Business Articles

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.

Facial recognition is projected to continue to grow as an industry into the next decade. Its market is estimated at being worth US$3.2 billion now. However, this value is projected to grow to $7 billion by 2024.

The Redmi 7A boasts an improved camera, processor and SKU choices compared to its predecessor, the 6A. It will go on sale in India at a special starting price of INR 5799 (~US$85). However, even its "normal" price translates to about $95: the Redmi 6A's price when it launched.

The Pixel C was released back in 2015 and received two major updates and about four years of software support in total. Starting this month, July 2019, though, Google will stop sending out security updates to the tablet. This comes after reports a few weeks ago that Google is planning to kill off its tablet business completely.

The Redmi Note 7 Pro was launched a few months ago and has been hailed as the indubitable best-value mid-range option in the markets in which it's sold. Huawei's sub-brand, Honor, is a rival to Xiaomi on many counts and the company's upcoming Honor 9X may finally dethrone the Redmi Note 7 Pro as king of the mid-range.

The latest report from SensorTower shows that app purchases generated a revenue of US$39.7 billion in the 1st 6 months of 2019. This impressive figure also represents a 15% year-on-year increase in the same kind of spending. The Apple App Store accounted for 64% of these takings.

Wearables are currently projected to influence the way personal electronics are used more and more in the future. This technology now covers both devices that can double as accessories and as clothing. Their market is estimated to be worth up to US$51.6 billion in the next 3 years.

The new entry-level card will be replacing the WX3100 launched 2 years ago. It comes with the same low-profile, single slot design and a 50 W TDP, but the updated 14 nm Polaris core coupled with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM is able to crunch 104 GFLOPs in double precision workloads. It also features four DisplayPort 1.4 connectors which enables support for quad 4K monitor setups.

Wireless charging is already appreciably popular today. Its market is thought to be capable of attaining a US$27 billion value over the next 6 years, according to the latest research. Its results show the most prominent application of this technology is in (surprise surprise) smartphones.

Vuzix has filed a new patent with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). It will inform future smart glasses made by this OEM, particularly regarding their use in augmented reality (AR) applications. Vuzix also claims that it will help the company use the latest materials in the spectacle-making industry, as well as the most up-to-date AR sensors.

Synopsys has announced the successful implementation of its Yield Explorer platform at Samsung's fabricators. This reportedly results in a ramping-up of production in terms of 7 (as well as 10 and 8) nanometer (nm) architectures for this OEM. The 2 companies also now claim that this move will also inform 5-3nm platform manufacture.

India now joins China and the European Union in the race to break away from U.S. hardware reliance. Developed since early 2016, the Shakti CPU family based on the open-source RISC-V microarchitecture offers multiple classes of chips designed for specific markets like embedded / IoT, mobile, HTPC and workstation / server, promising performance similar to existing Intel, AMD and ARM chips.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has lashed out at a Wall Street Journal article that reported Jony Ive decided to leave the company because Cook wasn't interested in design. In an email to sent to NBC's Dylan Byers, Cook refutes the story's claims as 'absurd' and that the article didn't align with the reality of the situation.

Redmi's K20 phones were always going to be best-sellers. The devices, in about a month since they went on sale, have done impressively on the market, with the company confirming sales of a million units. This is even more astonishing when one considers that the K20 Pro is currently exclusive to China, and the regular K20 has been rebranded as the Mi 9T in Europe.

Although tablets were expected to go extinct, a new study by Future Market Insights predicts that the demand for such pieces of hardware "will surge extensively in the upcoming years" thanks to multiple reasons. This report claims that global tablet sales for the decade ending in 2026 will bring in no less than US$600 billion.

In an interview with a small group of media outlet, Samsung CEO D.J. Koh stated that the Galaxy Fold's flubbed launch was "embarrassing." However, Koh still sees foldable devices as the next logical step in the evolution of personal computing. Koh also stated that he envisions a future of connected devices that will replace even foldable phones in a few years time.

According to Canalys mobile VP Nicole Peng, 5G smartphones will see a rapid adoption in China thanks to the strong government roadmap and the financial capabilities of the local operators. Global 5G phone shipments are expected to hit 800 million units in 2023 — more than 51 percent of the entire market, reveals the research firm.

Samsung's first phablet without a notch and/or cutout — thanks to the sliding camera assembly — is finally going on sale both online and offline in select markets across the globe about three months since its debut. The Galaxy A80 is priced at more than US$730 and comes in Angel Gold, Ghost White, and Phantom Black.