Business Articles

The Mi Mix 3 was one of the most interesting device launches this year, with its manual slider possibly ushering in a new trend. The Xiaomi flagship has remained in China for the past couple of weeks but, if word on the grapevine is anything to go by, it could be coming to Europe on December 1.

T-Mobile looks like it has some great deals on some of the best smartphones released this year. Handsets like the iPhone XR and Galaxy S9 can be had for free, but reading the fine print shows a few caveats. In addition to activating two new lines and trading in an eligible device, the phones are only free because of a bill credit that is granted over a 36-month period, which effectively locks consumers into a three-year contract.

Samsung is one of the world leaders in curved display technology, and is to take flexible OLEDs even further with its upcoming foldable phone range. However, IceUniverse believes that the company has even more of the same up its sleeve; a 360-degree type of transparent display.

The first wave of EPYC 7000 CPUs were able to reach only 3.2 GHz on boost clocks, but with the new EPYC 7371, AMD pushes the envelope up to 3.8 GHz, which is quite high for server-grade processors that don't usually benefit from custom air coolers or water coolers. The EPYC 7371 is aimed at design automation and high-frequency trading tasks, supporting dual-socket setups for improved performance.

Although there are still some rumors involved — for example, that this handset will be a foldable one — at least Huawei has confirmed that its first 5G phone will be unveiled at MWC 2019, which is scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain on February 25-28. Other major brands will probably bring 5G phones at CES in January, but Huawei is not well received in the US nowadays.

As the studio winds up and begins liquidating assets, Telltale has apparently pulled some of its titles from Steam. Back to the Future and Jurassic Park (among others) are no longer available for purchase, though some of their bigger games like Game of Thrones can still be bought through Steam.

In an interview with Kotaku, Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime all but extinguished hopes for an N64 Classic release any time in the near future. He explained that while the NES Classic and SNES Classic were wildly successful, they were intended to be bridges between the dying Wii U and burgeoning Switch. As such, Nintendo has no intention to pursue the retro mini console business.

Yu Chendong, the consumer business division CEO at Huawei, has said that his company is aiming to take the smartphone-OEM crown from Samsung in under 2 years. It has already overtaken Apple as the #2 manufacturer in the world; now the CEO believes that they will be at least level with the Korean giant in 2019.

The small 11.6-inch Chromebook will have integrated LTE capabilities catered specifically for use on Sprint's 4G network. Instead of giving it away for free as an incentive for new customers, however, the carrier will charge upfront for the device on top of the $15 per month wireless plan required to use it.

Microsoft is offering a sneak peek at its Black Friday deals for 2018. They include US$330 off the Surface Pro 6 bundled with its Type cover (in any color so long as it's black) and $310 off the Surface Pro Core M. There is also a range of XBox offers, including a Game Pass for $1 to new users.

Asus claims its PC builder business (mainly the motherboard sales) has suffered due to Intel's 14 nm CPU shortages. Overall profits have seen a 39% year-over-year decline and the next few quarters will continue to hit Asus's profits, as the shortages are expected to last until Q2 2019. The gaming PC and server businesses are unaffected by these problems, however.

The year 2018 is coming to a close. Time for new ThinkPad laptops: With the ThinkPad E490 and the ThinkPad E590, the first models of the upcoming generation have surfaced on sites of Korean registration-offices.

Although Microsoft Translator supports over 60 languages and 12 speech languages, the next-gen Neural Machine Translation improvements are only available for Chinese and German from/to English translations for now. More languages will be supported by the new system — which brings an 11 percent in overall quality — starting in early 2019.

The British regulator Ofcom has announced that it has fined EE and Virgin Media £6.3 million (~ US$8.035 million) and £7 million (~ US$8.928 million) respectively. The regulator has fined the two companies principally for overcharging early-exit fees to hundreds of thousands of customers and for not explaining contractual terms clearly enough.

Sony has confirmed that it will not be part of the E3 2019 trade show. The organizer of the event, the Entertainment Software Association, has issued a press release to highlight which companies will be in attendance, including Sony’s console rivals Nintendo and Microsoft. According to a press statement, the PlayStation maker is apparently searching for new ways of engaging with its community.

Apple’s stock price seems to have stabilized and even briefly bounced back after days of steep decline. The NASDAQ community has offered a “bullish” rating for the stock, implying there is still plenty of optimism in the company’s recovery. However, it’s unlikely Mark Zuckerberg is going to be investing in the Cupertino-based firm any time soon.

SK Hynix has published a press release to announce the development of 16 Gb DDR5 DRAM, the first in the industry that meets JEDEC standards. The South Korean memory manufacturer has managed to lower the operating voltage for the DDR5 DRAM in comparison to DDR4. The new generation of DRAM is also considerably faster than its predecessor.

The United States and South Korea are the countries most strongly linked with the earliest widespread roll-outs of the new mobile data-transfer standard, 5G. AT&T is one of the US networks engaged in the upcoming national 5G distribution program. However, reps from the carrier have warned against getting too excited about it right now.

Intel has announced that it is opening a new development center in Hyderabad in the state of Telangana, India with a capacity to host about 1,500 staff. Raja Koduri, who is now leading Intel's graphics division, said that the upcoming India Development Center will help in augmenting its existing Indian sites in graphics hardware and software development efforts.

After this year's earlier AI-related acquisitions that involved Semantic Machines (May), Bonsai (July), and Lobe (September), Microsoft is up for another round. Its latest purchase is XOXCO, a software product design and development studio that has been developing conversational AI and bots so far.

While both Zen 2 and the Zen 2 based Rome processor were officially announced by AMD at its Next Horizon event, little information was given on things like clock speed, IPC improvements, and other performance figures and specifications. At this year's Supercomputing conference, however, we got some details on Rome's clock speeds.

Google Glass was the search giant's first attempt at smart glasses, and could clip onto transparent spectacles to deliver info and shots from its camera via an eyeball-level LED. It was not a popular release, not least because of its ultra-high price tag. Nevertheless, Google is developing second-gen Glass, which is to target corporations rather than consumers.

Samsung has unveiled its new premium SoC, the Exynos 9820. The chipset will be used on devices like the much-awaited Galaxy S10 and Note 10. It is built on Samsung's 8nm node and features the new Mali-G76 GPU found on the Kirin 980.

Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has told investors to temper sales expectations for the iPhone XR. Citing trade disputes, consumer fatigue, and steep competition, Kuo has slashed sales expectations for the iPhone XR by 35% for 2018Q4 and 30% for 2019Q1 and 2019Q2.

Xiaomi's launched its enthusiast-oriented Pocophone F1 a few months ago in Europe and India. The company is set to bring the device to South Korea on November 19, and it will be sold locally by SK Telecom, LG Uplus, and KT.

The nominations for The Game Awards have been announced and both God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 managed eight nominations apiece. Other big names securing multiple nominations include Marvel’s Spider-Man with seven, Fortnite with four, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with four, and Celeste with four. The awards will be handed out on December 6 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

Although Google's G Suite is more than enough for the office-related needs of many companies, Microsoft is working on a tool that would ease their migration to Office 365. If everything goes as planned, this "G Suite migration experience" should become available in the second quarter of 2019.

PlayStation 4 owners will soon be able to get their hands on the smash-hit battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). PUBG Corp and Sony have jointly announced that the title is now available for pre-order and will be launched on December 7. Four different editions will be available, and there are bonuses for those who pre-order the game.

Intel has unveiled its new XMM 8160 5G modem that will soon find place in phones, PCs, and other mobile devices. Intel is launching this modem half a year earlier than the supposed launch date. The XMM 8160 can handle data throughput up to 6 Gbps and will bring support for 5GNR standalone and non-standalone modes along with legacy radio support.

Microsoft has announced that it has resumed rolling out the Windows 10 October 2018 update having fixed and tested last month's file deletion issue. The update is available now on Windows Update for certain devices that Microsoft has determined will have no issues with the feature update.

Updated | Buried deep within the footnotes of AMD's announcement of Rome, it seems AMD is claiming an IPC improvement of about 29% when comparing Zen 2 to Zen 1. AMD did not disclose exactly how much more IPC Zen 2 had over Zen 1, but it seems 20% or more for at least some workloads can be expected.

Last week, Xiaomi opened up shop in the UK. The triumphant entry into the market was marked by a flash sale, the likes of which have almost become a Xiaomi trademark. Sadly, participants of the sale noticed a few irregularities and have cried foul.

The existing high-performance ThinkStation P series is not expected to have any major redesigns as the announcement relates only to the inclusion of Nvidia RTX. Applications ranging from university research to major game developers like Epic are just a few example clients who rely on ThinkStation products.

HP is ending the year with some 11.6-inch netbooks designed around classroom use. The ProBook benefits from many of the same security features found on EliteBooks like HP BIOSphere Gen4 while having pre-loaded software support for e-readers and classroom projects.

Previous rumors were saying that Navi would only match the GTX 1080 GPUs from Nvidia, and, according to some new information, this is more like a half truth. It looks like AMD is planning to release the mid-range Navi 12 in the first half of 2019, with the Navi 10 and 20 high-end models coming in late 2019.

A report from TrendForce has been published that forecasts the state of the tablet industry in 2019. Apple is expected to remain the leader in terms of market share, followed by Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo. However, it is the Chinese manufacturer Huawei that is expected to enjoy the most growth in the sector.

Stock prices for Apple have fallen again today, reaching a low of US$193.79 in the late morning. The price stood at US$204.47 at the previous close, meaning the Cupertino-based company has seen more billions of dollars wiped off its market cap. The new plunge has been attributed to an updated business outlook statement from Lumentum.

11.11 was a major sales event for Chinese and international e-sellers that took place (accordingly enough) on November 11. Xiaomi has reportedly had a marked success for the day, making US$747 million by the end of the promotional period. It was also the most popular brand in various price brackets.

The OnePlus 7 (or whatever it'll be called) will not be the company's first 5G phone keeping in mind the high costs of the technology. However, OnePlus is indeed testing 5G in Qualcomm's labs for incorporation in a possible new premium lineup. This could mean that we might see three smartphones from OnePlus next year.

Sony's PlayStation Now video game subscription service is leading the market by 52% followed by EA Access at 16% and Xbox Game Pass at 15%, according to a report by analyst firm SuperData. The firm also found that the price of subscription plays a major role in consideration for gamers and that subscribers tend to spend twice as much on in-game purchases compared to other gamers.

Although the recent teaser that Samsung has posted on Twitter only says "Intelligence from within" and contains the date of November 14, it is almost certain that this is all about the launch of the Exynos 9820 processor. This chip would make Samsung the third brand to enter the 7 nm realm, after Apple and Huawei.

The upcoming foldable Galaxy phone is going to be a dear proposition for a lot of people, according to a report by The Korea Times. The Galaxy F (or X) is estimated to cost around 2 million won or approximately US$1,770. The outlets quotes analysts who say that Samsung will be getting deliveries from parts suppliers this month and the company will be ready for a launch sometime early next year.

Bargain-hunters have spent a record US$30.8 billion via Alibaba in a single 24-hour period to celebrate Singles’ Day. The company managed to rake in US$1 billion worth of sales in just the first 85 seconds of the special shopping day. Singles’ Day is mostly celebrated in China by young single individuals, who take the opportunity to treat themselves to some famous brand-name goods.

LaCie, a subsidiary of Seagate, has released its latest portable SSD with USB type C. The company claims that it can transfer data at up to 540 MB/s and support up to USB 3.0 standards. The LaCie type C portable SSD is also supposedly shock-proof, despite its carefully styled 9mm-thick chassis.

The 6T is the late-year refresh of the OnePlus 6T. XDA-Developers has reported that the company has sold 86% more 6T units compared to those of the 6 on its first day on sale in the United States. This is almost undoubtedly due to OnePlus' new partnership with T-Mobile.

In a deal struck with Apple to begin selling the newest Apple products, Amazon has announced it will ban unauthorized third-party sellers from listing or selling Apple products through Amazon. While sellers can become an authorized Apple reseller, the qualifications are far out of reach for most small businesses. This move will inevitably kill many small businesses and Apple resellers that rely on Amazon as a storefront.

Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring both Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment today at X018, Microsoft's Xbox conference. Obsidian is perhaps best known for titles like Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Microsoft may be acquiring these studios to prop up the Xbox One's library of console exclusives.

While TSMC's new 7nm is already quite popular, being the basis for several processors from companies AMD, Apple, and Huawei, even more are announcing that they too will be fabricating their products at TSMC using their new process. Nvidia, Qualcomm, and more will be ordering chips from TSMC in 2019.