the company's flagships to offer excellent camera performance. That could not be farther from the reality of the matter, though, as Sony has consistently shown to be two years behind the competition in terms of real-world smartphone camera performance.

The Nokia 9 PureView was an ambitious device that mostly fell flat on its face due to a number of factors. HMD Global is working on the successor to that device, the Nokia 9.1 PureView, and we finally have our first look at a phone that's set to walk the same path as its predecessor.

Google's updated Android Security Rewards Program now offers up to six-figure rewards for reporting potential severe exploits that affect its Titan M security module. It applies to such discrepancies that can affect the Pixel 4, 3 and 3a smarphone series. Other similar bounties include up to US$250000 for Secure Element or Trusted Execution Environment hacks.

OnePlus has sent an email to "some of" its customers advising them of a lapse in data protection at the company. In this case, it appears passwords and payment details are safe; however, personal information associated with these consumers may have been stolen. The OEM has asserted that it is investigating the issue and will be tightening their security in the future.

The Tesla Cybertruck has been officially revealed, and while the all-electric vehicle has been specifically designed to protect the environment, it will certainly make some eyes sore. Elon Musk unveiled the Blade Runner-esque truck, which can withstand a 9 mm bullet being shot at the door but not a small steel ball gently thrown at the window.

Microsoft has announced that it has secured a license from the US government that allows it to sell its products to Huawei again. This will, for example, enable the OEM to put Windows on future generations of its MateBooks. The Redmond giant is among the 25% of the companies who have had their applications to work with the Chinese company approved.

The time has come for Huawei fans to act, as the Chinese company has officially brought the Mate 30 Pro to EU shores. The handset comes without Google Mobile Services, while its release is limited to Spain for the time being. However, this could well prove to be a trial run to see whether Europeans are prepared to pay flagship prices for a smartphone without Google Mobile Services.

Lenovo has posted a promo clip of the foldable ThinkPad X1 on YouTube that was filmed at the company’s recent Tech World event. A rendered marketing video for the folding laptop was already released earlier this year, but this latest clip shows the actual device going through a thorough hands-on workout. The foldable PC looks impressive but is clearly in an unfinished state.

How great would it be to be able to trade-in your OG Playstation 4 for an instant $75 off the Playstation 5? A Sony-run trade-up program for existing PS4 owners could make the inevitably high launch price of the PS5 easier to swallow especially since the new console will be backwards compatible anyway.

OPPO may have an equivalent to Samsung's Exynos SoC line in the works. This is in line with a new report that the OEM has registered the name M1 in relation to this product category with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). This hardware could thus join or even replace Qualcomm silicon in future phones from this company.

The Realme XT is this brand's first 64MP quad-camera phone. It has finally come to European shores, although it is exclusive to eBay Germany for now, and starts at €259 (US$289) for a 6GB/64GB SKU. In addition, Realme has announced that it will be bringing the 5 to Europe in time for Black Friday.

TechCrunch Security Editor Zack Whittaker blew the whistle on Lenovo on his Twitter account recently over Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo's alleged attempts to pay Information Security "influencers" to say good things about ThinkShield, Lenovo's new corporate security solution. Others chimed in saying that Lenovo wanted the posts to seem authentic and did not want the sponsorships to be revealed.

This kind of full disclosure apology is unprecedented for companies the size of Intel. While the CPU maker is acknowledging the “production variability” that is causing customers and OEM partners more supply issues, there is no mention of any immediate solution. Unfulfilled demands are not entirely bad for Intel, since at least the company manages to sell its entire supply, but OEMs are also starting to cover supply needs with AMD's offer.

Want to lose money quickly? Well, the OnePlus 7T trade-in scheme would be a good way to go about it. You can get up to US$370 in credit for trading-in a 256 GB OnePlus 7 Pro, a quite frankly ludicrous amount of money for a six-month-old US$799 handset.

Qualcomm has announced that its next Snapdragon Tech Summit will take place from December 3 to 5, 2019 in Maui, Hawaii. This year, the company will showcase its growing 5G expertise, as well as other facets of its mobile device business such as the appropriate SoCs. Each of the event's keynotes will also be livestreamed from a dedicated site.

AT&T now maintains specific bands for internet of things (IoT) devices and other low-power 4G/LTE applications. To this end, the carrier has just validated the new 9205 modem for these kinds of networks and ecosystems. This Qualcomm SoC is designed to be half as big as its predecessor, while using 70% less power and 40% fewer resources.

Leave it to a company who designs some of the most stylish gaming laptops to offer one of the best-looking mobile workstations yet. The ProArt StudioBook Pro 17 promises Xeon options, ECC RAM, and a 16:10 1200p display wrapped a Zephyrus-like chassis.

Centaur Technologies has announced that their SoC combining eight x86 cores and a dedicated AI co-processor has posted outstanding results on the MLPerf AI inference benchmarks. This is the industry's first server-class SoC with a dedicated 20 TOPS AI processing capability and is designed to be scalable when augmented with external AI accelerators.

Samsung has a solid track record of both designing and making all its own phones in-house, unlike other phone companies that contract these processes out to original design manufacturers (ODMs). However, according to a new report, the Korean giant will farm out some of its mobile devices to just such a company in the future. This ODM (Wingtech) may end up informing these products' quality, both inside and outside.

The 17-inch laptop integrates some unique features for a sleek mobile workstation including a ScreenPad, 16:10 1200p display, Xeon E-2276M, and a Quadro 5000 GPU.

Recently, a spectacular take-over in the PC market was in the making: Xerox wanted to swallow the much larger HP. This plan may be doomed to fail however, as HP has rejected the offer from Xerox now. In a surprise twist, HP is saying that it may acquire Xerox instead.

Sony sold only 600,000 smartphones in the previous quarter, an all-time low for the Japanese company's smartphone division. The collapse of its smartphone business also has consequences for the services that Sony offers.

Size matters, at least according to the social media team at Fujifilm. While Xiaomi has gained plenty of attention recently for 108 MP camera in the Mi Note 10 and Mi Note 10 Pro, also known as the Mi CC9 Pro in some markets, Fujifilm has sought to poke fun at the Chinese company by welcoming them to the 100 million pixel club.

Earlier, a Motorola Razr 2019 leak suggested that it would be priced at up to €1500 on its European launch. Now, a new rumor indicates that it will in fact cost the equivalent of €1680 when it is released to the Swedish market in January 2020. For context, the Galaxy Fold costs about €2160 in this country.

Xiaomi launched the Mi Note 10 a few weeks ago and the phone's impressive camera hardware has suddenly put it close to the top of many prospective buyers' shopping lists. Most are unsure about the purchase decision, however, so why not clarify things a bit for them? Is the Mi Note 10 really a good buy right now?

All those Iris Plus-related bug fixes Intel have been releasing over the past three months have yet to arrive on the Surface Pro 7 despite the fact that this is supposed to be Microsoft's latest flagship Windows tablet. Though we don't know when the update will arrive, Microsoft says they are working on a solution.

Despite the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, Huawei received a small reprieve in the way of a general license allowing U.S. firms to transact with the Chinese telecom giant. That license is set to expire on Monday, but sources familiar with the matter claim the U.S. Department of Commerce will extend the license by six months.

Fujitsu has announced the latest 3 additions to its FUTRO line of thin clients. They also have freshly-launched Intel chipsets: Gemini Lake Refresh processors named as the Pentium Silver J5040, Celeron J4125 and Celeron J4025. The highest-end of these new clients also has PalmSecure authentication.

BOE has made an announcement on Weibo claiming that it supplied Motorola with flexible displays for the new Razr. Furthermore, it now asserts that it has done the same for the Huawei Mate X - and for the foldable Lenovo ThinkPad X1. Therefore, those interested in this upcoming notebook could look to the Razr for advance indications of its screen quality.

B&H Photo Video is offering a US$100 "holiday" discount off the first MacBook Pro 16" units it has in stock. However, they all have 16GB of RAM, whereas this new Apple product also has 32GB and 64GB options. Some do have a core i9 processor, albeit the one with a base clock of 2.3GHz.

Dell has found a new pair of eyes to help envision the future of Alienware and the direction it's headed. A larger Alienware presence in eSports, schools, and mainstream media seems likely for more widespread recognition of the brand.

The two-year old Surface Pro 5 offers essentially the same display experience as the latest Surface Pro 7 down to colors, contrast, brightness, response times, and more.

Xiaomi's newly released Mi CC9 Pro and Mi Note 10 phones have received plenty of praise for their impressive camera performance. According to a new leak, however, that isn't as good as it gets, with the Chinese company touted to be working on an even more impressive camera phone.

Black Friday deals typically bring more value to the table, and Motorola's offerings this time will likely be enticing to most, with discounts of up to US$320 being on offer, starting November 24.