Business Articles

Barely did the ink under the FCC approval signature dry, and SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet announced a new pricey Maritime service for commercial ships, oil rigs, or premium yachts. Nothing is stopping people with recreational boats to get Starlink Maritime, too, save for the monthly tag and equipment fees.

The eccentric billionaire is apparently no longer willing to buy the social network Twitter, as his lawyers claim that the company has broken several contractual obligations which caused him to back out of the controversial deal worth around US$44 billion.

ViewSonic is no stranger to making enterprise-grade LED displays of up to 216 inches in size for a standalone, plug-and-play installation experience. However, it claims to have outdone itself in this respect with the latest addition to its All-in-One Direct View series. It boasts the OEM's latest Chip-on-Board form of LED packaging, rated to make the resulting massive 4K panel brighter, finer and more durable than ever before.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra has received plenty of media attention for its 1-inch Sony IMX989 main camera. It appears, however, that the new Xiaomi flagship may not have the honor of being the first phone with that sensor, with a lesser-known device beating it to the punch back in May.

The 16-inch Precision 7670 and 17.3-inch Precision 7770 start at $2399 and $2489 USD, respectively, with options up to the Core i9-12950HX CPU and high refresh rate 4K panels.

The demand for refurbished smartphones, defined here as those repaired and then re-sold by the OEM in question, is now projected to rise by an extent that brings multi-billions in US dollars to their market over the next 4 years. It may be driven by business in the APAC region, which might contribute nearly 50% of its sales until 2026.

A new leak has now revealed Motorola's product roadmap starting now and on to 2023 and beyond. Some notable takeaways include the Edge 40 series, the Razr 4, and a premium rollable phone. There are, of course, some budget and mid-range phones planned, too.

Leica has officially jumped ship to Xiaomi today (July 4, 2022) in terms of premium camera smartphone collaborations. Its former partner, Huawei, has responded by instituting something new called XMAGE, a spin-off of sorts from the OEM's Mobile Imaging division touted to keep its reputation for photography prowess going in the future.

The FCC has ruled both for and against the Starlink service of SpaceX, saying that Elon Musk's company may now provide Internet in moving cars, planes, recreational vehicles, ships, and other moving objects. It, however, has to be willing to accept some form of interference from both 'current and future services.'

The MediaTek Dimensity 8100 is widely regarded as being, perhaps, the best Android chipset on the market right now thanks to its unrivaled balance of performance and efficiency. MediaTek looks set to build on the success of the chipset, with word now surfacing of a direct successor.

It seems to have been one thing after another for the smartphone market over the last 2 years. Now, Counterpoint Research has observed that it has dipped below the 100-million mark in terms of global sell-through for the second time since 2020. By contrast, the same figure had not been so low for nearly eight years prior to that.

Innocn's latest monitor has a lesser-spotted combination of a 43.8-inch length, a WFHD resolution and an aspect-ratio of 32:9. The resulting "Super Ultrawide" form-factor also has a 3-side-near-bezelless design, DisplayPort, HDMI and USB type-C connectivity. Accordingly, the OEM touts its new display as ideal for work, gaming and much more.

The Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro already undercut the competition in terms of pricing, with the US$599 Pixel 6, in particular, being an excellent value option. Buyers of the Pixel 6 series have more to gain in a potential repair situation, too, as the displays of the phones cost significantly less than rival models from Samsung and Apple.

Meta has warned its employees to brace for slow growth in the second half of 2022. Along with slimming down budget increases, Meta is also freezing the hiring of new engineers to cope with the anticipated downturn. Per Reuters, the company is looking to hire 30% less talent than before.

Samsung has announced that it has successfully begun the process of manufacturing its inaugural chips of a 3 nanometer (3nm) architecture, projected to become the cutting edge of consumer processing power in 2023. The OEM already claims that its first-gen 3nm silicon is capable of performance that is over 20% improved compared to that of its 5nm predecessor, with a ~50% boost to power-efficiency on top of that.

As the name suggests, Schenker pitches the WORK series of laptops as all-rounders for the office. Its latest 15- and 17-inch variants now have refreshed mid-2022 (M22) models with 12th-gen Intel Core i5 or i7 processors. Therefore, they still have Thunderbolt 4 and up-to-date security features, yet are rated for "significantly" improved performance over their Tiger Lake-H35-based predecessors.

ARM has made the Cortex-X3 official today. With its up-to-25% performance boost over the X2, It will probably be a marquee core for next-gen flagship mobile SoCs; however, the OEM asserts that the equally new A715 and refreshed A510 have their places right alongside it thanks to their complementary power-efficiency and scalable specs.

Samsung has now made the Galaxy XCover6 Pro official. The OEM's latest rugged smartphone is also its most premium, being the first of its line with a 5G-capable SoC, a high-refresh-rate display and a 50MP main camera. Then again, these specs are tipped to make the 6 Pro surprisingly expensive for what is often a standard-issue work phone.

OnePlus touts its Nord N20 as an excellent entry point into the 5G smartphone market. Then again, this route has only ever gone through T-Mobile in the US thus far. However, it is now available in the same country as a carrier-unlocked device through its own brand as well as other sellers such as Amazon from now.

Volkswagen has now officially elaborated on teasers of a concept car known as the ID. AERO. The company has affirmed that it is to be a real-life vehicle and will, despite initial hints at Chinese-market exclusivity, eventually be rolled out worldwide. Some more prospective specs and design features of the upcoming 'e-Passat' have also now been shared.

Lenovo uses Alder Lake P28 in its new ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10. These new processors with an increased core count seem impressive on paper, but they do not hold up to scrutiny in practice.

Qualcomm asserts that its latest radiofrequency front-end (or RFFE) solution is the ideal companion for an up-to-date mobile modem, as it confers the new spec of "5G/Wi-Fi coexistence" on a given device, as well as battery savings and improved performance. It is compatible with smartphones - as well as other use-cases such as IoT, VR headsets and in-car systems for the first time.

Qualcomm has now revealed the date of its next Snapdragon Tech Summit. If previous years are any indication, this event will likely see the global debut of the company's next-gen flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Apple enjoyed the biggest share of the premium smartphone market worldwide in the first quarter of 2021 (1Q2021), and was not even slightly shaken from this lead in 1Q2022, with even more of a share at 62%. It was a surprisingly good quarter for the sector overall, with major wins such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, even though it shrank by 8% year-on-year (YoY).

Sales data from China's just-concluded 6.18 sales are in, providing some insights into what models are currently the most popular in the world's biggest smartphone market. The iPhone 13 is undisputed king, it appears, with Xiaomi dominating by taking the other nine spots in the top ten.

TSMC has outlined its latest semiconductor technology during its 2022 North America Technology Symposium. N2 is in fact the next generation on from the "cutting-edge" N3 and N3E FINFLEX architecture, on which the highly-anticipated 3 nanometer (nm) processors rumored to dominate 2023 are to be based. However, TSMC claims that N2 will be even faster again with greater power efficiency.

Volkswagen has confirmed it has plans for an upmarket, variant of the all-electric ID. vehicle line. The AERO is in fact being teased as a flagship of the series, although it is only aimed at one market. Then again, it only exists as design sketches showing a car of a long, flowing silhouette with hallmark e-VW accents.

Apple is re-evaluating iPhone 14 displays produced by BOE if a report from The Elec is to be believed. Following a controversy where Apple caught BOE changing the panel circuitry of the iPhone 13 without its approval, Cupertino had suspended BOE as a display provider. The display row also put BOE's contract to manufacture iPhone 14 panels in jeopardy.

Samsung is now rumored to launch the full-scale manufacture of its next-gen, 3 nanometer (3nm) chips by very late June or early July 2022. Doing so would allow it to beat its rival TSMC to announcing such a breakthrough. The South Korean giant is expected to apply its patented form of gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) to its latest cutting-edge production node.

The 13.3-inch model integrates two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 5G WWAN connectivity, Wi-Fi 6E, and a 16:10 2560 x 1600 display all in a chassis weighing less than 3 pounds. Intel Core U-series CPUs come standard with no Core P options.

Controversial PC builder Artesian Builds is putting up its assets for auction in an attempt to pay off debt after filing bankruptcy. The assets being auctioned off include thousands of PC components, partially-built PCs, and GPUs.

A new report suggests that 18% of Samsung's inventory, or 50 million smartphones, are lying around in its warehouses. They are mostly mid-range Galaxy A series devices which haven't sold well because of low demand.

The model promises more than 50 percent faster performance than previous generation SFF desktop workstations. Its new chassis is fully ISV certified and also one of the first in its desktop workstation category to carry both ethernet and Thunderbolt 4.

New research suggests that Volkswagen will overtake Tesla as the world's largest producer of electric vehicles by 2024. The German company is already the top EV manufacturer in Europe, with new models such as the ID. Buzz launching this year. Tesla remains the number-one electric vehicle maker in the US, claiming 75% of sales in the first three months of this year.

The Mi Band 6 was incredibly popular last year and it appears its direct successor, the Xiaomi Band 7, toes a similar line. Currently only available in China, Xiaomi has now confirmed that it has sold over a million units of the smartband, less than a month after it made its debut.

Sony and Samsung look set to bring a number of new, powerful smartphone camera sensors to the market. For Sony, one of those will be the company's first foray into the 100 MP range and will be designed for the mid-range segment. Samsung, however, looks to outdo the massive ISOCELL GN2 on the Mi 11 Ultra.

The 1,040-gram Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 scores points with an Alder Lake CPU, Thunderbolt 4, and very good battery life. Positive: The laptop can run completely silently when needed. The OLED touchscreen can be used both with the fingers, as well as with the included S-Pen.

The Hummer EV is the stalwart GMC extra-wide, 9,000lb truck made electric. It currently starts for just over US$80,000 in the US - however, according to the latest report, it is set to get even more expensive than that imminently. Its alleged new mark-up seems to have no effect on its availability, however.

The LG DualUp Monitor has just been announced in terms of pricing and availability for the US market. Its unusual name can be explained via its form-factor, which leads to an extremely rare 16:18 aspect-ratio and what the OEM calls a Square Double QHD (SDQHD) resolution, which allows the user to get 2 stacked 21.5-inch windows out of the same device. The DualUp also benefits from a USB type-C port and a flexible Ergo Stand.

The smart/electric car conglomerate Geely has now acquired a major share in the OEM Meizu, thus cementing rumors that the owner of Volvo, Polestar and other brands has an interest in smartphones as well. The merger may prove a lifeline for Meizu, which has fallen far behind others such as Xiaomi and OPPO as of late.

Today, Microsoft has stopped providing support for its once-dominant web browser. However, this is not surprising since the 27-year-old Internet Explorer has been in control of less than one percent of the browser market for a while and its replacement, namely Microsoft Edge, has been around for 7 years already.

Samsung has finally updated its most current rugged smartphone, the Galaxy XCover 5, to Android 12. Its new firmware confers One UI 4.1 on the 2021 device, its new Material You-inspired system color-schemes included. The new major software upgrade is also rated to improve security on the XCover 5.

Rivian has reportedly sent letters to some customers informing them of a delay in delivering their R1S electric SUV. The most significant reported wait is an additional nine months until December this year. Supply chain issues have been cited as the reason for the delay, with new customers told to expect delivery in late 2023.

Lenovo has officially launched its first ever manufacturing plant to be based in Europe. The inaugural facility will produce equipment for data-storage as well as full, enterprise-grade PCs. Therefore, its installation represents the potential for a welcome boost to the region's economy, as well as the OEM's business.

A section of PlayStation fans doesn't seem to be too happy with the just announced partnership between developer Hideo Kojima and Xbox on an upcoming title that would leverage the Xbox cloud infrastructure. They have taken to online petitions to voice their concerns, but Kojima clarified that work with Sony will continue just as usual.

The high-performance models will become available in October of this year with workstation-like options, Thunderbolt 4, and lots of expandable modules that we've come to expect from a rugged laptop.

Aside from the North America exclusive ThinkBook 16p NX, Lenovo is also releasing a real successor to the ThinkBook 16p G2: The ThinkBook 16p G3. Different from the NX model, this one does not downgrade the specifications and it contains a 165 Hz screen as the biggest optional upgrade.