Business Articles

This tiny basic smartphone runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (yes that is the pre-KitKat Android, no mistake here!) and is powered by the MediaTek MT6752A processor. Priced around US$90, it is scheduled to hit Japan later this week.

Although Samsung accounted for almost 34 percent of the US market compared to Apple's about 25 percent share in the second quarter of the year, the Cupertino-based company bounced back in the third quarter and gained the lead thanks to Samsung's declining sales during the given time frame.

Recent teardowns estimate that the iPhone X costs even less than previously thought to manufacturer at around US$357.50. While the iPhone 8 has a gross profit margin of 59 percent, the iPhone X's is 64 percent. Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded by stating that Apple's products are being priced at the "value" they are delivering.

Microsoft is reaching out to a company that specializes in photo apps to help Skype compete against Snapchat.

Although the first stable release of Google's operating system came out in 2008, the first public beta build of this open source project arrived back in the first days of November 2017, thus making Android as old as a decade.

Xiaomi has chosen Spain as the first country outside of China where they have a full business presence, due to the large and active fan-base there. Answers given during the Q&A session suggested that this new presence within Europe would simplify the importing of Xiaomi products to the rest of the European Union.

Lamborghini jumps on the autonomous car bandwagon, collaborating with MIT on its latest Terzo Millenio all-electric supercar concept. The Italians will never make their cars fully autonomous, but the next production models could integrate semi-autonomous functions that improve the owner's driving skills.

The Fitlet2 is one of the smallest full-featured mini PC on the market. It can be powered by Intel Apollo Lake Atom and Celeron CPUs coupled with up to 16 GB of DDR3L-1866 RAM, and supports M.2 / eMCC / 2.5-inch HDD storage solutions. It also comes with a fanless enclosure and it is marketed as an IoT gateway.

Since Qualcomm is known to go through some financial problems with the Apple lawsuit, the company could benefit from a change of management. Broadcom is currently considering to help with that, and Qualcomm's acquisition could result in a more consolidated market.

Marking the twelfth straight quarter of year-over-year decline, the third quarter of 2017 saw the tablet market slump 5.4%. Despite a bump in sales growth from 4 of the top 5 tablet retailers, the market as a whole continues its downward trend with no end in sight.

Bitcoin completed a record breaking week by hitting almost US$7600 in value over the weekend, before sinking even more sharply back below US$7000 during Monday trading.

For just US$60, gamers can purchase a GameStop Power Pass subscription, which allows for unlimited game rentals for a 6 month period beginning November 19. The icing on the cake is that gamers get to keep any rented game for themselves at the end of the subscription period.

Best Buy has put up the Essential PH-1 for sale at a bargain price of $449, $250 down from its launch price tag. The phone may have its issues but there aren't a lot of better devices for that price.

Nintendo has revealed sales figures for their 2DS/3DS line of portable games consoles showing strong sales figures of both hardware and software. Sales improved with the release of the new 2DS XL, and despite the success of the Switch, it had minimal impact on the 2DS/3DS shipment rates.

Samsung is hoping to attract prospective buyers of its S8, S8 Active, S8+, or Note 8 handsets by offering a free Gear VR headset or DeX station with each purchase.

Qualcomm has filed another suit against Apple, alleging that Apple may have broken their contract and intentionally shared the company's trade-secrets with Intel.

Despite shipping nearly 10 percent more smartphones this year, Samsung revenue dropped QoQ because of a more balanced sales distribution between its entry, mainstream, and flagship offerings.

Expect heavy advertisements for Intel Coffee Lake processors and HP Omen PCs when tuning into Blizzard's ambitious eSports broadcasts.

A joint venture partnership has been announced between Lenovo, the Development Bank of Japan, and Fujitsu which results in Lenovo obtaining a controlling share of the new collaboration.

The next gen 10 nm mobile CPU runs at 3.5 GHz and 0.5 V, with an outstanding energy efficiency of 0.25 mW/MHz. Additionally, Intel and ARM will update the existing Cortex A55 to Intel's 22 nm manufacturing process, which will enable it to run at 2.35 GHz and 0.4 V.

The ongoing Apple lawsuit proves to be a thorn in Qualcomm's side. Net income is down from US$1.6 billion to US$168 million compared to last year's Q4 report. SoC sales have not been affected, however, and the stocks did not drop too much.

Xiaomi is set to offer a number of deals for the 11.11 shopping festival in China, most notable of them being the new Mi A1 which will be available at a nigh-irresistible price of US$195.

The new QNAP TS-x77 NAS for business customers is powered by AMD Ryzen 5 1600 and AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processors and comes with 6, 8, or 12 bays. It runs the intelligent QTS 4.3 operating system and features up to 64 GB RAM.

Sony has released its financial report for the second quarter of its fiscal year (July - September), with its smartphone business seeing a decline in shipments. Growth of the Games and Network Services division, however, saw a total increase in revenue for the Japanese giants.

Huawei is set to release its flagship, the Mate 10 Pro, for the UK market. It will retail with a price tag of £699, which is pricey but still about par with the prices of other flagships released in that market.

Meizu executive Ard Boudeling has announced the company's plans of partnering with MediaTek for the development of facial recognition technology that will rival Apple's Face ID.

Samsung has released its business report for Q3 2017, with the company recording all-time high figures in revenue and profits. Its smartphone arm witnessed an increase in shipments this quarter, in spite of a comprehensive decline in profit.

Xiaomi has once again beat its record of 10 million shipments—a record made only last month—in what is, perhaps, the greatest testament to the company's remarkable growth this year.

Nearly all details of Razer's upcoming smartphone have been leaked a day before the official launch by a UK mobile provider. The massive phone will feature a 120Hz IGZO display, Snapdragon 835 SoC, 8 GB of RAM, and a 4000 mAh battery.

Canalys has released a report on the Chinese smartphone market, with data showing Huawei's slim lead over OPPO at the top of the pyramid, Vivo's and Xiaomi's growths, and Apple's rebound after a poor 2016.

Users who got an iPhone X when it went on pre-order on the 27th are billed to receive their units on November 3, with various carriers having begun shipment over the weekend.

While Samsung maintained its share of the Indian smartphone market unchanged in the third quarter, Xiaomi's local sales jumped from 6 percent in Q3 2016 to no less than 22 percent in the same period of 2017.

Microsoft's relationship with the developers of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds deepens as they transfer server hosting from Amazon Web Services over to Microsoft Azure.

Available with 280 GB or 480 GB of storage space, the new Intel Optane SSD 900P is up to 4 times faster than the mainstream SSDs currently on the market, also providing an impressive level of endurance.

The iPhone X went on sale yesterday and sold out in minutes, with the millions of buyers who could not secure one having a wait of up to six weeks on their hands.

Xiaomi launched an arm of its business in Russia earlier in the year and the company is set to continue the trend with another launch in Spain. The event is scheduled for November 7 in Madrid.

The Microsoft Store app will soon offer users to buy Surface and other partner hardware directly from within the app. Although hidden for now, this could be part of Microsoft's efforts to consolidate all marketplaces into one cohesive Store interface.

A healthy operating income outlook of +6 percent is expected for the next quarter with a slightly higher yearly revenue total of 62 billion USD by the end of 2017.

Intel's 10nm 'Cannon Lake' chips could land as soon as 2017-end, albeit in small volumes. The new chips, which will still be part of the 8th generation, are expected to go in full production by H1 2018 for a broad availability by H2 2018.

Qualcomm may be set to announce the release of the upcoming Snapdragon 845 in December, eleven months after the launch of its predecessor. There's also a chance the new SoC won't make its way into public hands till Q2 2018 when the S9 is released.

A user agent profile on TCL's website has revealed some details of the successor to the Blackberry KEYone that was released earlier in the year. It's a bare-bones profile for the most part but the presence of a Snapdragon 660 stands out.

Earlier this week, Skype for Android reached an impressive milestone. Its Google Play store page shows that this app has been downloaded over a billion times so far, also holding a 4.1/5 rating after more than 10 million user reviews.

Apple fans who want to pick up the company's newly released iPhone X could find themselves shelling out up to 50% more than MSRP to get their hands on one. Those who find the idea of paying scalpers hundreds of dollars more distasteful will probably face at least a 4-6 week wait.

Sony has announced the launch of two new entry-level devices, the R1 and R1 Plus, for the Indian market. Both phones are said to be manufactured by Foxconn in India, so we're a bit surprised that they still come with such relatively high price tags.

A report by Canalys has shown data pointing towards India's usurping of the US to become the second largest smartphone market in the world, with China standing at the top of the pyramid.

NVIDIA has announced the launch of the much anticipated GeForce GTX 1070 Ti as a successor to the hugely popular GTX 970. Featuring the same GP104 GPU as the GTX 1080 but just 128 CUDA cores short of its elder cousin the 1070 Ti, which will officially launch on November 2, is well poised to take the AMD Vega 56 head on.

Apple has recently introduced wireless charging to the iPhone series, and has now cementeted their position in the wireless charging market with their purchase of New Zealand based 'PowerbyProxi'