Business Articles

Amazon has revealed in a press release that the company has had a record-breaking holiday season, with products such as the updated Echo Dot and the Fire TV Stick 4K helping drive sales. The press release also described how Alexa has been utilized hundreds of millions of times during the festive period. The major American tech giants have finally had a reprieve at the stock market, making gains as consumer spending turns positive.

Some retailers have started offering Sony’s PlayStation Classic console at a much reduced price. In the USA, potential buyers can find the device for US$59.99, whilst those interested in the UK can get their hands on the mini console for £49.99. Sony released the PlayStation Classic on December 3, and it has been met with a generally lukewarm response.

Fallout 76 has been lambasted by users and critics over its significant bugs and lack of playability at launch. Its developers, Bethesda, has attempted to make restitution for these shortcomings through an offer of free access to older Fallout titles on PC to all who logged into '76, regardless of platform.

The small MXM form factor is getting its time in the spotlight now that gaming laptops are expected to make the transition from Nvidia Pascal to Turing soon. Eurocom is taking a jab at the “planned obsolescence” of most laptops whereas the CPU and GPU in many Eurocom laptops are easily upgradeable by the end user.

POCO India, a division of Xiaomi's popular sub-brand, has sent a tweet suggesting that a so-called '#NewPoco' is to be released tomorrow (December 25). Any excitement around such an announcement may be tempered by speculation that this "reveal" is not much more than a new color or RAM SKU of the pre-existing POCO F1, however.

The Zanco smart pen is a stylus with (nearly) all the features of a smartphone crammed into it. It has physical buttons, a click-pad, front and rear cameras and even a teeny tiny screen. It is intended as a smartphone replacement or companion (much like the Palm phone) and can also function as a Bluetooth remote for screens for purposes such as presentation. So far, it has raised just over US$50,000 on Kickstarter.

Honor's upcoming premium phone, the View 20, has been spotted on popular benchmark platform Geekbench, with it achieving scores consistent with other Kirin 980-powered phones. The phone is also touted to come equipped with a new liquid cooling technology.

AMD has launched two more entries to its Athlon range: the 220GE and the 240GE. Both processors come with Radeon Vega 3 graphics and offer base clocks of 3.4 GHz (220GE) and 3.5 GHz (240GE), respectively. The 220GE has been priced at US$65 and the 240GE has a price of US$75. The California-based company already announced the 200GE CPU back in September.

HP is currently holding a red tag sale and there are plenty of discounted laptops on offer for potential buyers. The sale includes high-end devices such as the HP Spectre X360 laptop with an i7-8705G and Radeon RX Vega M Graphics (4 GB) and the 15.6-inch Omen that comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060. At the other end of the scale, bargain-hunters can find the basic HP 14Z with 4 GB RAM for a price starting at US$199.99.

Matt Thorson, the director and designer of the platform game Celeste, has revealed on Twitter that the title has sold over 500,000 copies in 2018. The game was released on January 25 and has been met with critical praise and has won several awards. To celebrate the achievement, the developers intend on releasing some new levels.

Even the best speakers in smartphones struggle to produce even a relatively small amount of bass. Dirac, a rapidly-growing name in device audio, wants to change that with its new Dirac Bass feature. This tweak, which boosts the bass synthetically, is to be unveiled at CES 2019.

More renders of all four of Motorola’s upcoming Moto G7 phones have surfaced, giving us a clearer image of what to expect from the next set of the devices in one of the best-value midrange smartphones lines available in the US.

Some AT&T customers may start seeing a “5G E” label appearing on their Android smartphones soon. It might initially seem to some that the telecommunications company is already offering 5G network connection to its subscribers, but the truth is the label stands for “5G Evolution”, which is still classed as 4G technology.

According to new reports, the Honor V20 will ship for just over US$400. Honor phones have become synonymous with offering incredible bang for the buck, but the Honor V20 may very well push that to the absolute limit. It's expected to feature a triple rear camera setup, a camera hole, a 4000 mAh battery, and a Kirin 980.

Remember the touted Snapdragon 675-powered Xiaomi phone? Well, rumors say it could be the Redmi Pro 2, a direct successor to 2016's Redmi Pro. The Redmi Pro 2, if released, would be the top of the line Redmi phone.

Chinese company Gionee has finally filed for bankruptcy and is set for liquidation. The company is said to owe over US$3 billion to banks and suppliers, a situation compounded by reports of CEO Liu Lirong squandering over US$140 million at a casino last month.

Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google (Alphabet Inc.) have been experiencing further depressions in the stock market, according to recent NASDAQ data. Apple has seen its stock price fall under US$160 as Microsoft continues to lead in terms of market capitalization value. The Cupertino-based iPhone maker also has had bad news in regard to “Bendgate 2.0” and a legal battle against Qualcomm.

Qualcomm's patent war against Apple has escalated this December following bans in China and now Germany on the sale of iPhones. Intel has now accused Qualcomm of "stifling competition" in a scathing Intel Newsroom article that alleges Qualcomm's actions will only serve to "reduce innovation and increase prices."

The 2018 MacBook Air may be a good option for those who want the Apple-ultrabook looks for a more moderated price. B&H Is currently holding a sales event for this device, which takes between US$100 and $150 off most of its SKUs. However, these offers are only valid until December 22.

The My Office app will soon be replaced by a new piece of code that Microsoft has decided to simply name "Office" and that will be delivered as an automatic update in the coming months. The new app will also be available for download from the Microsoft Store, but its launch date is still unknown.

Samsung's 6.3-inch camera-centric mid-ranger that features no less than four cameras on its back is now finally ready to hit South Korean shelves. The 6 GB/128 GB memory/storage variant will be available for purchase in South Korea starting December 21 for the equivalent of around US$530.

HTC might only be a shadow of its former self nowadays, but it looks like 2019 will not bring any noticeable changes. Even worse, the company's president, Darren Chen, has recently revealed that the next HTC flagship will be "an extension of the latest U12 Plus" instead of an entirely new device.

Less than two years since it launched the Oath subsidiary, Verizon has decided to rebrand it as Verizon Media Group. This change will become effective on January 8, which also happens to be the day when next year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will open its gates for the public (after two days of media-only events).

Yesterday, NASA revealed that a possible compromise of its servers where personally identifiable information was stored has been under investigation since October 23. The servers have been secured since then, but NASA and its cybersecurity partners are still working on determining all the details of the data exfiltration.

A new post to the Android Developers Blog details the measures Google is taking to address the issue of fake reviews or ratings on the Play Store. They are described as a combination of AI and human expertise. The post claims that they have already resulted in the removal of millions of reviews from the Store.

A new leak based on a purported internal Apple document reiterates the rumor that Smart Battery Cases are coming back. This one suggests that this product will be compatible with the iPhone XS and XS Max only. On the other hand, the slightly disputable evidence does not match the leaked watchOS icon on which the earlier leak is based.

The latest JEDEC standards for high-bandwidth memory (HBM2) allows for 24GB rather than 8GB of memory, as well as speeds of up to 307GB per second, per stack. This effectively increases the amount of memory NVIDIA or AMD can put on a single HMB2 card to as much as 96GB, with bandwidths of 1.2 TB per second.

Less than 40% of all smartphones are thought to have LCD (or a variation on it) these days. This was reported as part of a new release from the analysis firm IHS Markit. It indicates that the type of panel once only associated with high-end Samsung phones are becoming much more commonplace and popular with manufacturers.

HTC has released a new phone, the Desire 12S, the latest in a brief list of smartphones to come out of the company's stables this year. Like the Desire 12 duo that was released at the start of the year, though, the Desire 12S doesn't get quite a few things right.

Huawei may have found stiff opposition from a number of governments since the new year but the company's smartphone division is definitely on the up. The company has confirmed that it will have sold 200 million smartphones this year by Christmas, a massive 30% increase from last year's 153 million figure.

UMIDIGI has released details on its upcoming new smartphone, the F1, on its official website. This device will come with Android Pie out of the box, as well as SD card support and a 5,150mAh battery. UMIDIGI claims that inbuilt AI helps the battery last longer over time by learning usage patterns and habits.

More renders and a live image of the upcoming Honor V20's retail box have surfaced. The Honor flagship is expected to be launched in China next week and will come with a 48 MP camera.

More than a decade after its founding, Tumblr has finally reached a critical point and has decided to turn into "a better, more positive" version of itself by banning adult content, including nudity (with some exceptions). The new guidelines will be enforced starting today, but the affected pages will not disappear overnight.

Razer has unleashed a version of its Raiju controllers for smartphones. It is ostensibly designed to compete with similar products made by Xiaomi and Asus, although it may fit devices besides the company's own gaming-focused smartphones. The 'mobile' Raiju features the Mecha-Tactile action buttons found on the Ultimate variant of this controller.

This week, Qualcomm succeeded in its petition to a Chinese court to have the sale or import of several iPhone models banned in the relevant jurisdiction. The company is also pushing the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) to take similar action. The ITC has stated that it will review the case and release its final verdict next year.

Discord, the popular communication client, has announced that they will begin a 90/10 revenue share scheme for the Discord store in 2019. This will give 90% of all revenue from game sales on the Discord store to the game developer while Discord keeps the remaining 10%. This is quite a shift from the typical 70/30 sharing scheme and a step further than Epic's 88/12 share.

In 2014, ZeniMax sued Oculus VR on allegations that CEO Palmer Lucky had stolen technology that made the Oculus Rift VR headset possible, and it became a 4 year long battle between ZeniMax and Facebook once the latter bought Oculus VR. Finally, the suit has been privately settled for some amount of cash.

During the launch event for the latest series of iPhones, many tech correspondents remarked on the company's official images which gave the impression that the devices lacked the profound notches that do in fact exist. It appears that this strategy worked too well in the case of one consumer, who is now reportedly suing Apple for misrepresenting the XS Max's appearance.

Despite winning a victory against Apple earlier this week, Qualcomm is continuing to pressure the iPhone manufacturer in China. Qualcomm is petitioning Chinese courts to expand the ban of iPhone sales to include the iPhone XR, Xs, and Xs Max. However, Apple is claiming that these devices should not be included in the initial ban as they run iOS 12. Chinese courts have yet to make a decision.

The second half of 2018 has not been kind to Nvidia at all. The crypto craze is gone and AIB partners are still overstocked with pascal GPUs, the trade wars in China are creating economic instabilities and the launch of the RTX 2000-series was not really what the green team hoped for. This series of unfortunate events lead to falling share prices and investors are on the edge now.

The respected Apple-focused business analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has made a departure from the general consensus in his industry that the Cupertino company will see 200 million iPhones sold in 2019. Kuo now asserts that this number will be significantly reduced compared to 2018. He has also revised his previous estimate on this subject for the first quarter of next year downwards.

During Intel's Architecture Day earlier this week, SVP Core and Visual Computing Raja Koduri and other key Intel executives gave an overview of upcoming Intel technologies including Foveros, a new 3D packaging system and Sunny Cove, a new microarchitecture based on the 10nm process that is slated to debut in both server and client CPUs in late 2019.

Asus has announced the resignation of the company’s long-term CEO, Jerry Shen. However, the executive plans to maintain a relationship with the Taiwanese manufacturer in his new position as chief of a start-up called iFast. In a change of marketing strategy, Asus intends to shift its focus on to gamers and power users in regard to future mobile product releases.

Initially thought to be an answer for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855, Samsung's Exynos 9820 or Huawei's Kirin 980, the Helio P90 seems to be aimed at premium mid-to-high-end phones. It still uses the 12 nm manufacturing process, so it cannot really compete with the latest high-end SoCs, but it does come with a more powerful GPU and an impressive APU 2.0 A.I. architecture that supports Google Lens and ARCore applications.

OnePlus launched the OnePlus 6T a few months and, for the first time ever, sold the device under the umbrella of a US carrier. That move has apparently paid off in style, with the company confirming that the OnePlus 6T has outsold the OnePlus 6 by 249% in the US.

Huawei has announced the launch of its new budget Enjoy 9. The phone will sport dual rear cameras, a Snapdragon 450, and a big 4000 mAh battery. A fingerprint reader is missing, however, and there may just be better value options on the market.

A product page for the Sony IMX607 CMOS sensor for smartphones has surfaced on Weibo. It is described as a 38 megapixel (MP) Exmor RS module with "advanced noise reduction", a novel dual Bayer-and-white HDR coding array and ambient light detection. Therefore, it may have enhanced low-light detection performance.

IDC has published a report with forecast projections for global smartphone shipments in 2018 and 2022. The research company expects a drop of 3% in 2018 followed by a small increase in 2019 that will carry on through to 2022. The total units shipped for 2018 is estimated at 1.42 billion while the 2022 estimate is put at 1.57 billion. Android should maintain a comfortable lead in terms of platform used.

Xiaomi has showcased the fact that 5G is for IoT devices too. This was done via a Tweet by a company spokesperson, containing a video showing how quickly the 5G-enabled variant of the Mi Mix 3 could relay commands to a connected lamp. Therefore, 5G may be an exciting prospect for smart-home fans too.