Business Articles

Sony has released a new video clip in relation to the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2018 event that does not actually feature a physical handset. What new smartphone development is Sony possibly planning to reveal at the trade show in Barcelona next week?

South Korean tech giant Samsung has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a flying display device. Illustrations of the device show it to look like a cross between a tablet and a quadcopter.

A report by analytics firm Digitimes has projected Xiaomi to overtake OPPO and become the second biggest Chinese smartphone brand in the world, just behind Huawei.

The United States Air Force has made bounty payouts totaling US$103,883 to hackers invited to test the force's systems and software. The event ran from December 9, 2017 to January 1, 2018.

Two of the class-action suits involve Intel's own shareholders and board members, essential pitting Intel against Intel in court.

White House spokesman, Rob Joyce, doesn't believe the US government is ready to attempt regulating Bitcoin until the good and bad aspects of the cryptocurrency are fully understood. The US official was discussing the topic at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Apple Park may look like a futuristic marvel but apparently it has been causing a number of painful incidents for workers due to its abundance of glass features. It seems distracted Apple employees are walking straight into the surrounding glass panels.

Announced as Surface for Windows 8 Pro back in June 2012, Microsoft's well-known 2-in-1 convertible was later renamed to Surface Pro and made its debut in February 2013. The fifth generation was released last year, in June.

Google has announced that it intends to acquire the Internet of Things platform Xively in order to expand its own Cloud IoT Core infrastructure. Google will pay US$50 million for the takeover.

Atari has announced that it will be developing a digital currency called Atari Token. Atari (incorporated in 1972) was once a huge player in the video-game industry but struggled to compete against Sony, Sega and Nintendo in the game-console market of the 1990s.

An email has been leaked showing the CEO of Insel Games appearing to threaten staff job security if they didn't post fake reviews of one of their games on Steam. After looking into these claims, Valve has decided to remove the developer from the Steam Store, but their games are still playable for those who have already purchased them.

Data by Counterpoint has hailed HMD as being the 11th largest smartphone brand in the world right now, ahead of traditional giants like Sony, HTC, and Lenovo.

Google is planning on bringing its Google Assistant service to a large number of new countries and the voice assistant will also support multiple new languages in 2018. The company has announced this during a presentation at the Digital New Initiative Summit in Amsterdam.

The imminent release of the LitePay service lead to a sudden appreciation for Litecoin over the past few days. Litecoin is thus expected to become more useful and appreciate even further as LitePay is compatible with Visa-enabled online/offline sale outlets.

The well-known worldwide shortage of GPUs has had an unexpected knock-on effect: It has temporarily hampered the search for aliens. Scientists working for SETI are having problems trying to purchase new GPUs which are used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The heads of a number of American intelligence agencies have backed a "no buy" list that includes devices produced by Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE. The agents praised American telecommunications companies for not bowing down to pressure from the Chinese to sell their products.

The Amazon Music app for Windows 10 became available for download from the Microsoft Store yesterday. However, it is only available for those running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update or a later edition.

All PC manufacturers are eagerly awaiting the release of the upcoming mobile Hexa-Core processors from Intel (codename: Coffee Lake). According to a leaked internal document, HP may be working on new Elitebook convertible laptops with these new chips.

Although Google is still way behind the giants that are Apple and Samsung, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL reached more than 3.9 million customers in 2017. However, both Google's handsets arrived in October, making this number of sold units quite impressive.

A report created by research company TrendForce has revealed a total of 164.7 million notebooks were shipped in 2017. This compares to 161.2 million units shipped in 2016 and a forecast of 163.8 million units expected to be shipped in 2018.

A leading market intelligence research company has issued a report forecasting smartphone market share gains for Apple in 2018. Samsung remains in the top spot but could see a drop in overall market share.

Financial regulators have issued warnings that a massive price crash involving Bitcoin and other popular virtual currencies (VC) would lead to financial ruin for many investors. The lucrative VC market is currently worth hundreds of billions of dollars but is notorious for its series of soaring peaks and troughs.

Huawei's upcoming smartwatches could be able to detect writing movements performed in mid-air using fingers. This new gesture control method has been described in a patent dated July 2016, so it might become reality pretty soon.

In addition to the LG Vision AI and LG Voice AI features, the next-gen LG smartphones will also come with a set of exclusive voice commands for Google Assistant. These technologies will be shown at MWC 2018 starting February 26.

The only major US carrier that offered completely unlocked devices decided to change its policy due to theft, so Verizon Wireless customers who get a new phone now have to go through a probationary period that lasts from the purchase date to the activation of the service.

The Japanese PC-manufacturer Fujitsu has announced a recall for some laptop batteries used in older Lifebook and Celsius laptops. As in many past cases, fire hazard is the reason for this recall.

Microsoft has announced support for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, a Windows 10 only feature, to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1. This is to help organizations protect themselves during the transition to Windows 10 from the aforementioned OSs.

Micron has announced a lineup of enterprise SSDs using QLC NAND memory and will release the drives soon. These will be among the first available solid state drives using the cheaper QLC technology.

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities exposed inherent flaws in hardware and software design, which we've been using for many years. Chip vendors and developers alike are scrambling to quickly release fixes to prevent any damage to customer data. Intel, AMD along with motherboard partners and Microsoft have released security patches over the past month to cover the necessary mitigation. This tutorial will help you in determining whether your PC has received the required mitigation so as to thwart any potential abuse of these vulnerabilities.

While the Redmi Note 5 is headed for India and expected to arrive on February 14, it looks like the Mi TV is going to be introduced locally on the same day.

There are rumors that Amazon is in the process of developing new artificial intelligence chips to be used in hardware that features the company's virtual assistant, Alexa. The chips could help reduce response times by utilizing speech recognition software.

Microsoft Launcher, the Android app once known as Arrow Launcher, has reached version 4.6 and finally received full Cortana support. This digital assistant can make calls, schedule meetings, change the wallpaper, and more.

HTC released its sales numbers for the month of January, with revenue showing a steep decline across the board.

With ransomware on the prowl every other day, it has become all the more important to ensure that critical files are protected from being encrypted or altered. The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update includes a new functionality called Controlled Folder Access that can help prevent modification of critical files and folders by unauthorized software. This tutorial will show you how to enable this functionality to protect both personal and corporate data.

Fujitsu's PalmSecure authentication sensor technology, built in to their business laptops, is getting full integration with Windows Hello for a contactless login option that doesn't involve facial cameras.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained a group of scientists who attempted to use a supercomputer at a top secret nuclear facility to mine Bitcoin. Security was alerted when the would-be miners tried to connect the computer to the Internet.

Activision Blizzard Inc. has released financial results for 2017 which show over $7 billion in net revenue. A substantial portion of this revenue has been provided by in-game transactions, in part enhanced by the American company's purchase of King.

Although the long-awaited Dislike button is far from arriving, Facebook confirmed they are currently testing a Downvote button that allows users to flag and hide comments.

Back in November, Qualcomm's Board of Directors rejected Broadcom's US$105 billion acquisition offer. Now, even after an increase to US$121 billion, the negative answer of the board remains unanimous.

Honor France has released a timeline for the OTA rollout of EMUI 8 for various Honor devices. The rollout starts from 7th February and continues into Q2 2018 depending on the Honor variant.

Reported rumors suggest that Google is working on a game-streaming service, codenamed "Yeti." Gamers could potentially access the service and play new games on their TV via the Internet. Is there also a possibility of a new Google-branded console as well?

Developers for the massively popular multiplayer online battle royale game PUBG will be introducing a new patch for their product that includes new anti-cheat measures to combat players utilizing hacks and codes. The patch will go live on February 8.

ASRock has announced the Rack D2100D8UM with support for the Intel Xeon D-2100 processor. The motherboard is an integrated platform and can be ordered with any of the newly launched Xeon D-2100 series SoCs.

The industry's first 256 GB eUFS 2.1 solution for automotive applications that incorporates advanced features of the UFS 3.0 standard can handle a temperature range between -40° C and 105° C and provides a sequential read speed of up to 850 MB/s.

Sony's third quarter results for 2017/18 show the company is performing well regarding profitability, with gaming, financial, semiconductor, and music standing out for income contribution. Mobile communication profitability drops further as Sony tries to breath new life into their smartphone designs.

The new Xeon D-2100 processor architecture allows for up to 18 "Skylake-server" generation cores and was designed to provide lower-power processing to multiple enterprise applications, focusing on the needs of data centers and network operators.

In a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee chairman, Apple has hinted at possibly offering a rebate to customers who bought replacement batteries at full price because of the "Batterygate" controversy. Apple reduced battery prices from $79 to $29 in an attempt to appease users who saw an iOS update throttle their devices. Users were not notified beforehand that the software would slow down performance.

HP has announced upgrades for the top-selling Elitebook 800 series, with the 830 G5, 840 G5, and 850 G5. Side bezels have been shrunk on all three, with the 12.5-inch model now getting a 13.3-inch screen in the same body size. All models have an optional integrated display privacy filter, and a selection of business-centric features.

Dell has listed new PowerEdge servers powered by AMD EPYC CPUs for order. The EPYC-based servers are available in 1U and 2U rack sizes and can be extensively customized based on the requirements of the enterprise while still offering a high performance per dollar compared to equivalent Intel Xeon-based servers.

Phones sold through Amazon's Prime Exclusive Phone program will no longer display lock screen ads, according to the retailer. The phones, which which were sold at prices substantially lower than MSRP, will instead feature Amazon-centric apps only while retaining (most of) their discounts.