Business Articles

Announced in July, AMD's Radeon Pro WX graphics cards have finally started shipping to retailers. Are the workstation-grade cards an improvement on the previous FirePro line?

According to a rumor out of Chinese Weibo, Lenovo might plan to consolidate all of its phone business under the Moto brand. Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing might have confirmed this rumor after a conference in Beijing last week.

HP, Lenovo, and Dell collectively command over 50 percent of the worldwide notebook market with Asus, Apple, and Acer well behind.

Lenovo, the world biggest PC manufacturer, has released its newest quarterly numbers. The smartphone business continues to be a major problem for the company, as Lenovo is loosing millions with it. Only the PC business and the selling of company property (buildings) saved the company from loosing money overall.

When purchased alongside a Samsung Galaxy smartphone with a two-year plan on AT&T, this smartwatch has a price tag of just $49.99 USD. Without the handset, it comes for $17.50 USD per month for 20 months.

Sources familiar with the matter reveal that Samsung plans to run Tizen on a much wider range of devices than now by early 2017, including small appliances such as vacuum cleaners.

Bad news for Microsoft: After the free upgrade-offer is gone, the market share of Windows 10 is no longer increasing. This is revealed by the newest usage-share numbers from Statcounter and NetMarketshare.

Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Amazon are performing above user expectations while HP, Asus, Acer, and LG are below average.

With the announcement of the Surface Studio and Surface Dial, Microsoft has intrigued consumers with an innovative computing experience. However, Dell has recently unveiled an alternative to the Surface Studio they've been developing since 2014.

The long-awaited 6.4-inch Android phablet that brings Google Tango 3D to the masses can be purchased for $499.99 USD. The specs are those previously announced, including a QHD display and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, next to 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage.

Apple, Lenovo, and Samsung tablet sales are down while Huawei and Amazon are up significantly from the previous year.

Initially scheduled to become available for the ill-fated Note 7 phablet, the Blue Coral finish is now ready for the Galaxy S7 Edge handset. The colors already available for this phone include white, silver, black, and two gold flavors (platinum and pink).

While low-cost detachables managed to reach an all-time high, traditional tablets continue to lose market share. In the third quarter, Samsung has sold 6.5 million tablets, a 20 percent drop from the over 8 million units shipped in the same period of 2015.

The unlocked V20 smartphone/phablet is now available in the US via multiple carriers and retailers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, US Celullar, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Best Buy, and others.

The G51 graphics processing unit is the second one to use the Bifrost architecture and also ARM's most area-efficient and energy-efficient GPU to date. The V61 provides 4K120 video with increased efficiency. Both should be available in products for consumers next year.

Although Android 7.0 Nougat is quite fresh, the team behind CyanogenMod has decided to drop version 14.0 (based on this Android build) and focus on releasing version 14.1 instead, a CyanogenMod release based on Android 7.1.

The SM-W2017 handset, also known as Veyron, has been spotted recently receiving its FCC certification and rumors mentioned it more than just once or twice in the last months, even including a gold variant. Now, images of a rose gold variant surface online as well.

The Virginia-based wireless enterprise startup joins Samsung to enhance its offering by speeding up the secure configuration of third-party apps even when they do not provide specific APIs.

Apple released their earnings report for the fourth quarter of their fiscal year 2016. While some units, particularly Services, saw increases in sales, overall revenue is down about 9% from last year. This continues the trend of declining sales for Apple, although this decline is starting to slow.

High demand and production of Chinese smartphones are driving worldwide shipments at least through the end of 2016.

The co-inventor of the NFC technology is expected to join Qualcomm as part of a deal worth $47 billion. If the regulators do not delay it, this corporate acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2017.

Fujitsu and Lenovo have confirmed that both companies are in talks about a potential cooperation in the PC business. Its a confirmation of the rumors that surfaced earlier this month.

The upcoming 6.4-inch phablet that would bring the Google Tango 3D technology to the masses will go on sale November 1, carrying a price tag around $500 USD. Its specs are expected to include a QHD display, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, and 4 GB RAM.

This first connected luxury watch by Emporio Armani is the result of a partnership with Fossil and comes with basic features, but promises to offer an impressive battery life of no less than six months, all for a price tag starting below $250 USD.

After announcing that it would reach Canada this year, Samsung is now ready to launch its mobile payment service next month, when it will hit the local market offering support for CIBC Visa cards.

LG Electronics Inc. (LG) today announced third-quarter 2016 sales of KRW 13.2 trillion (USD 11.8 billion) and operating income of KRW 283.2 billion (USD 252.7 million). Its mobile division posts worst results ever.

Samsung Electronics reported a 17 per cent slump in third-quarter profit after the demise of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 smartphone threw the world's largest smartphone maker into a crisis.

According to preliminary results from IDC vendors shipped a total of 362.9 million smartphones worldwide in the third quarter of 2016 (3Q16). Despite the recall of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7, volumes were up 1.0%.

Loyal Galaxy users in Korea who had purchased the Note 7 may be eligible for deep discounts on next year's Galaxy flagships.

The overall PC market is relatively stable in the region as of Q3 2016 with only a slight decline in shipments compared to Q3 2015. Meanwhile, sales of business notebooks are offsetting the decline in demand for consumer notebooks.

Lenovo and AMD have introduced the first ThinkPads with AMD Bristol Bride Pro platform, which is supposed to rivals Intels vPro CPUs. The new models E475 and E575 are going to be available starting in early November.

According to IDC PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) performed above expectations, reaching 17.9 million units with a 3.3% YoY decrease in 2016Q3. Notebook shipments increased by 0.7%.

Worldwide shipments have reached almost 350 million while the giants Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi experience slight declines.

This year, Huawei launched its first PC, the Matebook. Next year, the Chinese company may plan to expand its PC portfolio. The rumors speak of two new models, although its unclear which form-factor these models will have - Convertible or Ultrabook.

The production volume of smartphones worldwide totaled around 350 million units in the third quarter of 2016. This represents a sequential quarterly increase of 10.4%, which is a new high for the year.

The new chip features ARM Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A53 cores, as well as the new Mali-G71 MP8 GPU, the same graphics adapter expected to drive the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 flagship.

With a target of 140 million units sold in 2016, it looks like Huawei is on the right path. Until mid-October, the company managed to sell no less than 100 million smartphones.

LG Germany will begin selling the previously announced mainstream LG G5 SE for a starting price that is higher than the current G5 flagship.

This 5.2-inch mid-ranger is a smaller, less powerful variant of the popular Axon 7. It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 3 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage, and can be pre-ordered for $299.98 USD.

With this new chip, Samsung continues to dominate the market by adopting an advanced 3D structure with multiple enhancements in both technology and design. The 10 nm chip offers increased performance and power consumption compared to its 14 nm predecessor.

Although the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 has been buried, it looks like its legacy is already present in the software of the smaller Galaxy S7 lineup, which has just received improved Always on Display capabilities.

The cellular versions of both the Samsung Gear S2 and the Gear S2 Classic get beta-stage support for the mobile payment service in the US three months after their regular variants.

Nicknamed "Yakkety Yak," this new release aims to enforce Ubuntu's position as the leading Linux for the cloud, including Hybrid Cloud Operations and Unity 8 developer preview, as well as multiple tweaks and optimizations.