Business Articles

Due to a policy shift from Google, Barnes & Noble will stop offering users the ability to purchase digital books from inside the company's NOOK app from next week. Google first announced the in-app purchase policy under question in September 2020.

A new leak has now revealed some details of Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus. The flagship chipset will trade in Samsung's 4 nm node for the TSMC equivalent but also looks to be quite a bit pricier.

What happens when 2 of the most prominent 5G bands (sub-6GHz and mmWave) are combined over 1 network? Potentially enhanced speeds and utility, according to AIS. The Thai mobile carrier and broadband provider has partnered with Qualcomm and ZTE to show a working example of this technique in public for the first time.

SK Hynix is not looking to repeat Nvidia's mistake of acquiring ARM alone and is carefully considering forming a consortium with strategic partners. It is not yet clear which companies could be included in the consortium. The South Korean memory producer is also looking to expand into the foundry business.

Dell is offering the Precision 3570 and Precision 3571 with Intel Alder Lake and new Nvidia workstation GPUs. The Precision 3570 features Alder Lake-P and Nvidia RTX A500 while the Precision 3571 offers Alder Lake-H and up to the Nvidia RTX A2000 GPU. Both models offer up to UHD displays and support for up to 64 GB DDR5-4800 RAM.

Dell has packaged its latest PCs for business with its Optimizer, a suite of AI services designed to deliver "productivity without disruptions". They include features that might admittedly be more welcome than ever before, Intelligent Privacy, ExpressConnect and Intelligent Audio included.

Dell's new Latitude 5431 and Latitude 5531 sport 12th Gen Intel Core i7 CPUs, optional Nvidia GPUs, and plenty of RAM and storage for any mobile workforce. The laptops feature a wide variety of ports and sizeable batteries to keep up with the demands of workers on the go.

Dell is now offering an upgraded Latitude 9430 in both 2-in-1 and laptop form factors. The Latitude 9430 is more of an incremental upgrade to last year's Latitude 9420 and now comes with Intel 12th gen processors up to Core i7 vPro, LPDDR5-5200 RAM, and Wi-Fi 6E. The Latitude 9430 is designed to conform to Intel Evo 3.0 platform specifications.

Windows 10 and 11 have a host of built-in tools to boost your productivity, but sometimes it takes a little bit more than what's on offer to really get going. There are many aftermarket options available online and in the Microsoft store. Let's have a look at some of the best third-party options out there to make your PC work for you.

Sony has announced a PlayStation Plus rebrand to bring it in line with Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass offering. Starting in June, PlayStation Plus will split into Essential, Extra and Premium tiers that cost up to US$119.99 annually. There will also be a Deluxe package for markets that do not support cloud streaming yet.

Samsung has now removed the "Z" branding from its foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Flip3 and Galaxy Z Fold3, in certain European countries. At the moment, it can be confirmed that the letter no longer exists on the company's Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latvian pages, with a Europe-wide purge potentially on the cards.

The FCC has added Kaspersky, a Russian cybersecurity firm, to its entity list, a collection of companies that the regulator deems as threats to the country's security. Kaspersky is the first Russian firm on the regulator's list.

The Studio Display is considerably more expensive than other 27-inch monitors. However, rumour has it that Apple has no plans to release a cheaper and 4.5K option, contrary to earlier reports. Instead, Apple will focus on bringing a 7K successor to the Pro Display XDR.

Apple has often asserted that it values its subscriptions (its Music arm, for example) as much as its hardware as contributors to the success of its overall business in the past. Now, according to a knowledgeable correspondent, it intends to convert whole iPhones into another kind of subscription. It is not clear how this rumored strategy will work as yet, although the OEM does have models from other manufacturers to follow.

Reports from days ago claimed that Samsung was gearing up to release a third foldable that would debut alongside the Galaxy Z Fold4 and Galaxy Z Flip4 at Unpacked. It appears, however, that those rumors may have been slightly off the mark, with one silver lining being the reveal of the first Galaxy S23 detail.

CTL's latest product are matching peripherals specifically designed for use with the education- or enterprise-focused light PCs for which the OEM might be best known. To this end, the new wireless mouse and keyboard have the Made for Chromebook certification. They also connect using up-to-date Bluetooth specs and can last for over 2 years on their batteries.

The generous stock bonus is supposed to convince important employees to stay with Apple instead of flirting with one of the many competitors who continuously try to snatch highly qualified software developers and hardware engineers from the Cupertino-based iPhone maker.

The OnePlus 10 Pro finally got a global launch date a few days ago, and a new leak has now revealed pricing information for the flagship phone in Europe. It appears, thankfully, that the OnePlus 10 Pro will maintain the pricing of its predecessor.

Updated. At its MSIology event, MSI has introduced upgrades to the Summit E16 Flip series with the new Summit E16 Flip and the Summit E16 Flip Evo. Both models are powered by the Core 7-1260P Alder Lake-P processor and feature largely identical specifications with the primary differences being with respect to the display and the GPU. The Evo version offers Iris Xe graphics while the non-Evo SKUs can be configured with up to an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti.

MSI has introduced the Summit E14 Evo as one of its latest business-class laptops. This new FHD+ 16:10-display clamshell is more or less with its forebear - then again, this 2022 model has 12th-gen i5 or i7 silicon, and also benefits from dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. On the other hand, some compromises appear to have been made here for the improved affordability of its new SKUs.

MSI has announced refreshed Summit E13 Flip Evo and Summit E14 Flip Evo business and productivity laptops. This year's, the Summit Flip Series gets an upgrade to Intel Alder Lake-P 28 W processors and features new security functionality such as Tobii Aware and Tile tracking. Both the Summit E13 Flip Evo and Summit E14 Flip Evo are Intel Evo 3-certified and come with Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E.

OnePlus has now officially announced the global launch date for the OnePlus 10 Pro. The flagship is set to debut globally on March 31, almost three months after it launched in China, with OnePlus potentially hinting at some notable differences between the two regional models.

Tesla made US$1.5 billion from selling government-mandated carbon tax credits to legacy carmakers, mainly overseas, as well as various smaller subsidies. That's more than a quarter from its US$5.5 billion net income in 2021, forcing the SEC to mandate it report regulatory credits as a separate line item in its annual financial statement.

Next month, Apple plans on enabling a number of new tools and improvements for seasoned podcast creators and those seeking to get started on the platform. Take a closer look at what’s to come, including more nuanced metrics in the Analytics tab, new marketing tools for subscription-based shows, and more.

Carl Pei has now presented "the truth" about his new tech start-up Nothing today (March 23, 2022). It apparently involves the creation of an "open" ecosystem including hardware, software and services, built around its first-gen smartphone, the phone (1). Nevertheless, the OEM dropped no more than vague hints at its specs and design, with a little more on its new OS, during its first livestream of 2022.

Reportedly, Xiaomi is preparing to showcase its first EV as early as this year. While the company is not expected to begin mass-producing vehicles for another two years, it could have a prototype model ready for delectation by the autumn.

A few days after debuting the Redmi K50 series, it appears the range-topping model is selling like hotcakes, with Xiaomi confirming that it has sold well over US$150 million worth of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000-powered phones.

The Ryzen Pro series is targeting enterprise customers. With the past 2021 generation, only chips based on the newest "Cezanne" platform were sold under the Ryzen Pro label. Lucienne was only meant for consumers. With the 2022 AMD CPUs, things are changing, as the Cezanne refresh Barcelo will be released with Ryzen Pro variants - with the Ryzen 7 Pro 5875U as the top-of-the-line model.

Qualcomm has unveiled a new program by which it will invest as much as US$100 million in developers or companies involved in the metaverse industry. The new fund is associated with other projects including Snapdragon XR Platforms, XR Labs Europe and the Snapdragon Spaces developer platform, the latter of which has also just been taken up by Square Enix as the studio works on its extended-reality (XR) portfolio.

Microsoft has released the AI-enabled Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera. The device has automatic framing and tilt compensation to ensure an accurate image despite meeting participants' positions.

A new leak has now provided a first look at the performance characteristics of next-gen flagship chipsets like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Exynos 2300, and the Dimensity 10000. Supposedly, ARM's upcoming Cortex-X3 super cores look to be even less efficient than the already inefficient Cortex-X2 cores on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Exynos 2200.

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) now faces legal action brought against it by Australia's Competition & Consumer Commission (or ACCC) in relation to a scandal in which the platform allowed misleading ads such as those that misappropriated the images of famous or prominent individuals, to be viewed by consumers in the country. The commission asserts that the ads directly led to the loss of money on the part of residents taken in by the "scams" in question.

The Galaxy Z Flip4 and Galaxy Z Fold4 are months away from launch but they will debut on the backs of two impressive devices. According to an analytics report, the Galaxy Z Flip3 and Galaxy Z Fold3 sold a combined 7.1 million units, or over 60% of global foldable shipments, in 2021.

Word on the grapevine has now provided some insight into Samsung's plans to release a MediaTek Dimensity 9000-powered smartphone this year. Supposedly, that phone could be the Galaxy S22 FE or a Galaxy A53 Pro.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE launched with a US$699 price tag barely a month before the Galaxy S22 series debuted, making it something of a poor value proposition. Samsung is remedying that, though, by offering the phone with a US$100 discount.

Visionox has reportedly introduced its latest display development as a "world-first", as it is a type of AMOLED designed to reduce power consumption through attaining ultra-low refresh rates, but does not rely on typically high-end LTPO technology to do so. This new display panel type could thus allow the smartwatches of the future to feature always-on displays at a lower cost.

Zepp Health, the owner of the increasingly popular fitness-tracking wearables brand Amazfit, has now released its fourth-quarter (4Q2021) and full-year earnings report for 2021. It claims revenues of nearly 6.3 billion yuan (or about US$985 million) for this year, about 27% of which came from 4Q2021. Despite these impressive figures, however, the company has seen the impact of global events over the last ~12 months.

In a press release, Subaru has announced that it is exploring the electrification of its WRX STI vehicle. The company said it would not build the next generation of the car on the new WRX platform, to meet climate change-related targets.

The Google Pixel 6 debuted with a much larger footprint than the Pixel 5. Google looks set to make the Pixel 7 smaller, though, but barely so, while the Pixel 7 Pro is tipped to maintain the Pixel 6 Pro's 6.7-inch size.

The Galaxy Z Flip4 will debut in August alongside the Galaxy Z Fold4 as Samsung's more affordable foldable option. A series of leaks have now surfaced, providing some insight into both the technical and business aspects of the Galaxy Z Flip4.

According to reports, TP-Link devices are sending data about browser behaviour to third-party providers regardless of whether people consent for them to do so. Affected devices include TP-Link routers and Deco Wi-Fi mesh systems.

The former COO of Nintendo, Reggie Fils-Aime, has said that he does not believe Meta's vision for the metaverse will be successful. In an interview with Bloomberg, they suggested that small businesses would drive the metaverse's future instead.

Europe will be ready for the fractional nanometer Angstrom processor era with a giant US$88 billion investment by Intel. New fabs in Germany are scheduled to become operational and churn out Angstrom era chips by 2027, while Intel plans a US$33 billion investment in its Irish foundries for making more down-to-earth 7nm processors.

The compact ThinkPad models L13 and L13 Yoga are rather popular, seeing their comparably low pricing. The new ThinkPad models L13 Gen 3 and L13 Yoga Gen 3 receive 16:10 screens and a RAM upgrade.

Lenovo has announced the ThinkPad L14 Gen 3 and ThinkPad L15 Gen 3 today with reduced chassis dimensions, lesser weight, and narrower bezels. The Intel variants, called the Gen 3i, get upgrades to Intel Alder Lake vPro up to the Core i7 while the AMD variants continue to be based on the Ryzen Pro 5000 APUs. Both the ThinkPad L14 Gen 3 and ThinkPad L15 Gen 3 now offer FHD webcams, and the Intel variants get several battery capacities to choose from.

Samsung will launch a couple of devices in its Galaxy A-series on March 17. The Galaxy A33, Galaxy A53, and Galaxy A73 are expected, and word on the grapevine now indicates that Samsung is lining up its Galaxy Buds Live earbuds as a gift for early buyers.

Google has forced YouTube Vanced to end, just over four years after the service started. Reputedly, Google threatened YouTube Vanced with a cease and desist, and asked it to remove all references to YouTube. Existing YouTube Vanced installations will not be affected, though.