Business Articles

German and Austrian authorities have dealt a major blow to online fraud networks. In the large-scale "Operation Herakles", investigators shut down nearly 14,000 phone numbers used extensively for fraudulent financial schemes. That said, the threat to consumers remains.

Nearly 230 million smartphones priced under $200 could disappear from the market by 2030. Counterpoint Research forecasts a 40% decline in the lowest-priced segment, even as the global smartphone market grows to 1.2 billion units.

Volkswagen is adjusting production at its German plants in response to changing orders. It is expanding EV production capacity in Emden and Zwickau, while its main plant in Wolfsburg is canceling planned extra shifts for combustion-engine vehicles.

Hyundai Motor Group has launched a pilot project in South Korea to reuse retired EV batteries. Its UBESS test system will assess whether used E-GMP battery packs can provide stationary energy storage at fast-charging stations, easing demand on the grid and reducing costs.

At an event at its Nevada factory, Tesla officially began volume production and customer deliveries of the production-spec Semi. The electric semi-truck uses components from Tesla's passenger cars and is designed to charge quickly enough for heavy-duty trucking.

Performance or comfort - business laptops like the EliteBook 8 G2a 16 typically choose a lower fan noise and thus comfort, but HP makes a different choice in this case.

Xbox has eliminated 268 positions, including that of Halo Studios' cinematic director, Josh Daniels, just days after his promotion, as part of its ongoing restructuring. Activision will lead development of the next mainline Halo game through a dedicated team, though no release window or project details have been announced.

The Bulkhead CEO claims that more expensive games would prevent layoffs and closures. According to Wardogs boss Joe Brammer, the GTA 6 cost should have been higher. The influential title could have established a new price point that eases ballooning development budgets.

GPT-6 Luna is the first GPT-6 model that ChatGPT Free and Go users can use at no extra cost. It only works in the desktop app, though, and not in the regular chat window. OpenAI has not published a usage limit. Paid subscribers get both Luna and the new GPT-6 Sol in Work and Codex.

Microsoft cuts 268 Xbox jobs, hands the next Halo game to Activision, merges Playground with Turn 10, and proposes closure of Ninja Theory amid wider studio reset.

Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 5.5 on Tuesday. Pro subscribers get it without paying extra, which is not how Fable 5.1 arrived, and the five-hour limits go up at the same time. Every subscriber also gets a rate limit reset to spend when they want. The app puts a deadline on it that the announcement leaves out.

Nothing has announced that its CMF sub-brand will now become a standalone Indian company that will have its headquarters in India and be majorly owned by Indian shareholders. Nothing will remain as a partner and shareholder.

Saudi Arabia's first automaker, Ceer, has unveiled 1,111-hp electric cars with a massive 48-inch 8K display. The electric sedan and SUV are expected to launch in early 2027 and offer up to 1,111 hp in their most powerful configurations.

Twenty years, sharper numbers. Asus ROG’s 20th anniversary at Computex 2026 marked two decades of gaming innovation across motherboards, laptops, graphics cards, handhelds, and high-refresh-rate displays. The company also detailed its rapid expansion in India, where broader retail reach, community engagement, local production, and simultaneous global launches have helped lift its share among the country's gaming audience.

AMD has surpassed a $1 trillion market capitalization for the first time after a five-day stock rally, driven by investor enthusiasm for its growing AI and data-center business. The company’s market value now exceeds Intel’s, although it remains well behind Nvidia.

Best Indie Games on YouTube, run by creator Clemmy, offers developers exposure for a fee. It now faces accusations from multiple indie developers that its paid marketing packages promise far more reach than they deliver.

Microsoft describes an advertising system in a new patent application that could deliberately interrupt games to display ads. PC, console, mobile and cloud gaming are among the potential platforms mentioned.

High performance in a compact design: The Minisforum M2 Pro combines the Core Ultra X7 358H and Arc B390 with extensive features and quiet operation. A well-rounded package that represents an attractive option at a fair price.

CESA cancels Tokyo Game Show 2026's final day, September 21, as Typhoon Dujuan nears Japan. Get ticket refund details, safety notices, and digital stream updates.

Chinese LCD panel makers BOE, TCL CSOT and HKC are raising prices as they gain greater control over the large-size TV panel market. The move could increase costs for Samsung, LG and other TV manufacturers ahead of the crucial holiday sales season.

Solar panels have gone from a costly energy experiment to one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity. The catch? The world's aging power grids weren't exactly designed for everyone to become their own power plant.

Snap has unveiled SPECS Intelligence, a personal AI assistant that isn't supposed to wait for specific questions. Instead, the system aims to understand habits, goals and schedules, proactively surface relevant information and even handle smaller tasks on request.

Anthropic is folding Claude Cowork into ordinary chat. Pro and Max accounts move first, in stages over the next few weeks. Claude Docs and Claude Slides arrive in beta on the paid plans. Accounts that have moved cannot switch back. Here is how to tell whether yours has.

The video game industry has shed tens of thousands of jobs since 2022, but the impact has been concentrated in North America and Europe. Data from an industry layoffs tracker shows Japanese publishers such as Nintendo, Capcom and Konami have largely avoided the same wave of cuts, and there are a number of reasons for this.

Lenovo and HP both have excellent 14-inch business laptops with Intel Panther Lake. Both the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 and HP EliteBook X G2i 14 are great choices for a work device.

Companies are working to reduce the steel industry’s heavy emissions. The world’s largest “green,” or near-zero-emission, steel plant is now set to begin operations in Sweden with Google’s help.

We loved the HP EliteBook X G2i 14 in our review, but our review device had one weakness: its screen. The HP SureView display offers a useful privacy feature, but impacts usability greatly.

AMD could reportedly raise prices for some chips by roughly 10 % in the fourth quarter as TSMC wafer costs increase. Ryzen CPUs have not been specifically confirmed as affected, but the reported increase could eventually push up prices for AMD processors and other components.

OpenAI has turned off automatic escalation to Thinking for ChatGPT Plus and Pro. Asking the model to think harder no longer changes anything. The stronger answer is still there, but you have to pick the level yourself. Plus accounts also run into a ceiling below the top steps.

AI’s data-center buildout could triple global e-waste over the next 25 years, according to a new report. The forecast highlights growing concerns about how discarded AI servers and related infrastructure will be repaired, reused or recycled.

When Intel announced its Intel Panther Lake CPU generation, also known as Core Ultra 300, they promised the same efficiency as Intel Lunar Lake with a significantly higher performance. A promise that Intel is able to keep, as the HP EliteBook X G2i laptop review demonstrates.

For many years, repairability in laptops had to take a back-seat to slimmer, more integrated designs. A trend towards the opposite direction seems to be finally emerging - not just with the prominent Framework Laptop, but also other examples: Like the user-removable keyboard of the HP EliteBook X G2i.

The iPhone Air was just $100 cheaper than the iPhone 17 Pro at launch last year, but that price tag fails to reflect on Apple's new trade-in program for the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro phones.

Installing wind turbines often requires heavy-haul transportation, but moving their enormous rotor blades can be challenging. Goldhofer has unveiled a new vehicle with a track width that can be adjusted under full load, improving lateral stability and potentially enabling shorter routes.

The Geekom IT13 2026 Edition remains true to its familiar NUC design but receives a significant hardware update. With the Intel Core Ultra 7 356H from the Panther Lake generation, the integrated graphics unit in particular is expected to offer significantly more performance. At the same time, there is a more affordable version with the Core i5-13500H.

About 347,000 Trezor newsletter subscribers received a warning about a fake hardware defect, sent from the real address mailing@trezor.io. It passed every authentication check because the newsletter provider Brevo had been breached. BitBox and CoinTracking were hit too. Here is what actually protects you.

Rebel Wolves, the studio behind Blood of the Dawnwalker, is looking for a new lead writer to work on the narrative for a sequel to the game. The game has been both a critical and commercial success, and the studio is reportedly looking to start work on the sequel as soon as possible.

Lenovo has taken the No. 1 spot in global x86 server shipments for the first time, IDC's figures suggest, helped by a sharp rise in demand for servers used to run AI workloads.

With the new EliteBook X G2i 14, HP has introduced a completely new keyboard design for this premium business laptop. After our review, we can say that HP made the right choice - hopefully, this design is coming to all HP EliteBook laptops soon.

GMX and WEB.DE are allowed to empty an unused free mailbox after 6 months and hand the address to another user after 12. Section 5.3 of their terms says so at both providers. Anyone still using that address at a shop, an insurer or an old account is sending their password resets to a stranger.

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis has warned that legal uncertainty could make stablecoin issuers and crypto exchanges hesitant to freeze funds suspected of being linked to illicit activity.

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly recovered toward the $80,000 level before losing momentum, with the cryptocurrency trading around $77,700 after a 1.4% decline over 24 hours. Glassnode analysts now identify the $83,000 to $86,000 region as a major hurdle for Bitcoin, while weak spot-market demand could make the recovery harder to sustain.

Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP memecoin has suffered a dramatic collapse shortly after launching, falling 97.8% from its early peak as trading activity exposed the token’s extremely thin liquidity. Despite the sharp decline, the foundation behind the project says it is continuing to support $LAPTOP.

The HP EliteBook X G2i 14 plays in a completely different weight class than its predecessor - but not actually in terms of weight, but in terms of performance. This is thanks to the new Intel Panther Lake platform.

A study by review platform Trustpilot shows that how companies handle returns is a major negative factor in customer ratings. This makes the after-sales process increasingly critical to building brand and customer trust. What does this mean in practice?

It could be so simple: Instead of being confronted with a cookie banner on every website, some even misleading, users could set their cookie preferences, including exceptions, once in their browser and be done with it. But the tracking industry (with Google in front) is pushing back against the European Commission’s proposal. Scientists, NGOs and companies have now joined forces in a coalition calling for the proposal to be implemented.

Recent Nintendo Direct events didn’t generate much excitement from investors. Even with a Zelda Switch 2 console and a crowded lineup of announced games, Nintendo's stock price declined sharply. Over the two days, shares in Japan fell nearly 9%.