Business Articles

Intel is expected to regain the title of world’s largest semiconductor supplier, according to initial forecasts from IC Insights. However, the swapping of places with Samsung seems to be more down to the South Korean manufacturer’s huge dip in memory sales rather than a considerable increase in sales for Intel’s chips.

The Sunday edition of the New York Times has published a full-page advert by Sprint in the form of an open letter to wireless consumers. In the letter, the telecommunications company berates its rival, AT&T, for the use of the term “5G Evolution.” Sprint feels AT&T is deliberately misleading customers looking for 5G networks.

It has been reported that Nvidia has joined the bidding contest for Mellanox Technologies. Other companies believed to be interested in acquiring the fabless semiconductor firm include Intel and Xilinx. Mellanox, which has corporate headquarters in the USA and Israel, supplies networking equipment and it also designs network processors.

Huawei's CEO, Yu Chendong, recently conducted an interview with the German publication, Welt. The executive was tackled on many issues, including foldable phones and their current extravagant prices. He responded by projecting that their prices may fall at a significant rate in the near future.

Although there is no official confirmation of the date yet, the latest rumors say that Intel will launch the Cascade Lake processors for the LGA 3647 socket next month. The Cascade Lake-X processors for the LGA 2066, on the other hand, are expected to come out in June, at this year's COMPUTEX trade show.

The Galaxy S10 flagship series may have already demonstrated that it is having no trouble with its sales. However, Samsung has arranged a few perks to ensure that the new phones keep flying off shelves. They involve YouTube Premium and Spotify deals; on the other hand, their availability is region-dependent.

Some companies have developed transparent displays to the point where they may be the immediate future of head-mounted, heads-up and state-of-the-art shopfront technology. A new analysis has shown that their market may be worth US$2.591 billion by 2023. This market will be made up of see-through OLEDs and LCDs in a range of display sizes.

Although it comes with a quite a few innovative features and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 top-of-the-line processor, the new LG G8 ThinQ flagship has a lower price than its predecessor and is also cheaper than most similar flagships on the market. Pre-sales will start in South Korea this week and the price is around US$790.

Jay Frechette, the Community Manager for Respawn Entertainment, has shared information about the company’s battle against cheaters, specifically in the smash-hit battle royale game Apex Legends. Apparently, over 355,000 players have already been banned from the PC version, and the game developer is busy working on additional methods to combat cheating.

It has been predicted that the global wireless charging market could reach a value of US$30.164 billion by 2024, according to a press release from Research and Markets. In contrast, 2018’s value was estimated at US$7.897 billion, with adoption rates of wireless charging technology growing in markets such as the North American and European regions.

The Xiaomi Mi Max 3, like all Mi Max devices, is sold with the unique feature of having a huge screen. This generation has a 6.9-inch FHD display, which is matched by few other phablets. Units of this model worldwide are now eligible for an official update to the Pie-based MIUI 10.

Samsung's newest flagships, the Galaxy S10 trio, were some of the most anticipated devices before they were launched. It would appear that such interest has translated directly into sales, with the devices breaking pre-order records around the world.

Anthem, the new action RPG game from BioWare, is apparently causing hard crashes on PlayStation 4 consoles. A growing number of gamers are taking to both Reddit and Electronic Arts’ Answers HQ to complain about issues with PS4 shutdowns while playing the game. Apparently, the critical bug is also affecting PC users and Xbox owners, too.

The South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT has warned that South Korea is likely to miss the current approximate deadline at which 5G should be available in the country. This was estimated to be at the end of March, but now may be pushed back until later in the year. The authorities have cited costing disputes with providers as one factor in this delay.

Eve-Tech has just had another flash sale for its Eve V device, with potential customers likely enticed by discounts ranging from US$300 all the way to US$600 for the i7-7Y75 variant. However, there seems to be a growing number of disgruntled buyers venting their frustration online over the company’s extreme tardiness in regard to shipping the crowdfunded convertible.

Proton Technologies AG, the company behind the popular encrypted email service ProtonMail, has issued a press release to reveal it has been awarded €2 million in funding from the European Commission (EC). The company plans on using the money to develop encrypted services such as its ProtonDrive file storage application.

The US Department of Justice, in conjunction with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, has announced the arrest of Konstantin Ignatov, the so-called “leader” of the supposedly fraudulent OneCoin cryptocurrency. Ignatov has been detained on a charge of wire fraud, and he is accused of cheating investors out of billions of dollars.

Still sporting a 7-year old GeForce GTX 880M gaming laptop? Nvidia has just announced that it will stop delivering security updates for its mobile Kepler-based GPU series in the next 12 months. Desktop Kepler GPUs, however, will not be affected.

Maxon is doubling down on CPU benchmarking at the cost of GPU benchmarking. The mostly useless OpenGL test is gone for a more demanding CPU benchmark scene requiring SSE3, 4 GB of RAM, and Intel Embree ray-tracing support.

Months ahead of its launch, the OnePlus 7 has appeared in sale-page form on the retail website GizTop. It contains a list of specs with many details that may be plausible for this new release. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that it will prove accurate.

The Samsung Galaxy S10e is one of the new additions to the flagship series. It has the smallest screen (and price) of all its variants, yet retains many of the new features associated with it. The S10e has been made available on Boost Mobile today (March 8, 2019) at an out-right price of US$749.

Leica has launched the Q2, the second generation of its high-end full-frame sensor module. It is capable of 4K/UHD recording, 47.3-megapixel image capture, and expanded crop functions. The new Leica Q2 also has some degree of water-ingress protection for all-weather use.

Wireless charging is becoming increasingly popular with mobile device designers, particularly at the higher end of the market. However, it is associated with a potentially significant problem: the inability to use a phone effectively while it has to be on its pad or station. The makers of a novel smartphone stand now available on Indiegogo claim they can help with that.

Xiaomi has made its name by offering phones that could be seen as value-for-money in the past. However, its CEO, Lei Jun, has unveiled plans that involve the company turning its back on this strategy in the future. He has said that "this might be the last time our price will be under RMB 3,000 (about US$447)".

Although it became commercially available more than three years later, the compact disc as we know it was demonstrated for the international press by Philips on March 8, 1979. Later that month, Sony joined in and the two companies quickly managed to turn the CD format into a global standard and bring this technology to the masses.

An alleged video of Firestorm, the battle royale mode for Battlefield V, has been uploaded to YouTube. The clip is configured as an introduction and tutorial, showing off the huge battleground and the numerous weapons and vehicles that will be at a player’s disposal. Firestorm is expected to be officially revealed soon, possibly even within the next couple of weeks.

Hong Kong-based manufacturer Manli has announced two new variants of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. The Manli GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and Manli GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gallardo both come with twin cooling fans and two composite copper heatpipes. The Gallardo variant of the card is overclockable.

Time after time, information continues to allude to the potential release of a second-generation Essential Phone. While nothing is certain, we could be set to get a PH-2, and a patent filed by Essential points towards an in-display selfie camera on the device.

A MediaTek business executive has told Android Authority that the company is working on a chip that has a 7-nanometer (nm) architecture and will have 5G connectivity. This processor may out-perform the Helio P90, the company's current flagship SoC. Therefore, MediaTek is likely to target the more premium end of the market with this future product.

A thin majority - 52% - of all households with broadband connections in the US now watch content that can be found, bought or sourced online on their connected TVs. These findings have been reported by Parks Associates. They have also discovered that this activity is now more popular among such households compared to other leisure pursuits - even gaming.

Bloomberg's most recent report on Apple and its next-generation modem woes suggest that the company is in even more trouble than previously imagined. Its choices for 5G hardware in future iPhones are apparently limited and come with compromises. Therefore, it JUST may skip this feature in 2020 as well as 2019.

AMD has been sharing important information in an investor presentation, including a roadmap for its upcoming processors. Next in line for release is the 2nd Gen Ryzen Pro Mobile, followed by the 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop processors. Making a surprise appearance at the end of the 2019 roadmap is the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper CPU.

During an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting held on March 6, President Donald Trump made a faux pas by calling the CEO of one of the world’s most famous technology companies “Tim Apple.” To his credit, Apple boss Tim Cook seemed to react to the error with nothing but a stoic countenance while the US President went on to talk about border control.

The OPPO F11 Pro has been characterized as a phone that would come out with a pop-up selfie camera on release. These leaks have been vindicated at its launch. It was also joined by the F11, a second variant of the same basic phone, but with a water-drop notch to house its own front-facing camera.

According to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo has at least started to intervene in order to prevent disproportional amounts of in-game transactions in the titles it has licensed to Android and iOS developers. This may reflect the increasing drive to regulate such charges, which can lead to significant profits as a result of using free apps.

Intel has unveiled a new and powerful transceiver for 2019 at the Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) conference in San Diego. This module, the Stratix 10 TX, enables data-transmission rates of as much as 58 gigabits per second (Gb/s). In practice, this translates to Ethernet bandwidth of up to 400Gb.

The Meizu Note 9 is one of a handful of phones that rocks the new 48MP Samsung camera sensor. It has been launched today in China for prices ranging from about US$208 to $238, depending on the variant selected. However, it will not be on sale until March 11, 2019.

It has been reported that Corning is working on flexible glass that will be strong enough to use with foldable phones. Presently, foldable devices rely on plastic polymers because of their flexibility. However, Corning wants to eventually create a glass product that offers the useful properties of the plastic polymer screens but with the quality and hardness of glass.

The Meizu Zero was a novel prospect for the smartphone world: a device with no ports or buttons whatsoever. Its maker had been assessing the demand for this idea via a campaign on Indiegogo. However, it has failed to achieve its goal of US$100,000, securing only about 45% of this figure.

According to a fresh report by IDC, Apple shipped more than 46 million wearables in 2018 out of a total of 172.2 million such devices sold worldwide. Smartwatches accounted for almost 30 percent of the entire wearable market and Apple's growth is expected to continue thanks to the Watch Series 4 smartwatch.

HTC is reportedly in talks with a number of Indian smartphone firms to license its hardware under their brands. These phones will apparently target the Rs 10,000- (about US$141) or-more section of this market. The Taiwanese OEM hopes to compete with the likes of OPPO and Xiaomi as a result of this move.

Huawei's high-value brand, Honor, is set to launch its next premium device in the coming months. Details of the Honor 20 have now surfaced, throwing light on a device with a specification sheet that mirrors the Huawei P20 Pro's.

Samsung appears to be giving a lot of attention to its new Galaxy A sub-line, The company released the A10, 130, and A50 last week, and is set to follow them up with a number of devices. One of those will be the Galaxy A60, a sub-premium phone sporting a triple rear camera setup, a Snapdragon 675, a 32 MP selfie camera, and a 4500 mAh battery.

Respawn Entertainment’s Vince Zampella has taken to Twitter again to report on Apex Legends’ latest milestone. The battle royale game, which is set in the Titanfall universe, has now been tried out by over 50 million people worldwide – in its first month since launching. The title is currently available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

A blog has claimed that a GTX 1060 6GB card had gone down to €179.90 (about US$204) in a French computing store. However, this price is no longer available. In any case, it turns out that the card in question was of the single-fanned variety, and those with any more are still often above the €300 ($340) mark.

A start-up called Energous has announced a collaboration with Vivo. This move could bring Energous' over-the-air charging technology, WattUp 2.0, to the smartphone OEM's devices. Vivo has said that this move could alleviate "battery anxiety" for its customers.

Unveiled more than four months ago, the AI-ready TS-2888X NAS lineup is finally available for purchase. As previously announced, these storage accessories can support up to 4 graphics cards and feature Intel Xeon W processors, ASETEK liquid cooling, up to 512 GB of memory, a 2,000 Watt PSU switch and connector.

Have a friend who's also in the market for a flagship laptop? This Newegg exclusive offers two Aero 15-X9 systems for about 10 percent off. Gigabyte will throw in a backpack and a wired gaming mouse at no extra charge as well.