Business Articles

The third-generation ThinkVision P27h and P27q professional monitors come with modular flexibility, digital wellness, and sustainability in mind. Both feature a 4-side near edgeless bezel design, QHD resolution, and a one-cable docking solution. They will be available in July, starting at US$499.

Update | The new ThinkPad Z16 G1 is a huge step for AMD processors in ThinkPads. The 16 inch ThinkPad laptop with the new Z series design is the first premium ThinkPad with a big screen and the powerful AMD Ryzen H series. It is also the first Lenovo ThinkPad in many years with a dedicated AMD GPU.

Update | With the ThinkPad Z series, Lenovo is creating a completely new product line that aims at revamping the design of the business laptop line. The compact Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 includes premium materials, a new touchpad and a better webcam as well as an exclusive AMD Ryzen chip.

The HP ProBook 440 G9 and ProBook 450 G9 get an Alder Lake Refresh at CES 2022. Other specs include an FHD LCD panel, 53Wh battery, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD and a privacy shutter for the camera. Both variants will hit shelves in March 2022 for an unspecified price.

HP has refreshed the EliteBook 1040 G9 with a WUXGA screen, new Intel Alder Lake processors, two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports, and more. The laptop will hit shelves in March 2022, and HP says that it will reveal its price later

The HP EliteBook Dragonfly G3 is now available with 12th-generation Intel Alder Lake processors, 32GB of RAM, 2TB NVMe SSD, a 13.2-inch 3000 x 2000) OLED panel and two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports. HP says it will reveal the laptop's price close to its March 2022 sale date.

Tesla has shipped a record number of vehicles for the sixth consecutive quarter, handily beating analyst predictions. Wall Street analysts had predicted that due to the ongoing chip shortages and supply chain constraints, Tesla would only be able to deliver 263,026 cars. The company beat the predictions by delivering 308,600.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is scheduled to debut soon and a retail listing has now revealed its pricing for the European market. The phone is priced similarly to 2020's Galaxy S20 FE 5G, making it quite a hefty purchase, particularly with current deal prices of the regular Galaxy S21 in mind.

Samsung will almost certainly have a bevy of new monitors to debut at CES 2022; however, it seems the OEM just couldn't wait to show some of them off ahead of time. They include the latest addition to the Odyssey gaming line, with a "world's-first" 4K/240Hz specs profile. The new S8 and Smart M8 monitors are UHD and come with specific adaptations for their productive use-cases.

NIO just unveiled the prices for its 2022 electric performance sedan, the ET7, and they are over what Tesla charges for its Model 3 or Model Y vehicles, even after their latest price increase, but way less than the direct Model S competitor. The 100 kWh NIO ET7 offers a way larger battery pack than the Tesla Model 3 Long Range, and similar to what the Model S offers, while Tesla no longer qualifies for subsidies as it doesn't offer a battery swap service.

Robinhood, the trading platform known for commission-free trading, has announced the beta program for its crypto wallets. The program will launch in mid-January, with over 1.6 million customers already on the waitlist.

The 15-inch IdeaPad 3 is often regarded as one of the best-priced laptops in its category. Now, its 17.3-inch version (or 3i) has appeared on the Lenovo US website at just over US$100 off its regular price. This gets the buyer 11th-gen Core i5 silicon, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Around 475,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model S vehicles are being recalled due to multiple issues that have been uncovered. The NHTSA has stated that these issues relate to the Model 3’s rear view camera and the front hood latch in the Model S.

Waymo has announced that it will add all-electric vehicles designed by Geely to its autonomous ride-hailing service. Waymo will modify the car with Waymo Driver so it can operate autonomously.

European car makers can breathe a sigh of relief as their electric vehicle plans may get a boost from the first Li-ion battery developed and assembled on European soil. So far, the EV plans of legacy stalwarts like VW or BMW hinged on Asian battery maker supply, but Northvolt's announcement that its first pack has rolled off the conveyor belts in Sweden may significantly change the battery procurement game for European EV manufacturers.

Samsung has announced its lineup of 13 projects supported by its C-Lab programme. The company will showcase these concepts at CES 2022. The startups include a smart electric guitar and online jamming platform, plus an AI app to help kids develop good habits for device use.

Shortly after a report concerning the (unconfirmed yet) decision to cease developing combustion engines, it was rumored that Hyundai has decided to halt the development of a third-generation fuel cell stack for hydrogen cars. The company has just denied this rumor, but it might offer a full electric lineup starting next year or in 2023, at least for a few months.

Samsung Electronics has revealed that it will supply smart homes in a new smart city with several appliances. Eco Delta Smart City will be built in Korea, with an initial demonstration zone due to be finished in 2023.

Xiaomi will launch both the Xiaomi 12 series and MIUI 13 at its event tomorrow. The company has now also confirmed that the new flagship phones will come with MIUI 13 pre-installed, with prior information indicating an imminent OTA rollout starting with phones in the Mi 11 and Redmi K40 series.

Yet another device has now gone up in flames without warning. Following incidents with a Poco X3, Poco C3, Redmi 8, and Redmi Note 9 Pro over the course of the year, a Poco M3 has now also decided to walk the path of flames in India.

A new leak has now revealed some more details on the upcoming iPhone SE 3. The phone will apparently be inspired by the iPhone 11, and will be powered by an A15 Bionic, albeit a detuned version of the chipset. Launch remains pegged for H1 2022.

NIO, one of the most innovative Chinese electric car makers, may be preparing to bring its cars to this side of the pond, after managing to launch several of them in Europe. Its 2022 expansion plans include bringing the 600-mile ET7 sedan to Norway and five other EU countries, but a few LinkedIn job listings suggest that it could very well be eyeing the American market, too, despite the formidable presence of Tesla.

Huawei's latest MateBook X Pro has debuted with the OEM's new Free Touch feature, which consists of a trackpad capable of responding to a variety of gestures, as some phones' screens might. It also offers the company's "finest display yet": a 14-inch 3K touch panel driven by Tiger Lake silicon.

The world's biggest electric car battery maker - CATL - may have become complacent when it comes to innovation, reports local media. It now has to fight to bring back NIO's business when it comes to the unique 600+ mile battery pack for its ET5 and ET7 sedans. NIO developed the 150 kWh "semi-solid state" battery with a nimbler competitor instead of with CATL, forcing it to go back to the negotiation table with a new "ultrahigh nickel" technology and a new EV battery chemistry offer.

The cryptocurrency regulation requirements will only grow with time, and there are now services like the Astra Protocol that are offering automated compliance layer over digital asset trades. To continue its development, Astra has raised US$9 million in a private token sale from notable investors like Republic, DAOMaker, Fundamental Labs, Faculty, Richard Dai, and Wave GP Cardano. The Astra regulatory layer has built-in Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) compliance abilities.

RadioShack has been repurposed as a cryptocurrency platform by its owners. The company is joining forces with Atlas USV to create a system to swap cryptocurrencies into DeFi by leveraging Atlas USV's resources. RadioShack's new mission is to bring DeFi to the mainstream.

Twitch has strict community guidelines, and they seem to work better than the legislation of many countries in the world. The official Spanish-language Amazon Prime Video channel was suspended from Twitch (which is owned by Amazon) on Sunday, shortly after a presenter accidentally revealed her breast during a live show.

Sick of deals with just 8 GB of RAM? Lenovo has got you covered with a ThinkPad sporting 32 GB of RAM for under $1000 USD. The configuration also comes with the latest AMD processor and a bright 500-nit 1080p matte IPS display.

Asus has issued its invitations to its upcoming CES showcase, to start from January 4, 2022. It starts with the "Rise of Gamers" livestream direct from Las Vegas to introduce the new ROG line-up, and goes on with the productivity-focused presentation the following day.

Tesla plans to offset the galloping battery component prices by using the cheaper LFP chemistry in all of its standard range vehicles. Not only that, but it may have entered a U.S. factory agreement with Gotion, a big Chinese LFP battery cells supplier, which includes production on American soil. The potential deal that Gotion bragged about has it procuring the whopping 200 GWh in a 5-year period, an amount that makes Tesla the prime candidate to be that "large listed automobile company in the US" mentioned in the statement.

In a discussion that took place on a Discord server focused on SHIB, ShibaSwap developer Eric M said that Shibarium, Shiba Inu's Layer 2 scaling solution, will arrive "soon" but did not mention an accurate date. However, he revealed that Shiba does not have to wait for Ethereum 2.0's deployment to release Shibarium.

Parler, a social media platform that aims to serve as an alternative to platforms like Facebook, has announced its move into the NFT market. According to Parler's CEO George Farmer, the platform is looking to become an early-adopter of the Web 3.0 movement to break free from Big Tech's influence.

A report released by Meta reveals that several spy firms have targeted approximately 50,000 Facebook users to gain personal information, potentially for use in later phishing attacks. A total of seven surveillance companies were named in the report, including Black Cube.

LG has expanded its UltraFine OLED Pro series with the 27BP95E and 32BP95E. The pair offer native 4K resolutions, VESA DisplayHDR 400 True Black certification and excellent colour accuracy. A USB Type-C port with 90 W Power Delivery is available on both monitors, too.

Eurocom has launched another superlaptop onto the market in the form of the Nightsky ARX315. For US$2,099, buyers can expect a laptop with a powerful AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, and 16 GB RAM. However, it’s possible to configure the Eurocom Nightsky ARX315 to become a +US$15,000 powerhouse.

CD Projekt recently announced that it was settling a class-action lawsuit over Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch out of court. However, the paltry US$1.85 million settlement raises questions considering how the game has earned CD Projekt over US$500 million since 2020.

According to analyst firm Sigmaintell, Samsung sold 800,000 OLED notebook panels last year and plans to move 5 times as many in 2022. The report also highlighted that ASUS, with its premium OLED display ROG laptops, dominated the OLED notebook market this year.

Intel appears to have backtracked and delayed on a historic commitment to invest over US$200 billion in US and Europe-based silicon manufacturing facilities before the end of the year. As of now, the chipmaker has shifted the starting date on these plans to early 2022.

In the midst of a GPU supply crisis that's seen consumer GPU prices soar by 300 percent or more, crypto influencer @jaxson_davidson shared a video in which he shows off a mining farm with hundreds upon hundreds of GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition GPUs, all apparently sourced off-market, directly by him from NVIDIA, raising questions about the underlying reasons for today's GPU price inflation.

Counterpoint Research's latest report on the smartphone processor market shows that MediaTek has once again taken the lead in the latest complete quarter of 2021 (3Q2021). The three-month period has seen a number of intriguing changes, such as Unisoc taking a 10% share of shipments for the first time. Then again, Apple stayed more or less where it was and Qualcomm continues to lead the 5G baseband sector.

Crypto fans among gamers who like the STALKER franchise might be disappointed to hear that the developer studio behind the upcoming STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl edition has ditched the plans to introduce an NFT-driven "STALKER metaverse." Citing a backlash against the environmental impact of the blockchain technology, and accusations of profiteering from a fad, the Game World studio said it is abandoning the NFT plans, even though they considered them just a way for an independent game shop to stay afloat.

The first non-fungible token of the former first lady of the United States will go on sale this holiday season. Named Melania's Vision, it uses watercolor art by Marc-Antoine Coulon. Its goal is to embody the "cobalt blue eyes" of Mrs. Trump and to deliver "an amulet to inspire" the collector.

Lenovo has announced three new ThinkVision large format displays (LFDs) ahead of CES 2022 — the ThinkVision T65, ThinkVision T75, and the ThinkVision T86. All three LFDs sport fairly identical specifications including 4K, HDR10 support, plenty of wired and wireless connectivity options, enhanced privacy functions, and detachable 4K camera with AI-assisted voice and facial recognition.

Huawei has announced the launch of what is already being dubbed the "biggest upgrade" in MateBook history. It is to be a new X Pro model, which, according to its new teasers, may have a new feature in which the user can apparently control the laptop by waving their hands in front of the screen. The upcoming PC may also launch with improved cross-device integration.

Netflix has cut its prices across the board. Subscriptions now start at INR 199 (~US$2.60) across all devices and INR 149 (~US$2) if you only stream Netflix from your smartphone.

Lexus took the stage together with Toyota while the world's largest car maker was announcing its fleet electrification plans. Not only will there be a luxury Lexus sports car on battery power, but fans of the premium brand will be able to buy the first Lexus EV called the RZ 450e as soon as next year. Based on the joint Toyota-Subaru eZ4X platform, the new RZ may nevertheless offer more premium features, while Toyota also teased a full-size electric Lexus SUV for release at a later date.

DigiTimes' sources report that Intel and TSMC agreed to enter a partnership that could extend beyond 2025. Additionally, Intel is expected to become one of TSMC's major customers as soon as the N3 nodes go online in 2023.