Business Articles

Microsoft has marked an important NASA anniversary by taking part in Project Egress, in which engineering teams were challenged to re-make a component of the Apollo 11's landing module. The Redmond cohort were charged with making the craft's hatch, a small but complicated part that required advanced CNC to replicate.

The 50th Anniversary watch by Xeric is the result of a collaboration between the watchmaking company and NASA. This already looks like a success: with 16 days to go, the Kickstarter project that involves this (non-smart) wearable is at over US$970,000. To get one of these special watches, one should pledge at least US$169.

Intel CEO Bob Swan admitted that the company was over-ambitious in its quest to have more transistor density in 10nm than Moore's Law actually postulates. This led to delays in 10nm production and ultimately, the company lagged behind competitors such as AMD and NVIDIA who have now moved on to newer fabrication processes by outsourcing chip production.

The Pixel 3 and 3 XL cost US$799 and US$899 at launch nine months ago. Both devices can now be had for much less, though—US$300 less, to be exact—and now offer more value than ever before to admirers of the Pixel series.

The Eve V was once hailed as a 'Surface Pro killer', as it offered a worthy alternative to this 2-in-1 (on paper at least) at a low price compared to that of the Microsoft product. However, its manufacturer (also called Eve) ran into difficulty due to supply issues that delayed shipments for many users. This OEM now claims to have resolved these problems.

The One Action is now almost certainly Motorola's next Android One device. A phone of this name has reportedly been found on the Google databases that pertain to this program. Its entries appear to confirm a 21:9 aspect ratio and a punch-hole in its display.

Huawei shipped close to 60 million smartphones units in the first quarter of the year but was hit with a trade ban by the US government that negatively influenced sales in Q2. Analysts expect the company to hit 260 million shipments this year—a figure that would represent a hefty 25% year-on-year growth—but we're leery.

As the tensions between South Korea and Japan escalate, prices for NAND and DRAM chips are primed for substantial spikes over the remainder of 2019. In the past 2 weeks, prices already increased by 15% and the demand for DDR4 RAM modules caused by the recent launch of the Ryzen 3000 CPUs is also adding to the appreciation process.

LG may be about to release a new line of smartphones with the prefix M. According to a new report posted to a tech blog, the OEM has applied for a Korean trademark that would make the name "LG M10" official. In other related news, this company also allegedly plans to make the V series of phablets last at least 2 more generations.

The European Competition Commission has fined Qualcomm €242 million after it found evidence that the largest US smartphone chip maker has indulged in practices that prevented companies such as Icera from effectively competing in making 3G UMTS baseband chipsets between 2009 and 2011. Qualcomm, on its part, has refuted the allegations and said that it would appeal against the ECC ruling.

Internet-protocol (or IP) cameras shipments are thought to grow to over 100 million by 2025, or 20% more than there are now. These projections are part of newly-published research on the IP surveillance market. It is thought to be mainly driven by commercial buyers, although domestic products may also play a role in their growth.

Toshiba Memory has unveiled plans to rebrand itself in 2019. Its new name, Kioxia, is a blend of 2 different words for "memory" and "value". It will take effect from October onward.

The LPDDR5 standard was supposed to hit the markets in 2020, but it looks like Samsung rushed the mass production schedule in order to consolidate its premium handheld offering and promote the adoption of 5G and AI tech for future smartphones. By the end of this month, Samsung also plans to begin mass production for 12 GB LPDDR5 chips with eight 12 Gb modules.

Everybody was expecting Arcturus to be the high-end version of Navi and a true competitor for Nvidia's RTX 2080 / Ti gaming GPUs, but the latest Linux AMDGPU shader compiler code update suggests that Arcturus is more of a professional GPU in-line with Radeon Instinct. It will most likely be manufactured on the 7 nm EUV node from TSMC and could launch in early 2020.

After countless delays, LG Pay is now finally available for the US market. This mobile payment service will be supported by the LG G8 ThinQ at launch and will reach the LG V50, V40, V35, and G7 ThinQ in the coming months. LG Pay supports both NFC and WMC payments, working in all locations where Mastercard and Visa are accepted.

The new Netflix plan only allows its users to watch the content on a single device — smartphone/phablet or tablet — at a time. It does not work on streaming devices such as Roku or Chromecast, PCs/laptops, or smart TVs. In India, the new plan will be available for the equivalent of US$3.63 per month.

Prime Day 2019 is now over, and the stats on it are rolling in. Preliminary analysis published by WD Partners show that the online traffic to the retail site for the event's 1st 24 hours increased 100% compared to the same averaged over the preceding 5 days. This may contribute to the US$400+ billion in takings projected for the company this year.

The latest study from the cellular-data research body Opensignal reports that Verizon has the most widespread 4G services in the US (at 94.8% coverage). However, T-Mobile was associated with the best upload and download experiences on the same network. This new report also claims that all carriers included are improving in terms of these mobile download speeds.

If you thought you were crazy covering your laptop webcam with paper, you're not alone. A continent-wide survey conducted earlier this year has revealed that nearly 80 percent of respondents would rather just turn off their webcams to avoid fears of hacking. Women in particular are more worried about their laptops being compromised and are more likely to tape over or disable their webcams.

Lenovo's newest high-end ThinkPad laptop, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme 2019, is now available in the USA. Prices for the Dell XPS 15 competitor start at $2,049 for the cheapest pre-configured model available – a hefty base-price, though it will likely fall considerably in the near future with the introduction of discounts & more configuration options.

New leaks that allegedly emanate from Chinese sources point to the imminent release of a new processor by MediaTek: the Helio G90. This CPU is also directed at relatively fresh ground for the Taiwanese silicon-smiths. It is purported to be destined for gaming smartphones.

To say OPPO may be planning to expand its K series of smartphones may be somewhat of an understatement. The OEM has reportedly made a total of 21 trademarking applications for new device names along these lines. This volume of submissions may mean that it plans to keep this line going for some time.

According to a new report, the OnePlus 7 Pro only costs US$324 to build. That figure is non-inclusive of R&D, logistics, and marketing costs, of course. The Samsung Galaxy S10+ costs US$420 to build, and here we compare the cost of components on the two devices.

The Unihertz Titan is inspired by BlackBerry's Passport and combines the qwerty design with rugged features like IP67 dust / water resistance. It also includes a 4.5-inch 1:1 1,400 x 1,400 IPS display, selfie cam and rear main cam, face recognition, wireless charging and a hefty 6,000 mAh battery, plus fingerprint sensor.

Toshiba will be dipping its toes back into the mobile business world with the budget Portege A30 designed to take on the Lenovo ThinkPad E series, Dell Vostro series, and the HP ProBook series.

Google has decided to focus its efforts on the AdSense mobile web interface and discontinue the mobile apps. Those using AdSense on mobile devices were probably expecting this, since the Android app has not been updated since December 2017 and the iOS AdSense app received its latest refresh on November 2017.

Huawei is putting together plans to lay off hundreds of its US-based employees, according to the Wall Street Journal. Although President Trump has eased some of the restrictions on the Chinese company, it remains on the US Entity List and US companies still need to apply for licenses to supply it.

As impressive as it may be, the US$5 billion fine that Facebook could be subjected to — after the review of this settlement by the Department of Justice — only accounts for 9 percent of the revenue obtained by the company in 2018. According to some senators and Congress members, this is not enough to get Facebook back in line.

With the 2019 generation of ThinkPad laptops, the PC manufacturer Lenovo has stopped offering any models with external, hot-swappable batteries. Instead, all ThinkPads feature a single internal battery now – a development that is now lamented by fans and a relatively well known Youtuber.

Vivo is an OEM that mostly produces smartphones with modern features such as multiple cameras. However, these handsets have not been officially available in certain regions. However, new reports indicate that this company is hiring for pivotal positions in Central Europe, indicating that Vivo intends to establish a presence there.

Smart glasses are useful in many contexts, most of them enterprise-related. However, it is also possible to replicate the smartphone experience to some degree using some of these devices, Vuzix-brand ones included. This company claims that a new development will bring peer-to-peer video calling to its Blade devices.

Every year, OEMs increase prices on their new devices. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 phones will be no different, as a new leak claims that the Note 10 could start at US$999. That's the same MSRP the Note 9 launched with but the main problem is that the Note 10 may as well be a "Lite" phone. The Note 10+ is the true premium device here, and that one is expected to cost north of US$1100.

Huawei is now linked to multiple different possible names for its well-publicized in-house OS, which may replace Android on its phones in the near future. A new possible leak has turned up another new such term for this system: Harmony. It has allegedly been trademarked in the EU for this purpose.

Counterpoint Research's latest study of the 5G market in the US has found that sales of mobile devices that can use these new bands have been detected in more than 10 cities. However, some of the areas in question still do not have an actual next-gen service. This phenomenon has been attributed to consumer interest in future-proofing.

Originally scheduled to arrive in 2018, Psychonauts 2 was expected to arrive later this year. This title for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 looks like its predecessor with improved graphics and a few new ideas. Sadly, its launch has been pushed to 2020 and we can only hope that it will not get another delay next year.

The new Oxford Circus flagship store in London is also Microsoft's first physical retail store in the UK. This venue covers no less than 22,000 square feet over three floors and brings together Surface devices, HoloLens, the Xbox Gaming Lounge, a Selfie Area, and more. The staff can provide assistance in no less than 45 languages.

A new leak indicates that LG has successfully attained trademarks for names that sound like flagship phones to be released after 2020. There is no G11 or G12, however: instead, they appear to fall in line with the Vx0 phablet line. Therefore, the G10's successor may be called the G20, and so on.

Qualcomm and Ericsson has announced that their technology has passed an important milestone in the roll-out of 5G across a country the size of the US on the same band. This 600-megahertz (MHz) frequency, one of the lowest to be associated with the new data standard, is also in use at T-Mobile to establish its own next-gen network.

The latest market analysis indicates that the volume of eSIM-enabled device shipments reached 384 million last year. The resulting projections suggest that this figure will grow to about 2 billion over the next 6 years. Smartphones will account for the vast majority of the units in question.

The ability to use Spotify on your phone may be restricted in terms of the storage it can take up. The new Lite version of this Android app, however, takes up about a tenth of the space compared to the regular download. It also has a meter for the cellular data used while streaming music.

GPU as a Service involves offering access to the functions of an advanced, dedicated or powerful GPU set-up from a remote location. It is increasingly prominent in cloud and AI applications. The latest market research indicates that its market will grow based on its use in CAD, modelling and 3D animation.

An industrial consultant firm, Grail Insights, has released the results of a survey-based study on public attitudes towards 'big tech' companies, their effects on consumer privacy and the role national authorities should adopt in the matter. They show that 62% of respondents believe that the government needs to step in when these corporations gain "too much power".

The ProDesk 400 G5 and 600 G5 Desktop Mini PCs can be equipped with Intel's gen 9 CPUs up to i9-9900T coupled with up to 64 GB of DDR4-2666 (32 GB max for the 600 G5 model) and a SATA SSD / HDD + NVMe SSD storage combo. The chassis size allows these models to be easily mounted on monitor backs.

After being MIA for a couple of years, both the professional Portege X30 and Tecra X40 business laptops will be available once again in the U.S. later this year. Changes will be largely internal including to move to Whiskey Lake-U and Wi-Fi 6 to be more competitive in a market dominated by Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

Amazon workers at a warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota have pledged to strike for six hours on July 15th, the first day of the company's annual Prime Day sale. While the workers are striking over alleged poor pay and other conditions, Amazon has responded by claiming they are already offered excellent and highly competitive benefits.

A tech blogger has posted a new video citing rumors that Microsoft is working on hardware for its xCloud platform. This console would apparently work with existing Xbox controllers, but also act as a competitor for Google's own starter pack for Stadia. As this putative box could cost as little as US$60, it would also undercut the "Founder's Edition".

A United States Senator has obtained a response to a letter sent to Amazon HQ concerning user privacy as it relates to the retail giant's Alexa platform. It advised the public representative that, although a given user can delete their own voice data from their accounts at will, the voice assistant's responses to queries are recorded and retained by Amazon for its own purposes.

Intel has dismissed reports of the company losing its CPU sales market share to AMD in Japan. The latter is now the largest CPU seller in the country, with AMD gaining a 21.6% market share since October. The news comes before the arrival of AMD's hotly anticipated Zen 2 architecture too. Worrying times indeed for the team in blue.

HTC has been in dire straits financially for some time with profits taking a dive over the past several years. However, in a more positive sign for the Taiwanese company, its June unaudited consolidated revenue was up sharply from just US$24M last month to US$46.8M.