Business Articles

Nintendo's latest earnings report covers the years ending March 2018 and 2019. They show generally positive results, including a 13.7% year-on-year increase in net sales. The text of this report also states that the release of Pokemon Shield, Pokemon Sword and the Link's Awakening remake are indeed set for this year.

Paradox Interactive has released a video on YouTube that shows an animated clan introduction to the upcoming game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. After watching the clip, viewers are treated to a very short (and small) look at pre-alpha gameplay, giving gamers a vague idea of what to expect from the eagerly awaited title.

The device-diagnostics company Blancco claims to have bought over 100 second-hand hard drives on the eBay sites of 4 different counties, to see what data, if any, could be accessed on them. It claims that 42% of these drives still stored information from their previous owners that can be thought of as sensitive.

Intel has made its earnings report for the first quarter of this financial year (Q1FY2019) available to the public. In it, overall revenue is described as "flat" compared to Q1FY2018. Its "data" business has declined by 5% in the same terms, although its "PC-centric" revenues are up 4%.

The 4K display standard is likely to be immediately succeeded by its 8K counterpart in the fullness of time. ResearchandMarkets has estimated that, even though this next-gen solution only pulled in about US$2 billion worldwide in 2017, this will increase to just over $68 billion in 2026.

Need an original twist on the common-or-garden wireless speaker? The start-up Coolgeek might have you covered with their new Soundesk product. It is a round glass coffee table with a conical aluminum stand - that also houses a 360-degree speaker. The Soundesk can work via Bluetooth or an AUX cable for allegedly clear, high-quality sound.

Sony has released its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2019 (FY2018). Although hardware sales for the PlayStation 4 have slowed down, they are still selling at an impressive rate. Total sales for the PS4 stand at 96.8 million units and should easily top 100 million before the PS5 is released.

A record for a processor that utilizes the Glacier Falls platform has been spotted in SiSoftware’s Sandra database. “Glacier Falls PCH” was mentioned in a leaked Gigabyte presentation slide in December and was categorized as “Extreme” with availability starting in Q3 2019. The High End Desktop (HEDT) processor in this particular case could be a member of the upcoming Cascade Lake-X series.

China Unicom has deployed a 5G network in an area of Shenzhen called the Qianhai-Shekou Free Trade Zone. This makes China one of only 3 countries with the new generation of wireless networks. The carrier is now planning exhibitions of 5G applications in the Zone.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold was supposed to see an official release tomorrow (April 26, 2019). However, as many of us know by now, teething problems uncovered by reviewers have postponed the launch of this next-gen smartphone. A tweet allegedly referencing an AT&T email suggests that it will now take place in June.

Lenovo officially launched the Z6 Pro, a new flagship smartphone, in China only 2 days ago. Now, the OEM has released a celebratory poster on Weibo claiming that this device has attracted over 200,000 reservations already. Then again, these clicks do not necessarily presage actual orders, which will begin on April 29, 2019.

The South Korean manufacturer is reportedly switching production of its flagship smartphones from its home country to an existing plant in Vietnam. The move is an effort to reduce manufacturing costs amid seven consecutive quarters of losses. LG currently manufacturers up to a fifth of its smartphones in South Korea.

OnePlus will launch its new OnePlus 7 phones on May 14. This will be the first time the company launches a Pro model and it looks increasingly like an attempt to move upmarket, as the top trim OnePlus 7 Pro is now being touted to have an MSRP north of US$800.

Rockchip announced a new 8-core mobile SoC yesterday. The RK3588 will feature four ARM Cortex-A55 cores and four ARM Cortex-A76 cores and will be manufactured on an 8nm process. Rockchip claims that the new manufacturing process will increase performance by up to 30% while reducing power consumption by 40%.

It has been projected that Nintendo is preparing 2 new versions of its latest console this year. One of them, a 'budget' model, has been slated for a release in 2 months in a new Bloomberg report. It also states that the other 2nd-gen Switch will be a "modest upgrade".

Top comments include the omission of spyware, data collection, and bloat. Users also don't want to see yet another GeForce Experience copycat where account creation is required just to use the software.

The latest figures on the global premium smartphone market reportedly show that OPPO increased its share of it by a stunning 863% in 2018. This stripped out comparable performances on the part of competitors such as Xiaomi and even Huawei. On the other hand, it did not threaten Apple's place at the top of this market.

The Taiwanese OEM is squeezing every ounce of performance it can from its Aero 15 design. This latest "Classic" model boasts the new octa-core Core i9-9980HK for improved multi-thread performance over the hexa-core Core i9-8950HK. Here's hoping that throttling will be kept to a minimum considering the very thin chassis and powerful hardware.

Those who have been missing Vine — and/or have been not happy with TikTok — can now fill the void with Byte. The new looping video app comes from Vine's founder and it is currently undergoing closed beta testing. For now, only 100 testers are able to take it for a spin, but more people should be invited soon.

A photography blog claims to have discovered a specs sheet for a new Canon sensor with a whopping 63MP resolution. This new module is intended for a full-frame (i.e. 35mm) camera, and has pixels of 37 micrometers in size. Should this leak prove real, this new sensor could compete well with new 60MP counterparts from Sony.

The Asus 'ROG Mothership' GZ700GX was first announced earlier this year at CES and was aimed at offering flexibility and enhanced cooling compared to traditional clamshell gaming notebooks. Now, the GZ700GX is available with factory-overclocked versions of the 9th gen Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU and NVIDIA RTX 2080 GPU both of which are cooled by liquid metal and a total of four heatsinks. The ROG 'Mothership' is all set to be available worldwide starting Q2 2019.

Unveiled in early January at CES 2019, the Lenovo Legion Y9000K is now finally launching in China. This machine seems to be exclusively targeting the local market and features an 8th generation (could be an error instead of 9th generation) Intel Core i7 processor, a 17-inch 144 Hz display, as well as NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics.

Although the Galaxy Fold has been officially delayed, it looks like two more such models are in the pipeline. For now, they are known as "Type G" and "Type S," but there is no official information regarding their commercial names or release date yet. However, at least one of them is rumored to be announced by the end of the year.

In accordance with previous reports, the Realme 3 Pro has been released to the Indian market today (22 April, 2019). It offers the Snapdragon 710 processor in a package with up to 6GB of RAM, an AI-enhanced selfie camera and gradient color options. The Realme 3 Pro starts at the equivalent of US$200.

In its effort to make its service more conversational, Twitter has decided to add the Highly team to its staff. Sadly, this means that the iOS and Slack apps currently maintained by Highly will go down on April 26. Highly has been around since 2014 and had raised a seed round two years ago.

Huawei may be having troubles with a few governments but sales are stronger than ever. The company shipped 59 million smartphone units in the first quarter of the year, a hefty 50% year-on-year growth. This all but ensures that Huawei takes back its position as the second-largest smartphone manufacturer, ahead of Apple. It's even more impressive that the company has done this without being able to sell its devices officially in the US.

Yota is an OEM associated with innovative dual-screen phones of the same name. It made its last such device in 2017, and hadn't been heard from since. Now, it has emerged that Yota has filed for bankruptcy in the Cayman Islands.

Emtek, the licensed owners of the BlackBerry Messenger app, announced that the service will shut down on May 31 considering that users preferred using other messaging platforms. However, BlackBerry said that BBM Enterprise is now available for use by consumers and will be free for the first year for new users.

A smartphone leaks blog claims to have unearthed a patent filed by LG in which a phone with a triple selfie camera is depicted. The phone in question could easily be a V50 ThinQ, except for the three distinctly lens-like sensors visible in its notch. This, then could suggest the next generation of LG phone design.

A new report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has thrown light on the state of the US smartphone market in Q1. Apple had a tenuous dominance over the market, with the company's devices accounting for 36% of device activations in the first quarter of the year. Samsung is second with 34%.

The iBOX-R1000 from ASRock is the first mini PC to integrate the new Ryzen R1606G / R1505G embedded dual-core CPUs with Vega 3 iGPUs. It comes with up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 RAM and supports one 2.5-inch SATA SSD / HDD. This mini PC is designed for digital signage, arcade gaming and gambling, kiosks, IoT gateways and thin client terminals.

Recently, the gaming community has been set alight with rumors that Grand Theft Auto will get a new version soon. This has come about as a result of the discovery of an online resume belonging to a "3D game artist" who lists the heretofore unseen title among his experiences at Rockstar Games. This individual also specifically claims a role in GTA 5's DLC.

A new report from Counterpoint Research has found that, of all Apple smartphones, the iPhone XR did the best in the US market in the month of February 2019. Of those who bought this device, 20% of those already using iOS upgraded from the 7, whereas 32% more exchanged models older than this for the XR. Counterpoint also found that the XR was responsible for the greatest conversion from Android to this platform in February.

Want a new phone? Fine, but clicking 'Pay Now' on the first listing you see for it could cost you. The analyst firm Minderest has found that there is a margin of as much as 41.3% between the worst and best prices for the same device online. According to this report, WirelessBoss gives the best deals on average.

Rumors claimed the Huawei P30 phones would feature OLED displays made by Samsung. Information disproving that idea has surfaced, though, and it looks like the P30 Pro actually opts for LG-made panels, with some units sporting BOE-made ones, just like the Mate 20 Pro did.

The 6 nm node is scheduled to enter risk production in Q1 2020, almost 1 year after the 5 nm risk production, so the first 6 nm chips will probably ship in mid-2020. The only major benefit brought by the new node is the 18% transistor density increase over the original (non-EUV) 7 nm node and performance will see negligible gains since this is not a full node shrink.

Honor's latest phone, the 20i, has been launched in China. This phone has a 32MP front-facing camera in its U-shaped notch. In addition, the new phone has a 6.21-inch IPS-LCD full-HD screen, triple rear cameras and the Kirin 710 processor. Its prices start at 1,599 RMB (about US$238) for a 4GB SKU.

The prolific Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's latest prediction concerning the 2019 iPhones indicate that at least one of them will have triple rear cameras, augmented by an improved wide-angle lens in one module. In addition, the new devices' selfie cameras may be upgraded. On the other hand, they are likely to retain a notch and glass rear panels.

A while ago, Samsung announced that its A series would be replacing the old Galaxy M line in the company's pecking order. That move appears to be paying off in style, as the new devices are selling very well.

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has ordered Google and Apple to remove the app TikTok from their respective stores. This ban has followed allegations that the service increases the risk of child abuse. TikTok can now appeal this ruling on dates set for about a week from today (April 17, 2019).

Surprisingly enough, Apple not only decided to drop all charges regarding Qualcomm's unfair patent licensing practices, but the Cupertino company agreed to pay Qualcomm an undisclosed sum, as well. The unexpected settlement comes with additional agreements that make Qualcomm the only 5G modem supplier for the 2020 iPhone models, which immediately prompted Intel to announce its exit from the mobile 5G modem business.

The V50 is LG's first 5G-enabled device, and was scheduled for release during an event on April 19, 2019. However, the OEM has issued a statement saying that this launch is now postponed. No reasons were given for this, although it is known that 5G services in South Korea are experiencing technical difficulties.

Google Pay has gained more functionality in a new update. It involves the ability to 'scan' Gmail for information on a user's financial perks and other info. This includes rewards from using loyalty cards or other similar systems.

Samsung has announced that it is finally in a position to send samples of its new, ground-breaking 5nm processor technology to its customers. The OEM claims that this new architecture brings 25% improvements in logic-area efficiency compared to 7nm, with up to 10% potential performance enhancements.

A new report released by Parks Associates has found that 36% of US households with broadband-level internet connections also owned at least 1 voice-controlled smart speaker in early 2019. This data suggests that these connected devices are becoming more popular, and that their use as automatic home controls may be getting more and more familiar.

Instead of telling the anti-virus software what the common attributes of a malware are, why not have the software learn that itself from terabytes of pre-determined files? HP says its Sure View algorithm can detect even the latest viruses and malware based on a similar technology that Nvidia uses for its Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) graphics technique.

The refreshed models are coming next month with a handful of internal updates to improve both performance and security including Sure Sense, Sure View Gen3, brighter displays, and 8th gen ULV Intel Core with vPro. The designs and sizes are otherwise exactly the same as last year's models.

While mostly just a minor refresh, security buffs and business users will appreciate the new camera slider and updated hardware-level anti-virus and recovery features.