Business Articles

Red Hat has now spent 25 years developing and supporting Linux and other related open-source projects. Originally started by Bob Young and Marc Ewing in a small residential room, it has now grown to have annual revenue of US$2.9 billion and 11,400 employees, making it the largest open-source based company in the world.

British video-game developer Frontier Development has announced a release date for the upcoming game Jurassic World Evolution. The business simulation title will be available online from June 12, with physical copies of the game being made available from July 3. Jurassic World Evolution is coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Thanks to the increased demand of V-NAND memory chips from Chinese vendors, Samsung is building a second production line (valued at US$7 billion) in its factory located in Xi'an. The first line that started making NAND chips in 2014 now accounts for 20 percent of the brand's total production and will be soon expanded with additional investments.

There has been a reported malware attack on a Boeing production plant involving the infamous ransomware cryptoworm WannaCry. A spokesperson for Boeing described the event as “a limited intrusion of malware” as there were concerns about the worm affecting production and even airplane software. The destructive WannaCry attack of 2017 affected computers in over 150 countries.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has published a press release announcing the new video game Lego The Incredibles. An official announcement trailer, featuring the Parr family, Frozone and Edna Mode, has also been released. The game will be made available for the PC, Nintendo Switch, PS 4 and Xbox One in North America on June 15 – the same day that the Incredibles 2 movie is scheduled for release.

A study published by Princeton University has found that only 10.5 percent of the YouTube videos containing affiliate links assessed in their sample group adequately disclosed the nature of those links. The FTC requires the disclosure of any sponsorship or relationships with brands or retailers, but the regulations are more open regarding affiliate links where no direct sponsorship exists. The researchers are hoping to develop a browser extension that detects common affiliate programs and notifies the user of its presence.

Although the financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, we know that Tenor will continue to operate under the same name "to help people visually express their thoughts and emotions." Earlier this year — less than four years since it brought GIFs to mobile messaging — Tenor managed to reach the 1.2 billion search requests per month milestone.

The DGX-2 is the fastest AI computer on the market right now and can be also seen as the largest GPU in the world, thanks to the new NVSwitch system that interconnects 16 GPUs. It costs $399K, but it can easily replace US$3 million worth of 300 dual-CPU servers consuming 180 kilowatts. This is 1/8th the cost, 1/60th of the space, 18th the power.

Firefox has released an official extension designed to put a stop to Facebook's user-tracking. The extension puts all Facebook-related tabs into a sealed "container", preventing any tracking to be conducted beyond the site itself.

Developer Harebrained Schemes and publisher Paradox Interactive have announced the release date for the upcoming turn-based strategy game BattleTech. The title should launch on April 24 and will cost US$39.99 on either PC or Mac. It is also possible to purchase a digital deluxe edition of the game that will include an art book and the soundtrack.

In addition to the same camera configuration used by the Huawei P20 Pro (40 MP RGB, 20 MP monochrome, and 8 MP telephoto), the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS features 256 GB or 512 GB internal storage, an in-display fingerprint reader, a curved 6-inch 2K touchscreen, and is the world's first microcapsule PCM-cooled handset. All these innovations also come with a price: more than US$2,000 for the 512 GB variant.

AMD GPU prices may finally be coming down, but will the company’s stock follow suit? According to analyst Christopher Rolland, that may indeed be the case. A new Ethereum ASIC miner from Bitmain may threaten Team Red’s financial outlook, as Ethereum mining is estimated to be responsible for about 20% of AMD’s sales.

Far Cry 5 has been officially released and Nvidia has supplied a Game Ready driver for the latest installment of the famous Ubisoft series. The game has received a number of positive reviews already, even though it has courted controversy with its themes. The first-person shooter is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Two years after it no longer supported Android, desktop, tablets, or payments of any kind, the Firefox Marketplace is ready to shut down for good. Those still using a Firefox OS-powered device have just 3 days left to download any apps they have removed for some reason but would like to keep around.

The much anticipated Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 will launch this week if a tweet by Dell's Frank Azor is anything to go by. The launch of the Intel 'Kaby Lake-G'-powered convertible has eluded fans ever since it was announced at CES 2018 and Azor's tweet could offer some respite for those looking to lay their hands on one.

After spending 8 years with HTC and the last 4 of that period as the company's Vice President of Product Management, Mo Versi has left behind the troubled company that once controlled over 10 percent of the global smartphone market. Versi is known as the official source of Android update details for HTC customers and previously worked for T-Mobile and Samsung.

Foxconn is set to acquire Belkin, and with it, Linksys and Wemo. The US$866 million deal is, however, subject to review by the US Committee on Foreign Investment.

It seems actor Steven Seagal is no longer the brand ambassador for the cryptocurrency Bitcoiin. Agents for the virtual currency (VC) have claimed that a soft cap of US$75 million has now been reached, meaning that both the founders of Bitcoiin and Seagal will “exit” from any further direct involvement with the controversial VC. The State of New Jersey recently issued a cease and desist order to the token’s founders.

Fortnite continues to garner impressive statistics, this time drawing in over one million viewers during a YouTube live gaming stream. The popular Spanish YouTube personality, elrubiusOMG, held a special global gaming event and invited 99 people to join him in a Fortnite Battle Royale spectacular. The roughly three-hour session ended up attracting 1.1 million concurrent viewers at its peak.

Also known as the Imagine, HTC's upcoming U12+ will be the brand's next premium flagship. Sadly, this handset that is supposed to debut as a direct competitor for the Huawei Mate, Apple iPhone X, or the Samsung Galaxy Note will remain the only such device to be released by the Google-owned HTC this year.

Acer has unveiled a Chrome-based tablet aimed at the education sector. This is the first tablet to be released using Chrome as its operating system, and Acer has given it the name Chromebook Tab 10. The 9.7-inch device includes a Wacom EMR Stylus and should be available in North America from April onwards. The reported price for the tablet is US$329.

The Mondaine Helvetica Regular has just been unveiled in Basel and will hit the market by the end of the month for a price of around US$640. Compared to its predecessor, it features a smaller case and can receive notifications. Since it is not a regular smartwatch and has a limited set of features, the battery lasts for about two years.

Since 2013, all ThinkPad laptops with a 15,6-inch screen have included a dedicated numpad. As a reaction to many complaints about this state of affairs, a Lenovo employee in the companies own forum has announced that the PC manufacturer will finally release a new model without a numpad. This new ThinkPad will be launched in 2018.

Since Porsche Design and Huawei-related promo materials have been already spotted in Paris at the location where the P20 and P20 Pro will be unveiled tomorrow and the name of the upcoming Mate RS is no longer a secret, it only remains to see what hides under the hood of the new limited edition luxury device.

A teardown of Facebook's user data archive has revealed the fact that the company collects private user data including well-detailed call logs and text metadata. The company has been involved in a number of cases pertaining to privacy issues, and this is just another icing on the cake.

OnePlus has announced that it will no longer sell the OnePlus 5T in North America. The 5T was released in November, just four months ago, so this could go down as the shortest sales cycle of any device ever. It, of course, also means that we’re close to the release of the OnePlus 6.

The instant messaging app created by the founder of the social networking site VK continues to grow, although it still has a long road ahead until it can challenge Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. Telegram Messenger was used by 200 million people within the 30 days for the first time — as many users as the population of the sixth-largest country in the world.

Although the next-gen iPhone flagships are not expected to feature any major changes in terms of design, insiders familiar with the inner workings of the Cupertino-based giant claim that Apple is currently working on a foldable smartphone that could also be used as a tablet and this device will hit the market in 2020.

Nightdive Studio's remake of 1994's cult classic System Shock, previously put on hiatus in February, is now reportedly back on track and angling for a Q1 2020 release. In addition, a preview of the latest build of the game should be available for Kickstarter backers in early April.

Samsung, Apple, and now LG will be ramping up R&D on the potential applications and commercialization of MicroLED panels for portable devices. The technology may eventually spill over to laptops since its advantages over LCD and even OLED are numerous. LG is remaining tight-lipped on when we can expect to see the first smartphone utilizing MicroLED.

A new 4 x 4 km PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) map has been teased at the Game Developers Conference that has been taking place in San Francisco. PUBG’s developer announced that the public testing phase for the latest map will start in early April. The intent behind releasing a smaller map is to create a more intense style of gameplay.

The battle royale version of Fortnite eclipsed PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) for the total amount of Twitch weekly unique viewers and revenue earned in February. Fortnite had 14 million unique viewers on Twitch by the last week of February whereas PUBG had 8.7 million. The game from Epic earned US$126 million last month, while PUBG managed US$103 million.

Having received the "Best Mobile Innovation for Payment" award at the annual Global Mobile Awards (GLOMO Awards) earlier this year, Samsung Pay has just reached Italy. This mobile payment service works with quite a few Samsung devices, including the new Galaxy S9/S9+ flagships.

The creator of the Steam Spy website, Sergey Galyonkin, has claimed that 2017 has been a very good year for the video-game distribution platform Steam. He stated that the platform made an estimated US$4.3 billion in revenue from paid game sales, up from US$3.5 billion in 2016. Steam was developed, and is operated, by the Valve Corporation.

Best Buy has pulled out of its partnership with Huawei. This means that the Chinese OEM will no longer be able to sell its smartphones via the retail store. Best Buy was Huawei's major channel of selling smartphones in brick-and-mortar stores, so this kills the company's hopes of making any headway in the US.

The new Exynos 7 9610 SoC consists of four Cortex-A73 cores, four Cortex-A53 cores, and a Mali-G72 GPU that supports 480 fps full HD recording and video encoding/decoding up to 4K 120 fps. According to Samsung, this new chip for mobile devices will enter the mass production stage in the second half of this year.

The three new CTL NL7 Chromebooks feature a rugged design and use Intel Apollo Lake processors up to the quad-core Intel Celeron N3450. The cheapest model starts at US$229, while the Wacom pen-enabled one has a price tag that reads US$329. All of them will hit the education market next month.

Jack Dorsey believes that Bitcoin can take over all fiat currencies of the world in about 10 years, but before this could happen, the cryptocurrency needs to get over a few problems it is currently facing. Besides faster transaction times and lower fees, Bitcoin needs to stabilize the volatility and the mining cetralzation, plus it most likely needs solid regulations.

The AMD RX-412ND-powered QNAP TS-x73 lineup targets small businesses and power users, featuring 4, 6, and 8 drive bays. In addition to the aforementioned processor and 4 GB or 8 GB of memory, its list of features also includes 2 PCIe Gen3 x4 slots for increased flexibility, 4 USB 3.0 ports, and 4 Gigabit LAN ports.

Scheduled to be generally available in the second half of this year, Windows Server 2019 is now accessible via Microsoft's Insiders program in a Preview stage. This operating system is based on the foundation of Windows Server 2016 and is expected to have the same licensing model as its predecessor.

Huawei has launched the first of the P20 smartphones, the P20 Lite, in Europe and China with the Chinese variant being christened the Nova 3e. With a midrange Kirin 659 at the helm of affairs, the P20 Lite features a notched 19:9 display and retails from Euro 369.

Bitcoin has received a significant boost in market value that has been put down to “very productive” discussions about cryptocurrencies and regulation at a G-20 meeting. The leading cryptocurrency has seen its value battered recently due to a number of market-related events, including pressure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission for tighter regulation.

The French multimedia conglomerate Vivendi has given up with its attempt at a hostile takeover of Ubisoft. Vivendi has been buying shares in the latter company for several years now, giving the impression that the mass media giant intended to buy out the famous independent video-game publisher. However, it has now been reported that Vivendi has decided to sell all the firm's shares in Ubisoft.

Unleashed by SYBO and Kiloo back in May 2012, Subway Surfers managed to break the 400 million downloads barrier last year, thus becoming the most downloaded game of 2017 worldwide. Earlier this month, it also reached the 1 billion downloads milestone, so now this title is the most downloaded game on Google Play.

Just one month and a few days after the introduction of Samsung's 30 TB SSD, Nimbus Data pushes the size of the world's largest such drive to the impressive value of 100 TB. Compared to the previous owner of the crown, the new king of the storage market draws 85 percent less power per TB and has a 42 percent lower total cost of ownership per TB. The 100 TB model will be accompanied by a 50 TB one and both will be available this summer.