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Tributes are flooding in for the "inspirational" podcaster and cancer campaigner Deborah James, who died "peacefully" on Tuesday.The former deputy headteacher, 40, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016 and fiercely campaigned to raise awareness of the condition on social media, through charities and BBC podcast You, Me and The Big C.James' family, figures from the entertainment industry, politics and beyond have paid tribute to the podcaster.Read more:Deborah James passes away aged 40A statement posted by her family on her Instagram account said: "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Dame Deborah James; the most amazing wife, daughter, sister, mummy. Deborah passed away peacefully today, surrounded by her family.It added a final message from Deborah which said: "Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo - it could just save your life."James' mother Heather said her heart is "broken" following the death of her daughter and wrote: "My heart is broken. Love you forever."'Your incredible spirit will live on'Carol Vorderman also paid tribute to Dame Deborah James, tweeting, "your incredible spirit will live on." Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options James revealed in early May that she had stopped active treatment and was receiving end-of-life care at her parents' home in Woking, with her husband Sebastien and their two children on hand.Her candid posts about her progress and diagnosis, including videos of her dancing her way through treatment, won praise from the public and media alike.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said because of James "many many lives will be saved, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described her charity work as "truly inspirational". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options In a statement, the BBC's director-general, Tim Davie, said: "This is incredibly sad news. Dame Deborah James was a true inspiration."We're so proud to have worked with her at the BBC. The way she talked about and faced up to her cancer moved the nation, inspired change and undoubtedly saved lives."James was a patron for Bowel Cancer UK and the charity's chief executive, Genevieve Edwards said the former headteacher brought "warmth, energy and honesty to everything she did", adding that she was a "powerful patron for Bowel Cancer UK and leaves a stunning legacy through her BowelBabe fund".Macmillan Cancer Support said: "We're so grateful for all of her generous support over the years, and her dedication to stand together with people with cancer". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options BBC radio presenter Chris Stark tweeted: "I hope we can have a gin wherever this all leads."Thinking of your family and friends and everyone that is going through similar. Rest in Peace Debs x".While broadcaster Katie Piper posted a green heart, adding “we will never forget you”. James launched a fund called the Bowelbabe fund, to raise money for research into personalised medicine for cancer patients.In her final weeks, Dame Deborah raised more than £6.7 million for research through her BowelBabe fund and was made a dame for her "tireless" work improving awareness of the disease. | Social Media |
CrowdTangle, a tool owned by Facebook parent Meta that monitors content on the internet, has played a vital role in disrupting misinformation on social media, but it reportedly won't be around for much longer.Meta plans to shut down the platform, though no concrete date has been set, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday. Meta, which purchased CrowdTangle in 2016, has reportedly disbanded the team working on the tool and "paused" access for new users in January. The tool will continue to be available at least through this year's US midterm elections in November, a Meta spokesperson told Bloomberg. Meta didn't immediately respond to CNET's request for comment, but spokesperson Erin McPike told Bloomberg that the company will continue to support misinformation researchers and create "more valuable" tools for them to use. Fact checkers, researchers and journalists use CrowdTangle in order to observe misinformation spreading across the internet, including on social media sites like Meta's Facebook and Instagram. Leading up to the midterm elections, misinformation on these platforms could have serious political implications. "The bigger thing that people in that [misinformation] universe are trying to do with 2022 is to win the narrative battle," Mike Caulfield, research scientist at the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, previously told CNET. "If they are able to convince large swaths of the public that the 2022 elections are illegitimate, then they are more likely to get the sorts of legislative changes that they want." | Social Media |
Lissyelle Laricchia / Adama Jalloh / Se Oh In honor of Pride Month, MTV News set out to spotlight the LGBTQ+ artists creating the contemporary anthems that soundtrack queer spaces and report on the new frontiers in today's streaming landscape helping them to do so. As we did last year, we've also set out to profile emerging LGBTQ+ artists and celebrate established ones making waves. Welcome to Queer Music Week. By Max Freedman Once upon a time, the Oakland ukulele-pop musician Mxmtoon thought TikTok was an app for, as she tells MTV News, “8-year-olds who play Fortnite.” That changed when her 2019 single “Prom Dress” went viral on the now-ubiquitous social media platform. There, the song has racked up 447,600 streams to date, and Mxmtoon’s TikTok channel has 2.8 million followers and 131.9 million likes. Now, the 21-year-old artist is one of many LGBTQ+ musicians using the app to make their music and full selves heard while connecting more closely with their audiences, especially their LGBTQ+ fans. In conversations with MTV News, Mxmtoon (who also goes by Maia but keeps her last name out of the public for her privacy) and other LGBTQ+ musicians say they’ve used TikTok to get their music to queer listeners more quickly and directly than many traditional promotional routes like radio airplay. The online communities they’ve built through the app have translated to sold-out live shows and major label deals, though some have used their TikTok presences to maintain a level of creative autonomy unprecedented for newly signed artists. Even as the app has admitted to shadowbanning words such as “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender,” as well as generally pro-LGBTQ+ content, TikTok has nonetheless become a space of connection and authenticity for LGBTQ+ musicians and listeners alike. It’s easy to think of TikTok as a COVID-era phenomenon. Surely, during early lockdown, you fell down a dance-challenge TikTok rabbit hole or watched way too many clips that use the same song. Yet as Mxmtoon recalls, TikTok was already a big deal pre-pandemic. She says that before she released “Prom Dress” in May 2019, she and her team “went into that campaign and that release with the intention of making a lot of content on TikTok so…people could interact with it for a while before we [released] the actual full-length song.” At the time, TikTok had roughly 271 million monthly active users, a mere fraction of the 1 billion monthly active users it reached in September. Throughout our conversation, Mxmtoon speaks about TikTok both with an executive-sharp marketing eye — she says “engage” and “consuming content” at least once — and continued incredulity about how uniquely the platform can help musicians. “There was a really big moment [for] ‘Prom Dress’ on TikTok before we even filmed the music video,” she says. “It was really interesting to see how massively it took off.” As her audience has grown, Mxmtoon has found a space to more fully be herself. “TikTok has played a huge part in me expressing my identity as a queer person,” she says. The near-instantaneous conversations the platform facilitates through its video replies to comments make it “very easy to have a conversation about your identity. It's very easy for me to make a video about being bisexual and reach an audience of people that also understand that experience and want to consume content representative of their identities.” She regularly responds to comments asking about her sexuality. “If I'm open and honest about my queerness,” she says, “it allows other people to be open and honest about theirs, as well.” TikTok is how the British folk-pop musician Cat Burns — who has 1.2 million TikTok followers alongside roughly 539,000 TikTok streams on the four versions of her folk-pop song “Go” — figured out her sexuality. Since TikTok “creates an algorithm for you,” the 22-year-old tells MTV News, “it knew that I was not definitive in who I thought I was and would show me particular videos and…would then continually show me those same videos, and then I would continuously like them, and then it got me thinking, ‘Oh, am I not straight?’" Now, she’s writing music made explicitly for fellow LGBTQ+ people and Black women — and reaching listeners via social media. “I want people to feel heard and represented in the music that I make,” she says. “I want to make people feel seen.” She pulled off both when she released her song “Free” in 2021, about a year after she first gained a large TikTok following during early lockdown by regularly doing singing challenges and covering songs. “Free,” which she released after signing to a major label, “immediately hit the target group that it needed to hit, and it touched the people that it needed to touch. I don't think I would be able to hit the [number] of people that I've hit without TikTok.” Through the platform, both Burns and Mxmtoon have built an audience of LGBTQ+ listeners and used the platform to share their stories with fans. Or, more accurately, further share their stories. If music is storytelling, then on TikTok, LGBTQ+ musicians are revealing their narratives to new people and building even deeper connections with longtime listeners. The Missouri-raised glam-pop musician Jake Wesley Rogers — whom some have called “Gen Z’s Elton John” — says that the connections TikTok builds have resulted in an unprecedented transfer of power from labels to musicians. Although the 25-year-old singer-songwriter published five music videos in 2021, he tells MTV News, “This year, my budgets got cut for music videos, and the explanation was, 'You're making TikToks for free, and they're doing much more to build your audience than these very expensive music videos.' Which is fair!” Rogers says that musicians “don't really need the infrastructure, the money, and the push behind a label to get out there. If you get a following, you get a following, and you have power. You own everything.” In a major-label ecosystem where musicians — including LGBTQ+ songwriter Justin Tranter, who heads Rogers’s label, Facet — still speak of an overall lacking queer presence in the industry, the power that TikTok can give marginalized musicians to take and maintain control of their stories when formally entering the industry is nothing short of game-changing. For Rogers, this power has primarily come in handy after, not before, signing to a label. Facet had already offered him a deal before he joined TikTok right as the pandemic began. His following on the platform has since grown to just under 300,000, with a few million-plus-views videos on his page, plus the “Abraham Lincoln was a queer icon” video that first took him viral in May 2020. He hasn’t needed a TikTok megahit like Burns’s “Go” or Mxmtoon’s “Prom Dress” to build a devoted following on and beyond the app. “TikTok was this way to share my music and find new people that, maybe traditionally, you would get from touring,” he says. But once touring restarted, he “saw it translate immediately. I played my first headline shows last year, and I think the reason they sold out was because of TikTok.” His listeners, he affirms, are “coming to the shows and believing in what I believe in.” Those beliefs include that “authenticity, love, and consciousness are part of us…and the world is really fucked up and there's so much beauty in it.” Also: “We contain multitudes, and I think...TikTok rewards that. It rewards a holistic person. ... I'm an artist first, but I'm a lot of things, and I can show all those things.” Rogers says that the multiplicity and contradictions that TikTok encourages are why the platform is home to a thriving community of LGBTQ+ musicians and listeners. “I think queerness is that,” he says. “Queerness is existing in that blurry state of nonconformity.” Thanks to TikTok, major labels are less hesitant than ever to embrace and uplift their artists’ creativity and identities, and LGBTQ+ musicians and listeners are finding each other more easily than ever. The app is allowing LGBTQ+ musicians to directly put forth their full selves to like-minded audiences. There, artists’ personalities are on display alongside their music, and no traditional music marketing approach can so deftly pull off that feat. “It was so much fun for me…to express facets of [myself] on the platform other than just my songs,” Mxmtoon says of her early days on the platform. Since then, she says, TikTok has “been this great tool to not only promote my music and share my songs, but also promote who I am.” Of course, TikTok comes with its challenges for musicians, even beyond the potential for censorship. The app has enforced bans in several languages on certain LGBTQ+-related words. It has also shadowbanned queer TikTok content in countries with no recent history of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. For now, these bans haven’t affected LGBTQ+ artists all that significantly, though Mxmtoon notes that TikTok’s “history of not necessarily advocating for all people and shutting down certain voices and stories” means “they still have a ways to go.” Mxmtoon also mentions that TikTok has made music “hard to think about from my business brain — how do I make a snippet of my song take off on TikTok? And from the creative side of it, I'm like, ‘I don't want [snippets] to define why I make this song and the way that I write.’” Burns says that successfully using TikTok to spread your music requires keeping up with trends, which adds another task to a list stacked with writing, recording, touring, doing interviews, and just living your life. “As long as you move with the times of TikTok, it definitely works in your favor,” she says, “but if you stick doing the same content, it never [goes anywhere].” Rogers points to another challenge with using TikTok to promote his music. “If I get too caught up in likes and comments and virality, then I'll stop making music accidentally,” he says. But he adds that TikTok continues to be worth it: “The people who have found [me] and continue to find [me] are investing, more than just following me.” They’re showing up to his shows, which means they’re actually funding his music career. And for Mxmtoon, a continued TikTok presence eliminates the longstanding “divide between artist and audience.” The platform excels at building genuine bonds between LGBTQ+ musicians and the people who would naturally be most interested in their music: LGBTQ+ listeners. Burns says that she’s “seen so many people” of all sexualities “playing [‘Go’] and using it in their videos.” After all, she adds, “That's just what music does. It connects people.” Pride Month Pop Music Mxmtoon | Social Media |
Mandiant logo is seen in this illustration taken March 8, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSAN FRANCISCO, June 28 (Reuters) - A pro-China propaganda campaign used fake social media accounts to try to stir up opposition, including protests, against mining firms that challenge China's business interests, U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant said on Tuesday.While politically motivated disinformation campaigns on social media have grown increasingly common, researchers say, such an operation targeting a specific industry of strategic importance to China is rare.The digital campaign, known to researchers as Dragonbridge, flooded Twitter and Facebook in recent months with posts raising environmental and health concerns over the operations of three major mining firms: Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths Ltd(LYC.AX), Canada’s Appia Rare Earths and Uranium Corp(API.CD), and USA Rare Earth.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comChina's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.Lynas and Appia told Reuters they heard of the campaign from Mandiant. "We tried to investigate what happened but we couldn’t figure out anything," Appia Chief Executive Tom Drivas said.USA Rare Earth, as well as social media firms Facebook and Twitter, did not respond to requests for comment.The bogus social media accounts got more aggressive this month after the latter two firms laid out new mining plans, Mandiant said in its report.The report said the campaign against Lynas called for protests over its planned construction of a rare earths processing facility in Texas. While it failed to launch actual protests, accounts pretended they were successful by posting photos of unrelated, older protests in Malaysia.Some posts specifically criticized U.S. President Joe Biden’s move in March to invoke a law aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese minerals.China dominates the global market for rare earth elements - a critical geopolitical leverage, foreign policy experts say."An operation like this requires a well-funded and well-staffed entity," said John Hultquist, Mandiant's vice president of intelligence.Mandiant said it lacked enough data to attribute the activity to a specific known actor.While the campaign's impact appeared limited and most of the social media accounts were recently removed, Hultquist said it could mean other business competitors to China will be similarly targeted in the future.Some of the fake accounts invaded a public, environmentally-conscious Facebook group to allege the mining firms and the U.S. government were trying to expose local populations to radioactive contamination.“This is a particularly interesting case because they're co-opting existing political movements and attitudes to gain support for their strategic goals,” said Dakota Cary, a security consultant focused on China at the Krebs Stamos Group.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Zeba Siddiqui in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Howard GollerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Social Media |
Bad actors are leveraging social media groups and communications apps to sexually exploit and traffic Ukrainians seeking shelter and information, amplifying concerns about those dangers in an already high-risk region. As the war continues and millions of Ukrainians, especially women and children, transition to border nations, potential traffickers are using the same digital spaces where refugees are looking for assistance to spread misinformation or pose as well-meaning volunteers to house those fleeing the conflict. Experts say tech companies could be doing more to protect Ukrainians from those threats amid an apparent rise in demand for trafficking victims from the besieged country. “I find it really heartbreaking that at the moment when so many people are trying to protect vulnerable women and children, one of the first measurable reactions to the crisis was that men were going online in record breaking numbers trying to figure out how to sexually access those women,” said Val Richey, special representative and coordinator for combating trafficking in human beings at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Data on upticks in human trafficking of Ukrainian women are only starting to emerge since Russia invaded four months ago. But a Thomson Reuters analysis found spikes across Europe for terms related to online demand for sex with Ukrainian women as news about the war spread across Europe. The analysis found a 200 percent increase in Google searches for “Ukrainian escorts” in the United Kingdom between Feb. 27 and March 5 compared to the prior six months. The term “Ukrainian porn” increased 600 percent in Spain and 130 percent in Poland over the same period. A similar trend was seen with search spikes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France and Switzerland, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis. “European women, Eastern European woman, Ukrainian women, are already at risk, and often are lured and groomed and recruited into sex trafficking. So you put crisis on top of that, and now you have a recipe for increased spikes of demand for human trafficking,” said Heather C. Fischer, senior adviser for human rights crimes at Thomson Reuters. “This might seem innocuous at first to the outside observer, but these trends can actually provide sort of an impetus for traffickers to capitalize the demand,” Fischer added. For example, of 38 men arrested for buying sex in Sweden in March as part of a police operation, investigators found 30 were specifically trying to access Ukrainian women, Sweden’s state-controlled television station reported. In Ireland, an escort service website advertised access to Ukrainian escorts, according to screenshots provided by Thomson Reuters. “It’s just really unfortunate as globally people are wondering how they can rush headlong to supporting some of the most vulnerable people, there was a pocket of society who are asking the opposite question, which is, ‘How can I exploit women and children coming from Ukraine?’ So that’s very alarming for us,” Fischer said. In the earlier days of the war, traffickers would pose physically at the border as volunteers seeking to give refugees rides or safe shelter. But as those activities were acknowledged and policy and volunteer groups began looking out for traffickers, those groups moved to a “much more aggressive” online presence, said Erol Yayboke, director and senior fellow with the International Security Program and director of the Project on Fragility and Mobility at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Instead of offering false assistance in person at the border, potential traffickers started infiltrating organically formed online groups to impersonate volunteers. Diana Shore, the administrator of the volunteer Facebook group Rooms for Ukrainians in the UK, ran into the obstacle of possible traffickers and trolls after launching the page to connect Ukrainians with housing in the U.K. in early March. Just nine days after launching her page, the U.K. government offered visa options to allow volunteers to open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, and action on the page “skyrocketed,” she said. Currently, the private group has more than 29,000 members. Resources like Shore’s page are key to not only matching refugees with volunteers, but also providing information. Informal networks including Facebook groups, Telegram chats and Viber chats remain the main source of information for fleeing Ukrainians about their options as refugees, according to an assessment published by VOICE and HIAS that included interviews with women forcibly leaving Ukraine. But without tools in place from Facebook, the job of wading through bad actors and potential traffickers is left largely up to the volunteer administrators. “Facebook can do better than this. [On] the average dating site you can verify somebody,” Shore said. “You know that the person is verified and you know their location, so it can’t be somebody posing to be a Ukrainian guest who’s actually living in Russia, or somebody who’s saying they’ve got a house in Manchester whose actual location is Saudi Arabia,” she added. Group administrators notice “red flags” from certain accounts, she said, including ones that target lone young women or seem “too good to be true,” describing themselves either as a “wealthy family” or offering access to an “elite life” with “work available in return.” The group administrators look through all reported posts from the group and choose to remove, keep or hide them after reviewing. But their ability to effectively moderate depends on their available time and ability to learn how to do so “on the fly,” Shore said. “It would have made a lot of difference if Facebook actually just used the software which is already out there to verify identity, especially as, unfortunately, this was a life-threatening situation, with huge risk to both parties.” Shore said the group faced obstacles with exploitative users on both ends — people posing as volunteers offering safe housing to target refugees, as well as Ukrainians who “may not have the best motives for coming” and seeking housing through the group. In addition to features for verifying users, Shore said Facebook could offer options for a group to limit membership to a specific geographical region or location filters so only people in relevant regions could access the group. She also said the company could consider putting in place “hours of operation” limits, which could allow a group to limit content from being posted overnight when administrators are asleep and may not notice content that would typically be removed. A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said attempts by “a small number of people to exploit these groups to abuse those seeking safety is something we’re taking very seriously, and we’ll take action on any content which violates our policies.” “The UK Government is responsible for determining who is eligible and ultimately able to house refugees under this scheme and we encourage everyone who is taking part to follow the Government’s guidance,” the spokesperson said in a statement. The tech giant has taken other measures since the start of the war to attempt to keep Ukrainian users safe. For example, the company added Ukraine to a list of countries that let users lock their profiles. This bars users who are not friends with them from zooming in on, sharing or downloading their full-size profile picture and from seeing photos and posts on their timeline. Google also has some protections in place to mitigate concerns about trafficking. The company’s policies prevent sexually explicit content from appearing in predictions on its auto-complete search function. Additionally, in certain countries, including Ukraine, Google displays a box at the top of search results about support for trafficking victims if a user searches for terms related to seeking help for such threats. The company is looking to expand on those resources. European Union authorities are also targeting traffickers online. Law enforcement from 14 EU member states participated in a hackathon in May focused on posts offering help to refugees for transportation, accommodation or work. The hackathon identified nine suspected human traffickers and nine possible victims, and initiated 15 new investigations. Experts recommended that tech companies collaborate with organizations that work to combat trafficking to help guide their efforts to ensure their tools aren’t used to enable it. “Tech platforms need to really reflect on how their tools can be used for good or bad reasons and then bring in expertise that’s going to help them decide what may be a risk factor,” said Mendy Marsh, co-founder and executive director of VOICE. “There’s so much that could be done, that they have to take the time to actually go through that and question the use of the platform and to really dig into how it may be manipulated,” she added. One way companies can take action would be to provide labels or disclaimers on posts containing information about assistance for Ukraine, similar to the labels social media platforms have put in place for posts containing information about COVID-19, said Yayboke, of CSIS. Companies can also run ads that point users towards hotlines or other helpful information if they search for terms related to seeking help for trafficking, the OSCE’s Richey said. They could also take a more assertive step to disable search results for certain terms, such as “Ukrainian escorts,” Richey said. “I think tech companies are interested in figuring out how to respond. And what we need to do is link their technical knowledge with our trafficking knowledge, and put that all together into a coordinated response,” he said. | Social Media |
Nation Jun 28, 2022 11:15 AM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure.
Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That’s when the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right.
READ MORE: Majority of Americans think Supreme Court overturning Roe was more about politics than law
Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some even offered to mail the prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.
Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of these posts, just as millions across the U.S. were searching for clarity around abortion access. General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.
By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.
The AP obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.
“DM me if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours,” the post on Instagram read.
Instagram took it down within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of both Facebook and Instagram, was taking down posts about abortion pills.
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.”
The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.”
Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun,” the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law and it is illegal to send it through the mail.
Abortion pills, however, can legally be obtained through the mail after an online consultation from prescribers who have undergone certification and training.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed in a tweet Monday that the company will not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills. Stone acknowledged some problems with enforcing that policy across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said in the tweet.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the medication used to induce an abortion.
“States may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” Garland said in a Friday statement.
But some Republicans have already tried to stop their residents from obtaining abortion pills through the mail, with some states like West Virginia and Tennessee prohibiting providers from prescribing the medication through telemedicine consultation.
Associated Press reporter Sophia Tulp in New York contributed to this report. Left: FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with Facebook's logo is seen with new rebrand logo Meta in this illustration taken October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo | Social Media |
Samsung said it will begin making chips with a 2 nanometer process in 2025 and 1.4 nanometer process in 2027. These would be some of the most advanced semiconductors in the world. Samsung is in a race to catch up with market leader TSMC.SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesSamsung said Tuesday it aims to make some of the most advanced semiconductors in the world in five years' time, as the race between the South Korean electronics giant and the world's largest chip maker TSMC heats up.The company laid out a roadmap for its chip production plans, and said it will begin making chips with a 2 nanometer process in 2025 and 1.4 nanometer process in 2027.The nanometer figure refers to the size of each individual transistor on a chip. The smaller the transistor, the more of them can be packed onto a single semiconductor. Typically, a reduction in nanometer size can yield more powerful and efficient chips.For comparison, the processor in Apple's latest iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models is a 4 nanometer chip.Samsung began producing 3 nanometer chips earlier this year.Shares of Samsung in South Korea closed nearly 4% higher on Tuesday.The South Korean firm, known for consumer electronics and memory chips, is looking to ramp up its contract chipmaking, or foundry business, in a bid to catch up with Taiwan's TSMC.Samsung is the second-biggest foundry globally by revenue, with a 17.3% market share compared to 52.9% for TSMC, according to TrendForce.For its part, TSMC expects to begin 3nm chip production this year with production of 2nm set to begin in 2025. However, the company has not officially announced plans to mass produce 1.4nm chips.Samsung's ambitious plans come amid global economic headwinds and signs of a slowdown in semiconductor demand. Global chip industry sales fell 3.4% in August compared to July, according to the U.S.-based Semiconductor Industry Association.Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC ProDespite this, Samsung said it plans to expand its production capacity for the most advanced chips by more than three times by 2027 compared to this year, highlighting its bullishness on future demand.These include its factories in the U.S. Samsung has a plant in Austin, Texas, and is currently building a $17 billion facility in Taylor in the same state.Washington has been looking to attract chipmakers like Samsung and TSMC to set up factories in the U.S. so that it can reduce reliance on the manufacturing hubs of Taiwan and South Korea.While Samsung has put a big focus on cutting edge chips, the company also said semiconductors for high-performance computing, automotive and 5G uses will make up more than 50% of its foundry business by 2027. These are usually less advanced chips. | Consumer Electronics |
Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere. They're used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and as repositories for excess renewable energy like wind and solar.
But as the world continues to electrify, additional battery technologies will be needed to meet demand. Enter sodium ions.
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Sodium-ion batteries have a similar design to their lithium-ion counterparts and can be manufactured using related methods. Both battery types generate electricity through a chemical reaction and are made up of an anode, cathode, separator and an electrolyte.
In a sodium-ion battery, lithium ions are replaced with sodium ions in the battery's cathode, and lithium salts swapped for sodium salts in the electrolyte.
Sodium-ion batteries have been around for decades, but large-scale development of the technology was abandoned in favor of lithium-ion batteries. The technology is now getting a second look.
Excitement around sodium-ion batteries picked up after the world's largest EV battery maker, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), revealed in 2021 that it was investing in the technology, with plans to establish a basic industrial supply chain by this year.
Sodium-ion batteries can't provide the type of range for electric vehicles offered by lithium-ion batteries, but they do present some unique advantages. For instance, the materials used in sodium-ion batteries tend to be cheaper than those in lithium-ion batteries.
"It doesn't use the expensive raw materials," said James Quinn, CEO of U.K.-based sodium-ion battery maker Faradion. "There's no cobalt, there's no copper, there's no lithium, there's no graphite, which is really primarily controlled by China today."
Quinn said sodium-ion batteries are also safer since they can be completely discharged for transportation.
Natron Energy, based in Silicon Valley, is also working to commercialize sodium-ion battery technology. Customers include United Airlines and Chevron, which is using Natron's batteries in EV charging stations.
"Imagine pulling into the station. There are a whole bunch of chargers there and all the cars plug in at the same time," said Colin Wessells, CEO and co-founder of Natron. "Now the power load on the electric grid is enormous. It can be really hard for the grid to support all those vehicle chargers simultaneously. And so a lot of station operators are actually moving to a model where they would put big stationary batteries in the station to provide those pulses of power to charge the vehicles."
Watch the video to learn more about how sodium-ion batteries may fit into the evolving battery market and the challenges that companies are facing in commercializing the technology. | Consumer Electronics |
No product achieves a position of preeminence by accident. It is earned, and when it’s earned in a sector of the consumer electronics market as rabidly competitive as wireless active noise-canceling over-ear headphones, it’s earned the hard way.Sony’s WH-1000XM4 wireless active noise-canceling headphones launched in 2020, and they’ve been top dog ever since. Just as 2018’s WH-1000XM3 were until they were replaced. Your choice of alternatives has grown exponentially in that time, though, because if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, Sony has been flattered to within an inch of its life.So the all-new WH-1000XM5 arrive with high expectations. They’re supposed to be the best pound-for-pound option around, just like the headphones they replace. If they indeed are, well, it won’t be a surprise. If they’re not, though, it’ll be a Manchester United-style fall from grace.At $399 (£379), the WH-1000XM5 are right at the upper end of what might be considered the mainstream. There are fully credible alternatives from big hitters like Bose and Sennheiser that are quite a lot more affordable—and so already Sony seems to have its work cut out. But it’s worth noting the WH-1000XM4 and XM3 both launched with top-end price tags attached, and both became a lot more affordable in quite short order. So unless one-upmanship is a big part of your purchasing motivation, it may be worth hanging back just a little before committing to XM5 ownership.If and when you do get around to buying a pair, though, you’ll be buying a design that’s evolved more than a little over the outgoing XM4. Everything’s relative, of course—the XM5 are still recognizably a pair of over-ear headphones. But no one is going to mistake your new Sonys for a pair of the old ones.Stealthily Bland Eco DesignPhotograph: SonyThe WH-1000XM5 are available in black or ecru (which is a Farrow & Ball way of saying “tepid beige”), and they’re featureless to the point of anonymity. Aside from some minimal Sony branding on each hinge, the XM5s are stealthy (or bland, depending on your point of view). They’re made almost entirely from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Sony is very keen on ABS at the moment, because it’s a useful material in acoustic terms, and it’s made mostly from recycled plastic and stone, and can be recycled again at the end of the product’s life. Indeed, the XM5s arrive in packaging that’s guaranteed plastic-free, is unbleached and unprinted, and again is fully recyclable. Sony, more than most rival brands, is amassing proper eco credentials. | Consumer Electronics |
Who Really Invented the Thumb Drive?
Thumb drive, USB drive, memory stick: Whatever you call it, it’s the brainchild of an unsung Singapore inventor
In 2000, at a trade fair in Germany, an obscure Singapore company called Trek 2000 unveiled a solid-state memory chip encased in plastic and attached to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector. The gadget, roughly the size of a pack of chewing gum, held 8 megabytes of data and required no external power source, drawing power directly from a computer when connected. It was called the ThumbDrive.
That device, now known by a variety of names—including memory stick, USB stick, flash drive, as well as thumb drive—changed the way computer files are stored and transferred. Today it is familiar worldwide.
The thumb drive was an instant hit, garnering hundreds of orders for samples within hours. Later that year, Trek went public on the Singapore stock exchange, and in four months—from April through July 2000—it manufactured and sold more than 100,000 ThumbDrives under its own label.
Good-bye, floppy disk
Before the invention of the thumb drive, computer users stored and transported their files using floppy disks. Developed by IBM in the 1960s, first 8-inch and later 5¼-inch and 3½-inch floppy disks replaced cassette tapes as the most practical portable storage media. Floppy disks were limited by their relatively small storage capacity—even double-sided, double-density disks could store only 1.44 MB of data.
During the 1990s, as the size of files and software increased, computer companies searched for alternatives. Personal computers in the late 1980s began incorporating CD-ROM drives, but initially these could read only from prerecorded disks and could not store user-generated data. The Iomega Zip Drive, called a “superfloppy” drive and introduced in 1994, could store up to 750 MB of data and was writable, but it never gained widespread popularity, partly due to competition from cheaper and higher-capacity hard drives.
Computer users badly needed a cheap, high-capacity, reliable, portable storage device. The thumb drive was all that—and more. It was small enough to slip in a front pocket or hang from a keychain, and durable enough to be rattled around in a drawer or tote without damage. With all these advantages, it effectively ended the era of the floppy disk.
$7 billion
In 2021, global sales of thumb drives from all manufacturers surpassed $7 billion, a number that is expected to rise to more than $10 billion by 2028.
But Trek 2000 hardly became a household name. And the inventor of the thumb drive and Trek’s CEO, Henn Tan, did not become as famous as other hardware pioneers like Robert Noyce, Douglas Engelbart, or Steve Jobs. Even in his home of Singapore, few people know of Tan or Trek.
Why aren’t they more famous? After all, mainstream companies including IBM, TEAC, Toshiba, and, ultimately, Verbatim licensed Trek’s technology for their own memory stick devices. And a host of other companies just copied Tan without permission or acknowledgment.
Competing claims about the memory stick’s origin
Maurizio Di Iorio
The story of the thumb drive reveals much about innovation in the silicon age. Seldom can we attribute inventions in digital technology to one individual or company. They stem instead from tightly knit networks of individuals and companies working cooperatively or in competition, with advances made incrementally. And this incremental nature of innovation means that controlling the spread, manufacturing, and further development of new ideas is almost impossible.
So it’s not surprising that overlapping and competing claims surround the origin of the thumb drive.
In April 1999, the Israeli company M-Systems filed a patent application titled “Architecture for a Universal Serial Bus-based PC flash disk.” This was granted to Amir Ban, Dov Moran, and Oron Ogdan in November 2000. In 2000, IBM began selling M-Systems’ 8-MB storage devices in the United States under the less-than-memorable name DiskOnKey. IBM has its own claim to the invention of an aspect of the device, based on a year-2000 confidential internal report written by one of its employees, Shimon Shmueli. Somewhat less credibly, inventors in Malaysia and China have also claimed to be the first to come up with the thumb drive.
The necessary elements were certainly ripe for picking in the late 1990s. Flash memory became cheap and robust enough for consumer use by 1995. The circulation of data via the World Wide Web, including software and music, was exploding, increasing a demand for portable data storage.
When technology pushes and consumers pull, an invention can seem, in retrospect, almost inevitable. And all of the purported inventors could certainly have come up with the same essential device independently. But none of the many independent stories of invention paint quite as clear an origin story—or had as much influence on the spread of the thumb drive—as the tale of Tan in Singapore.
Henn Tan: From truant to entrepreneur
Henn Tan, shown here in 2017, fought a series of mostly losing battles against those who pirated Trek 2000’s ThumbDrive design and against rival patent claims. Yen Meng Jiin/Singapore Press/AP
Tan, the third of six brothers, was born and raised in a kampung (village) in the neighborhood of Geylang, Singapore. His parents, working hard to make ends meet, regularly left Tan and his brothers alone to roam the streets.
The first in his family to attend high school, Tan quickly fell in with a rebellious crowd, skipping school to hang out at roadside “sarabat” (drink) stalls, dressed in “shaggy embroidered jeans, imbibing coffee and cigarettes, and tossing his long mane as he polemicized about rock music and human rights,” according to a 2001 article in the Straits Times. After a caning for truancy in his third year of high school that served as a wake-up call, Tan settled down to his studies and completed his O-level exams. He entered the National Service in 1973 as a military police instructor, and after serving the required two years, he took a job as a machinist at a German multinational firm.
This wasn’t a rare job at the time. In the late 1960s Singapore had embarked on a crash program of industrialization, offering incentives to multinational companies, especially in such high-tech fields as electronics and semiconductors, to set up factories on the island. By the early 1970s, Singapore was home to manufacturing plants for Fairchild Semiconductor, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, and Texas Instruments, among others. These companies were joined by the Japanese firms Matsushita (now Panasonic) in 1973 and Nippon Electric Company (now NEC) in 1977.
Tan diligently saved money to pay for driving lessons. As soon as he had his license, NEC’s semiconductors division hired him as a sales executive. Three years later, in 1980, he moved to Sanyo as a regional sales manager. Over the next 15 years, he rose to the rank of sales director, accumulating a wealth of experience in the electronics industry, including connections to a range of suppliers and customers.
The Asian electronics industry takes off
In 1995, Tan resigned from Sanyo and purchased Trek, a small, family-run electronics component trading firm in his old neighborhood of Geylang, for just shy of US $1 million. He planned to develop products to license or sell to one or more of the many large multinationals in Singapore.
Meanwhile, worldwide sales of computer equipment had started to boom. Although personal computers and various portable computers had been around since the late 1970s, both Apple and IBM released flagship laptops in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Along with the popularity of laptops came a growing demand for peripherals such as displays, modems, printers, keyboards, mice, graphics adapters, hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and floppy drives. The dot-com boom of 1995 to 2000 further increased demand for personal computing gear.
“Clones, in a sense, are marvelous….it meant you must have a good idea and you should make the most of it, as quickly as possible.”—Henn Tan, as told to the Straits Times
Many of these electronics products, including the chips in them, were produced in Asia, including Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand—and Singapore—under the OEM system. These “original equipment manufacturers” made computers for Apple, Dell, and other companies who outsourced the production of their designs.
By the mid-1990s, Singapore had become an important hub for electronics manufacturing, including hard drives and semiconductor wafers, and the island had a significant and growing electronics ecosystem with design and production expertise.
Toshiba gives Tan his big break
All this activity, however, did not create an easy path for Tan. Many of his old contacts from Sanyo wouldn’t do business with a no-name like Trek. And few talented engineers wanted to work for a company that seemed to offer little guarantee of long-term employment. But Tan persisted, and after two years, in 1998, he got his big break: Toshiba Electronics in Singapore appointed Trek as an official design house, an agreement through which Trek would design and manufacture products to be sold under the Toshiba label.
In particular, Toshiba wanted an MP3 player, a compact and portable solid-state device that could copy music files from a computer, to which it would be connected via a USB plug, and then play the music back. Though this was before Apple’s 2001 iPod made these devices popular worldwide, a number of MP3 players of varied quality were already on the market in the late 1990s.
As the originator of flash memory, Toshiba manufactured storage chips used in personal computers, laptops, and digital cameras. Toshiba also made portable radios and boom boxes. It wasn’t odd that the company wanted to jump into the MP3-player fray.
But Tan reasoned that “if the company just manufactured the player, it would not make a lot of money,” according to a 2005 article in the Straits Times. Tan thought that by leaving out the ability to play music, the device would become more versatile, able to handle not just MP3s but also text, spreadsheets, images—any kind of computer file. Many companies were already selling music players, but a cheap, USB-driven, versatile storage device might have an even bigger market, Tan suspected, and he could be first to tap it.
Tan did give Toshiba its music player. But he also set his engineers to work on a product that was essentially a music player without the player. The result was the thumb drive.
From popular product to pirate battle
Trek’s patent application for the ThumbDrive included this drawing.
Getting to a working product was not trivial—the drive required not only the appropriate combination of hardware but also specially designed firmware that allowed the solid-state storage to interact with a variety of computer operating systems.
But the thumb drive, with its flash memory and USB interface, was hardly a completely novel invention. Tan did not invent flash memory, which was the brainchild of Toshiba engineer Fujio Masuoka in 1980. Nor did he invent the USB port, which had been around since 1996. What was novel was the combination of the USB with flash memory plus a controller and appropriate firmware, all sealed into a plastic case to make a marketable consumer product.
Local circumstances can partly explain why the thumb drive came to be invented where and when it did: Tan’s experience at NEC and Sanyo, Trek’s contract with Toshiba, and the connections Trek’s engineers had made during previous internships at other companies in Singapore were all important. Those same factors, however, also made the invention difficult to control. Once the idea of the thumb drive was out there, many electronics firms immediately set to making their own versions. Tan had filed a patent application for his invention in 2000, a month before the German tech fair where Trek introduced the device, but a pending patent did little to stop copycats.
In addition to claims by M-Systems and IBM, perhaps the most complicated rivalry came from the Chinese company Netac Technology. It also claimed to have invented the flash memory stick. Cheng Xiaohua and Deng Guoshun had previously worked for Trek and had seen some development boards related to flash memory. They returned to Shenzhen, China, and founded Netac in 1999.
Shenzhen at the time was a hotbed of electronics copycatting—DVD players, cellular phones, MP3 players, and numerous other consumer electronics were produced as “shanzhai” goods, outside the bounds of intellectual property laws. Netac’s claim to (and production of) its thumb drive fit this pattern of appropriation.
Netac and Trek subsequently even entered into an agreement under which Trek would fund some of Netac’s research and development and Trek would gain rights to manufacture and distribute the resulting products outside of China. Despite this collaboration, Netac sought and was granted a patent on the thumb drive within China.
Henn Tan thought that by leaving out the ability to play music, the device would become more versatile.
Electronics pirates around the world then went after the thumb drive. Tan fought them hard and sometimes won. Had Trek been a larger company with more resources and more patent experience, the story might have had a different ending. As it was, though, Trek’s patents stood on relatively weak ground. Beginning in 2002, Tan brought suit in Singapore against a handful of companies (including Electec, FE Global Electronics, M-Systems, and Ritronics Components) for patent infringement. After several years of court battles and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, Trek won that case, persuading the judge that its ThumbDrive was the first device ever designed to be plugged directly into a computer without the need for a cable. An appeals court in the United Kingdom, however, was not persuaded, and Trek lost its patent there in 2008. Tan also pursued, with little success, claims at the United States International Trade Commission against other companies, including Imation, IronKey, Patriot, and Verbatim. But even the decision in Singapore was little more than a moral victory. By the late 2000s, millions of thumb drives had already been produced, by countless companies, without Trek’s license.
“Clones,” Tan told the Straits Times in 2005, “in a sense, are marvelous. In the business world, especially when you are in Asia, as long as anything makes a profit, you do it.” If someone were copying you, Tan reasoned, “it meant you must have a good idea and you should make the most of it, as quickly as possible.”
Ultimately, Tan and Trek turned their attention to new products, each improving slightly on the last. By 2010, Trek had developed another pioneering device—the Flu Drive or Flu Card. This modified thumb drive could also wirelessly transmit data between devices or to the cloud. Although Tan still attempted to protect his invention with patents, he had also embraced a new path: success through continuous novelty.
The Flu Card enjoyed modest success. Although not widely taken up as a stand-alone device, its Wi-Fi connectivity made it suitable for consumer electronics devices such as cameras and toys. In 2014, Trek signed deals with Ricoh and Mattel China to license the Flu Card design.
Trek also attempted to move into new markets, with limited success, including the Internet of Things, cloud technology, and medical and wearable devices.
Trek’s struggles and Tan’s fall
Henn Tan holds up a ThumbDrive during an interview in Singapore in January 2006.Nicky Loh/Reuters/Alamy
Trek’s revenue from licensing the ThumbDrive and the Flu Card was not sufficient to keep it profitable. But instead of admitting how badly the company was doing, in 2006, Tan and his chief financial officer began falsifying Trek’s accounts, deceiving auditors and shareholders. After these misdeeds were revealed by financial auditors Ernst & Young in 2015, Tan stepped down as chairman and chief executive and in August 2022 pled guilty to falsifying accounts. As of this writing, Tan remains in jail in Singapore. His son, Wayne Tan, continues as Trek’s deputy chairman.
Meanwhile, the thumb drive lives on. Although most of us transmit our files over the Internet—either as email attachments or through services like Google Drive and Dropbox—thumb drives (now running to capacities measured in terabytes) remain a convenient device for carrying data in our pockets.
They are used as a quick way to transfer a file from one computer to another, pass out press kits at conferences, lock and unlock computers, carry apps to run on a shared computer, back up travel documents, and even, sometimes, store music. They are used for nefarious purposes as well—stealing files or inserting malware into target computers. And they are especially useful for the secure transfer of encrypted data too sensitive to send over the Internet.
In 2021, global sales of the devices from all manufacturers surpassed $7 billion, a number that is expected to rise to more than $10 billion by 2028, according to Vantage Market Research.
Hero or antihero?
Often, we think of inventors as heroes, boldly going where no one has gone before. But Tan’s story isn’t that simple.
Tan does deserve a place in consumer electronics history—he conceived the device without seeing one first, made it work, manufactured it in quantities, and spread it broadly, both intentionally through licensing and unintentionally through copying. But full credit for the thumb drive really belongs more to the environment—the ideas circulating at the time and the networks of clients and suppliers—than any individual.
Moreover, the conclusion of Tan’s story suggests he is more antihero than hero. We usually admire inventors for their tenacity and grit. In Tan’s case, these qualities contributed to his downfall. Determined to take moral and financial credit for the thumb drive, Tan went to extraordinary lengths—even breaking the law—in order to make his company and himself a success. The thumb drive shows how complicated stories of invention often are.
This article appears in the February 2023 print issue. | Consumer Electronics |
Media caption, CCTV footage from a recycling plant shows what is believed to be exploding batteries shooting across the roomBatteries thrown in household rubbish bins cause about 700 fires every year in dustcarts and waste-processing centres, local authorities say.Lithium-ion batteries can explode if damaged or crushed. The Environmental Services Association says resulting fires cost fire services and waste operators some £158m a year.Non-profit organisation Material Focus, which surveyed local authorities, runs an online search tool to help people find their nearest recycling point.Found in small, rechargeable devices such as toothbrushes, toys, phones and laptops, lithium-ion batteries have become more powerful in recent years.Smaller, frequently used and cheaper devices - even some musical greeting cards - often have "hidden batteries". Ben Johnson, from the Environmental Services Association (ESA), told BBC News "more and more people were putting devices containing these batteries in with household rubbish" or mixing them with other recycling. "That causes a real problem, because they have a tendency - when damaged - to explode or ignite," he said. "And when you put them in general rubbish or recycling, they're likely to be crushed, compacted, smashed or they might get wet. "That can cause them to short-circuit. And of course they're then in the presence of other flammable material like plastic, paper and card and that can lead to quite big fires."Lithium-ion batteriesThe main type of rechargeable battery in portable consumer electronics, they consist of two electrodes divided by a separator that allows charged particles - lithium ions - to flow, through a solvent, from one to the other. Recharging the battery pushes the ions back to where they started. If the battery is intact and contained, it is generally very safe. But if the electrodes make direct contact with each other, it can cause all the charged particles to suddenly discharge in an explosion, which, as the chemicals inside the battery are flammable, can quickly cause a fire.Image caption, The source of a major fire at a recycling centre in Aberdeen was not confirmed but the company says it was most likely linked to a discarded batteryNational Fire Chiefs Council waste-fires lead Mark Andrews said the problem was growing as people used and disposed of more electronic devices."We urge people to recycle electricals and batteries and not to dispose of them with general household waste," he said. "These fires can be challenging for fire services to deal with, have a significant impact on local communities and present a real risk to staff working on lorries and waste plants. "Everyone can do their bit and prevent fires by ensuring they dispose of electrical items correctly."Laura Fisher, from waste-management company FCC Environment, said: "The best thing is for people to bring any batteries to their local recycling centre or to any major supermarket - most of them tend to have a recycling bin for batteries there."Fire safety experts and electrical-waste campaigners are also calling for clearer rules on the safe disposal of batteries - including how to recycle them. The government has now delayed a consultation on this issue until 2023. | Consumer Electronics |
Introduced at the latest Samsung Unpacked, the Tab S9 series of tablets may not get the same level of attention as the Galaxy Fold 5 or Galaxy Flip 5 (or even the Galaxy Watch 6), but it’s still a great example of Samsung’s premium consumer product design.
That’s because this is one of the few tablet lines that can compete with Apple’s iPad family, which dominates premium tablet sales. Besides the iPads, which run iPadOS, your other main premium tablet option is a Windows device like the Microsoft Surface Pro. On the Android side, you’ve got a handful of tablets from Lenovo and Amazon (that company’s Fire HD line runs Android with an Amazon overlay), but outside of that, the choices are slim.
That’s why when I got a chance to see these new tablets in person, I naturally gravitated towards the larger Tab S9 Ultra, which has a massive 14.6-inch display. That’s bigger than a MacBook Air and bigger than Apple’s biggest iPad, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Two smaller models are also available, the Tab S9 and the Tab S9+, and each features a dynamic AMOLED display with a variable refresh rate that can go from 60Hz to 120Hz.
With 16:10 aspect ratio screens, these all have a laptop-like feel, and combined with Samsung’s line of keyboard covers, can actually double as a very laptop-like device. For several years, Samsung has offered a custom mode called DeX that mimics something very much like a Windows desktop view, which is great for productivity.
All three Tab S9 tablets have new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors, just like the new Flip 5 and Fold 5 phones, and include an S Pen stylus.
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra starts at $1,199, the S9+ starts at $999, or $1,149 with a 5G option, and the S9 starts at $799.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
SummaryCompaniesMajor Foxconn iPhone factory in China hit by COVID-19 curbsFoxconn downgraded Q4 outlook this weekFoxconn holding Q3 earnings call Thursday 0700GMTFoxconn to give details on outlook downgrade on earnings callTAIPEI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier and iPhone assembler Foxconn (2317.TW) plans to update its fourth-quarter outlook on Thursday, having warned this week of the impact of COVID-19 restrictions at a major plant in China's Zhengzhou.Foxconn's main Zhengzhou plant in central China, which employs about 200,000 people, has been rocked by discontent over stringent measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, with many workers fleeing the site.The lockdown ended on Wednesday, though Foxconn said it was maintaining "closed loop" operations, referring to a bubble-like arrangement commonly imposed as part of virus prevention measures in China, where employees sleep, live and work isolated from the wider world.Foxconn said on Monday it was working to resume full production there as soon as possible, and, having previously guided for "cautious optimism" in the fourth quarter, said it would "revise down" its outlook given events in Zhengzhou, though provided no details. read more Foxconn will release its third-quarter earnings on Thursday at 0700 GMT, with analysts expecting on average a profit of T$41.3 billion, according to Refinitiv, an 11.7% year-on-year increase, benefiting from sustained demand for high-end consumer electronics and data centres.The company said it will also provide an update on its view for the current quarter; though it does not provide a numerical outlook, only a broad forecast in terms of the general direction.A source familiar with the matter said Foxconn aims to resume full production at its Zhengzhou plant by the second half of November.Apple said on Monday it expects lower shipments of high-end iPhone 14 models than previously anticipated following a significant production cut at the virus-blighted plant in China, dampening its sales outlook for the year-end holiday season. read more The fourth quarter is traditionally the hot season for Taiwan's tech companies as they race to supply cellphones, tablets and other electronics for the year-end holiday period in Western markets.Shares in Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, closed up 2.5% on Wednesday, outperforming the broader market's (.TWII) 2.2% rise.The shares have fallen 1.4% so far this year.Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sherry Jacob-PhillipsOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
The Apple Watch finally has an Ultra verson with a drastically different external appearance, but it’s watch bands that truly give users the chance to add flair to their watches. A newly-granted patent is recognizing the variety of watch bands out there and proposing they do more than contribute to the device’s aesthetic, as it describes how an Apple watch could detect different bands by type, model, color, or size, and then alter its settings depending on that band.
As described by the patent, Apple watch bands could become their own pieces of proprietary tech, or otherwise modify the wearable for specific purposes. What purposes? Perhaps a band designed to be used underwater could help the watch detect certain brightness settings or launch specific apps. A specific fitness-minded band could provide some extra information to the watch during a workout.
As first noticed by Apple Insider, once the watch detects a band, it could open a website, start a timer, display a message, post alerts, or communicate with another device. Otherwise, it could simply modify the display to show the same color as the band, if you’re the type of person who is a little too obsessed with matching wearable colors.
Though the patent mentions that new or existing watch sensors could detect what kind of band is in use—possibly through a QR code, for example—the bands themselves could include some detection element, whether that’s NFC, Bluetooth, magnetic or RFID. However, the device could even use physical connections from the band to the watch face to get information from the band.
This band idea fits into Apple’s recent dive into health tech. The Cupertino, California-based company has been diving into wearable tracking technology for users’ body movements and for scanning users’ faces. This patent, dated May 30, mentions that its devices could use “biosensors” to detect light, pressure, touch, motion, temperature, or other “health metrics.” Alongside existing heartbeat monitoring, past reports mentioned Apple watches in the future could include more heat sensors for fever detection. This combines with one described use of a band that could log how much time you used the device with that specific strap, which could be useful for some exercise apps.
As with any newly-released patent docs, you shouldn’t start expecting an updated Apple-brand Apple Watch band (say that five times fast) to come out of WWDC this June. But Apple does seem to be pushing its devices in unseen directions, especially with the emergency satellite services feature. What this latest patent infers is that Apple may be looking to make its bands more proprietary, or at least incentivize users to buy more first-party straps.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Consumer electronics maker Lenovo on Tuesday rolled out fixes to contain three security flaws in its UEFI firmware affecting over 70 product models.
"The vulnerabilities can be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution in the early phases of the platform boot, possibly allowing the attackers to hijack the OS execution flow and disable some important security features," Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET said in a series of tweets. Tracked as CVE-2022-1890, CVE-2022-1891, and CVE-2022-1892, all three bugs relate to buffer overflow vulnerabilities that have been described by Lenovo as leading to privilege escalation on affected systems. Martin Smolár from ESET has been credited with reporting the flaws. The bugs stem from an insufficient validation of an NVRAM variable called "DataSize" in three different drivers ReadyBootDxe, SystemLoadDefaultDxe, and SystemBootManagerDxe, leading to a buffer overflow that could be weaponized to achieve code execution.
This is the second time Lenovo has moved to address UEFI security vulnerabilities since the start of the year. In April, the company resolved three flaws (CVE-2021-3970, CVE-2021-3971, and CVE-2021-3972) — also discovered by Smolár — that could have been abused to deploy and execute firmware implants.
Users of impacted devices are highly recommended to update their firmware to the latest version to mitigate potential threats. Found this article interesting? Follow THN on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. | Consumer Electronics |
In a time when smartphone makers are trying to entice users to upgrade to the latest and greatest models on a yearly basis, Fairphone made a name for itself with an Android smartphone designed to be easily repaired and upgraded to extend its useable life for years, and now the company is applying that same ethos to a pair of wireless headphones.
This isn’t Fairphone’s first audio product. That honor goes to its True Wireless Stereo Earbuds, which promised to be a more environmentally friendly option in a product category considered to be one of the worst examples of e-waste. The nature of typical earbud design requires batteries with a limited lifespan, and earbuds are usually assembled using glue instead of screws, which makes them nearly impossible to disassemble and repair. Although the Fairphone True Wireless Stereo Earbuds were made from “30% recycled plastics” and claimed to be “100% e-waste neutral” by the company, they’ll still suffer the same landfill-y fate as other wireless earbud products when their batteries no longer hold a charge.
The new Fairphone XL over-ear wireless headphones are more in line with the company’s Android smartphones. The company claims they’re “among the most sustainably designed headphones on the market” and feature 100% recycled aluminum for their structural elements, such as where the headband connects to the earcups. 100% recycled plastic is also used “in all parts it can be used in.” As eco-friendly as recycled plastic might be, it loses some of its strength and flexibility during the recycling process, and isn’t ideal for all components, like a headband that is constantly being flexed.
The Fairphone XL can also be easily disassembled without the need for a brain surgeon’s skills, and allows parts that inevitably wear down with use to be easily replaced, such as the ear cushions or even the headphone’s 30 hour, 800 mAh rechargeable battery.
They may not be breaking new ground when it comes to headphone performance and features, but the Fairphone XL do seem like they offer everything we’ve come to expect in wireless over-ear headphones. They pack 40-millimeter drivers, active noise cancellation with an ambient sound boosting mode, a multi-point Bluetooth connection for easily switching between two devices, a folding design, audio tuning by Sonarworks, and IP54 weather resistance. That last part means a little rain won’t hurt ‘em, but a complete dunking would require most electronic components to be swapped out. Fairphone has even developed a mobile app allowing users to make EQ adjustments, download software upgrades, and even order replacement parts as needed.
The Fairphone XL headphones are available starting today in two color variants: green speckled and black speckled, for €249 (there’s no official US pricing as Fairphone’s products aren’t directly offered by US retailers), which works out to about $275.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Save $634.95: As of July 12, the Samsung Jet Bot AI+ robot vacuum(opens in a new tab) is on sale for $664.05 at Amazon — a 49% discount from its regular price of $1,299.
We get it: Robot vacuum manufacturers want their cleaning bots to do it all — self-emptying, LiDAR mapping, on-board cameras — but that $1,000+ price tag is an instant no for most shoppers. That's where Amazon comes in to save the day with its Prime Day sales event. You've heard the phrase "like Christmas in July," but Amazon seems to be taking that phrase very seriously indeed. Right now, fan-favorite items are on sale for prices that are actually reasonable. Prime Day is almost over, but you can still get this brand-new, high-tech Samsung robot vacuum for under $1,000 (and with plenty of room to spare).
As of July 12, the Samsung Jet Bot AI+(opens in a new tab) is on sale for $664.05 at Amazon, which is $634.95 off its full retail price. This is the vacuum's lowest price ever(opens in a new tab), and it's your chance to get a luxury smart home product at an almost-normal price. In fact, the Jet Bot AI+ has never gone on sale at Amazon before. Amazon is even undercutting the official Samsung store, which lists the vacuum for $35.94 more(opens in a new tab).
Samsung is best known for its consumer electronics, flagship phones, and QLED TVs. However, the company has been investing heavily in luxury appliances in recent years, and these efforts have resulted in some of the best vacuums in the world. The Jet Bot AI+ boasts a powerful 3D camera and LiDAR sensors that recognize objects, meaning you won't have to worry about it eating up your cords or crashing into your houseplants.
In our 2021 review of the product, we noted that the on-board camera was also a major win for pet owners who have to leave their furry friends home alone (and don't want them getting into any trouble in the meantime). Indeed, Jet Bot AI+ allows you to get a visual on your home simply by using the corresponding app. Did we mention that this robot vac has an auto-empty feature? That's something not a lot of comparable models can say for themselves, and it saves you the hassle (plus exposure to allergens) that comes from regular dustbin emptying.
While you might've overlooked Samsung's Jet Bot AI+ when it retailed for $1,299, it deserves a closer look thanks to this 49% discount. | Consumer Electronics |
While some consumer electronics companies, like Sony, have jumped directly into the burgeoning over-the-counter hearing aid market, others are getting there through partnerships. The latest of these is veteran audio manufacturer Bose, which is “powering” hearing aids from a manufacturer called Lexie. Recently I took its latest model, the Lexie B2 “Powered by Bose,” out for a spin through my auditory meatus.Like the rest of the industry of late, Lexie’s B2s are self-fitting, over-the-counter hearing aids, which means you can buy them anywhere (not just from a licensed hearing aid retailer) and adjust them yourself, without the involvement of a doctor or audiologist.But unlike the other OTC hearing aids I’ve tried of late, which are designed to fit completely within the ear canal, Lexie’s use a more traditional design, with the electronics fitting behind the ear and a small wire connecting to a receiver which fits in the ear canal. While technically known as receiver-in-the-ear (RITE), the design has an appearance much like that of an old-school behind-the-ear unit.The body of the hearing aid nestles behind your ear, where it's held in place by a stiff loop of wire leading from the earpiece.
Photograph: LexieHaving hardware external to the ear canal is problematic, foremost because of the way it looks. While new-school in-the-ear hearing aids are virtually invisible, the RITE design telegraphs “I’m losing my hearing” from across the room, which probably isn’t the aesthetic that most users are looking for. While Lexie’s B2 is certainly svelte—each aid weighs just over 3 grams—they’re far from invisible, and the effect on one’s appearance is decidedly aging. There’s simply no way you can pretend these are earbuds.Getting started with Lexie was a bit comical, involving text verification codes that went nowhere and endless pages of terms and conditions to scroll through before I could start using the units. Fortunately, the main portion of the app is much better designed, featuring an intuitive interface that lets you adjust “world volume,” the overall amplification level, on one side of the screen and set your preference for bass or treble on the other. Additional functions let you adjust the balance between your right and left ears—or mute an ear individually—and choose among preconfigured environments (noise indoor, outdoors, music, or everyday). You can set up to 10 personal environmental settings and choose between two directional modes, whether you want to amplify audio from everywhere or just in front of you.As is the case with most hearing aids, these more refined settings can be hit-or-miss on the Lexie B2, as the master volume setting is by far the most impactful. However, I found that they can be worth toying with if you really want to get nuanced about your audio experience. Unfortunately, the Lexie B2 has no training feature that lets you measure your hearing loss or fine-tune your hearing, equalizer-style, which makes it all the more surprising that a 124-page manual is required to explain how all of this works.Putting the aids on is also something of a challenge, and while there’s clearly a learning curve that can be overcome by the persistent, I never got to the point where it was easy to slip a unit on with just one hand. Most problematic, though, is that I just didn’t find the units comfortable. Although the device includes tips (Lexie calls them domes) in three sizes and two styles—open or closed—I never found any that both fit well and didn’t eventually start to itch, though the smaller ones were less irritating. The silicone domes feel soft to the touch of a finger, but they unfortunately feel a bit rougher in the ear. | Consumer Electronics |
The big picture: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz this week signed into law a new bill that gives consumers the right to repair their electronic devices and gadgets, albeit with a few exceptions. Minnesota is not the first U.S. state to pass a right-to-repair legislation for consumer electronics, as states like New York and Colorado have also passed similar legislation in recent years. Others, like Washington and Maine, have also proposed similar laws that would offer consumers the ability to repair their electronic gadgets and appliances.
The Minnesota law is part of an omnibus appropriations bill (SF 2774) that goes into effect on July 1, 2024, and contains a "digital fair repair" clause that covers most consumer electronics, except video game consoles, motor vehicles, medical devices, cybersecurity tools, residential energy storage systems, and farm and construction equipment. However, it does include most other household electronics, including smartphones, laptops, televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, smart home devices, and more.
The law requires electronics manufacturers to make repair tools and manuals available to consumers and independent repair shops so that they can fix broken devices without having to pay a premium to get them repaired from the company's own service centers. The law applies to all products sold on or after July 1st, 2021, and stipulates that the necessary repair tools and documents must be made available to consumers free of charge within 60 days. Not doing so will be a violation of the state's Deceptive Trade Practices statute, and will invite penalties.
Observers and right-to-repair activists believe that the Minnesota law is more comprehensive in its scope and scale than the New York statute that is slated to come into effect this July. Unlike the Minnesota bill, the one signed by New York governor Kathy Hochul last year left some right-to-repair advocates unimpressed, as it doesn't require manufacturers to sell consumers individual parts, nor does it let third-party repair technicians bypass software locks. It doesn't apply to devices sold before the law was passed either, making it much less comprehensive than what the activists were asking for.
Despite the slew of exclusions in the Minnesota law, it has, for the most part, been accepted warmly by right-to-repair advocates. One of them is Nathan Proctor, the senior director of U.S. PIRG's Right to Repair campaign. In a statement released this week, Procter said that the new legislation is the biggest right-to-repair win for consumers to date. According to him, "Repairs cut waste and save consumers money. It's common sense, and it is becoming increasingly clear that manufacturers' attempts to thwart repair will no longer be tolerated. Minnesota won't be the last state to codify that." | Consumer Electronics |
Apple is set to release its next Apple Watch Series 9 set of smartwatches, but the company is reportedly offering little to no reason for any current users to upgrade from the Series 8. Current reports suggest the best thing to do if you’re excited about the next evolution in wearables is to wait a year for the big “Series X” drop.
The Series 9 is expected to debut alongside the iPhone 15 sometime next month. We’re anticipating a few dramatic changes for the company’s signature smartphone, but according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Apple Watch should only see the slightest of upgrades, including a slightly faster processor and some new colors. Gurman, reporting based on unnamed company contacts, called it “the most minor upgrade” since the first Apple Watch saw the light of day in 2014.
Compare that to 2024, and apparently, things will get just a little bit spicier. The “X” models could include a new microLED display that is presumably superior to current OLED watch screens. The 2024 watch might also include blood pressure monitoring tech. Apple reportedly tried to add blood pressure monitoring into the 2021 watch, but the company’s technology reportedly hit snags so it was delayed until next year. The first major company to give us blood pressure monitoring was Samsung with its 2019 Active watch, but it was hindered by a notoriously buggy launch and required initial calibration.
The Series X will include a thinner watch case and new magnetically attached watch bands. Previous watch bands were attached with a locking mechanism, but Apple wants to use some of that extended space to increase battery space, according to Gurman. Samsung’s latest, largest-screened Galaxy Watch 6 and Watch 6 Classic include a new “quick release” strap design that makes use of the company’s more traditional watch shape. Current Apple watches have cutouts for the watch bands to snap into, and removing those cutouts could grant the company precious millimeters of room to add new components.
The new upcoming smartwatch will reportedly maintain the same size and shape as previous versions, including the 45 mm Ultra. The Apple Watch Series 7 slightly increased the screen size, but even that watch was a noted bare upgrade from previous versions. Last year’s big news was all the bells and whistles included in the $799 Apple Watch Ultra. These included an “Action” button for calling up designated apps or features, longer battery life, and all-around more premium specs.
The regular Apple Watch Series 8 included two new temperature sensors for monitoring both ambient and body heat. Otherwise, the Cupertino company advertised new software updates like ovulation cycle estimation and crash detection.
Additionally, Gurman has been the main man tracking the progress of Apple’s upcoming M3 processor. He already hinted that the base M3 chip will be packing eight CPU cores and 10 GPU cores, but now he claims 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs should get access to a regular M3 Chip alongside new MacBook Pros. The 14- and 16-inch Pro lines as well as the Mac Studio could arrive with a more powerful M3 Max chip, while the Mac Studio and Mac Pro could contain an M3 Ultra.
So Apple is, once again, stalling progress on its Apple Watch, but its own proprietary silicon might help boost flagging laptop sales in a larger market slowdown. Perhaps Apple might finally put the Apple Watch on a two-year upgrade cycle like the company’s iPad line, but at least for now, we’ll need to deal with another year’s boring release.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Sept 29 (Reuters) - Memory chipmaker Micron Technology (MU.O) forecast first-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Thursday as demand from its key end markets including PCs and smartphones worsen amid rising worries about an economic downturn.To cope with the tougher market conditions, Micron also said it would cut its investments.“We are taking decisive steps to reduce our supply growth including a nearly 50% wafer fab equipment capex cut versus last year," said Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra in its earnings statement.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comShares of the Boise, Idaho-based company, which have roughly declined 45% so far this year on fears of a further slowdown in demand for semiconductors, fell 2.4% in extended trading. Chip equipment maker Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) also dropped 2% in after hours on the news.Micron was the first to sound a severe warning bell for the entire semiconductor industry during its third quarter earnings report late June.Since then, the situation has only worsened with the weakness seeping from consumer electronics to end markets such as data centers and cloud as a global economic slowdown caused by red-hot inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions and COVID-19 lockdowns in China has led businesses and consumers alike to rein in expenses.Spiraling demand had led to inventory build ups, which in turn has forced companies to drive down the prices of chips. Research firm TrendForce forecast a 13% to 18% drop in DRAM chips pricing, which makes over 70% of Micron's revenue, while also forecasting a 15% to 20% drop in NAND memory pricing for the last three months of 2022.The company forecast adjusted current-quarter revenue to be $4.25 billion, plus or minus $250 million. Analysts on average expected revenue to be $5.62 billion, according Refinitiv data.Adjusted revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 1 was $6.64 billion. Analysts on average expected revenue to be $6.68 billion.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Marguerita ChoyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
Cable TV ‘cord-cutters’ became the majority in 2022
The steady decline of cable and broadcast television, and the rise of streaming services, reached a sort of inflection point over the past year.
Last summer, for the first time, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime claimed the largest share of the television viewing audience, surpassing both cable and broadcast TV. Streaming captured 34.8 percent of July viewers, according to Nielsen data, compared to 34.4 percent for cable and 21.6 percent for broadcast.
And then, sometime in the second half of 2022, cord-cutters became the majority. The share of cable and satellite television subscribers dipped to 48 percent, according to a report from Samba TV, a television technology company.
The nation’s largest pay television providers lost 5.9 million customers in 2022, the largest drop on record, according to Leichtman Research Group. Pay TV subscribers have dwindled from 95.5 million to 70.2 million in a decade.
“We’ve absolutely reached the tipping point,” said Dallas Lawrence, senior vice president of Samba TV. “Streaming is TV today, period. It is now the primary way that the majority of Americans consume television content.”
Two broad forces drove the rise of streaming over the past decade.
One was faster internet download speeds, which enabled Netflix and its peers to deliver high-quality streaming to subscribers without the image freezing up and the accursed swirling circle appearing on the screen.
The other was mass dissatisfaction with the nation’s cable providers.
“I don’t think anybody would say they loved dealing with their cable companies because, in most markets, they were a monopoly,” Lawrence said.
Streaming arrived at a moment when many Americans felt their monthly cable bills were spiraling out of control.
“You had all these add-on fees: that $60 bill all of a sudden wasn’t $60,” said James Willcox, consumer electronics reporter at Consumer Reports. “I think the way the cable companies treated their customers made a lot of people really look forward to leaving their cable company.”
They called it cord cutting, or cord burning, in the case of the most aggrieved customers. But the term isn’t really apt. Many cable customers dropped cable while retaining internet and telephone service from the same company.
Oddly enough, even cable companies are no longer pushing cable television with much gusto.
“The providers themselves are less interested in the industry than they were five, 10, 20 years ago,” said Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research.
The typical cable company also offers broadband, and profit margins are higher in that business than on cable television.
“Cable companies are not cable companies anymore,” Leichtman said. “They are broadband companies. That is their focus.”
Who, then, still watches cable?
Just over a third of American viewers, according to Nielsen. Throw in satellite and other broadcast customers, and traditional television reaches a little over half of the nation.
“There are things about cable TV that people still find valuable,” said Jana Arbanas, U.S. Telecom, Media and Entertainment sector leader for Deloitte. “Two of those rise to the top: local news and sports.”
Increasingly, though, news and sports are migrating to streaming platforms, reaching viewers on virtual television packages such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV. Apple has pledged $2.5 billion to stream every Major League Soccer contest for a decade on its Apple TV platform.
Even with the rise of virtual options, traditional cable and satellite television retain their appeal for some, especially older viewers.
“Older people are still trained, have a different way of consuming content than younger people do,” Leichtman said.
By contrast, roughly one-third of viewers who don’t have cable television have never had it and probably never will. That group is dominated by younger Americans.
Broadcast television may be hanging on, but streaming services have transformed the way Americans watch television.
The typical viewer of 2023 subscribes to two streaming services, said Lawrence of Samba TV. One is often Netflix, which commanded 7.3 percent of the overall television viewing audience in March, according to Nielsen. The other might be Hulu (3.3 percent of viewership), Prime (2.9 percent), Disney (1.8 percent) or HBO Max (1.2 percent).
On top of those long-term subscriptions, viewers tend to cycle through 30-day subscriptions to a third or fourth provider.
“This is the epitome of consumer choice,” Lawrence said. “Consumers are now actively signing up subscriptions with the intent of canceling after 30 days because they’re doing it to watch one show.”
Hordes of viewers subscribed to HBO Max long enough to watch House of the Dragon or The White Lotus, two of the hottest series of 2022. Viewers flocked to Paramount Plus to catch Tulsa King and 1923. Many bailed after the binge.
Adding and dropping streaming services, a routine variously termed cycling or churning, “is really changing the landscape of TV,” Lawrence said. “Nobody has a stagnant audience anymore.”
Research by Deloitte found that 44 percent of streaming customers churned on a streaming service in the last six months.
“Millennials churn at a rate of 62 percent,” Arbanas said. “They are absolutely seeking the exact content that they want, but they are not willing to carry more streaming subscriptions than they have in the past.”
All of that competition, and all of those choices, is great for anyone who remembers the soul-crushing exercise of late-night channel-surfing on cable. But today’s streaming landscape has grown as crowded as yesterday’s cable lineup, with hundreds of services vying for viewership: more than 300 in all, according to Arbanas.
“The good thing is that consumers have more options than they ever had,” said Willcox of Consumer Reports. “The bad thing is that consumers have more options than they ever had.”
The streaming revolution has “added a lot of complexity and offloaded a lot of responsibility onto the consumer,” he said.
The trouble begins with finding the streaming service that carries the film or program the viewer wants to watch. Sites such as JustWatch and ReelGood allow viewers to search for streaming options, but they aren’t perfect.
Once you’ve found and watched an episode or two of your new show on an unfamiliar streaming platform, you face a real risk of never seeing it again. Your television is probably not keeping track.
And then there are the ads. Increasingly, streaming customers are turning to cheaper, ad-supported versions of Netflix and Hulu, and to free-TV providers such as Pluto and Crackle.
Subscription-based services have a big incentive to draw viewers into ad-based streaming, which delivers revenues from two sources.
But the services have not worked out the kinks in the ads, a deficiency familiar to anyone who has watched the same ad four, five or 10 times over the course of an ad-supported film.
By the fifth viewing of the same ad, “the consumer actually forms a negative view of the product,” Lawrence said.
For viewers who eschew ads, prices are rising. Netflix now costs as much as $19.99 a month. And streaming services charge top dollar for their “cable-replacement” plans, which stream live television.
“You’re probably paying $65 or $70 a month just for those, and then you’re paying $15 or $20 for Netflix,” Willcox said. “If you’re subscribing to five streaming services on top of that replacement-TV service, you may be paying more than you were with cable.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | Consumer Electronics |
Today, Google executives took to the stage at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California to talk about the company’s latest advancements in artificial intelligence, Android, and Pixel hardware. If you didn’t have it in you to sit through the two hour live-streamed event (we feel you), here’s the most interested announcements and debuts Google made at I/O 2023.
Today, Google wanted the world to know it’s definitely not resting on its AI laurels, with over an hour of AI-related announcements that included everything from its latest large language model (called PaLM 2), to public availability for its Bard AI in more than 180 countries in English, Korean, and Japanese (as well as support for 40 additional languages coming soon), to improved AI functionality in many of its user-facing products like Gmail, Maps, and even Google Search. You can read all about Google’s I/O 2023 AI announcements here.
Although the company teased some of the new additions to its Pixel line over a year ago, today’s Google event officially revealed all the details for its Pixel Tablet, which doubles as a home hub device when docked to a wireless charging base with a speaker. There was also the Pixel 7a smartphone, which looks it can outperform competing smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A54. The Pixel Fold took up most of the demo, being the latest smartphone that cleverly transforms into a larger tablet-sized device thanks to the magic of flexible OLED screens. You can read all about Google’s new Pixel devices revealed at I/O 2023 here.
Although the rollout of Wear OS 3 has been a slow one over the past two years, Google clearly doesn’t want its mobile OS for wearables to once again fall into disrepair and neglect. Today, Google revealed that Wear OS 4 would be available as a developer preview today, with a larger rollout coming to actual devices later this year.
Some of the most anticipated features of the next version of Wear OS include better battery life for wearables like the Pixel Watch that struggle to get through the day, as well as the ability to back up a configured Wear OS device to the cloud and then restore it to a reset, repaired, or even a replaced smartwatch without having to start the setup process from scratch again. Developers will have better tools for designing custom watch faces that don’t contribute to Wear OS’ battery life woes, while third-party apps like WhatsApp will soon be coming to Wear OS devices.
Google is also promising more of its own services will be coming to wearables through Wear OS 4, including the ability to respond to emails from Gmail from a watch, more robust calendar functionality, including RSVP’ing to invites without having to reach for a smartphone, and further integration with Google Home, allowing users to control their smarthome accessories like lights right from their wrists.
What set Apple’s AirTags apart from the competition (and raised serious concerns about stalking and privacy) was that it took advantage of the millions of iPhones, iPads, and even MacBooks in use around the world to keep tabs on, and report the location of, the tiny coin-sized tags. Google’s Find My Device platform previously only worked with devices that had their own location tracking abilities (GPS hardware) but at I/O 2023 today, the company revealed that the platform will work more like Apple’s does later this Summer. It’ll harness “over a billion Android devices across the world to help you locate your missing belongings like headphones, tracker tags, or even your phone via Bluetooth proximity.”
In order to head off the same concerns raised over AirTags when they launched, last week Google announced it had partnered with Apple to put tools in place to minimize the risk of stalking using tracking networks and devices, including alerts through Android for unknown tracker devices nearby. Today, it also emphasized that privacy and security are a top priority for its upgraded Find My Device network, assuring users that “location data crowdsourced from the network is end-to-end encrypted” so that not even Google can access and use the data for other purposes.
What appears to set Google’s Find My Device platform apart from Apple’s is that it’s not only limited to Google’s own hardware. Bluetooth tracking devices from companies like Tile, Chipolo, and Pebblebee will work with it, and headphone models from Sony and JBL will soon be compatible as well. The upgrades could give Apple some stiff competition in this space, as Android devices far outnumber the hardware Apple has out in the wild, potentially leading to improved accuracy and a wider reach.
When Google first debuted its experimental Project Starline two years ago, it looked like the classic photo booths kids would crowd into at shopping malls. But instead of spitting out a strip of black and white photos, the Project Starline prototype booth let users video chat with another person who felt like were sitting right across from them, thanks to a clever use of depth cameras, hyper-realistic 3D models, and a light field display that created the illusion of depth.
In 2021, we didn’t know if Project Starline would ever see the light of day, or if it was a technology that Google would eventually abandon. Apparently, it’s not only alive and well, but the technology behind Project Starline has been streamlined so it has a smaller footprint that can be installed in conference rooms around the world. It still relies on a fairly large light field display, but new AI techniques have allowed depth sensors to be replaced with “a few standard cameras to produce higher quality, lifelike 3D images.” The new design has also been tested by companies like T-Mobile, WeWork, and Salesforce, which means that in a few more years, there’s the potential it could not only show up in offices, but eventually be turned into a product available to consumers.
Although it’s probably not going to change the mind of that one uncle who’s convinced the moon landing was faked, today Google announced a new tool that can provide more information about an image’s provenance, including when it first showed up in Google Search and where it’s been published or referenced. The idea is to provide additional context that can help users determine if an image is genuine, if it’s been digitally manipulated or AI-generated, or if it’s a complete fake. Google also announced improvements to its Safe Browsing API to help identify dangerous sites sooner, and expanded availability for tools allowing Google users to search for their Gmail ID to see if it’s being shared on the dark web. You can read all about Google’s internet safety and security announcements made at I/O 2023 today right here.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Smart TV company Vizio is more known for its budget screens than it is for a functional, modern UI. Now, the company said it’s finally ready for a facelift, one that’s been a long time coming. Starting on Wednesday, Vizio’s new interface does away with its old box-y look and rearranges icons to make finding apps and content a fair bit easier.
On Wednesday Vizio announced its SmartCast UI that powers the brand’s TVs is being replaced by what’s been dubbed the “Home Screen.” The new UI should be rolling out in an update for all Vizio users available the same day.
Instead of big blocks of movie posters and apps, icons and logos have been shifted down to showcase a full backdrop image of any highlighted piece of content. At the same time, the UI has been shuffled around to allow more information—including age rating and runtime—for selected movies and shows.
Perhaps the most noticeable change for Vizio users is that the navigation panel has moved from the top to the left side of the screen. Each selected piece of content will appear with additional landing pages to watch trailers and clips. The UI now shares more options for watching the show, though this also includes a new “Promoted” box to advertise some services over others. The apps otherwise go left to right from least expensive to the most expensive option.
For those who hate typing with SmartCast’s elongated single line keyboard, the search function has been transformed into your usual grid format. The tabs themselves have also been reworked, with the “Browse” button now including both genre pages and special hubs like Oscar Nominations and Game Day, for example.
Home Screen’s app row now contains easy access to whatever is currently in the HDMI ports as well as a recent apps button. In addition, the app catalog tab resembles something more like an app store, with promoted services laid out in a more descriptive grid.
All the changes seem very Netflix-esque, but that’s the point. Most TV interfaces have done away with the top bar in exchange for sidebar navigation. This not only makes buttons more clear, but it also allows for more room on the top and bottom of the screen to display content. Vizio’s SmartCast UI has been long in the tooth, and users have long worked to stream through other apps like Roku rather than deal with the clunky, old-timey interface. It seems the top bar’s days are all but gone. Even Hulu has finally caught on and has slowly rolled out changes to its TV apps.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Can John Deere become one of the leading AI and robotics companies in the world alongside Tesla and Silicon Valley technology giants over the next decade?That notion may seem incongruous with the general perception of the 185-year-old company as a heavy-metal manufacturer of tractors, bulldozers and lawnmowers painted in the signature green and yellow colors.But that is what the company sees in its future, according to Jorge Heraud, vice president of automation and autonomy for Moline, Illinois-based Deere, a glimpse of which was showcased at last January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Deere unveiled its fully autonomous 8R farm tractor, driven by artificial intelligence rather than a farmer behind the wheel.The autonomous 8R is the culmination of Deere's nearly two decades of strategic planning and investment in automation, data analytics, GPS guidance, internet-of-things connectivity and software engineering. While a good deal of that R&D has been homegrown, the company also has been on a spree of acquisitions and partnerships with agtech startups, harvesting know-how as well as talent."This comes from our realization that technology is going to drive value creation and increase productivity, profitability and sustainability for farmers," Heraud said.While Deere made a big splash at CES and intrigued the investment community, Stephen Volkmann, equity research analyst at Jefferies, said, "We are very, very, very early in this process.""The total global fleet of autonomous Deere tractors is less than 50 today," he added. And even though Deere's goal is to have a fully autonomous farming system for row crops in place by 2030, Volkmann said, "in Wall Street time, that's an eternity."For the time being, Deere is creating value and profits with well-established automated systems that can be retrofitted to its existing tractors, such as GPS-based self-steering and precision seeding that measures how deep and far apart to plant. Those steps have to be in place, Volkmann said, before you can put full autonomy around them.The autonomous 8R represents a giant leap in current agtech, not to mention the marketing benefit. "Prior to its introduction at CES, everybody thought [full autonomy] was pie in the sky," said Scott Shearer, chair of the department of food, agricultural and biological engineering at Ohio State University.Around the world, Shearer said, there are probably 30 different autonomous tractor projects in the works, though none are commercially available. "But when Deere, with 60% of the tractor market share in North America, comes out with one, that's when reality sets in," Shearer said.That reality reflects Deere's autonomy strategy. "The AI we use involves computer vision and machine learning," Heraud said, science that was well underway at Silicon Valley startup Blue River Technology, which Deere bought in 2017 for $305 million — a deal that also brought on Blue River co-founder and CEO Heraud. Blue River's "see and spray" robotics platform utilizes dozens of sophisticated cameras and processors to distinguish weeds from crop plants when applying herbicides.Attached to the autonomous tractor are six pairs of stereo cameras that can "see" an obstacle in the field — whether it's a rock, a log or a person — and determine its size and relative distance. Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and decides whether the tractor should keep moving or stop."We've curated hundreds of thousands of images from different farm locations and under various weather and lighting conditions," Heraud said, "so that with machine learning, the tractor can understand what it's seeing and react accordingly. This capability also allows the farmer, instead of being in the tractor, to operate it remotely while doing something else."Heraud was referring to autonomous driving, another piece of Deere's agtech puzzle that came together when it purchased Bear Flag Robotics last year for $250 million. Also a Silicon Valley startup, launched in 2017, Bear Flag's autonomous navigation system can be retrofitted onto existing tractors. In the case of Deere's 8R model, a tractor which first went on the market in 2020, the latest version with autonomous capabilities uses technology from Blue River.Since the CES rollout, Deere has acquired AI assets from two other agtech pioneers. In April, Deere formed a joint venture with GUSS Automation, which has devised semi-autonomous orchard and vineyard sprayers. Using AI and IoT, multiple GUSS (Global Unmanned Spray System) sprayers can be remotely controlled by a single operator, running up to eight sprayers simultaneously from a laptop. GUSS can detect trees and determine how much to spray on each one, regardless of height or canopy size.A month later, Deere announced the acquisition of numerous patents and other intellectual property from AI startup Light, according to The Robot Report. Light's depth-perception platform improves upon existing stereo-vision systems by using additional cameras, mimicking the structure of a human eye to enable more accurate 3D vision. Deere plans to integrate Light's platform into future versions of its autonomous farm equipment.To keep a close eye on other agtech R&D, Deere has established a Startup Collaborator program to test innovative technologies with customers and dealers without a more formal business relationship. "The hope is that they find the diamonds before they become obvious to [competitors] and keep them in the fold," Volkmann said. Among the current crop are Four Growers, a Pittsburgh-based startup providing robotic harvesting and analytics for high-value crops, starting with greenhouse tomatoes, and Philadelphia-based Burro, which is producing small, autonomous robots that can assist farm workers with various conveyance tasks.Not surprisingly, Deere's biggest competitors have been developing automation and autonomy for its farm machinery, too. AGCO, whose brands include Massey Ferguson and Fendt, "has been automating farming operations since the mid-1990s," said Seth Crawford, senior vice president and general manager of the Duluth, Georgia-based company's precision agriculture and digital division. "We're at a stage we call supervised autonomy, where we still have someone in the cab of the machine," he said. "The buzz is around fully autonomous operations, but where farmers are willing to pay for automation is feature by feature."Whereas Deere is focused on adding full autonomy to its own farm equipment, AGCO is eying the wider retrofit market, Crawford said. "In summer 2023, we'll have a performance-enhancing retrofit kit available for multiple brands of machines," he said. "Where others say we bring you autonomy with a half-million-dollar tractor," he said, alluding to the price tag of Deere's 8R, "we have kits that allow you to do that with your existing fleet. We see a huge opportunity with the installed base, where farmers want to adopt technology to enhance their outcomes, and yet don't want to flip their entire fleet and make that massive investment."In 2016, Case IH, a subsidiary of CNH Industrial, headquartered in London, rolled up to the Farm Progress Show with what it called the Autonomous Concept Vehicle. The sleek prototype tractor, minus a driver's cab, hinted at the view of autonomy at the time. Fast forward six years, to September's Farm Progress Show, where Case IH unveiled its Trident 5550 autonomous applicator.Released in 2017, the Trident 5550 — with a cab — is designed for spreading dry and liquid materials in farm fields. The model at the farm show was retrofitted with autonomous technology developed by Raven Industries, which CNH acquired for $2.1 billion in June 2021. Similar to Deere's autonomous 8R, the enhanced Trident employs self-driving capability, advanced cameras and AI to interpret a continuous stream of images to detect obstacles.The company plans to have a limited number of the machines ready for farmers to test before going to market perhaps next year, said Chris Dempsey, global director at Case IH Precision Technology, though the exact release date is to be determined. "We want to get customer feedback and understand their confidence level [in autonomy] before we go commercial," he said. | Consumer Electronics |
A new Wall Street Journal report says that Apple is anticipating production issues with the Reality Pro headset launch. That’s the purported name of Apple’s AR/VR headset that’s been in the news for a few years now. The upcoming mixed reality wearable will run on a new Apple platform called realityOS, reports say.
The Journal said the AR/VR headset might see delays, considering the complexity of the hardware and software. But reputable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shared an upbeat update about Apple’s unreleased mixed reality headset. He says Apple is “well-prepared for the announcement of this new device.”
Kuo has been one of the constant voices delivering Reality Pro news. In the past few years, the insider relied on his connections inside the Apple supply chain to provide consistent updates about the AR/VR headset. That included various information about the unreleased hardware, like design details and specs. But also bad news like product delays.
The analyst doesn’t mention any sort of delays or production issues in his new report. While The Journal quoted his forecast that Apple would only manufacture up to 300,000 units this year, we never expected the Reality Pro gadget to match the first-gen iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.
But let’s not forget that the purpose of the mixed reality device is to mark Apple’s entrance into the AR/VR business, with a huge emphasis on AR. The expensive mixed reality headset is the stepping stone Apple needs for building the AR glasses of the future. That’s the device that might replace the iPhone.
The same WSJ report also noted that manufacturing should start in September. Customers looking to purchase the $3,000 gadget won’t get it until the fall. But the Reality Pro is a first-gen device. Therefore the wide gap between the launch event and its release date is expected. It’s what Apple did with all its devices. We never expected the Reality Pro to hit stores right after the WWDC 2023 announcement next month.
Kuo’s new note about the AR/VR headset sounds optimistic regarding the impact of the AR/VR headset on the supply chain. Kuo named the various companies that have inked Reality Pro supply deals with Apple:
Apart from the assembly (exclusive to Luxshare-ICT), micro OLED display (exclusive to Sony), dual processors (exclusive to TSMC), casing (Everwin Precision as the main supplier), 12 camera modules (exclusive to Cowell), and external power supply (exclusive to Goretek) are the top 5 most expensive material costs for this new device.
Furthermore, Kuo believes that Apple’s AR/VR headset could significantly impact the market if the announcement is “better than expected.” That’s good news for the entire industry, not just Apple’s wearable:
The headset device will soon become the most important new investment trend in the consumer electronics sector if Apple’s AR/MR headset announcement is better than expected.
Apple is expected to lead the market despite its late entrance. And various rivals might copy Apple’s vision in the near future, according to Kuo.
Recent reports from people who have tested the device in the later stages of development indicated the Reality Pro headset will deliver a mind-blowing experience. Some of the AR/VR headset’s software features have leaked recently, teasing some of the unique experiences the device will offer. | Consumer Electronics |
@jdannychadwick Jan 5, 2023, 3:06 pm EST
| 6 min read Grenar/Shutterstock.com
With the Consumer Electronics Show in full swing, you’re probably seeing a lot of stories about great new gadgets companies are developing to improve your life. However, many of those products and concepts never make it into your home or even onto store shelves. We call it “vaporware.” What is Vaporware?
Vaporware is an informal term used by tech industry professionals, journalists, and consumers to describe products that have been announced but never materialize or take a very long time to reach the market. This can happen for various reasons. Sometimes the company misjudges its ability to actually develop a concept into a finished product. Other times it just runs out of money to keep the project going. And occasionally, the company is just lying about its intentions to generate publicity.
In honor of CES 2023, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite pieces of vaporware–no matter the reason for their failure to launch.
Apple W.A.L.T. A computer with a telephone in it might seem like a trite concept today. But, back in 1993, it was a mind-blowing concept. And Apple partnered with telephone company BellSouth to make it a reality. The resulting prototype featured a touchscreen, caller ID, a fax machine, an address book, customizable ringtones, and online banking access. All of these features were cutting-edge tech in the early 90s. If Apple had managed to make it a reality, it likely would have been a big hit. And the tech world would look very different today.
Unfortunately, it never made it out of the prototype stage. But, fortunately, it also meant it’s an awful name never entered the tech lexicon long term. W.A.L.T. stands for “Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone.” What a “Wizzy Active Lifestyle” entails, we’ll never know. But it’s a safe assumption that Steve Jobs would have never ever have approved that name. That’s okay. We like the iPhone much better.
Google Glass Google Glass qualifies as vaporware because it still hasn’t reached the general public in the way we thought it would when it was first announced back in 2012. This heads-up display was marketed to the public as a game changer in the way we live. It featured a built-in camera and showed you lots of cool stuff in the glass of the eyepieces.
I actually really wanted one at the time. Glass seemed like a gadget Tony Stark would wear. I even entered Google’s #IfIHadGlass promotion on Twitter to try to get my hands on a prototype (thankfully, that cringy tweet has long since been deleted) in 2013. I’m still waiting for any company to develop a decent heads-up display that’s made for everyday use that isn’t some massive augmented reality headset that you wear like a helmet. Google eventually shipped 8,000 Glass prototypes to “Glass Explorers” for testing. But, by 2014, it was clear that the heads-up display was in trouble. In February 2015, the New York Times reported that former Apple executive Tony Fadell was redesigning the product, and it wouldn’t be released until it was perfect–apparently meaning never.
However, Google did eventually release the Google Glass Enterprise Edition, but as the name implies, that’s only available to specific businesses for specific purposes. The general public may never see these would-be glasses with a built-in camera and eye-level display. Such a shame.
Palm Foleo If you’re having trouble remembering what a “subnotebook” is, you’re not alone. That class of device was meant to mean “really small laptop” in the early 2000s and has since dropped out of widespread use—kind of like “netbook.” The Palm Foleo, a long-forgotten productivity device, could be considered the death knell of the subnotebook product category. Palm announced the Foleo in 2007, and it was meant to be a companion device for the company’s Treo smartphone line. It ran the Linux operating system and featured Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. The subnotebook also had an integrated email client, used the Opera web browser and the Documents to Go office suite. Had it ever reached the market, the Foleo could have been a pretty handy device for on-the-go users in its age.
Unfortunately, it was never to be. Palm was getting slammed in all areas of the consumer electronics market at the time, and the Foleo was canceled just three months after it was announced. The official reason was so that Palm could refocus on its smartphone devices. The company never recovered and was acquired by HP three years later.
Atari 2700 Many people recall the Atari 2600 as their first home gaming console. It sold more than thirty million units throughout its 1977-1992 lifespan. Given its popularity, it’s only natural that Atari would craft a successor – the Atari 2700. Intended for a 1981 release, the 2700 was meant to be fully backward-compatible with the 2600’s games and accessories (a promise almost all game companies make but never keep). The design for the console was a significant departure from the 2600, featuring a more sleek wedge-shaped form factor rather than the now-classic boxy wood panel look of the 2600.
And, in what would have been a significant innovation, the 2700 would have wireless controllers. The controllers would have worked via radio signals, with an adjustable antenna sticking out of them, making them resemble a walkie-talkie with a dial in the middle instead of a speaker. But Atari couldn’t work out the technology and canceled the system. Atari would later realize wireless controllers as a plug-in accessory to the 2600 in 1983.
Duke Nukem Forever Duke Nukem Forever holds a distinction in video games for spending a very long time in “development hell.” 3D Realms first announced the game in 1997 as a sequel to the smash hit Duke Nukem 3D, and it was expected that the game would be released before the year 2000. However, the late 90s was a transition period for first-person-shooter gaming engines. And 3D Realms had yet to acquire a license to develop Forever on the Quake II engine, so they began developing it on the aging Quake engine. It turns out that was a mistake because Epic Games soon unveiled the Unreal Engine, which some programmers considered superior to the Quake II engine. So, in June 1998, 3D Realms announced it would have to start over on Forever using the Unreal Engine but stated that it would not be significantly delayed–just a month to six weeks, the company claimed at the time.
Months ended up being years, and Duke Nukem Forever began missing deadlines, and multiple launch dates were announced and later rescheduled. It got so bad that in 2001, 3D Realms announced that Forever would be released “when it’s done.” It would take another decade and a lawsuit to finally get the game onto waiting players’ consoles. And by all accounts, the game wasn’t worth the wait. Critics widely panned it, and the consensus among video game aficionados is that it’s one of the worst games of all time.
Duke Nukem Forever holds the Guinness world record for the longest development of a video game.
Noveto N1 One of the most recent examples of vaporware is the Noveto N1. This innovative speaker was dubbed the “invisible headphones” by CES goers in 2022. In fact, it was one of our Editor’s Choice Award winners for that year’s show. The N1 used beamforming technology to create sound pockets around a listener’s ears and transmitted sound to those pockets without needing a physical headset. It would have been a game-changer in the world of audio. Our Editor in Chief had a terrific hands-on experience with the N1 and reported that “it’s everything the company is promising.” Unfortunately, CES 2022 was the last anyone saw of the N1. A few months after the show, the company stopped updating its website and returning emails from its Kickstarter backers.
In March 2022, the company posted an apology to its Kickstarter backers on that website, stating, “We are not satisfied with the current performance of the Noveto N1 product, and are working tirelessly to solve these issues in order to deliver on our promise.” However, in August, the company admitted that “Noveto has encountered a financial distress and initiated insolvency proceedings.” A sad example of what would have been a fantastic product being killed by financial troubles. As of this writing, Noveto’s final fate is uncertain, as its website is still up and running and touting the high praise it got at CES 2022. | Consumer Electronics |
Many owners of electric vehicles worry about how effective their battery will be in very cold weather. Now a new battery chemistry may have solved that problem.
In current lithium-ion batteries, the main problem lies in the liquid electrolyte. This key battery component transfers charge-carrying particles called ions between the battery’s two electrodes, causing the battery to charge and discharge. But the liquid begins to freeze at sub-zero temperatures. This condition severely limits the effectiveness of charging electric vehicles in cold regions and seasons.
To address that problem, a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories developed a fluorine-containing electrolyte that performs well even in sub-zero temperatures.
“Our research thus demonstrated how to tailor the atomic structure of electrolyte solvents to design new electrolytes for sub-zero temperatures.” — John Zhang, Argonne group leader
“Our team not only found an antifreeze electrolyte whose charging performance does not decline at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit, but we also discovered, at the atomic level, what makes it so effective,” said Zhengcheng “John” Zhang, a senior chemist and group leader in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division.
This low-temperature electrolyte shows promise of working for batteries in electric vehicles, as well as in energy storage for electric grids and consumer electronics like computers and phones.
In today’s lithium-ion batteries, the electrolyte is a mixture of a widely available salt (lithium hexafluorophosphate) and carbonate solvents such as ethylene carbonate. The solvents dissolve the salt to form a liquid.
When a battery is charged, the liquid electrolyte shuttles lithium ions from the cathode (a lithium-containing oxide) to the anode (graphite). These ions migrate out of the cathode, then pass through the electrolyte on the way into the anode. While being transported through the electrolyte, they sit at the center of clusters of four or five solvent molecules.
During the initial few charges, these clusters strike the anode surface and form a protective layer called the solid-electrolyte interphase. Once formed, this layer acts like a filter. It allows only the lithium ions to pass through the layer while blocking the solvent molecules. In this way, the anode is able to store lithium atoms in the structure of the graphite on charge. Upon discharge, electrochemical reactions release electrons from the lithium that generate electricity that can power vehicles.
The problem is that in cold temperatures, the electrolyte with carbonate solvents begins to freeze. As a result, it loses the ability to transport lithium ions into the anode on charge. This is because the lithium ions are so tightly bound within the solvent clusters. Hence, these ions require much higher energy to evacuate their clusters and penetrate the interface layer than at room temperature. For that reason, scientists have been searching for a better solvent.
The team investigated several fluorine-containing solvents. They were able to identify the composition that had the lowest energy barrier for releasing lithium ions from the clusters at sub-zero temperature. They also determined at the atomic scale why that particular composition worked so well. It depended on the position of the fluorine atoms within each solvent molecule and their number.
In testing with laboratory cells, the team’s fluorinated electrolyte retained stable energy storage capacity for 400 charge-discharge cycles at minus 4 F. Even at that sub-zero temperature, the capacity was equivalent to that of a cell with a conventional carbonate-based electrolyte at room temperature.
“Our research thus demonstrated how to tailor the atomic structure of electrolyte solvents to design new electrolytes for sub-zero temperatures,” Zhang said.
The antifreeze electrolyte has a bonus property. It is much safer than the carbonate-based electrolytes that are currently used, since it will not catch fire.
“We are patenting our low-temperature and safer electrolyte and are now searching for an industrial partner to adapt it to one of their designs for lithium-ion batteries,” Zhang said.
This research appears in Advanced Energy Materials. In addition to John Zhang, Argonne authors are Dong-Joo Yoo, Qian Liu and Minkyu Kim. Berkeley Lab authors are Orion Cohen and Kristin Persson.
This work was funded by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science. | Consumer Electronics |
California, the home to many of tech's biggest companies and the nation's most populous state, is pushing ahead with a right-to-repair bill for consumer electronics and appliances. After unanimous votes in the state Assembly and Senate, the bill passed yesterday is expected to move through a concurrence vote and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
"Since Right to Repair can pass here, expect it to be on its way to a backyard near you," said iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens in a statement. iFixit, a seller of repair parts and tools and advocate for right-to-repair laws, based in San Luis Obispo, California, was joined in its support for the California repair law by another California company with a history of opposing repair laws: Apple. The consumer tech giant's letter urging passage of the bill was surprising, to say the least, though Apple said that the bill's stipulations for "individual users' safety" and "product manufacturers' intellectual property" were satisfactory.
California's bill goes further than right-to-repair laws in other states. Rather than limiting its demand that companies provide parts, tools, repair manuals, and necessary software for devices that are still actively sold, California requires that vendors provide those items for products sold after July 1, 2021, starting in July 2024. Products costing $50 to $99.99 must be accompanied by those items for three years, and items $100 and more necessitate seven years. The bill also provides for stronger enforcement mechanisms, allowing for municipalities to bring superior court cases rather than contact the state attorney general.
There are some concessions and potential pitfalls, however. Pricing of parts and tools is left at "fair and reasonable terms." The bill requires repair vendors that are "not an authorized repair provider" to "provide a written notice of that fact" to customers and to "disclose if it uses replacement parts that are used" or third-party. Apple specifically advocated for consumer notice of third-party parts and unauthorized repair in its letter supporting the bill.
Along with repair laws going into effect in 2024 in California, New York, and Minnesota (along with bills focused on agriculture and powered wheel chairs in Colorado), there are repair laws underway in Europe involving repair services, removable batteries, USB-C standardization, and other aspects of repair and sustainability. With three large states and Europe as a whole moving to enforce repairable design and after-purchase care, manufacturers may choose to offer compliant products everywhere, rather than divide their offerings.
Apple, notably, made a point of the increased repairability and durability of the titanium-framed iPhone 15 announced yesterday.
Disclosure: Kevin Purdy previously worked for iFixit. He has no financial ties to the company. | Consumer Electronics |
The European Parliament today voted overwhelmingly in favor of enforcing USB-C as a common charging port across a wide range of consumer electronic devices, including the iPhone and AirPods, by the end of 2024.
The proposal, known as a directive, forces all consumer electronics manufacturers who sell their products in Europe to ensure that a wide range of devices feature a USB-C port. This "common port" will be a world-first statue and impact Apple in particular since it widely uses the Lightning connector instead of USB-C on many of its devices. MEPs claim that the move will reduce electronic waste, address product sustainability, and make use of different devices more convenient.
The directive received 602 votes in favor, 13 votes against, and eight abstentions. A press release issued by the European Parliament earlier today states:
By the end of 2024, all mobile phones, tablets and cameras sold in the EU will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C charging port. From spring 2026, the obligation will extend to laptops. The new law, adopted by plenary on Tuesday with 602 votes in favour, 13 against and 8 abstentions, is part of a broader EU effort to reduce e-waste and to empower consumers to make more sustainable choices.
Under the new rules, consumers will no longer need a different charger every time they purchase a new device, as they will be able to use one single charger for a whole range of small and medium-sized portable electronic devices.
Regardless of their manufacturer, all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, earbuds and laptops that are rechargeable via a wired cable, operating with a power delivery of up to 100 Watts, will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C port.
All devices that support fast charging will now have the same charging speed, allowing users to charge their devices at the same speed with any compatible charger.
Exemptions will apply for devices that are too small to offer a USB-C port, such as smart watches, health trackers, and some sports equipment, but the legislation is expected to be expanded to other devices over time. Companies will also have to ensure that dedicated labels clearly inform consumers about the charging characteristics of devices they buy.
In addition, the EU seeks to ensure that wireless charging solutions are interoperable as the technology evolves over time. The directive empowers the European Commission to develop delegated acts by the end of 2024 that force companies to make their custom wireless charging solutions more open and meet interoperability standards, helping consumers to avoid getting locked into proprietary charging solutions while preventing fragmentation and reducing waste. It is not clear if this would include Apple's MagSafe charging system for the iPhone and AirPods since it is based on the Qi wireless charging standard. The EU Wants All Phones to Work With Interoperable Chargers, Here's What That Means for Apple's Lightning Port Now, the European Council must approve the directive so that it can be published in the EU Official Journal. It will come into force 20 days after publication in the EU Official Journal and its requirements will start to apply to new devices after 24 months. Products that went on sale before the date of application will be exempt and can continue to be sold after that point.
In 2018, the European Commission attempted to reach a final resolution on this issue but it failed to come into law. At the time, Apple warned that forcing a common charging port on the industry would stifle innovation and create electronic waste as consumers would be forced to switch to new cables.
The EU's effort resumed last year, with the European Commission spearheading a refreshed version of the directive. In April, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee voted to support the directive, with 43 votes in favor and just two against. In June, the EU's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection reached an agreement to introduce the directive to the European Parliament. Five Apple Products Rumored to Switch to USB-C Both Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman have said that Apple is testing a version of the iPhone that has a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port. Kuo believes that Apple could switch the iPhone to USB-C starting with 2023's iPhone 15, before transitioning AirPods and other accessories at a later date. This timing would allow Apple to switch many of its affected devices to USB-C ahead of the EU directive coming into force.
Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Popular StoriesGurman: Apple Event This October Remains Unlikely, No Touch ID for iPhone 15Apple is developing new iPad Pro, Mac, and Apple TV models, and at least some of these products will be released in October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. However, Gurman continues to believe that Apple is unlikely to hold an event this month.
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said "the big iPhone 14 unveiling last month was probably it for Apple in 2022 in...Apple Responds to Video Testing Crash Detection Feature With Junkyard VehiclesFriday September 30, 2022 9:11 am PDT by Joe RossignolThe Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern recently traveled to Michigan to test Apple's new crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra. In response, Apple provided some additional information about how the feature works.
Stern recruited Michael Barabe to crash his demolition derby car with a heavy-duty steel frame into two unoccupied vehicles parked in a junkyard — a 2003...Apple SIM No Longer Available for Activating New Cellular Data Plans on iPadsAs of October 1, Apple SIM is no longer available for activating new cellular data plans on supported iPad models, according to an Apple support document.
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Evidence of an upcoming iOS 16.0.3 software update has shown up in MacRumors analytics logs, which have been a reliable indicator in the past.
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(Bloomberg) -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. increased revenue by only 3.9% last quarter, underscoring how fears of a recession are crimping demand for iPhones and other consumer electronics.
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The world’s largest maker of Apple Inc.’s devices, known also as Foxconn, reported revenue of NT$1.46 trillion ($48 billion) for the usually slower March quarter. That’s down steeply even from the previous three months, when a Covid outbreak prompted protests at its main Zhengzhou facility in central China, disrupting iPhone production for weeks. That complex, known as “iPhone City” for being the largest global production site for Apple’s marquee device, resumed normal operations only in January.
Analysts estimated revenue of NT$1.45 trillion on average for the first three months of the year. Hon Hai also said that it expects a decrease in business in the second quarter on a year over year and quarterly basis.
Investors are struggling to gauge how the popularity of iPhones and mobile devices will hold up this year. Xiaomi Corp.’s smartphone shipments dived 26% in the fourth quarter after consumers worldwide put off spending on items such as electronics during a period of soaring inflation.
Manufacturers such as Foxconn — which also makes iPads and gadgets for many of the world’s biggest brands — are now re-examining an electronics supply chain centered on China. The Taiwanese firm plans to invest about $700 million in a new plant in India to ramp up production there, as more manufacturers shift from China to reduce fallout from growing Washington-Beijing tensions.
Read more: Apple Suppliers Are Racing to Exit China, AirPods Maker Says
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The more we learn about how certain lifestyle choices can negatively affect the environment, the more you may want solutions to decrease your own impact. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showed off tech gadgets that can make your life greener without any dramatic lifestyle changes.
Composting your food waste is just one way to help the planet during your daily routine. Reencle’s CES featured composter makes composting easier than ever with a noiseless, odorless, and efficient way to turn your food scraps into fertilizer, now for just $479 ($699).
Wave your hand or foot over the censor to automatically open the lid and toss your food waste inside the composter. This is a small change to make in your usual routine. Just toss your food scraps in the Reencle instead of your trash can. No need to worry about any stinky smells coming from the Reencle composter with three layers of filters to eliminate odor.
Reencle Prime Food Waste Composter, $479, original price: $699
Reencle’s microbes work inside the indoor food composter to devour your food waste, no matter how salty or acidic, hot or cold. You can add food at any time because the composter runs safely and silently around the clock. When it’s looking full, simply remove the fertilizer and use it to feed your plants rich nutrients. The microbes can be reused cycle to cycle without needing replacement.
Since the Reencle composter turns your food waste into fertilizer, it can be used to nurture any sort of living plant such as lawn, bushes, flowers, vegetable gardens, or potted plants. Compost can be a wonderful addition to regular fertilizer from the store, providing your plants with a balance of nutrients and food, and just in time for your spring gardening.
By decreasing your food waste and promoting healthy growth of plants, you can make your own positive impact on the environment. Go greener with the Reencle Prime Food Waste Composter for only $479 ($699) through March 5 at 11:59pm Pacific, no coupon needed.
Prices subject to change. | Consumer Electronics |
In the current Smart TV market, there is a war going on for your eyeballs. As TVs get bigger and bigger, and picture quality more and more impressive, the competition for that highly coveted spot in your living room has become fierce.
A name you’ve probably heard before by now, one of the more recent contenders on the scene, is Kogan.com(opens in a new tab). Kogan.com has taken aim at the value range Smart TV market, and carved out a significant chunk for itself in a relatively short period of time.
These days Kogan.com devices (specifically televisions) are everywhere in Australia, and the brand has become a household name. But how much do you actually know about Kogan.com? And how are they able to sell impressive tech at such jaw-droppingly low prices? We take a look below.
What is Kogan.com?
Kogan.com is an Australian online retailer founded by Ruslan Kogan in 2006. It started as an electronics and gadgets e-commerce store, but has since expanded its product range to include additional categories such as home appliances(opens in a new tab), furniture(opens in a new tab), fashion(opens in a new tab), homewares(opens in a new tab), and more.
If you’re a savvy bargain hunter who has shopped around online in the past decade, Kogan.com is sure to be a staple in your search history. From humble beginnings in a Melbourne garage, Kogan.com has very quickly become one of the world’s largest consumer electronics retailers, and one of Australia's fastest-growing businesses.
A large part of Kogan.com’s meteoric rise has come from the retailer’s early adoption of an online-only retail strategy. In 2008, at a time when traditional outlets were beginning to stagnate, Ruslan Kogan was called a 'loudmouthed punk' for suggesting the future of retail was heading online: an idea that certainly doesn’t sound ridiculous today, and has proven to be a phenomenally successful business strategy for them since then.
Why are Kogan TVs so affordable?
With a laser-focus on the value and the budget-conscious shopper, Kogan.com has been able to build a reputation of delivering quality electronics at incredibly low prices. As a direct-to-consumer business, it’s able to cut out middleman costs and keep prices low. In addition to this, the brand’s status as a primarily online-only retailer cuts down on the costs of maintaining physical retail locations. Coupled with the fact that they also operate at a relatively large scale, they are able to leverage their buying power to negotiate better deals with their suppliers and manufacturers. Kogan.com has a great breakdown of these principles on its website here(opens in a new tab), as well as a TV buying guide here(opens in a new tab). They know they sell “the cheap TV”, and they are absolutely stoked to do so.
Televisions aren’t the luxury item they used to be. Technology moves so quickly, that the “world’s most powerful TV” doesn’t stay that way for long. “Good value”, on the other hand, is ever-evolving, and Kogan.com is uniquely positioned to cater to the more value-conscious shopper (which most of us rightfully are).
OLED/QLED/LCD, find out what it means to me
Even within the Kogan.com range of Smart TVs, there are a number of different popular technologies on the market being used to create high-resolution displays. While they all have different strengths and weaknesses, it can be hard to know which configurations will give you the best bang for your buck. LED (Light-Emitting Diode), and LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs offer good picture quality and affordability, while OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) TVs provide superior contrast, deeper blacks, and wider viewing angles.
In recent years, we’ve also seen the prominence of QLED (Quantum Dot Light-Emitting Diode) as they can achieve high peak brightness levels, making them suitable for bright rooms and HDR content. They also have the added benefit of being less susceptible to screen-burn compared to their OLED and LED counterparts. For avid gamers out there, QLED TVs are also able to provide much faster refresh rates than other displays, making them perfect for fast-paced action and gaming.
Kogan.com currently offers displays in ranges from 24-inch FHD LCDs, all the way up to 98-inch 8K QLEDs.
Best value resolution
In order to get the most value for money when it comes to a new TV, we recommend looking into the 50- to 65-inch 4K OLED range. These are massive screens with true 4K resolution, as well as HDR (High-Dynamic-Range) compatibility. If you’re shopping in this range, check out the Kogan 65" QLED 4K Smart Google TV - Q98J(opens in a new tab), which is currently available for just A$8299 (was $1,499.99).
As the world’s biggest premium TV manufacturers barrel towards 8K resolution and beyond, we’re in a nice place at the moment with the affordability of large-scale 4K Smart TVs, and in many ways 65-inch is the new 50-inch, just as 50-inch replaced 42-inch a decade ago.
4K Smart TVs are so affordable these days (particularly those from Kogan.com), that it’s hard to justify purchasing FHD, unless you’re really looking for the budget option available. For example, right now Kogan.com is offering a Kogan 40" LED Full HD Smart Google TV - F98T(opens in a new tab) for just A$429.99 (was $599.99).
Should you buy a Kogan TV?
While Kogan.com isn't trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to emergent technology, it is able to offer incredibly competitive prices on TVs of the same size and resolution as other brands. If you’re looking for a decent TV, with capable smarts and a good warranty, Kogan.com is more than good enough for the vast majority of punters, and tends to massively exceed expectations set by their low prices. To see the entire Kogan.com range available now, check out their full TV catalogue and buying guide here(opens in a new tab). | Consumer Electronics |
Panasonic India Aims 14% Revenue Growth In FY24; To Expand Product Portfolio
The company is expecting this current financial year to end with a revenue of Rs 11,000 crore with double-digit growth.
Appliance and consumer electronics maker Panasonic Life Solutions aims to achieve a 14% revenue growth in FY24, led by its large appliances, according to the company's chairman, India and South Asia, Manish Sharma.
The company is expecting this current financial year to end with a revenue of Rs 11,000 crore with double-digit growth, he said.
Besides, the company is also expanding its product portfolio in large appliances like refrigerators, room air conditioners and some other segments such as camera.
"Overall we are doing well. We are having a double-digit growth in terms of revenue. We might end this financial year close to Rs 11,000 crore", said Sharma.
This is putting all the three verticals of Panasonic in India -- appliances, B2B and switch and wire businesses (Anchor) -- besides other small entities, he said.
When asked about the next fiscal, Sharma said: "We are again targeting a double- digit growth between 13 to 14%"
This would largely led by volume growth as the commodity inflation is softening, he added.
According to him, the average impact will go down as commodity prices soften. The growth will be led by AC, in which he expects a greater demand this season due to expected intense summers this year.
"I am hoping a robust first quarter led by AC and then we are also expanding the portfolio of refrigerators, where we are bringing in new series of Prime Plus and Prime Fresh, which would be customised series designed for India", he said.
The company is also expecting growth from washing machines businesses, where it has extended its AI platform Miraie to some offering of the segment.
"I believe that all the large appliances category will lead the growth for us", he said.
Besides, the company is also expanding its market in India, where it expects a double-digit growth. | Consumer Electronics |
Cool feature, but don't expect the glasses to make you look cool.Universal TranslatorTCL — a company best known for its affordable TVs — has been trying to establish a foothold in the VR and AR space. Its latest and likely boldest entry comes in the form of the RayNeo X2, a pair of augmented reality smart glasses that can, among other features, translate conversations in real time.Journalists recently got a hands on — or heads up — look at the RayNeo X2s at the Consumer Electronics Show that kicked off Thursday in Las Vegas.TCL's X2s look like regular glasses frames, but hilariously oversized. Still, they're powered by some respectable hardware, running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 platform that's used in the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.The lenses themselves house MicroLED waveguide displays, and if you have bad vision, come equipped with adjustable prescription inserts.By tapping on the right temple, you can navigate through the X2's menus and activate its translation feature, which can not only translate text you're looking at, but translate and transcript someone you're speaking to, live. According to Scott Stein at CNET, he was able to understand someone speaking to him in Chinese.The TCL augmented reality glasses can translate literally right before your eyes. They’re also far too big for my head and with a fringe AND a mask, I look just a tad silly. Still super cool #CES2023 pic.twitter.com/KXsdIntPol— Asha Bee (@ashabeeeee) January 6, 2023Downsize MeThe specs might be an impressive stepping stone, but their clunky size indicates that AR glasses still have a way to go before you don't feel ridiculous wearing them. As Engadget notes, it's a little worrying that a company like TCL, which specializes in displays, couldn't get its own any smaller.However, that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Google's unnamed prototype AR glasses that also boast a similar live translation feature, which Google teased last summer. Unlike the X2s, Google's glasses are less feature-packed, and can't capture images. Maybe the ideal sweet-spot for AR is not having the glasses do everything, and just having them be good at a few things, if that means they won't need to be absurdly large.TCL expects to start rolling outs its glasses to developers by the end of Q1 and is expected to be available to consumers by July, according to Gizmodo.More on VR and AR: Apple VR Headset Will Apparently Have Display Facing Outward to Show the User's Facial Expressions | Consumer Electronics |
- New modem technology from Samsung will enable two-way messaging, as well as the sharing of images and videos.
- Samsung plans to include the technology in its Exynos mobile processors, hinting it may bring the system to its Galaxy smartphones.
- It comes after Apple launched its iPhone 14 with a feature that lets users alert the emergency services via satellite.
Samsung on Thursday said it has developed a system that will allow smartphone users to send data via satellite, intensifying the race among tech companies to connect phones to non-terrestrial networks.
New modem technology from the South Korean consumer electronics giant will enable two-way messaging, as well as the sharing of images and videos. The data is sent to low-Earth orbit satellites in space and sent back to Earth-based stations before reaching end users.
Samsung hasn't yet launched its satellite capabilities. However, the firm said it plans to include the technology in its Exynos mobile processors, hinting at a move to bring the system to its Galaxy smartphones.
Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S23 smartphone range this month without satellite connectivity.
The move comes not long after Apple announced the launch of its iPhone 14 with a feature that lets users alert the emergency services by pointing their phones at a satellite in space and choosing from a range of issues they are facing.
Satellite phones are not yet a commercially mainstream technology. However, device makers are betting on the untapped opportunity of putting satellite phones in the hands of people in remote areas that fall outside the reach of terrestrial telecoms infrastructure.
"With Samsung joining the party, emergency satellite messaging on premium smartphones is becoming a default feature," Ben Wood, lead analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC.
"This underlines the massive influence that Apple has on feature adoption. For new technology like this, where Apple goes, others follow."
Following Apple's iPhone 14 launch in September, U.S. semiconductor giant Qualcomm signed a deal with satellite communications firm Iridium to bring satellite-enabled chips to Android phones. MediaTek, the Taiwanese chipmaking firm, is expected to showcase its own mobile satellite technology at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.
Samsung said its technology was in line with 3rd Generation Partnership Project standards, meaning it will "ensure interoperability and scalability among services offered by global telecom carriers, mobile device makers and chip companies."
The device will also "eliminate the need for a separate high-power wireless antenna chip inside smartphones," Samsung said. Satellite phones have been in the works for decades but have not yet taken off as they typically require huge antennae integrated directly into the device. | Consumer Electronics |
Home » Electronics » 4 Best Old Sony Devices that are replaced by newer ones Editor choice Sony is a well-known consumer electronics company that has produced a wide range of devices over the years, including smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and portable media players.
Many of these devices are no longer in use due to various reasons such as new models coming in market, technical issues, obsolete or discontinued by the company. Here are a few examples of older Sony devices that are no longer in use: Sony Walkman:
The Sony Walkman was a portable cassette player that was first released in 1979 and became an iconic product in the field of portable music. It was developed by Sony engineer Nobutoshi Kihara, who was inspired by a desire to be able to listen to music while jogging. It was an immediate success and went on to revolutionize the way people listened to music on the go.
Why it was popular?
One of the main reasons the Walkman was popular is because it allowed people to listen to music in a portable and personal way.
Prior to the Walkman, the only way to listen to music on the go was with transistor radios or portable cassette players that required bulky external speakers. The Walkman was small and portable, with headphones that allowed people to listen to music without disturbing others.
Another reason for its popularity was the rise of the personal music player market. As technology advanced, the quality of sound improved, making it possible for people to have their own personal music devices. Walkman were first available with the cassette tapes and then it was upgraded to CD player and digital audio player.
What causes Sony Walkman lose its popularity?
However, over time, the Walkman began to lose popularity as digital music formats such as MP3s became increasingly popular. With the advent of digital music, people could carry around thousands of songs on a small device and the Walkman could not compete with the convenience and versatility of digital music players.
What Replaced Sony Walkman?
The Walkman was eventually replaced by devices such as the iPod, which was released by Apple in 2001. The iPod popularized the use of MP3s and digital music storage, and soon became the most popular portable music player on the market. Nowadays, smartphones have replaced the walkman as well. With streaming services, people can have access to a virtually unlimited number of songs at their fingertips.
The Walkman brand is still in use, but now it is used for digital music players and smart phones. The brand has adapted to the digital era and have not lost its popularity, Sony still uses the walkman brand name for it’s High-Resolution audio players. Latest News About Sony Walkman
Great new for all Sony Walkman lovers, Sony is coming back with Old Walkman in new way. Sony announced the latest Android Walkman NW-ZX700 and NW-A300 series.
These Android Walkman NW-ZX700 and NW-A300 employs the same technology of that of Sony flagship model but surely with some enhancements.
The NW-ZX700 comes with Android 12.0 operating system and supports streaming playback. It is also equipped with “DSEE Ultimate” Al technology, which upscales compresses sound sources to high-resolution class high-quality sound, allowing you to feel the music quality even when using with streaming services or listening wirelessly through Bluetooth.
NW-ZX707 Series
With the high-quality build, storage capacity of 64GB, a liquid crystal display of 5.0 type HD (1,280 x 720 dots), an IEEE802.11a/b/g/n/ac wireless LAN, Bluetooth 5.0, and the main unit- Sony is coming back in Walkman series with full strength and ready to capture market again.
Coming to NW-A300 series, these models are smaller then NW-ZX700 series with 3.6 inch LCD display and low-resistance battery than formal model.
NW-A300 Series
The product lineup includes two models, the “NW-A307” with a storage capacity of 64GB and the “NW-A306” with a storage capacity of 32GB, an IEEE802.11a/b/g/n/ac wireless LAN, Bluetooth 5.0, and three body colors: gray, blue, and black
These all the models will ranges from 250 to 700 USD and you can buy these models soon. back to menu ↑
Sony PlayStation: The Sony PlayStation was a video game console that was first released in 1994 and became an iconic product in the field of gaming. It was developed by Sony as part of their effort to enter the video game market and was a collaboration between Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment Japan.
The PlayStation was an immediate success and went on to become one of the best-selling video game consoles of all time.
Why it was popular?
It was popular because it was one of the first video game consoles to incorporate 3D graphics. The PlayStation’s graphics processor was more powerful than its competitors, which allowed for games with 3D graphics and more realistic worlds.
This set the PlayStation apart from other consoles at the time and drew in a new generation of gamers. Morever, the rising of CD-ROM technology was also one of the reason for its popularity.
What causes Sony Playstation lose its popularity?
Over time, the PlayStation began to lose popularity as newer consoles such as the PlayStation 2 and later, the PlayStation 3, 4, and 5 were released.
The newer consoles had more powerful hardware and new features that drew players away from the original PlayStation.
Additionally, the rise of online gaming and the introduction of new gaming technologies such as VR and cloud gaming have led many players to shift away from traditional consoles like the PlayStation.
What replaced Sony playstation?
The newer version of Playstation such as Playstations 2,3,4 and 5 replaced it.Here are a few examples of alternative gaming consoles: Xbox Series X/S: The Xbox Series X and Series S are the latest consoles from Microsoft, which are designed for high-performance gaming and features like fast load times, ray-tracing, and 4K gaming resolution. Nintendo Switch: The Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console that can be played on a TV or as a portable device. It has a wide range of games including a number of exclusive titles such as Zelda, Mario and more. Google Stadia: Google Stadia is a cloud-based gaming platform that allows players to stream games on a variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Nvidia Shield: The Nvidia Shield is a streaming media player that allows you to stream games from a PC, it’s a android TV-based console with access to the Google Play Store and other streaming apps like Netflix and Disney+. PC Gaming: Building or buying a custom gaming PC can also be an alternative to traditional consoles, it allows for high-performance gaming and the ability to play an even larger library of games. back to menu ↑
Sony Ericsson:
Sony Ericsson was a joint venture between Sony and Ericsson, which produced a line of mobile phones and smartphones. The company was formed in 2001 and the first phone that was introduced in the market was the T68i. The company’s primary focus was on creating phones with advanced camera capabilities, music player and gaming capabilities. Sony Ericsson phones became popular for their camera and music capabilities, as well as their sleek and stylish designs.
Why was it popular?
One of the main reasons Sony Ericsson was popular, was its partnership with Sony, which allowed the company to use Sony’s brand and technology. Sony’s reputation for creating high-quality electronic products attracted many customers.
Another reason was it’s features: Sony Ericsson phones had advanced camera capabilities and music players, which allowed people to take high-quality photos and listen to music on the go.
What causes Sony Ericsson lose its popularity?
Over time, Sony Ericsson began to lose popularity as smartphones became more popular. Many companies such as Apple and Samsung began to create smartphones with advanced features and capabilities that surpassed Sony Ericsson phones.
Additionally, many other companies, especially those using Google Android operating system, began to create smartphones that were more affordable and had a wider variety of features.
What replaced Sony Ericsson?
All the popular companies such as Apple , Samsung , Google. Oneplus and more started creating smartphones with better and latest features and ultimately replaced Sony Ericsson.
The last Sony Ericsson phone was the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini in 2010, after that Sony took over Ericsson and started to release phones under the Sony brand name. Now, Sony is mostly focused on latest technology smartphones and they have a line of smartphones under the Sony brand.
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Sony VAIO: Sony VAIO was a line of personal computers and laptops produced by Sony. The VAIO brand was known for its sleek designs and powerful hardware. VAIO computers were first introduced in 1996 and quickly gained popularity for their high-performance and stylish designs. Why it was popular?
One of the main reasons VAIO was popular was because of its stylish design and the other reason wathe wide range of models available.
The VAIO laptops were sleek, lightweight, and portable, making them a popular choice for both consumers and professionals. VAIO laptops were also known for their high-performance hardware, which made them popular for tasks such as video editing, graphic design, and gaming.
What causes Sony VAIO to lose its popularity?
Overtime, the VAIO brand began to lose popularity as new competitors emerged, and as the market shifted towards more budget-friendly options.
The rise of companies such as Lenovo, HP and Dell, who offered similar features at lower prices, made it difficult for Sony VAIO to compete in the market.
Additionally, with the development of ultrabooks and tablets, laptops become less portable and more focused on the power rather than design and portability.
What replaced Sony VAIO?
Here are a few examples of popular laptop brands that can be considered as alternatives: Dell: Dell is a well-known and reputable brand that offers a wide range of laptops, including high-performance models for gaming and video editing, as well as budget-friendly options. Lenovo: Lenovo is another well-known brand that offers a wide range of laptops, including high-performance models for both gaming and video editing. Lenovo’s ThinkPad line is known for its durability and long battery life. HP: HP is a leading brand that offers a wide range of laptops, including high-performance models for gaming and video editing. HP’s Envy and Spectre lines are known for their sleek designs. Apple: Apple laptops, commonly known as MacBooks, are known for their sleek designs, high-performance hardware, and advanced features like Retina displays, Touchbar and the latest version uses Apple’s own M1 chip. Asus: Asus is a Taiwanese brand that offers a wide range of laptops, including high-performance models for gaming and video editing, as well as budget-friendly options. Their Republic of Gamers (ROG) line is known for its high-performance hardware. These are just a few examples of older Sony devices that are no longer in use, but there are many more devices that are no longer in use due to various reasons such as new models coming in market, technical issues, obsolete or discontinued by the company.
It’s important to note that while these devices are no longer in production, they may still be usable and can be found on second-hand markets. | Consumer Electronics |
Pixel news is leaking left and right as Google’s developer conference fast approaches. Yesterday, we learned about the Pixel Fold and its apparent arrival date. Today, the delayed Pixel Tablet’s charging dock popped up on Amazon, complete with pricing and release date info.
9to5Google reports it spotted an Amazon listing for a “Pixel Tablet Standalone Charging Dock” earlier today. The Amazon store description says the “unique Pixel Tablet Charging Speaker Dock keeps your tablet charged and ready 24/7" and that “it’s easy to dock and undock.”
The corresponding photo looks exactly like what we’ve seen in Google’s renderings so far. It’s a dock akin to the current crop of Nest Hub devices, right down to the soft-colored fabric covering. Four connection pins are available for a tablet to dock, and there’s likely a magnet embedded beneath to keep the device positioned upward.
Before it was scrubbed, the Amazon listing mentioned the device would release on May 10, the day of the Google I/O 2023 keynote. It seems Google might just drop the Pixel Tablet on the day of the event. The listing also metioned the steep price for the dock: $130. We still need to determine how much the Pixel Tablet will cost, even though someone’s already tried to sell the Pixel Tablet through Facebook Marketplace. This week, we also learned the Pixel Tablet would come in four colors, including the “Hazel” mentioned in this Amazon listing.
Admittedly, the last time I thought about an Android tablet was the Google Nexus 9, a 9-inch device launched in 2014 and manufactured by HTC. Where will the Pixel Tablet fit in the lineup of Google-made devices? Will folks find it more user-friendly because it isn’t closed-off software like what’s running on the Nest Hub devices? Is this a replacement for the Nest Hub Max? Will it still be positioned as a smart home controller as Google introduced it when it announced the device at last year’s developer conference?
We will find out soon enough. Google I/O 2023 starts on May 10. Gizmodo will be covering all the news coming out of the developer conference.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. And if you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. | Consumer Electronics |
In a remarkable turn of events, Chinese tech giant Huawei is poised to make a triumphant return to the 5G smartphone industry later this year, defying the impact of the U.S. ban on equipment sales. Several research firms have indicated that Huawei’s comeback is imminent, signaling a resurgence after the ban had severely hampered its consumer electronics business.
To sidestep the U.S. export rule that prevented the company from receiving cutting-edge chips, Huawei has devised a strategic plan. The company will leverage its own advancements in semiconductor design tools and forge a partnership with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co (SMIC), a major Chinese chip manufacturer. This collaboration will enable Huawei to procure 5G chips domestically, ensuring a steady supply for its upcoming flagship devices.
The ban, which included placing Huawei on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, had forced the company to rely on Snapdragon chipsets modified for 4G networks instead of offering true 5G connectivity. However, Huawei’s latest move is set to change that narrative as it sets its sights on providing consumers with cutting-edge 5G technology once again.
Huawei’s potential return to the 5G phone market would mark a significant victory for the company, which has battled against adversity for nearly three years. After reaching a revenue peak of $67 billion in 2020, Huawei’s consumer business suffered a devastating blow, with revenue dropping by almost 50% the following year.
While this resurgence appears promising, industry experts caution that the production of 5G chips domestically may come with challenges. Semiconductors manufactured using Huawei’s EDA tools and SMIC production may have a relatively low yield rate of 50%. Nonetheless, Huawei seems determined to overcome these obstacles and reclaim its position as a prominent player in the competitive 5G smartphone market.
The U.S. imposed restrictions on Huawei, deeming it a national security threat due to alleged ties with China’s Communist Party. The concerns revolve around the possibility of Huawei assisting the Chinese government with espionage if called upon. Placing Huawei on the Entity List came at a critical moment when the company was on the brink of becoming the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. However, its consumer revenue plummeted from $67 billion in 2020 to half that amount in 2021. Huawei’s potential resurgence in the 5G market carries significant implications in its ongoing battle for survival.
As the end of the year draws near, all eyes will be on Huawei as consumers and industry insiders eagerly await the company’s highly anticipated 5G smartphone release, marking a potential turning point in Huawei’s comeback journey.
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Tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. All of these minerals are found in our electronics and all are considered conflict minerals, due to their potential origin in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the African country contains an estimated $24 trillion in untapped mineral resources, it remains mired in poverty and violence, and mining these four metals can help fund armed conflict in the region.
But the metals are integral to consumer electronics. In a smartphone, for example, tin is used to solder metal components together, while tantalum is used in capacitors, which store electrical energy. Tungsten is used in the components that make a phone vibrate, and gold is used in circuit board connectors.
In the past decade, African countries, intergovernmental organizations and companies have ramped up their efforts to clean up mineral supply chains. But consumers still can't be sure if the minerals in their electronics are fully conflict-free, or if the mines where they originated are dangerous, environmentally destructive, or use child labor.
"The whole process is muddied," says Oluwole Ojewale, the Regional Organized Crime Observatory coordinator for Central Africa at the Institute for Security Studies in Dakar, Senegal.
That's largely because in the DRC and surrounding countries, hundreds of thousands of people work in the informal mining sector, toiling away using hand tools in what are known as artisanal and small-scale mines. This type of mining can be hazardous and difficult to regulate, but it's also one of the few sources of income available to some of the world's poorest men and women.
So while companies like Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Tesla put out extensive reports on conflict minerals every year, usually stating that there is no reason to believe the minerals they source help to support armed groups, corruption and instability at mine sites means there are no guarantees.
Apple, Intel and Tesla did not reply to requests for comment, while a Microsoft spokesperson stated, "Microsoft remains committed to responsible and ethical sourcing and takes this issue very seriously."
"You have the international market that has these perfect standards," explains Joanne Lebert, the executive director at IMPACT, a nongovernmental organization focused on improving natural resource governance in areas where security and human rights are at risk.
"They want perfect environmental conditions. They want all the development factors taken in, like gender equality and anti-corruption and this and that. They want the perfect package, but that's not the situation on the ground," Lebert said.
Only about 2% of the world's tin, tungsten and gold comes from the DRC and surrounding countries, so mining these minerals doesn't usually help fund armed conflict. But 67% of the world's tantalum comes from the DRC and Rwanda. And the eastern DRC, where these minerals are found, is mired in violence stemming from historical tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
After the Second Congo War ended in 2003, a transitional government was unable to contain armed groups who perpetrated violence against civilians, thus giving rise to self-defense militias. Today, rampant poverty, corruption, and institutional chaos continues to drive many Congolese to join one of the over 120 armed groups operating in the eastern DRC.
"Before the artisanal miners can access the coltan mines or other places, they have to pay taxes to the armed group," Ojewale said. Coltan is the metallic ore from which tantalum is extracted.
Beyond taxation, these groups fully take over some mines, either extracting the ore themselves or using forced labor, purchasing arms with the proceeds. And conditions in artisanal mines can be quite dangerous.
"I think in the past four or five years, every year we've had people being buried underground," said Nicolas Kyalangalilwa, a pastor and civil society leader in Bukavu, a city in the eastern DRC. "So, it is a very dangerous job, both from a security side, from a financial stability side, from a health and safety side."
Such conditions also apply to other minerals found in the DRC, like cobalt, which is surging in demand due to its importance in batteries for electric vehicles. Around 70% of the world's cobalt is mined in the relatively safer southern DRC. It may not be benefiting armed groups, but there are still concerns over working conditions and the use of child labor.
With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, U.S. companies are required to disclose their use of conflict minerals.
"If you're a big company, you're a name brand, you're consumer-facing, you can easily spend a million on this," explained Chris Bayer, principal investigator at the nonprofit International Development. "And the big brands that we all know, they would spend a lot more."
This has given rise to a web of organizations working to trace and verify supply chains. For example, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Intel, Samsung and hundreds of other companies are members of the Responsible Minerals Initiative, which maintains a list of smelters and refiners that have undergone an independent audit to ensure that they're sourcing responsibly. In its most recent conflict minerals report, Apple said it has removed 163 smelters and refiners from its supply chain since 2009, including 12 in 2021.
Then there are the organizations actually doing on-the-ground tracing and due diligence at mine sites. The International Tin Supply Chain Initiative is the main player in the DRC and surrounding region, working in over 2,000 mines. The organization trains government agents to tag and seal bags that come from registered mines. But no system is foolproof, and if agents are corrupt, they might accept minerals from outside, unregistered mines and tag them anyway.
"You also have the issue where the agents were actually selling the tag to other mines," says Guillaume de Brier, a natural resources researcher at the International Peace Information Service. "At the end, even when the system was working, those minerals were melted with the minerals from other mines."
Ultimately, it's just really hard to stop bad actors in the system. But experts say the answer is not boycotting minerals from the DRC or from artisanal and small-scale mines overall.
"If we recognize, for example, that artisanal mining is the most important rural, non-farming activity, employing tens of millions throughout Africa, generally, 30 to 40 percent of which are women, making sure that we're decriminalizing that and recognizing that as legitimate is the first step to supporting them," Lebert of IMPACT said.
Lasting change will likely only come when the DRC stabilizes.
"Ultimately the conditions that we see on the ground or the human rights issues that are of concern to us all are very much linked to governance, poverty," Lebert said. "We need to get at these more systemic issues if we want to see lasting changes in supply chains, not just de-risking in the short or medium term for a company's benefit."
Watch the video to learn more about why it's so difficult to rid the supply chain of conflict minerals. | Consumer Electronics |
Jan 09, 2023 at 4:49am ET The Mercedes-Benz booth at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) showcased a bunch of new technology that the German brand is preparing for the following months. The biggest piece of news was the company’s plan to build its own, $1-billion global network of fast chargers, but another interesting story sort of went under the radar, and it’s about Mercedes-Benz becoming the first automaker to offer certified Level 3 self-driving technology in the United States. Back in 2022, the German marque began selling its top-tier autonomous driving system dubbed Drive Pilot in Germany, after receiving the first-ever certificate of compliance for an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Now, during CES 2023, Mercedes announced that its Drive Pilot system has been approved by the state of Nevada and it’s waiting for the American state to issue the official certificate of compliance, which should happen “within the two weeks,” according to the company’s press release. But that’s not all. When the German carmaker applied for certification in Nevada, it also did the same thing in California, and it’s “optimistic” that the Golden State will “follow soon”. Gallery: Mercedes-Benz launches self-driving tech in Germany Mercedes’ Level 3 conditionally automated driving assistant can, on suitable highway sections and where traffic density is high, offer to take over the driving, leaving the driver free to do something else, like watch a movie or participate in a meeting. Another feature that’s coming to North America is Automatic Lane Change (ALC), which enables the car to automatically initiate a lane change and overtake slower vehicles with the cruise control system. It can also make automatic lane changes to help follow route guidance when approaching exit ramps or freeway junctions. ALC will be part of Mercedes’ current Level 2 partially automated driving suite that’s available in the United States. According to the SAE levels of driving automation, a Level 3-capable vehicle can take over certain driving tasks, but a driver is still required to be present and ready to take control of the car at all times when prompted to intervene. Currently, Drive Pilot is available in Europe on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and EQS sedans. More Mercedes-Benz news Source: Mercedes-Benz | Consumer Electronics |
Those hugging close to the latest Apple products for fear of any scuff, scrape, or damage can breathe a little easier, so long as you have the cash to pay the tech giant for repairs. Apple announced on Monday its self-repair kits are now available for the iPhone 14 lineup and more recent MacBook products.
This includes new self-repair kits for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models. The M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Air and the M2 Pro and M2 Max Models of the MacBook Pro are also receiving their series of self-repair kits. The company is also adding more kits for iPhone 12 and 13 models to fix the camera and top speaker. These kits should be available from June 21
In addition, Apple said it’s updated its configuration post-repair software on iPhones a little easier to use. The service is used for display, batteries, and cameras, and essentially verifies everything is working properly. Apple fans who are handy with a screwdriver no longer need to contact repair support to finish the System Configuration steps. Instead, users can activate the configuration software just by loading up the Diagnostics mode and will just need to follow on-screen prompts.
Though all those who use third-party components should beware that the software tool confirms repairs were done with “genuine Apple parts.” The kits are available for anybody in the U.S., plus Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the U.K. Of course, Apple is still emphasizing that users who don’t have much experience with computer parts should visit an Apple store for repair.
Prices for the upcoming kits are currently unavailable, but if they’re anything like the iPhone 13 then phone bundles could cost upwards of $90, while the basic Tool Kit is close to $50.
The news does confirm Apple is making good on its self-repair promises, at least for now. After years of forcing users to take their products to Apple stores for fixes, Apple finally announced it had jumped on the right-to-repair bandwagon in 2021. The program started with parts for the iPhone 12 and 13. Individual parts and even the full kits themselves can cost a pretty penny, though there are options to return components to Apple stores for a rebate. Last August, Apple brought its self-service program to certain MacBook models containing an M1 series chip.
The folks pushing right to repair have won major victories over the past few years against other walled garden manufacturers like tractor makers John Deere. Unfortunately, the federal government may be undermining laws in states like Massachusetts, essentially telling car manufacturers to ignore state laws allowing shops and individuals access to manufacturer software.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
TL;DR: Amaryllo Cloud Storage(Opens in a new tab) (200GB/two-pack) is on sale for £81.63, saving you 49% on list price.
Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show rolls around and drops some of the most useful quality-of-life tech around. If you’re sick of seeing low-storage warnings on your phone, laptop, or tablet, try a cloud storage option featured at CES 2023. Amaryllo is a secure cloud storage service that lets you upgrade your storage size whenever you want. You can start with 400GB when you get a lifetime subscription to Amryllo(Opens in a new tab) on sale for £81.63.
Pay just once, and get a place to pour all your photos, important files, videos, and anything else you don’t want to lose if you drop your phone in a puddle. One of the major benefits of Amaryllo compared to other cloud storage services is its zero-knowledge policy. You’re the only one who can see what you have saved online, but that doesn’t mean you can’t share. You can invite up to 10 other users to enjoy their own private storage space within yours.
Even if you’re sharing space, your invited guests won’t be able to see your files, and you won’t be able to see theirs. And if things start getting a little cramped with everyone uploading to one drive, you can always upgrade and get more room.
Worried your old tablet might conk out any day now? Amaryllo lets you back up from any device including iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows. You can even upload multiple files at the same time, and you can connect up to 999 devices.
Once your files are uploaded, you can search for them manually or use Amaryllo’s AI-powered smart search to organise albums or find specific pictures. Considering this storage would be yours for life, that may be pretty helpful if you’re trying to find a picture you know you saved a few years back.
Get the CES-featured Amaryllo Cloud Storage 200GB two-pack(Opens in a new tab) for just £81.63. | Consumer Electronics |
15 SEP 2022 Samsung Electronics refreshed its environmental strategy, earmarking more than KRW7 trillion ($5 billion) for green initiatives by 2030, targeting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and joining RE100, a global renewable energy initiative.
The company stated the investment will go to researching new technologies to develop energy-efficient products, increase water reuse and foster carbon capture techniques.
Samsung set the goal of achieving net-zero emissions for all operations in the Device eXperience (DX) Division, covering consumer electronics businesses, by 2030.
Han Jong-Hee, vice chair and CEO, said “Samsung is responding to the threats of climate change with a comprehensive plan that includes reducing emissions, new sustainability practices, and the development of innovative technologies and products that are better for our planet.”
By reaching its direct and indirect carbon emissions goals, Samsung expects to reduce the equivalent of about 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions, based on 2021 figures.
Samsung plans to invest in treatment facilities which reduce carbon emissions and will also develop technologies to reduce process gases, a by-product of chipmaking, and install treatment facilities on its semiconductor production lines by 2030.
It plans to employ renewable energy at non-domestic sites within five years as part of its goal to join RE100.
Samsung explained the strategy builds on its existing climate efforts, “significantly expanding the scope of its programmes and investments”.
It previously targeted using 100 per cent renewable energy sources at its sites in the US, Europe and China by 2020.
In the consumer electronics sector, Samsung aims to develop ultra-low power memory chips for mobile devices and data centres by 2025.
It is also shifting to a circular economy to reduce waste across entire product lifecycles, from sourcing raw materials to recycling and disposal.
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Back Author Joseph Waring Joseph Waring joins Mobile World Live as the Asia editor for its new Asia channel. Before joining the GSMA, Joseph was group editor for Telecom Asia for more than ten years. In addition to writing features, news and blogs, he...
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- Best Buy topped Wall Street's fiscal first-quarter earnings expectations, but missed on sales.
- The retailer affirmed its full-year outlook.
- The company expects weaker spending on electronics, as inflation hits household budgets.
Best Buy on Thursday topped Wall Street's quarterly earnings expectations, but its sales missed estimates and it reiterated expectations for weaker spending on consumer electronics this year.
Shares rose more than 5% in premarket trading.
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The retailer affirmed the outlook it shared in March. It expects full-year revenue of between $43.8 billion and $45.2 billion, a decline from its most recent fiscal year, and a comparable sales decline of between 3% and 6%.
"In this environment, customers are clearly feeling cautious and making tradeoff decisions as they continue to deal with high inflation and low consumer confidence due to a number of factors," CEO Corie Barry said in a news release.
Yet so far, Best Buy's customer demographics and the percentage of premium products they purchase has remained about the same, she said.
Here's how the company did for the three-month period that ended April 29, compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:
- Earnings per share: $1.15 adjusted vs. $1.11 expected
- Revenue: $9.47 billion vs. $9.52 billion expected
Best Buy is the latest retailer to share an update on the American consumer. Over the past week, numerous retailers, including Walmart, Target and Home Depot, have spoken about more price-sensitive shoppers who aren't as willing to spend on big-ticket or discretionary items — particularly compared to the stimulus check-fueled years of the pandemic.
As a consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy is more vulnerable to that pullback since many of the items it sells come with a higher price tag and are not replaced frequently.
Best Buy's net income in the first quarter fell to $244 million, or $1.11 per share, from $341 million, or $1.49 per share, a year earlier.
Net sales in the quarter declined to $9.47 billion, down 11% from $10.65 billion in the year-ago period, and fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
Comparable sales declined 10.1% in the quarter, in line with the drop expected by investors, according to StreetAccount.
The company has looked for other ways to make money when people aren't buying as many TVs, smartphones or home theater systems. Earlier this year, it struck a deal with Atrium Health, a North Carolina-based health-care system, to sell devices and handle installation for a program that allows patients to get hospital care at home. It recently relaunched its membership program, My Best Buy, which charges a subscription fee and includes features like tech support, extended returns and early access to hot products.
Best Buy also laid off hundreds of store employees in April. The retailer declined to specify the number, but said it will add workers in growing areas such as its membership program and health business.
The company's employee count has shrunk over the years. As of the end of January, Best Buy had more than 90,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada. That's down from the nearly 125,000 workers that it had in early 2020, according to company financial filings.
Shares of Best Buy closed Wednesday at $69.15, bringing the company's market value to $15.12 billion. So far this year, its stock is down about 14%, trailing the 7% gains of the S&P 500 and the 2% declines of the retail-focused XRT during the same period. | Consumer Electronics |
We’ve all been there before — knee-deep in packaging materials after unboxing a new electronic gadget. Cardboard, vacuum-formed plastic, and mountains of styrofoam seem to be the norm. While these materials are essential for protecting expensive and fragile products, the excess waste generated from them is a major concern for the planet. Packages shipped globally have reached nearly double their pre-pandemic levels, to nearly 205 billion(opens in a new tab) anticipated in 2024. This massive growth has made the packaging waste crisis even more dire since waste materials have an immediate cataclysmic impact on the planet’s ecosystems.
Studies have shown that flexible plastics, like plastic bags, are responsible for the highest number of deaths among ocean animals(opens in a new tab). More plastic waste has an immediate impact on the world’s oceans, and directly affects our lives, too. This means we urgently need to find more sustainable ways to manage waste and reduce its impact on the environment.
With this goal in mind, HP is leading an important shift in how consumer and electronic goods are packaged, by ensuring materials and methods tie back to circularity. At its core, the principle is pretty straightforward: think of a circle. Rather than creating materials intended for a one-time purpose, resources are utilized to promote reuse and recycling, giving them new life. With circularity, sustainability is not just a concept, but a practical and transformative approach to preserving our planet’s natural resources.
Kicking circularity into motion
Circularity poses a unique challenge for packaging materials, especially for consumer electronics. “One of the primary purposes of packaging is to protect a product as it travels from the factory to our customer,” said Jon Hagen, Sustainability Product Manager for HP Inc. “Plastic packaging is effective at protecting against abrasions and scratches, so a top challenge is looking for more sustainable alternatives that are as effective while also minimizing the cost impact.”
That’s why circularity begins with design and ideation. For example, in its journey to your front door, a matte mouse needs less protection from abrasion than a glossy one, requiring less packaging. And sustainable changes can be made without sacrificing branding or design. By designing their packaging with more environmentally friendly water-based ink, HP created more readily recyclable packaging that still looks sleek. These tweaks may sound small, but they all add up to a more sustainable consumer experience.
Building a best-in-class unboxing experience
When packaging is anchored in circularity, customers don’t have a “what do I do with this?” moment as they dig through a huge box full of packing peanuts for a small product nestled inside. By primarily using clearly-marked recyclable materials(opens in a new tab), along with single-use materials made of compost-friendly components such as recycled fiber, cotton, rice husks, or bamboo, tech retailers can be as innovative in their packaging as they are with their products.
HP sets an example in this regard, committing to reduce single-use plastic packaging by 75 percent by 2025(opens in a new tab) compared to levels in 2018. By 2021, they were more than halfway to that goal.
Tossing used electronic boxes into recycling bins feels good. But what about a printer or desktop that’s reaching the end of its life? HP offers clear guidelines and opportunities(opens in a new tab) to recycle these components, instead of tossing them in the trash. For example, through HP’s Planet Partners program, the company has recycled over 1 billion ink cartridges(opens in a new tab) and has systems in place to recover and reuse products at the end of service. These recycled cartridges are combined with other plastic waste, such as billions of ocean-bound plastic bottles and clothing hangers, to create new HP products like ink cartridges, laptops, displays, and printers.
Widening the circle
So how was HP able to make this shift? In part thanks to 3D printing(opens in a new tab). In the absence of cost-effective sustainable packaging options, the company leveraged their 3D printing business to create better tools for molded fiber and pulp manufacturers. This allowed suppliers to create the type of packaging materials HP — and many large companies — needed. HP now brings that solution to other businesses in an effort to scale more sustainable packaging options across industries.
Circularity is a partnership, where suppliers, producers, and consumers play an integral role. This interconnectedness reminds us of our own commitment to the one planet where we all live, breathe, explore, and innovate. Because building a more sustainable future doesn’t come from a one-day initiative or one major shift in production practices. It comes from the tiny tweaks and everyday choices that add up to lasting, impactful change — for us and the planet. | Consumer Electronics |
Apple will ditch the Lightning connector on its iPhones, the company has confirmed, after European regulators decided all smartphones should have USB charging as standard in two years’ time.New EU rules require all phones sold after autumn 2024 to use the USB-C connector for their charging ports. The oval-shaped plugs are already standard on other consumer electronics such as e-readers, games consoles, laptops and the vast majority of new Android phones.Apple has already switched much of its product line over to the standard, which can send up to 240W of power and 40Gbps of data over the same cable. Its first laptop to use USB-C to charge was the 12in MacBook in 2015, while iPads began switching from the Lightning connector in 2018.But the company had pushed back against requirements to switch its phones to the standard, saying that “strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world”.The oval-shaped USB-C connector is already widely used in other electronics, including much of Apple’s own product line. Photograph: Jeppe Gustafsson/Rex/ShutterstockDefenders of the Lightning connector have cited its smaller size, and the vast array of Lightning-based adapters and accessories owned by users around the world. The need to replace those cables could lead to a spike in e-waste, despite the stated goal of the regulation being to reduce discarded electronics.Now, Apple’s head of marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, says the company is conceding defeat. “Obviously we’ll have to comply, we have no choice,” he told a technology conference in California.But, he argued, it “would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government be that prescriptive”.Joswiak refused to answer questions on timing, or on whether the company would attempt to make USB-C iPhones an EU exclusive. Given the company’s annual release schedule for iPhones, however, it is likely that either the iPhone 15, expected in September 2023, or its follow-up, expected in September 2024, will be the first to have the connector. “The Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers,” Joswiak added. | Consumer Electronics |
Held for the first time in its home country of Korea, this summer’s Samsung Unpacked event is happening July 26 in Seoul, with expected new iterations of the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy Flip foldable phones, among other devices.
It’s no surprise that Samsung plans to unveil its most ambitious phones at this event, held roughly two months before Apple’s singular annual phone launch, where we expect to see the iPhone 15 (maybe even with a USB-C port).
The livestream is presented above, and will kick off at 7am ET. As new products are revealed, we’ll add details below.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
People walk past Xiaomi, a Chinese manufacturer of consumer electronics, store in Mumbai, India, May 11, 2022. REUTERS/Francis MascarenhasRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comNEW DELHI, Aug 8 (Reuters) - India is seeking to restrict Chinese companies from its sub-$150 phone market in a bid to revive the prospects of domestic players, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing unidentified sources.The move would be a blow to Chinese companies such as Xiaomi , according to the report. The plans coincide with rising concerns in India about Chinese brands undercutting local smartphone makers, it added.It is unclear if the Indian government will announce policies or use informal channels to execute the block on Chinese smartphone makers, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comChinese firms account for a major chunk of entry-level smartphones that are popular among users shifting away from traditional devices in India, which is the second largest mobile market in the world.Indian firms such as Lava and MicroMax rapidly gained popularity after their launch over a decade ago, but have since lost market share to stiff competition from Chinese players.Many Chinese companies have struggled to do business in India due to political tensions following a border clash in 2020. India cited security concerns in banning more than 300 Chinese apps, and has also tightened rules for Chinese companies investing in India.Xiaomi and rival Vivo are being investigated by India's financial crime fighting agency for alleged illegal remittances and money laundering. Both deny any wrongdoing.The companies and the Indian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Krishna N. Das and Abhirup Roy; Editing by Louise Heavens and Mike HarrisonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
- China's biggest semiconductor manufacturing firm SMIC on Friday posted its first decline in quarterly revenue in more than three years.
- SMIC Is China's most important chipmaking company.
- It's seen as a key hope to Beijing's ambitions to boost its domestic semiconductor industry and catch up with rivals like Taiwan's TSMC.
- SMIC has been hit with U.S. sanctions that have cut the company off from key chipmaking tools to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors.
China's biggest semiconductor manufacturing firm SMIC on Friday posted its first decline in quarterly revenue in more than three years as a glut in chips and lack of demand continues to hit the industry.
SMIC or Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co., posted revenue of $1.46 billion in the first quarter of the year, down 20.6% year-on-year. The last time the company saw a sales decline was in the third quarter of 2019.
Net profit fell to $231.1 million, down 48% year-on-year.
SMIC Is China's most important chipmaking company and seen as a key hope to Beijing's ambitions to boost its domestic semiconductor industry and catch up with rivals like Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung.
However, the company's technology is still years behind those leading companies. In 2020, SMIC was put on a U.S. trade blacklist called the Entity List. And last year, Washington introduced sweeping export restrictions aimed at cutting China off from advanced chip tech and equipment. Indeed, these curbs have cut SMIC off from the key tools required to make more advanced chips.
Despite the headwinds, SMIC posted record revenue for the whole of 2022.
But the latest business slump comes amid a difficult chip market with a glut of supply and lack of demand that has hit companies across the industry. Over 50% of SMIC's revenue comes from making chips that go into smartphones and other consumer electronics. Both smartphone and PC shipments declined in the first quarter.
Samsung, the world's largest maker of memory chips, saw its profit plunge in the first quarter.
However, SMIC forecast its second-quarter revenue to recover and rise between 5% and 7% quarter-on-quarter. Many other chipmakers have forecast a recovery in the second half of the year.
"For 2Q, it also guided its sales to recover earlier than its peers," Sze Ho Ng, analyst at investment bank China Renaissance, told CNBC. "The domestic market recovery is happening earlier than overseas," Ng said. | Consumer Electronics |
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. partner Foxconn Technology Group plans to double its investment and employment in India, highlighting an accelerating manufacturing shift away from China as Washington-Beijing tensions grow.
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V Lee, a Foxconn representative in India, said in a LinkedIn posting Sunday the Taiwanese company plans to double the size of its business in the South Asian country, as he congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his birthday. He didn’t give details.
“We will work even harder to present you with a greater birthday gift next year, aiming for another doubling of employment, FDI, and business size in India,” Lee said.
The investment plans of the Taiwanese company, also known for its flagship unit Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., include a 300-acre site close to the airport in Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, Bloomberg News previously reported. That plant is likely to assemble iPhones and expected to create about 100,000 jobs.
Foxconn’s expansion in India underscores how China’s at risk of losing its status as the world’s largest producer of consumer electronics. Apple and other US brands are leaning on their Chinese-based suppliers to explore alternative locations such as India and Vietnam. It’s a rethink of the global supply chain that’s accelerated during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and could reshape the way global electronics are made.
Hon Hai Chairman Young Liu last month reaffirmed Foxconn’s intention to increase investments in India, where it already operates nine production campuses and more than 30 factories employing tens of thousands of people. The company is in the early stages of expanding further in the country, where it takes in around $10 billion of revenue annually, Liu said.
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Apple’s planned early 2024 launch of the Vision Pro headset is already shaping up to be a tangled, complicated hullabaloo. Not only will customers need to drop $3,500 on Apple’s first “spatial computer,” but you’ll need to schedule an appointment and sit down for a skull measuring session just to get your hands on the headset plus accessories.
According to Apple expert Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg, the company will have a special section of its stores for seating, space for one or two headset demos, and for tools to size the complicated head straps meant to make the Vision Pro more comfortable for extended use. Some early testers for the headset mentioned that the device felt heavy with just the single back strap. Reports note that Apple could be testing another type of fastening mechanism.
While Gizmodo’s own tests of the device didn’t note much discomfort for the short time we got to use it, Apple has promised it will supply multiple sizes of bands and light seals to make the device sit as comfortably as possible. The seals could be measured through an iOS app that scans users’ faces. Apple has also promised that those with glasses can buy separate prescription lenses made by Carl Zeiss and fitted inside the headset. Customers may be able to order those parts through an online portal. Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment, but we did not immediately hear back.
All this is to say stores will need to maintain a large stock of all these separate bands and seals, and Apple Store “Geniuses” will need to be briefed on these complicated sizing and measuring requirements. Sure, the company also required appointments for the initial 2015 rollout of the Apple Watch, but face scanning and prescription lenses are a large step above fitting watch bands on users’ wrists.
Apple is planning to have the Vision Pro available at all 270 U.S. Apple Stores, but major cities like New York and Los Angeles will get access to Apple’s first leap into VR-dom. The device should also be available in France, Germany, China, Japan, and Korea, to name a few, though the UK and Canada are reportedly slated be the first two markets to access the Vision Pro after the U.S.
Recent reports from the Financial Times have already noted Apple is planning to cut production targets for its upcoming headset, largely due to the device’s overall design complexity. Sources close to Apple and its manufacturers told the FT claimed the company was planning to have less than 400,000 units available come early 2024.
A good way to signal the death knell for any device or stock is to receive an endorsement from Jim “I Was Wrong” Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money. The loud, proud, and often incorrect ex-hedge fund manager has apologized for going hard on Meta stock after being bullish on the company’s “Metaverse” initiative. He’s previously had to turn his back on crypto after initially telling people to lap up digital currencies before the price inevitably tanked.
During a Wednesday edition of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Cramer told his fellow hosts and the audience that “when they’re ready with the Vision Pro, We’re all going to get one.” He further compared the $3,500 headset to $2,000 Taylor Swift tickets, suggesting that FOMO will play a big part in building hype, not to mention that you can watch a football match from a “number of angles.” If that hasn’t sold you on dropping two months of your paycheck on Apple’s extraordinarily complicated, ultra-expensive consumer end VR headset, then what will?
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Getting a new smartphone is undeniably exciting. A new model typically comes with a better camera, faster processing, more storage, a better screen and more. However, all of this constant smartphone turnover is wrecking havoc on the environment, especially when it comes to disposing of older phones. A study from 2018 predicts that smartphones and data processing centers will be the most environmentally damaging part of the communications sector by 2040. While there are options for recycling smartphones, phones and other waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEEs) aren’t recycled for a variety of reasons. [Related: We need safer ways to recycle electric car and cellphone batteries.] An estimated 5.3 billion mobile phones will be thrown out in 2022, according to the WEE Forum and the UN’s Global E-Waste Monitor. For context, that many unused phones would rise about 31,000 miles into the air when stacked on top of one another. When items like laptops and cellphones are thrown into landfills, they leak toxic chemicals into the environment. Today, the WEE Forum in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme released results of surveys conducted by the WEEE Forum to investigate why so many electronics fail to be repaired or recycled. The surveys were conducted from June to September 2022 and included 8,775 European households in six countries (Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, and a separate United Kingdom survey). It found that the average household contains 74 e-products such as phones, tablets, laptops, electric tools, hair dryers, toasters and other appliances. Of that 74 average total e-products, 13 are being hoarded, meaning nine go unused but work and four are broken. The most commonly hoarded small EEEs are small consumer electronics and accessories like headphones and remote controls, household equipment like clocks, information technology equipment, mobile and smartphones, and equipment for food preparation. Despite their valuable gold, copper, silver, palladium and other recyclable components, experts expect a majority will disappear into drawers, closets, cupboards or garages, or be tossed into waste bins bound for landfills or incineration. CREDIT: WEEE Forum. Some of the reasons respondents gave for holding on to WEEE ranged from might needing it in the future (46 percent), sentimental value (13 percent), to not seeing any incentive to recycle (1 percent). [Related: You throw out 44 pounds of electronic waste a year. Here’s how to keep it out of the dump.] “We focussed this year on small e-waste items because it is very easy for them to accumulate unused and unnoticed in households, or to be tossed into the ordinary garbage bin. People tend not to realize that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes,” said Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum in a press release. “The producer responsibility organizations in the WEEE Forum that manage the collection of e-waste are constantly working to make the proper disposal of small e-waste simple and convenient for users and households.” A UN thought paper also released today describes global ideas and options for reducing the global e-waste problem, including setting universal recycling standards and legal standards. Additionally, recycling WEEEs can recover some valuable material such as gold, copper, silver, and palladium that can be reused in other items. Some of the best ways to get ride of a smartphone at the end of its life are giving it directly to the phone’s manufacturer, a retail store, or even donate it to a charity to refurbished. There are also multiple ways to up-cycle an old cell phone, by turning it into an alarm clock, security camera, or an e-reader. | Consumer Electronics |
TOKYO, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Holdings Corp (6752.T) said on Monday it will start building a new battery plant in Kansas in November and aims to begin mass production by March 2025, targeting North America's fast-growing market for electric vehicles.The conglomerate's energy unit, which supplies batteries to Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), said in July it had picked Kansas as the site for a new plant to supply batteries primarily to Tesla, joining other battery suppliers planning massive U.S. investments to qualify for new EV tax credit rules and to meet potentially massive demand there.Panasonic said in a statement that it expects initial production capacity of 30 gigawatt hours.Kansas state officials said in July the new factory would create up to 4,000 jobs with investment of up to $4 billion, pending final approval by Panasonic's board."As the global shift to EVs accelerates, we are looking into ways to strengthen our battery production capacity in North America and meet the growing demand from our automotive partners," said Kazuo Tadanobu, president of Panasonic Energy Co, in the statement.The company said the factory would produce its 2170 model lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles.The conglomerate also lowered its full-year operating profit forecast to 320 billion yen ($2.16 billion) from 360 billion yen for the year ending March 31. That compares with a 349.9 billion yen average forecast by 19 analysts.Panasonic posted an 11% drop in second-quarter operating profit, but performed better than analysts' estimates.It reported 86.1 billion yen ($582.54 million) in operating profit for the three months to end-September, versus an average 81.6 billion yen profit estimated by nine analysts, according to Refinitiv data. A year earlier, the company earned 96.8 billion yen.Although sales rose at its energy business, operating profit fell due to rising prices for raw materials and logistics, as well as increased development expenses and fixed costs as it increased production.Its rivals, China's CATL (300750.SZ) and South Korea's Energy Solution (373220.KS), posted strong battery profit growth after they passed some of their cost increases to clients.While known for consumer electronics and appliances, Panasonic has in recent years focused on building parts and supplying services to other businesses, including batteries for Tesla's electric cars.Panasonic has said that, by 2029, it plans to expand its battery production capacity by three to four times, with most of the increase in North America.It is working to supply Tesla with a larger battery known as the 4680 model, starting with production in Japan in its next fiscal year.($1 = 147.9800 yen)Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Edmund KlamannOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
LG India Expects 10% Growth, Exploring New Business Categories As Health Care, Says MD
LG Electronics India expects around 10% growth in FY24
LG Electronics India expects around 10% growth in FY24 and is exploring new business categories such as healthcare and water purification here, besides investing further in its manufacturing ecosystem, its Managing Director Hong Ju Jeon said on Wednesday.
India is an important market for the South Korean chaebol, where it sees "big potential" as the economic situation is bright compared to other global markets with a growing population with more youths, he said.
The company is working towards increasing the domestic value addition of India-made products and is even inviting its sister concerns from South Korea to set up plants for component manufacturing here, Jeon told PTI in an interaction here.
It is also looking to increase exports to other countries from India by enhancing its cost competitiveness and adding more products to its offerings.
"We will support the India government's make-in-India initiatives, increase exports from here, and contribute to the Indian economy," said Jeon.
Jeon also lauded India's growth story this year and said its economy is growing despite other markets facing tough times on account of global disruption from war and other factors.
When asked about the growth expectation of LG's business in India, he said, "LG also has the same expectation. Even the business in other countries will reduce compared to the rest of the year, but we (LG Electronics India) will grow."
LG Electronics expects to grow in double digits, higher than the GDP numbers.
"We would grow around 10% and gain more market share," Jeon said, adding that the growth would be secular and would come from all the product categories.
Besides, the company is exploring new opportunities in areas such as health care and water purification. LG Healthcare Solutions provides a product suite for hospitals and healthcare facilities.
India is the second-largest market for LG Electronics globally after the U.S., and the South Korean chaebol expects to retain its growth momentum here.
Over the investment, Jeon said, "Our company is thinking in the long term. We are checking what kind of investment is required. Also, product-wise, we are studying new businesses."
Presently, LG has two manufacturing units in Ranjangaon, Pune, and Greater Noida.
The company has recently invested around Rs 200 crore in a new line for manufacturing the premium range of side-by-side refrigerators at the Ranjangaon facility and Rs 100 crore in Noida to start local manufacturing of dual inverter air conditioner compressors.
On being asked whether LG would set up another unit in India, Jeon said, "We need more capacity for the future. We do not know where it will be, but we will, of course, have new factories."
LG Electronics India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of South Korea-based LG Electronics. It is a formidable brand in India, operating in various segments such as consumer electronics, home appliances, HVAC, and IT hardware. "The population of India is growing with a high number of young people," he said, adding, "Our internal management (LG Global) is very interested in the India market."
It is also working on India-centric products in segments such as air conditioners, making them more affordable.
Regarding LG Electronics India's exports, Jeon said they are still in the single digits but will grow. To increase exports, it requires more localization and more products.
However, he also added that LG Electronics has several factories globally that compete with each other. To increase exports, the cost competitiveness of India-made products would have to be enhanced.
"On the cost front, we need more efforts in terms of localization and more products for exports," he said, adding that it's not easy, "but it's very clear that we want to increase exports from here. We need to increase the volume, then the cost of production will be down."
This can also benefit Indian consumers.
Regarding the sourcing of components, Jeon said the localization rate is high in India but added that the industry still needs more support from the Indian government.
"When (global) suppliers want to invest in India, it should also support them for stable operations." "The company, LG Chemical, also started to manufacture to support the local production," said Jeon.
"We will invite more foreign countries to invest here."
Over the Production-Linked Incentive Scheme scheme floated by the Indian government, Jeon said, "We have invited our sister companies. Those companies were sub-contractors in Korea, and they are also coming to supply us here."
LG Electronics India on Wednesday launched its 2023 OLED TV line-up of 21 models across different variants. This includes the world’s only 8K OLED Z3 series, the OLED evo Gallery Edition G3 series, the OLED evo C3 series, and the OLED B3 and A3 series TVs.
Its price ranges from Rs 1.19 lakh to Rs 75 lakh for a rollable TV.
For the financial year that ended on March 31, 2022, LG Electronic India's profit after tax was Rs 1,174.7 crore, and its total income was Rs 17,171.3 crore. Its exports in FY22 were worth Rs 976 crore. | Consumer Electronics |
In the world of consumer electronics, few companies have been as innovative and forward-thinking as Amazon. From its line of Echo speakers to its Fire TV streaming devices, the company has consistently pushed the boundaries of what’s possible with technology.
And now, with the release of its latest product, the Amazon Astro, it seems that Amazon is poised to do it again. The Amazon Astro is a smart home device that’s designed to make it easier for users to manage their daily lives. But what sets the Astro apart from other smart home devices is its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the Amazon Astro and what makes it so unique. We’ll explore its features and capabilities, including its impressive AI capabilities, and discuss what this could mean for the future of smart home devices. We’ll also address potential concerns about privacy and security with the Astro, and speculate on the impact that this product could have on the smart home device market.
What is the Amazon Astro?
At its core, the Amazon Astro is a robot that can move around your home and perform a variety of tasks. For example, you can ask it to set reminders, play music, or control other smart home devices. What makes the Astro truly unique, however, is its advanced AI capabilities.
The Astro uses a combination of computer vision and natural language processing to understand and respond to user commands in a way that feels almost human-like. For example, you can tell the Astro to “go to the kitchen and bring me a glass of water,” and it will navigate your home, find the kitchen, and bring you a glass of water. Or, you can ask it to “play some relaxing music,” and it will know to find and play music that’s appropriate for winding down at the end of the day.
This level of AI sophistication is truly impressive, and sets the Amazon Astro apart from other smart home devices on the market. It’s designed to make your life easier and more convenient, and with its advanced capabilities, it has the potential to do just that.
Potential Concerns
As with any smart home device that’s always listening and watching, there are some concerns about privacy and security with the Amazon Astro. After all, the Astro’s advanced AI capabilities rely on collecting and processing data about your home and your habits.
Amazon has acknowledged these concerns and has taken steps to address them. For example, the Astro includes multiple layers of security, including encryption of all data that’s transmitted between the device and the cloud. Additionally, users have control over the Astro’s privacy settings and can delete their voice recordings at any time.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of a security breach or a vulnerability that hasn’t been discovered yet. But overall, Amazon seems to be taking the privacy and security of its users seriously with the Astro.
It’s important to keep in mind, however, that the Astro is still a new product, and we may not know the full extent of its impact on privacy and security until it’s been on the market for some time. As with any new technology, it’s important to proceed with caution and stay informed about any potential risks.
Implications for the Future
The Amazon Astro is an impressive product that showcases just how far AI technology has come in recent years. But what does its release mean for the future of smart home devices and the broader tech industry?
One possibility is that the Astro could kick off a new wave of AI-powered smart home devices. Other companies may follow Amazon’s lead and release similar products with advanced AI capabilities, and this could lead to increased competition and innovation in the market.
Another possibility is that the Astro could signal a shift toward more personalized and intuitive smart home devices. With its ability to understand and respond to user commands in a natural way, the Astro represents a new level of convenience and ease-of-use that could set a new standard for smart home devices.
Ultimately, it’s still too early to say exactly what impact the Amazon Astro will have on the smart home device market. But one thing is clear: with its advanced AI capabilities and impressive range of features, the Astro is a product that’s poised to shake things up and change the way we think about smart home devices.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Amazon Astro is a fascinating new product that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with smart home devices. Its advanced AI capabilities and impressive range of features make it stand out from other products on the market, and it has the potential to change the way we think about and use smart home devices in our daily lives.
While there are concerns about privacy and security with the Astro, Amazon has taken steps to address these concerns, and it’s clear that the company is taking the privacy and security of its users seriously.
Overall, the Amazon Astro is an exciting new product that’s worth keeping an eye on. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or simply someone who’s interested in making your daily life easier and more convenient, the Astro is a product that’s well worth considering. So if you’re in the market for a new smart home device, be sure to check out the Amazon Astro and see for yourself what all the fuss is about. | Consumer Electronics |
Rumors suggest that Apple still has several new devices that are coming before the end of the year, including a range of Macs and iPads. It's not looking like we're going to get an October event in 2022, but refreshes are coming soon, probably via press release. If you're planning to buy a Mac or an iPad, make sure to check out our list to know what's safe to pick up now and what's not. iPad Pro
The iPad Pro was last updated in April 2021, and we're expecting an updated version before the end of 2022. There are no design huge changes that we know of coming, but there are some features worth waiting for.
Both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models will get a refresh, but rumors suggest just the 12.9-inch model will have a mini-LED display, despite some information that had indicated Apple could bring the technology to both models.
Apple's updated iPad Pros are expected to use the M2 chip that was first introduced in the new MacBook Air in June, bringing speed and performance improvements. There have also been rumors of wireless charging support, with Apple perhaps adding a new larger glass Apple logo at the back that would allow for MagSafe charging.
Reverse wireless charging is also a possibility with the new iPad Pro models able to charge iPhones, AirPods, and other devices. Low-Cost iPad
Apple has long offered a low-cost basic iPad that is available at a ~$300 price point, but this year, the cheap iPad is getting some trickle down features that have previously been limited to higher-end iPads.
Apple is going to refresh the tired old design the low-cost iPad has been using for years, introducing 10.5-inch display with a more modern look featuring flat edges and rounded corners. We've previously seen this design used for the iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro.
The flat-edged design usually accompanies a bezel-free interface, but rumors right now suggest the iPad will continue to have top and bottom bezels along with a Touch ID Home button, but it remains to be seen if that's true. Apple could opt for the same power button Touch ID design used for the iPad mini and the iPad Air.
With the exception of the low-cost iPad, every iPad uses a USB-C port, and Apple is going to swap Lightning for USB-C with the 10th-generation iPad refresh.
We could also see some improvements to the camera, and a faster chip is a sure thing (likely the A14), but one thing the iPad might lose is the headphone jack. Removing the headphone jack would bring the low-cost iPad in line with the rest of the iPad lineup. 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro
The M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros came out in October of last year, and we might see new M2 Pro and M2 Max models released before the end of the year. New MacBook Pro models are said to be planned for release as soon as this fall, but there is a chance the timing could be pushed back because of supply constraints that Apple has been dealing with. Mac Mini
There hasn't been a Mac mini refresh since 2020 when the M1 chip was added, but Apple doesn't yet plan on discontinuing the desktop machine. A refresh is in the works, and updated Mac mini devices could include M2 and M2 Pro chips.
We're not expecting any design changes, and the highest-end chips will likely be reserved for the Mac Studio, which is like a hybrid of the Mac Pro and the Mac mini. Apple TV
Apple last updated the Apple TV in April of 2021, and it may be time for a refresh. Rumors suggest that there is a new model with an A14 chip and 4GB RAM in development, and it could be ready to launch before the end of 2022.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said several times this year that Apple is planning to lower the price of the Apple TV when it's refreshed, but whether that will actually happen remains to be seen. Bonus: Mac Pro
Since the Mac Pro hasn't been updated since 2019 and doesn't yet use Apple silicon chips it's obvious that now is not a great time to buy. While we did hear some early 2022 rumors suggesting that the Mac Pro could get a refresh before the end of the year, it's now looking like a new Mac Pro isn't coming until 2023.
While we may have several months to go before the Mac Pro sees an update, we don't recommend buying one right now. You're definitely going to want to wait on Apple to bring its ultra fast Apple silicon chips to its highest-end pro machine.
Rumors suggest that the Mac Pro will use an M2 Ultra, an upgrade to the M1 Ultra first introduced in the Mac Studio, and an even more powerful M2 Extreme chip. The M1 Ultra features up to a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU, and the M2 Ultra could be even more powerful.
The M2 Extreme will be Apple's most powerful chip to date, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said that the chip could have upwards of 40 CPU cores and 128 GPU cores. Wrap Up
Note that this list is based on rumors that we've heard, so it's possible that some of these refreshes could be delayed into 2023. Timing Apple product releases is not always straightforward, but if you can wait on a purchase, it's a good idea to hold off until a new product announcement if you're concerned about having the latest and greatest device.
We have more product release timelines available for every Apple device in our dedicated Buyer's Guide, which is an invaluable resource for Apple fans.
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We've rounded up 10 new features coming to the iPhone and iPad later this year, according to Apple. Many of the features are part of iOS...Apple Releases New MagSafe Charger FirmwareTuesday October 4, 2022 12:09 pm PDT by Juli CloverApple today released updated firmware for the MagSafe Charger that is designed to work with the iPhone 12 and later and the AirPods Pro 2. The new firmware is version 10M1821, up from the prior 10M229 firmware. Note that in the Settings app, you'll see a different version number than the firmware number, with the update displayed as version 255.0.0.0 (the prior firmware was 247.0.0.0). The...Video: AirPods Pro 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort IIMonday October 3, 2022 12:50 pm PDT by Juli CloverApple on September 23 officially launched the second-generation version of the AirPods Pro, introducing updated Active Noise Cancellation, Adaptive Transparency, improved sound, and more. Right around the same time, Bose introduced new QuietComfort II earbuds with many similar features, so we thought we'd compare the two to see which has the edge.
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Evidence of an upcoming iOS 16.0.3 software update has shown up in MacRumors analytics logs, which have been a reliable indicator in the past.
There are several...Gurman: Apple Event This October Remains Unlikely, No Touch ID for iPhone 15Apple is developing new iPad Pro, Mac, and Apple TV models, and at least some of these products will be released in October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. However, Gurman continues to believe that Apple is unlikely to hold an event this month.
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said "the big iPhone 14 unveiling last month was probably it for Apple in 2022 in...You May Soon Need to Be a YouTube Premium Subscriber to Watch 4K VideosMonday October 3, 2022 4:29 am PDT by Sami FathiYouTube may make watching videos in 4K quality on the platform exclusive to only YouTube Premium subscribers, according to screenshots posted by users on Twitter and Reddit.
On Reddit (1,2) and Twitter, some users have started to recently notice that on iOS, and presumably across other platforms also, YouTube is now saying that in order to watch videos in 4K, the user must be a paying...Apple SIM No Longer Available for Activating New Cellular Data Plans on iPadsAs of October 1, Apple SIM is no longer available for activating new cellular data plans on supported iPad models, according to an Apple support document.
Introduced in 2014, the Apple SIM was designed to allow iPad users to activate cellular data plans from multiple carriers around the world. Initially, the Apple SIM was a physical nano-SIM card, but it was embedded inside later iPad Pro... | Consumer Electronics |
Viewsonic’s short throw X2-4K LED projector, which it’s billing as the world’s first projector that’s been certified for Xbox, will be available in the US in July for $1,599.99, the company has announced. The X2-4K was originally announced back in March alongside a non-short throw model called the X1-4K, which is yet to be listed on Viewsonic’s US store as of this writing.
Although it’s the first projector with the badge, Microsoft’s “Designed for Xbox” program is a pre-existing initiative that’s seen it work with other manufacturers to make sure their accessories are compatible with its consoles. According to Microsoft, the program already covers “more than 15 categories” like headsets, gamepads, and racing wheels, as well as a series of displays from 2021.
To be clear, you can plug your Xbox into just about any projector and expect it to work. But Viewsonic’s senior business line manager Mia Shen boasts that its X2-4K projector “was developed to be considered a true gaming projector” and “went through 63 tests conducted by Team Xbox to ensure ultimate console compatibility.” Specifically, Viewsonic notes that the X2-4K has been certified to work with HDMI’s Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) standard to allow a connected console to control projector features like power and volume — though it adds that the feature works with “any of the current gaming consoles” and not just Xbox.
More importantly, the X2-4K is styled in the classic Xbox brand colors of black and green, so at the very least it’ll match the color scheme of your Xbox Series X (though probably not your white Series S, sorry). There’s also mention of “Xbox exclusive resolution and refresh rate combinations,” though it’s not clear exactly what this means — we’ve pinged the company for more details.
Viewsonic says the X2-4K can produce up to a 100-inch display when placed just 1.5 meters (about five feet) away from your wall (it’s a short-throw projector after all — not to be confused with ultra-short-throw) and offers a claimed 2,900 lumens of brightness. That sounds pretty bright, though Gizmodo notes that when using the more industry-standard ANSI measurement that rating drops to 2,150 lumens.
The X2-4K is equipped with two HDMI ports and a pair of 6W Harmon Kardon-branded speakers. Annoyingly, those HDMI ports use the 2.0 rather than the 2.1 standard, and the projector’s framerate tops out at 60Hz when showing 4K content. To play compatible Xbox games at 120Hz you’ll need to drop the projector’s resolution down to 1440p, though considering the lack of games that can max out the console’s resolution and framerate simultaneously that might not be too much of a limitation. The X2-4K projector can also be run at 240Hz if you’re prepared to drop the resolution down to 1080p. | Consumer Electronics |
SHANGHAI, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (1810.HK) on Wednesday reported a 9.7% fall in third-quarter revenue, hit by China's COVID-19 restrictions and softening consumer demand.Sales in the third quarter reached 70.17 billion yuan ($9.81 billion), down from 78.063 billion yuan the same quarter a year ago, slightly missing analyst expectations of 70.52 billion yuan.Net income fell 59.1% to 2.12 billion over the period from 5.176 billion yuan one year ago.China's consumer consumption has remained weak as cities across the country continue to implement lockdowns to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant.The electronics sector has taken a large hit in turn. Shipments of smartphones in the third quarter fell 11% in China and 9% globally, research firm Canalys has said.People walk past Xiaomi, a Chinese manufacturer of consumer electronics, store in Mumbai, India, May 11, 2022. REUTERS/Francis MascarenhasRevenue from smartphones, which make up roughly 60% of Xiaomi's total sales, fell 11.1% year-on-year.In 2021, Xiaomi saw a sales surge after it grabbed market share from rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (HWT.UL), whose ability to procure components has been hit by U.S. sanctions.Yet the boost was short-lived. In May, Xiaomi reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline since its listing in 2018. In August, revenue for the second quarter fell 20% year-on-year.Xiaomi's stock price has tumbled nearly 50% since the beginning of the year.The company has in turn looked to new areas for growth. Last year, it formally announced a foray into electric vehicles, committing to entering mass production in the first half of 2024.($1 = 7.1545 Chinese yuan renminbi)Reporting by Josh Horwitz, Editing by Louise Heavens and Jane MerrimanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
Lisa Su, president and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), holds a 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processor while speaking during a keynote session at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Jan. 9, 2019.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAMD shares were down more than 10% on Friday as investors digest the company's disappointing preliminary third-quarter results Thursday that were well below its initial guidance.The chipmaker cut its sales forecast on Thursday for the third quarter, blaming a larger-than-expected decline in the personal computer market and supply chain issues.AMD now expects preliminary quarterly revenue of about $5.6 billion thanks to "reduced processor shipments." That's more than $1 billion below the $6.7 billion it had previously forecast as the midpoint of its revenue expectations for the quarter.The company also said its non-GAAP gross margin is expected to come in around 50%, while it had previously expected gross margin to be closer to 54%.Several firms, including Piper Sandler, Stifel, KeyBanc Capital Markets and Mizuho Securities cut their price targets for AMD in notes to clients Friday, though each of those maintained a buy or overweight rating.Shares of other chipmakers like Intel and Nvidia were also down, more than 4% and 6%, respectively, as weak PC demand and supply chain issues could weigh on other semiconductor players.WATCH: AMD's third quarter cut was deeper than the market expected, says Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon | Consumer Electronics |
Smart item tracker Chipolo, a competitor to Apple’s AirTag and others, opted to grow its business by partnering with the Cupertino tech giant, not fighting them, as rival Tile has done. When Apple opened up its Find My app to third-party devices, Chipolo embraced the possibility of targeting iPhone users with versions of its Bluetooth-powered lost item trackers, the Chipolo ONE and Chipolo CARD, designed to work specifically with Apple’s software. Now the company is doing the same thing for Android with its latest set of new products.
Amid the flurry of announcements from Google’s I/O developer conference last week, including updates to Android’s finding network, Chipolo also unveiled a debut line of devices that will work with Google’s Find My Device app — the Android equivalent to Apple’s Find My.
While the Apple versions of its lost item trackers are known as the Chipolo ONE Spot and Chipolo CARD Spot, the Android versions will be dubbed the Chipolo ONE Point and the Chipolo CARD Point. They’re priced competitively at $28 and $35, respectively, or sold in a bundle that includes 1 CARD Point and 2 ONE Point trackers for $77.
You can also buy the trackers in four-packs, costing $79 for a pack of ONE Point devices or $112 for a four-pack of CARD Point devices.
At Google I/O, the tech giant had announced enhancements to its Find My Device network, which now makes it easier to locate lost items by ringing them or viewing their location on a map, even if they’re offline. The company also announced support for an expanded range of third-party devices, including these new trackers from Chipolo and others, like Tile and Pebblebee, plus audio devices like Pixel Buds and headphones from Sony and JBL. This makes the network more competitive with Apple’s Find My which today supports a range of devices, including more than just trackers.
Timed with Google’s announcement, Chipolo unveiled its Find My Device-enabled trackers, which will come in a new shade of off-white. This differentiates them from their iOS-friendly counterparts, which come in black. (The original Chipolo products come in a variety of colors, however, but work with the company’s own app, not the smartphone makers’ finding networks.)
The Chipolo ONE Point key finder is the Android-supported version of the small, rounded tracker designed to be attached to something like your keychain or gets clipped onto something else you want to track, like your luggage or handbag. Meanwhile, the Chipolo CARD Point is a slim, rectangular tracker that can be slid into the credit card slot in your wallet or placed inside your passport book, for instance.
Both work with devices running Android 9 and up with Googe Play Servies installed.
Similar to other trackers, the new devices easily pair with your smartphone, offer some water resistance (IPX5 rated), and have a battery life of up to 2 years. The battery is replaceable and the company offers a renewal and battery recycling program that includes discounts on new products.
The devices also have a loud ring of either 120dB for Chipolo ONE Point and 105dB for Chipolo CARD Point, which helps you find misplaced items by playing a sound, when within a 200ft / 60m range. When lost or stolen, however, Android users can now tap into Google’s Find My Device network. This network — made up of “billions of Android devices around the world,” as it was described at I/O — uses Bluetooth technology to detect missing items and then communicates their approximate location back to the original owner.
To date, 10-year-old Chipolo has sold more than 3.5 million of its lost item trackers globally and has grown its revenue to the double-digit millions, the company told us at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
“We are proud to be collaborating with Google and to be part of their Find My Device network. We believe this brings the finding experience to a whole new level, as it gives Android users the reassurance to locate their belongings with the help of Google’s global Find My Device Network and additional privacy and security that unknown tracker alerts provide,” said Primož Zelenšek, CEO and co-founder of Chipolo, in a statement. Android users can now place Chipolo tags on their belongings to keep better track of what matters – whether that be keys, wallets, or suitcases,” he added. | Consumer Electronics |
China's Huawei is plotting a return to the 5G smartphone industry by the end of this year, according to research firms, signalling a comeback after a U.S. ban on equipment sales decimated its consumer electronics business. From a report: Huawei should be able to procure 5G chips domestically using its own advances in semiconductor design tools along with chipmaking from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co (SMIC), three third-party technology research firms covering China's smartphone sector told Reuters.
The firms, citing industry sources including Huawei suppliers, spoke on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements with clients. A return to the 5G phone market would mark a victory for the company that for almost three years said it was in "survival" mode. Huawei's consumer business revenue peaked at 483 billion yuan ($67 billion) in 2020, before plummeting by almost 50% a year later. The Shenzhen-based tech giant once vied with Apple and Samsung to be the world's biggest handset maker until rounds of U.S. restrictions beginning in 2019 cut its access to chipmaking tools essential for producing its most advanced models.
The firms, citing industry sources including Huawei suppliers, spoke on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements with clients. A return to the 5G phone market would mark a victory for the company that for almost three years said it was in "survival" mode. Huawei's consumer business revenue peaked at 483 billion yuan ($67 billion) in 2020, before plummeting by almost 50% a year later. The Shenzhen-based tech giant once vied with Apple and Samsung to be the world's biggest handset maker until rounds of U.S. restrictions beginning in 2019 cut its access to chipmaking tools essential for producing its most advanced models. | Consumer Electronics |
A motorcyclist rides past the logo of Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, in Taipei, Taiwan March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone SiuRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSummaryCompaniesQ2 profit T$33.29 bln vs T$31.02 bln market viewQ2 revenue rose 12% to T$1.5 trlnSees flat growth for consumer electronics in Q3Sees strong growth for cloud and networking products in Q3Says has plan B if authorities don't approve China Tsinghua investmentTAIPEI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) iPhone assembler Foxconn (2317.TW) gave a cautious outlook for the current quarter after posting results that exceeded expectations, citing slowing smartphone demand after a pandemic-fuelled boom.The comments from the Taiwanese company, the world's largest contract electronics maker, echo those from other Asian tech firms that have warned of a drop in sales of smartphones, TVs and gadgets as surging inflation and deepening concerns of a recession crimp consumer spending.Foxconn has been largely shielded from these demand problems so far as the popularity of iPhones has endured among a loyal and relatively affluent customer base, and it said on Wednesday that rising inflation will only have a limited impact on mid- to high-end smartphone demand in the rest of the year.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comStill, Foxconn forecast flat revenue growth in its consumer electronics business including smartphones for the quarter ending September, signalling that demand for some devices was slowing after "significant growth" in the second quarter, when the business accounted for half of its overall revenue."On the whole, we are slightly more cautious about the third quarter, but compared to the same period last year, we could still see growth," the company's Chairman Liu Young-way told a post-earnings call."We will closely watch developments in geopolitics, inflation, and the pandemic."Like other global manufacturers, Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, has dealt with a severe shortage of chips that hurt production as bottlenecks from the pandemic lingered and the Ukraine war further strained logistical channels.On Wednesday the company said the second half of the year would look better than the first if there were no major geopolitical changes.RESILIENCEChina's Lenovo Group (0992.HK) the world's biggest PC maker whose results are a good indicator of consumer electronics demand, posted on Wednesday its smallest revenue growth in nine quarters as sales of gadgets eased after being driven by the pandemic, and it was also hit by COVID-19 lockdowns at home. read more Both Foxconn's net profit and revenue for the April-June quarter rose 12%, and Liu said the numbers show its "resilience" amid supply chain problems."Our customers, and ourselves, we are all large global technology companies, and have relatively strong supply chain management abilities. This advantage allows us to minimise the impact of any materials shortages," Liu said.Foxconn said it anticipates revenues for cloud and networking products to be strong in the third quarter. It reaffirmed its stance from last month that overall revenue this year will grow, rather than a previous guidance of remaining flat. read more It did not provide a numerical outlook.With a view to the future, Foxconn has diversified into areas including electric vehicles and semiconductors.UNIGROUP INVESTMENTSpeaking about Foxconn's $800 million investment in embattled Chinese chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup last month via a subsidiary, Liu said Foxconn will follow the law and if authorities did not approve the investment, it had a back-up plan. read more He did not elaborate on the plan.Taiwan, which has become increasingly cautious about China's ambition to boost its chip industry, wants to persuade Foxconn to unwind the investment, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. read more The democratically governed island, which China claims as its territory, prohibits companies from building their most advanced foundries in China and has proposed new laws to prevent what it says is China stealing its chip technology.Taiwan has faced days of Chinese military drills since last week when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, despite warnings from Beijing against a trip.Foxconn shares closed 0.9% higher ahead of the earnings release, versus a 0.7% drop in the broader market (.TWII). They have risen 5.8% so far this year, giving the company a market value of $50.3 billion.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Muralikumar AnantharamanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
Super Bowl is the best time to purchase a new TV. The reason is that the entire industry cycles new televisions at this same moment every year. In fact, Super Bowl remains one of the biggest events that stimulate consumer demand in a new TV.
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Here's the thing. The newest TVs will all the bells and whistles are arriving now. Those sets will be pricey. The perfect TV to target is the winning TV from the previous year. Retailers want to move out the best of last year and drive sales for the latest and greatest.
Having covered technology for a couple of decades, I recognize this pattern and have learned that best time to purchase last year's amazing brand new TV is right now. It does not pay for most people to embrace the sets that were just released at the big Consumer Electronics Show.
Instead, to get the best TV with the most features at the best price, following this guide that starts with 5 great TVs to consider.
The Amazon Fire TV is a great choice for those of you who will be tuning in for the Super Bowl. The fact that it has 4K resolution which means a much sharper and more detailed image, making it great for watching the big game. At the time of publishing, it is on sale for 30% off, at a total of $259.99 for the 43-inch model. Also, at the time of publishing, this product had almost 29,000 global reviews with 78% of consumers giving it 5 stars.
The Insignia F30 Series is a highly rated and good-quality television. At the time of publishing, this TV is on sale on Amazon for 30% off, totaling $209.99 for the 43-inch version. It has 4K Ultra HD, so you can watch the Super Bowl with crystal clear vision. Plus, you can watch over 1 million streaming movies and TV episodes with access to thousands of channels, apps, and Alexa skills, including Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, Sling TV, YouTube, and other services. At the time of publishing, this product had over 7,000 ratings with 77% of consumers giving it 5 stars.
Samsung has a great reputation when it comes to high-quality televisions. This model has dynamic crystal color and a 4K dynamic processor, which allows you to see every detail with stunning clarity.
It also has a built-in voice assistant so you can tell it what you want it to do during the game. It also has a motion Xcelerator which minimizes blur and enhances motion clarity, so it will catch all the fast-moving action, which is what you want during the Super Bowl.
Along with this model, there are multiple different sizes for sale on Amazon right now. However, the most popular model is the 55-inch which at the time of publishing is on sale for $497.99. Also, at the time of publishing, this product had over 13,000 global ratings with 79% giving it 5 stars.
The LG 4K Smart TV is another great choice, and for those who believe bigger is better, this is the TV for you. It's 65 inches, and it even has Alexa built-in to it for all your on-demand needs during the Super Bowl. The TV at the time of publishing is on sale on Amazon with a 17% discount, totaling $576.99 for the popular 65-inch model. At the time of publishing, this product had over 1,500 ratings with 71% giving it 5 stars.
Perhaps the most fitting pick for your Super Bowl Sunday is the TCL Smart Roku TV, as they are partnered with the NFL. At the time of publishing, this TV is on sale on Amazon at a 52% discount totaling $239.99 for a 50-inch screen. You can even customize the home screen to have your favorite channels readily available to you each time you turn the TV on. And if you're worried about reviews, this one had over 2,400 global reviews with 79% giving it 5 stars at the time of publishing, so it's a pretty sweet deal.
Things to consider when shopping for a new TV
While those above are my top 5 TV picks, when shopping for a television to watch the Super Bowl, make sure to consider the following factors:
- Price: TVs can range from a few hundred dollars - as you can see above - to several thousand dollars. So set a budget and look for the best TV with the features you want that fits within your price range
- Picture quality: Look for a TV with a high resolution (4K Ultra HD is the best option), good contrast ratio, and HDR support for a vivid and lifelike image
- Screen size: The bigger the screen, the better the viewing experience, which is critical on Super Bowl Sunday. Also, be sure to choose a TV that fits comfortably in your room yet also provides a large enough screen for everyone to enjoy
- Audio quality: Be sure to get a TV with good speakers or the option to connect to a sound system so you can enhance the overall viewing experience, especially for that Rihanna halftime show
- Smart features: You want to look for a TV with built-in apps, voice control, and a fast and user-friendly interface to stream content easily
For more of my tips, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by clicking the "Free newsletter" link at the top of my website.
Copyright 2023 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved. CyberGuy.com articles and content may contain affiliate links that earn a commission when purchases are made. | Consumer Electronics |
Looks like Ring’s flying Always Home Cam hasn’t been grounded quite yet, with the automated drone making an appearance at CES this week. Engadget managed to get a demo of the Always Home Cam in Las Vegas, and word is that the airborne home security camera is “a little larger than it looks” in Ring’s promo videos, and that while it may not look like a typical drone, it “certainly sounds like one.” First unveiled during Amazon’s big fall hardware event in 2020, the Ring Always Home Cam remains one of the wildest products ever announced by the e-tailing giant. Equipped with a series of internal propellers, the Always Home Cam sits in a squat, square base when it isn’t flying, while a thick lower stem houses the camera lens. Designed to record only while it’s airborne, the Always Home Cam can’t be controlled manually. Instead, it follows a customizable, preset path around your house, and it can patrol on-demand when triggered by your Ring Alarm. If the Always Home Cam is as noisy as it sounds, that’s likely on purpose, as Ring says the drone’s hum helps to warn anyone nearby that the camera is on the move. For its part, Ring says the flying cam is “about as loud as a vacuum or a blender,” and that it’s only meant to be used when no one’s at home. The Cam also has an obstacle avoidance system to help it steer clear of objects and people in its path. So, here’s the big question about the Always Home Cam: When will it finally arrive? The last we heard about a release date for the Always Home Cam was in fall 2021, when Ring said that interested users could apply for an invitation to buy the drone. At the time, Ring pegged the price at $250. The Always Home Cam has yet to emerge from its invite-only “Day 1” status, and eyebrows were raised when the device went unmentioned during Amazon’s 2022 hardware event last fall. But while Ring wouldn’t reveal a wide release date or final pricing to Engadget (The Verge reports it won’t arrive before 2024), the very fact that the Always Home Cam is buzzing CES attendees at Vegas indicates that the drone is, at the very least, still circling the airport. Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter. | Consumer Electronics |
- Best Buy is rolling out a new version of its membership program called My Best Buy in late June.
- The retailer is renaming the program and offering lower-priced options.
- It wants to grow the program as it braces for a slower year of sales.
Best Buy said Thursday that it will double down on its membership program as consumers buy fewer discretionary items.
Starting June 27, the program will have three tiers, including a lower-priced option that offers perks like exclusive discounts and access to hot products, the consumer electronics retailer said. The program will also have a new name: My Best Buy memberships.
Best Buy is looking for ways to make money and drive customer loyalty as it deals with a drop in demand. Consumers are buying fewer electronics as they cope with higher prices of food and essentials, and some prioritize spending on travel, restaurants and other services. Plus, during the early years of the pandemic, many shoppers sprang for new laptops, home-theater systems and kitchen appliances — the kinds of purchases that people don't often repeat in the near term.
The company said in March that it expects revenue to range between $43.8 billion and $45.2 billion this fiscal year. The total would represent a drop from $46.3 billion from the year-earlier period, and from $51.8 billion the year before that — but a revenue increase from before the pandemic.
CEO Corie Barry told investors on a March earnings call that Best Buy expects this calendar year to "be the bottom for the decline in tech demand." She said spending will bounce back because U.S. households have a record number of tech devices and will want to upgrade or replace them, especially as vendors debut innovative products.
In the meantime, Best Buy also has taken steps to cut costs. It has had at least two rounds of layoffs, one in August and one in April. The company confirmed the job cuts, but declined to share any numbers.
Best Buy debuted its membership program, TotalTech, nationwide two years ago. The program grew to 5.8 million members by late January — adding up to nearly $1.2 billion in annual revenue. That's up from 4.6 million members the prior year.
The paying members are a fraction of the about 100 million people in the retailer's loyalty program, of which 40 million to 45 million are active.
As part of its relaunch, Best Buy's TotalTech will become the top tier of the membership program, but with a different name: My Best Buy Total. Its price will also drop from $199.99 per year to $179.99. That top tier includes round-the-clock tech support, up to two years of product protection and 20% off repairs, among other benefits.
The other two tiers are the retailer's free loyalty program, which includes free shipping with no minimum purchase, or an option in the middle: My Best Buy Plus. The new $44.99 per year subscription includes members-only prices, free two-day shipping with no minimum purchase and an extended return policy.
Best Buy found that its varied customers wanted different perks, said Patrick McGinnis, senior vice president of memberships. Older customers tended to use the 24/7 tech support, while younger ones signed up for the members-only discounts and extended product protection.
McGinnis said the revamped program better fits those different budgets and needs. He declined to share an updated membership total and the program's renewal rate.
On an earnings call in March, Barry said Best Buy is pleased with the program's results. She said members shop more with the company, buy more across categories and rate their experience higher than nonmembers.
But she added the retailer is still tinkering to reduce costs. For instance, it added restocking fees for some product returns and removed same-day delivery as a benefit, the CEO said.
Joe Feldman, a retail analyst for the Telsey Advisory Group, recently downgraded the company's stock from outperform to market perform and cut the price target to $81. He said Best Buy is a well-run company with a good strategy, but "they're in a tough market right now."
"People just aren't buying electronics these days and you're seeing it across the spectrum, whether it's Walmart, Target, Costco, Amazon," Feldman said. "Electronics just aren't selling — especially big ticket electronics — and that's been a pressure point for the past half a year or so."
So far, he said the membership program "has not been a gangbusters success" when you consider how many customers Best Buy has.
Paying for a service that touts tech support and extended protection is a tougher sell if shoppers aren't buying new devices, he added.
The program "often gets associated with a purchase, so some of it is chicken and egg," Feldman said. "It makes it a challenge."
Best Buy's shares have fallen about 10% so far this year. Shares closed Wednesday at $72.22, down about 23% from its 52-week high.
Best Buy will report its fiscal first-quarter earnings later this month. | Consumer Electronics |
Since the first smart gadgets started to surface a few years ago, the fabled smart home of the future has been edging closer to being a realistic, everyday reality.
The hardware, the software, and the use cases are all present and correct. Although issues such as compatibility, cost, and security persist, Matter, the new interoperability standard from the Connected Standards Alliance (CSA), promises to resolve many of these as it rolls out.
But let’s face it; there is still a significant problem. Right now, smart homes just aren’t very smart. Even with significant advancements in communication between smart home gadgets, setting up and maintaining a smart home still requires too much manual effort.
This point is especially true for homeowners who desire more sophisticated usage model capabilities, such as creating scenes with various smart home devices that perform multiple tasks simultaneously, such as opening the garage, turning on the lights and music, and disarming a home security system. Few consumers take advantage of these advanced “smart home 2.0” usage models because of the complexity involved.
There is potential for much more, even if most entry-level smart home users are thrilled with simply turning on the lights when using a smart voice assistant like Alexa.
Time To Market Not Matter’s Trademark, So Far
Maybe it won’t be the case forever. Many smart home enthusiasts have started building smart homes by purchasing smart speakers or smart TVs. Some have taken things further by purchasing smart lights, robotic vacuums, or outside security cameras.
The number of smart house advocates who have invested time and thought into designing and running a complex multi-device smart home setup is far lower. Again, few customers have advanced to this level.
Voice assistants have typically been used in homes to obtain information such as the most recent weather or turn lights on and off. By learning how we behave in our homes and feeding that information back into smart home management systems, generative AI can transform that connection from transactional to collaborative engagements.
Technically speaking, this is nothing new. For instance, Alexa creates “guesses” about new automation sequences and efficiencies depending on your activities around the house. Customer evaluations indicate that hunches may be disruptive and don’t seem effective in personalizing dwellings with more than one occupant. Thus, these only go so far in reality.
In this regard, AI may offer a viable remedy for enhancing the personalization of smart homes. After all, based on everyday discussions, AI could fill the gap in a specific style of thinking and doing. As a result, AI may benefit low-tech users in the general population, making smart homes much more approachable.
Will Matter Rise to the Occasion?
As more Matter-compatible gadgets become available, interoperability is becoming less of a problem, but AI might make operating smart homes even more convenient.
AI can potentially accelerate the capabilities of a smart house powered by Matter. Data could become increasingly available through Matter-based smart homes, and generative AI could unlock unprecedented potential in smart home technology to deliver a highly personalized, intelligence-driven user experience.
The ability to truly enjoy a complete smart home experience is beyond most mainstream users because they lack the patience and knowledge to configure a sizable number of smart home devices manually.
Unless you’re willing to commit to learning a quasi-programming tool like IFTTT (If This Then That) to create these scene “automations” — and today, few people are — you won’t be able to benefit fully from a complete smart home experience.
The Smart Home Game Isn’t Over Yet
The good news is that providing a compelling smart home experience is considerably closer than ever.
Although there has been available smart home technology for almost three decades, the reality is that today’s smart home is more of a “connected” home without the “smartness” that the term implies.
This observation doesn’t dispute that obstacles will not arise in developing a real smart home. Mainly, privacy issues are still at the forefront. Study after survey indicates that consumers fear their private information could become public and easily traceable.
The conversations people have on platforms like ChatGPT now aren’t private; even if hidden from your personal information, they can still be utilized to train the AI. Furthermore, there is always a possibility that bad actors will discover a way to access your data.
Smart home equipment manufacturers bear the responsibility of guaranteeing data privacy. This duty necessitates ensuring that all smart home interactions are processed locally, either on the user’s device or within their home network, thus safeguarding the confidentiality of their data.
Radio Silence From Major Smart Home Players
Many different use cases and environments now employ generative AI, but its potential is cloaked in doubt, primarily because of a lack of security, legislation, and direction. It’s unclear how the prominent voice assistant and AI firms will handle this murky but intriguing future for smart homes.
To date, none of the significant participants in the smart home market — Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and the CSA — have taken stances on this subject publicly.
Given the enormous difficulty of fusing the relative youth of Matter with generative AI, this is, in some respects, somewhat understandable.
Although these senior-level discussions are likely now taking place at these well-known consumer tech businesses, the issue they must address is when AI becomes a necessary component of an advanced smart home user experience, not if.
Google is a major supporter of the Matter smart home initiative, along with Apple, Amazon, and other companies. (Image Credit: Connectivity Standards Alliance)
Slow Adoption, Limited Awareness
Taking the AI dynamic out of the equation, industry traction for the Matter smart home endeavor has been, at best, slow, especially in terms of consumer awareness. Granted, a sharply increasing number of IoT gadgets enabling Matter are finally appearing on store shelves.
However, my interactions with sales associates at several Best Buy locations in the Bay Area have revealed a less-than-stellar level of awareness of the main advantages of Matter. Considering that Best Buy is the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., and the Matter initiative debuted in late 2019, Matter’s low awareness is discouraging.
Also telling is that 57% of U.S. respondents to an online poll conducted earlier this month by prominent smart lock vendor U-tec indicated they did not what know Matter is or its benefits.
Fair or not, it’s vital to remember that the success or failure of such projects can be arbitrary and dependent on several variables. Adoption and success in the smart home sector depend on customer demand, industry assistance, manufacturer engagement, and market acceptability.
Despite these obstacles, Matter has several positive aspects going for it. Several large corporations, including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung, support the standard.
Many manufacturers throughout the sector have backed the project. Furthermore, unlike other initiatives, the Matter standard is backward compatible with current smart home gadgets, so customers won’t need to replace all their devices to utilize Matter.
Only time will reveal the long-term success of the Matter smart home interoperability initiative. As we look to the future, the integration of AI promises to give the smart home sector a substantial uplift. It can potentially make our homes more convenient, intuitive, and user-friendly, thus shaping the next chapter in smart home evolution. I’m crossing my fingers. | Consumer Electronics |
In a world of touchable glass screens, sometimes all users really want is to feel the classic, clicking sensation of older electronics. While a few are still clamoring for the return of physical keyboards on phones, Samsung was on to something with its physical rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch “Classic” series. Unfortunately the Galaxy Watch 5 went “Pro” and nixed the feature.
As the company announced at its latest Samsung Unpacked Wednesday, the “Classic” title and physical bezel is back, baby, and along with it comes a bigger screen and more app integrations, all of which could help Samsung defend its “Best Android Smartwatch” title.
The Galaxy Watch6 Classic is just what the doctor ordered for all those missing the rotating bezel. Samsung reps told us they listened to customer complaints and worked to make the rotating bezel thinner and more out-of-the-way. The bezel certainly feels solid as it’s used to cycle between apps, and it’s all brought together through a rather satisfying clicking sensation. Honestly, it’s a much cleaner and satisfying UI compared to swiping on the watch face, even if the screen is slightly larger. The Classic comes with a few different watch faces to choose from for those looking for a far more traditional watch look.
The Galaxy Watch6 is back in its 44mm and 40mm versions, though Samsung is boasting the latest watch has a 20% increased screen size compared to previous renditions, with a 1.5-inch and 1.3-inch respective AMOLED displays. That bump in screen size is partially due to the 15% reduction in the girth of the exterior bezels. That extra display room is supposed to support a 480 x 480 resolution, which is a small but appreciable jump from the Watch 5’s 450 x 450. Samsung is boasting you can reach peak brightness of 2,000 nits, though the watch should automatically adjust brightness for all light levels.
Samsung is also claiming that despite the increased screen size and brightness, users should still expect up to 40 hours of battery life with Always-on display off, and 30 hours with it on. Eight minutes of fast charging should give you eight hours of battery life, though of course we couldn’t try out its battery life in the limited time we spent with it. As reports suggest Google is set to release its Pixel Watch 2, battery life could be a big deciding factor for Android users looking at their next watch purchase.
The new watch will also be running on the dual-core Exynos W930 chip running at 1.4 GHz. It’s an upgrade from the 1.18 GHz Exynos W920, though with many smartwatches you’ll be hard pressed to witness a difference in speed from one device to the next.
On the software side, Samsung is promoting a good deal more health and wellness features. There’s a few new apps introduced in the last generation that are being promoted here. The One UI 5 Watch includes atrial fibrillation detection, but the Galaxy Watch6 is also supposed to offer more “individualized” sleep messages and more sleep feedback that includes a “Sleep Consistency” rating for whether users are going to bed and waking up on time. The device also measures a personalized heart rate zone that can track where users expect to be at resting or during exercise.
The company is also promising more app integrations in the near future. The company already announced Samsung Wallet and WhatsApp are part of a new range of apps for the Watch. Samsung is also promising that users can add a Google Calendar and Gmail integration to the Watch6 by this fall.
The Watch6 preorders start July 26, with most markets seeing it available by Aug. 11. The regular Watch6 starts at $299.99 for the smaller 40mm version and jumps to $329.99 for the 44mm version. The Classic is priced at $399.99 at 43mm while the Large jumps to $429.99 to access the 47mm watch face.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Every year, the biggest brands in tech make their way to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES. The annual Las Vegas trade show is one of the best places to learn about the latest and most cutting edge TVs, laptops, smart homes, gaming products, audio systems and more. The event was fully-digital in 2021 due to COVID concerns, and saw reduced attendance in 2022 for the same reason. But 2023 saw a return to form for the event, with major brands like Amazon, Google, Samsung, Sony, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, JBL and more showing off new products.SKIP AHEAD Television | Smart Home | Gaming | Wearables | Cars | ComputersWe’ve been keeping an eye on the entire conference, and rounded up some of the biggest and most interesting announcements from the event.TelevisionRoku, one of the top streaming platforms for smart TVs, announced that it is releasing its own Roku-branded televisions. Previously, you could find Roku inside of other TV brands like TCL. Now, Roku will be launching its own brand, with Roku Select and Roku Plus TVs, alongside a Roku TV Wireless Soundbar. The TVs will range from 24 to 75 inches wide, and cost between $119 and $999, according to the brand.TCL, a top smart TV brand, is rebranding and overhauling its TV lineup. Now, all of its smart TVs will fall into two groups: the higher-end Q-Series and the budget-friendly S-Series. It announced three Q-Series TVs and two S-Series TVs, ranging from simple HD screens to cutting-edge 4K TVs, according to the brand. All-in-all, this reorganization of products should make it easier to shop for a good TCL TV.The Displace TV is a completely wireless TV that you can stick onto any wall surface via a built-in suction-based back. It's a 55-inch 4K TV that weighs less than 20 pounds and operates via four rechargeable batteries. The Displace TV is still only a prototype, so there are no details on release date or price, but you can learn more through their website.LG revealed its new 97 inch nearly-wireless Signature OLED M3 TV. Instead of connecting anything to the TV, you connect all your gear to a wireless base station placed in the same room as the TV. That base station beams all your content to your TV, wirelessly, according to the brand and hands-on demos.Smart HomeRing, the Amazon-owned smart home brand known for video doorbells, announced the Car Cam, a 24/7 dashboard security camera for vehicles. It’s the brand’s first car product, and is expected to start shipping on February 15th, 2023, according to the brand.GE Lighting, a Savant company, announced multiple new Cync ‘Dynamic Effects’ smart home products, including Hexagon Panels, Neon-Shape Lights, and additional smart bulbs. The brand also announced that its best-selling Indoor Smart Plug and A19 Full Color Direct Connect Smart Bulb will transition to Matter-compatible versions later this year.Samsung’s new SmartThings Station is a smart home hub that doubles as a wireless charger for your small devices. It’s small and minimal compared to other smart home hubs, but can still control all your smart home devices. The SmartThings Station will be available in the US and South Korea in February, and is launching with Matter-compatibility, according to the brand.GamingSony announced Project Leonardo, a highly customizable controller designed with accessibility in mind. Similar to Microsoft’s Adaptive Controller for Xbox, Project Leonardo was developed in concert with accessibility experts, and features a highly modular design that allows users to fully-customize almost everything about the controller. Project Leonardo is “currently in development,” according to the brand.NVIDIA announced its latest RTX 40-series of graphics cards will be shipping inside of gaming laptops starting February 8th. These super-powerful graphics cards will be a boon for gamers looking to get cutting-edge performance out of any computer, and were expected after the release of the desktop versions earlier this and last year.WearablesEvie showed off its upcoming smart ring, a medical-grade women’s wearable designed to help manage health through fitness and menstrual tracking features. It competes with other smart rings like the Oura Ring, but features an open design, wide sizing options and a rechargeable case similar to AirPods. The Evie Ring is set to launch sometime in 2023, according to the brand’s website.Citizen Watch announced the second-generation of its CZ Smart smartwatch series, this time featuring unique wellness tech to help predict your energy levels. Built on research from NASA and IBM Watson, the CZ Smart YouQ application “helps the wearer understand and anticipate patterns of fatigue and alertness” and can help users “build better habits,” according to the brand.L'Oréal showed off a prototype of its new Brow Magic augmented reality brow applicator. Users scan their face using L'Oréal’s Brow Magic app, select their desired brow details and use the Brow Magic printer to apply ink matching the app selection. The physical Brow Magic printer was developed with the help of Prinker, a temporary tattoo technology brand. You can learn more on L'Oréal’s website.CarsSony and Honda revealed a prototype electric vehicle under the new brand: Afeela. The prototype reveal comes nearly a year after the two companies announced their plan to make electric vehicles together. The Afeela prototype is a sporty-looking four door sedan — you can see it roll on stage during Sony’s press conference. The interior software and entertainment experience is being led by Sony, while engineering and production is being led by Honda. Pre-orders start in 2025, with sales expected the same year.Google is launching a new high-definition version of Google Maps specifically for cars as part of the Android Automotive operating system. This version of Google Maps will support assisted and autonomous driving modes, and show details like “lane markers, signs and road barriers,” according to the brand. Volvo’s EX90 and the upcoming Polestar 3 will be the first vehicles to use these new maps.ComputersAcer announced the new Aspire S Series, an all-in-one desktop computer that could be a great Windows competitor to the all-in-one iMac.The Aspire S series features the latest Intel chips, a 1440p quad-HD display, an ergonomically adjustable display, plenty of ports and magnetically attachable accessories like a webcam and touchpad. The Aspire S will come in a 27 inch and 32 inch model, and is launching in North America sometime in Q1 of 2023, according to the brand.Alienware is bringing the first 500Hz gaming monitor to market. The Alienware AW2524H is a 1080p gaming monitor built to be the fastest available, with an industry-first 500Hz refresh rate, fast HDMI 2.1 ports and all the latest NVIDIA tech for speed-seekers. It launches in North America sometime in Q1 of 2023, according to the brand.Catch up on Select’s in-depth coverage of personal finance, tech and tools, wellness and more, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date. | Consumer Electronics |
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSummaryCompaniesQ2 profit T$33.29 bln vs T$31.02 bln market viewQ2 revenue rose 12% to T$1.5 trlnSees flat growth for consumer electronics in Q3Sees strong growth for cloud and networking products in Q3Says has plan B if authorities don't approve China Tsinghua investmentTAIPEI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) iPhone assembler Foxconn (2317.TW) gave a cautious outlook for the current quarter after posting results that exceeded expectations, citing slowing smartphone demand after a pandemic-fuelled boom.The comments from the Taiwanese company, the world's largest contract electronics maker, echo those from other Asian tech firms that have warned of a drop in sales of smartphones, TVs and gadgets as surging inflation and deepening concerns of a recession crimp consumer spending.Foxconn has been largely shielded from these demand problems so far as the popularity of iPhones has endured among a loyal and relatively affluent customer base, and it said on Wednesday that rising inflation will only have a limited impact on mid- to high-end smartphone demand in the rest of the year.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comStill, Foxconn forecast flat revenue growth in its consumer electronics business including smartphones for the quarter ending September, signalling that demand for some devices was slowing after "significant growth" in the second quarter, when the business accounted for half of its overall revenue."On the whole, we are slightly more cautious about the third quarter, but compared to the same period last year, we could still see growth," the company's Chairman Liu Young-way told a post-earnings call."We will closely watch developments in geopolitics, inflation, and the pandemic."Like other global manufacturers, Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, has dealt with a severe shortage of chips that hurt production as bottlenecks from the pandemic lingered and the Ukraine war further strained logistical channels.On Wednesday the company said the second half of the year would look better than the first if there were no major geopolitical changes.RESILIENCEChina's Lenovo Group (0992.HK) the world's biggest PC maker whose results are a good indicator of consumer electronics demand, posted on Wednesday its smallest revenue growth in nine quarters as sales of gadgets eased after being driven by the pandemic, and it was also hit by COVID-19 lockdowns at home. read more Both Foxconn's net profit and revenue for the April-June quarter rose 12%, and Liu said the numbers show its "resilience" amid supply chain problems.A motorcyclist rides past the logo of Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, in Taipei, Taiwan March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu"Our customers, and ourselves, we are all large global technology companies, and have relatively strong supply chain management abilities. This advantage allows us to minimise the impact of any materials shortages," Liu said.Foxconn said it anticipates revenues for cloud and networking products to be strong in the third quarter. It reaffirmed its stance from last month that overall revenue this year will grow, rather than a previous guidance of remaining flat. read more It did not provide a numerical outlook.With a view to the future, Foxconn has diversified into areas including electric vehicles and semiconductors.UNIGROUP INVESTMENTSpeaking about Foxconn's $800 million investment in embattled Chinese chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup last month via a subsidiary, Liu said Foxconn will follow the law and if authorities did not approve the investment, it had a back-up plan. read more He did not elaborate on the plan.Taiwan, which has become increasingly cautious about China's ambition to boost its chip industry, wants to persuade Foxconn to unwind the investment, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. read more The democratically governed island, which China claims as its territory, prohibits companies from building their most advanced foundries in China and has proposed new laws to prevent what it says is China stealing its chip technology.Taiwan has faced days of Chinese military drills since last week when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island, despite warnings from Beijing against a trip.Foxconn shares closed 0.9% higher ahead of the earnings release, versus a 0.7% drop in the broader market (.TWII). They have risen 5.8% so far this year, giving the company a market value of $50.3 billion.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Muralikumar AnantharamanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
We all knew it was coming.Reporters, analysts, industry insiders and fans had been speculating about Apple making a phone for nearly a year by the time Steve Jobs walked onto the Macworld Expo stage on a cold January morning in San Francisco in 2007. "Thank you for coming," Jobs said, wearing his trademark Levi's and black mock turtleneck. "We're going to make some history together today."Apple's Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone on Jan. 9, 2007, calling it a "revolutionary and magical product." The phone went on sale June 29, 2007. Apple Despite the months-long buildup, Apple's CEO managed to surprise the world when he finally unveiled the iPhone -- the company's big, risky move into the mobile phone market."This is a day I've been looking forward to for two-and-a-half years," he told the audience of 4,000 people. "Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. ... One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple's been very fortunate. It's been able to introduce a few of these into the world."In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn't just change Apple. It changed the whole computer industry."In 2001, we introduced the first iPod and it didn't just change the way we listened to music. It changed the entire music industry. Well, today we're introducing three revolutionary products of this class. "The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls," Jobs said to whoops and cheers while I -- sitting on the floor near one of the rare power outlets in the hall -- furiously sent out Jobs' remarks in 83-character, all-cap headlines for Bloomberg News, where I worked as the Apple reporter. "The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device. So three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device. "An iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone -- are you getting it?" he asked the cheering audience."These are not separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. "Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. ... We want to make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been and super easy to use."Fifteen years later, we know Jobs was right. Apple did make history on Jan. 9, 2007, when it unveiled one of the most iconic products in consumer electronics history and changed its name from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. to signal it would no longer just be known for the Mac. More than 2 billion models of the iPhone have been sold since it went on sale June 29, 2007, and it has become the phone of choice for people around the world, with many anticipating a new model every September. It redrew mobile phone design and changed the entire phone industry. And it pretty much led to the end of standalone music players, GPS receivers and low-end to midrange digital cameras. Just last month, Apple announced it was discontinuing the iPod Touch after 21 years, saying that "the spirit of iPod lives on" in its other devices, including the iPhone and iPad. Master showmanPeople always lined up for days outside San Francisco's Moscone Center to make sure they'd get a seat for the Macworld keynote. And as they camped out on Howard Street, they'd see the press, analysts, Apple executives and other VIPs escorted into Moscone West, where we waited on the top floor of the conference center. Back then, Apple didn't open the doors to the hall until 10 minutes before the event started, guaranteeing a frenzied horde of people scrambling for prime spots. By my guess, it takes two minutes for 4,000 people to run into a conference hall and grab a seat. Let's just say Jobs already had a pretty receptive audience. And he certainly knew how to play to a room. A master showman, Jobs kept the crowd of reporters, analysts, developers, employees and Apple fans in a state of anticipation and wonder throughout the nearly two-hour keynote. He talked first about the move to Intel chips in Macs the year before, saying Mac sales proved that the change over to the new architecture was a success. And he welcomed the loads of "switchers," who'd jettisoned Windows-based PCs for Macs. He touted the iPod, introduced more than five years earlier, calling it the world's most popular music player and the world's most popular video player (I was there at the launch of the iPod as well.) He got huge laughs from the crowd after cracking a joke about the mediocre launch of Microsoft's rival Zune player two months before. He played the latest iPod TV ad featuring neon-colored silhouettes of dancers rocking out to Flathead, by indie Glasgow band The Fratellis. Oh, and he introduced Apple TV.All the while I sat on the floor and typed out a steady stream of short, all-cap headlines -- a kind of primeval Twitter story. By the time Jobs reached the crux of his presentation, my headline only needed 19 characters: "Apple unveils phone." He'd been on stage for 20 minutes. The stock chart for Apple looked like a hockey stick just seconds after the news was out. Now playing: Watch this: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone 5:01 Aha moment Apple has always been a magnet for speculation. Almost a year before Jobs stepped on that stage, rumors started flying that Apple was planning to enter the crowded mobile phone market with a cool new device.Talk turned from "if" to "when" in July 2006, after Peter Oppenheimer, then chief financial officer of Apple, pretty much confirmed the effort during in an earnings call with financial analysts. "We are very confident in our ability to compete in the marketplace, and we are very excited about what we have in the product pipeline," Oppenheimer said when asked how the company planned to compete against Sony and other rivals."As regards cellphones, we do not think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change, and we are not sitting around doing nothing."That was an aha moment for financial types, especially since Apple doesn't make off-the-cuff comments about anything it's working on. The aha turned into "coming soon" three months later when news broke that Apple had filed a trademark application for iPhone. (Fun fact: Cisco, the networking giant, owned the rights to the iPhone name when Apple launched the phone, but let Jobs have the trademark after reaching a legal settlement a few weeks later.) Now playing: Watch this: The iPhone: 2007, meet 2017 2:24 Bold promisesIt's hard for many to remember now, but back then few people could imagine how the iPhone's 3.5-inch touchscreen display and sleek design would upend a market that Nokia and BlackBerry ruled. BlackBerry's maker, then known as Research In Motion, later admitted it had underestimated the iPhone -- dissing it for its eight-hour battery life and belittling it because the phone ran only on AT&T's older, slower, second-generation wireless network."By all rights, the product should have failed," David Yach, RIM's chief technology officer, told The Wall Street Journal in May 2015. I remember the iPhone was a big deal because it was such a big risk for Apple. Up until that day, Apple Computer Inc. was known for its Macs and the iPod. Jobs knew he was staking Apple's future on getting an even bigger slice of the consumer electronics market. He reinforced that idea when he announced at the end of his keynote that the company was dropping "Computer" from its name and would just be called Apple Inc.An original Apple iPhone on display during MacWorld in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. Eric Slomanson/Bloomberg via Getty Images And he promised that the iPhone, which he called a "revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone," would be a success if Apple could capture even a 1% share of the mobile market in 2008. That would mean selling 10 million iPhones. The crowd went wild. A financial analyst told me that the iPhone, with its widescreen, full Safari web browser, visual voicemail and the music, photo and video features courtesy of the iPod, was a "complete stunner." Another told me the 10 million sales figure for 2008 "sounds low."Apple beat that 10 million goal by September 2008 - three months ahead of schedule. In July 2016, Apple announced it had sold 1 billion phones since the phone's launch. "iPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in 2017 in a message commemorating the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. "The best is yet to come."Today, Apple is one of the most valuable companies on the planet, with a market capitalization of $2.3 trillion. The right touchHere's what else I remember about the presentation that day.• Jobs saying "Boy, have we patented it" when he talked about the iPhone's design and its multitouch technology. He reveled in showing off how easy the phone was to use, calling out the single home button at the bottom of the glass screen. And his comments about patenting the device weren't just offhand -- Apple and its largest smartphone rival, Samsung, would spend seven years in court fighting over Apple's design in a case that went all the way up to the US Supreme Court.• Jobs making the first public phone call on the iPhone to Apple's then chief designer, Jony Ive, who was sitting in the audience. Jobs asked Ive what he thought of the moment. Ive's reply: "It's not too shabby."• The laughter as Jobs called a local Starbucks, saying "I'd like to order 4,000 lattes to go, please. No, just kidding. Wrong number."• The disappointment when Apple didn't give developers a way to build native apps for the iPhone. (Jobs later changed his mind and decided to open that kind of access to developers, instead of just running web-based apps on the phone. Apple introduced the App Store on July 10, 2008, and paid homage to the store on its 10th anniversary.)In the years since that launch, I've written a lot stories about the new models, about whether Apple can keep churning out designs that make us want to upgrade, and about how the phone changed Apple's partners, including Corning, AT&T and others. And so I'll share one of my favorite anecdotes about the iPhone, which comes from Marc Andreessen, who pioneered web browsing with Mosaic and Netscape and is now one of the top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley."In the fall of 2006, my wife, Laura, and I went out to dinner with Steve and his brilliant and lovely wife, Laurene," Andreessen told me in 2012."Sitting outside of the restaurant on California Avenue in Palo Alto waiting for a table to open up, on a balmy Silicon Valley evening, Steve pulled his personal prototype iPhone out of his jeans pocket and said, 'Here, let me show you something.' He took me on a tour through all of the features and capabilities of the new device."After an appropriate amount of oohing and aahing, I ventured a comment. BlackBerry aficionado as I was, I said, 'Boy, Steve, don't you think it's going to be a problem not having a physical keyboard? Are people really going to be OK typing directly on the screen?'"He looked me right in the eye with that piercing gaze and said, 'They'll get used to it.'"And so we all did. | Consumer Electronics |
CNN — A new take on a foldable phone. A pricey toilet sensor that monitors hydration and vitamin levels. And an AI-powered oven. The Consumer Electronics Show, now in its 56th year, kicks off this week in Las Vegas with a familiar mix of cutting edge technology and oddball gadgets. The event, which is the largest consumer tech conference of the year, is known for robots roaming the show floor; flashy presentations about next generation TVs; and quirky products such as last year’s buzzy health tracking light bulbs and dehumidifying earbuds. But the event also fosters dealmaking among executives, manufacturers and retailers across various industries, and sets the stage for some of the biggest tech trends of the year. And this year’s event, in particular, could show how companies are thinking about products as pandemic concerns recede for some consumers but recession concerns remain. The Consumer Technology Association, which hosts CES each year, said it is expecting about 100,000 in-person attendees this year, up significantly from the 45,000 people who attended in 2022 amid concerns of the Covid-19 Omnicron variant. (CTA is once again offering a livestream for attendees who’d rather watch the event remotely). This year, featured speakers will include executives from traditional tech companies such as Samsung, Sony and Amazon, as well as other brands like John Deere, Delta and BMW. Although CES is traditionally a gadget show – and there will be no shortage of gizmos on display this year – about 60% of the Fortune 500 companies are participating this year, enabling more diverse product launches and discussions around all areas of tech. “Despite a pretty tough economy, the companies we’re seeing [attending] are really strong,” Gary Shapiro, president of the CTA, which hosts the event, told CNN ahead of the event. Some of the key themes at this year’s CES will include sustainability, artificial intelligence and foldable devices. Among the products teased ahead of the 2023 CES is Samsung Display’s Flex Hybrid prototype, which features a foldable and slidable display (the right side slides to offer more screen space). Laptop maker Acer will show off a bicycle desk called eKinekt, allowing users to both work and pedal to generate kinetic energy that is used to help charge smartphones and laptops via the desk itself. Health and wellness companies will once again dominate the show floors, even as pandemic concerns ease for some. Kohler already announced an aromatherapy shower system that attaches to shower heads and infuses the water stream with scents, such as lavender and eucalyptus, intended to help soothe the skin. Meanwhile, fitness wearables will be in heavy supply too. Meanwhile, Withings $500 U-Scan device collects from your urine stream to detect vitamin deficiencies, check hydration and monitor metabolism (an additional device called the U-Scan Cycle Sync tracks periods and ovulation cycles). Cars, trucks and boats will also get the spotlight this year. Stellantis will show off a concept version of its upcoming all-electric Ram pickup truck that will show where that brand is headed. Meanwhile, BMW will reveal an all-new user interface for its cars because, in today’s luxury car market, that matters to consumers at least as much as engine power and handling. Boating companies will also be showing off the latest in electric and autonomous watercraft tech as that market goes green, too. “CES is getting away from being a Consumer Electronics Show and getting more and more into being a Consumer Experience Show,” said Ramon Llamas, a director at IDC Research. “We may see a new device pop up here and there, and it is easy to expect big televisions, cool cars, and gadgets galore. But the secret sauce is what the software can do.” He believes artificial intelligence will particularly allow companies “to make sense of how a consumer behaves and set up the device experience to best serve those needs.” But at least one hot topic from the prior year may be less of a focus now: the metaverse, or Meta’s idea of the metaverse. In late 2021, Facebook ignited a wave of interest in the metaverse by changing its company name to Meta and announcing plans to invest heavily to continue developing virtual and augmented reality technologies that support more immersive online experiences. Months later, at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show, talk of the metaverse was everywhere. As Axios reported at the time, “many CES observers suggested a drinking game in which keynote watchers took a shot every time the metaverse was mentioned — but that would have been a recipe for alcohol poisoning.” Now interest in the immersive virtual world appears to have simmered as Facebook has so far struggled to gain mainstream traction for its VR offerings. Still, the topic of virtual reality products will remain a focus for some companies. HTC is expected to launch the Vive Focus 3 this week at the show, with an emphasis on the metaverse. CES runs through Sunday, January 8. – CNN’s Peter Valdes-Dapena contributed to this report | Consumer Electronics |
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Though it's easy to assume artificial intelligence is only helpful in the tech sector, this technology is being applied to creative fields more and more every day — even the music world. If you want to see the latest innovations, the Consumer Electronics Show rounds up the coolest new products on the market year after year.
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Let artificial intelligence make the creative music process a little easier with EasySplitter AI-Based Vocal Remove. This application is available on iOS, Androids, or the web, and lets you split any song in your media library into four STEMs — instrumental, vocal, bass, and audio. It even takes out background noise and unwanted sounds from the audio file, offering clarity and sound quality.
Curious about how it works? The innovative technology offers fact processing that lets the songs be split quickly, as soon as you upload the song. It can be split into 2 STEMs or 4 STEMs, and from there, you can play or mute your desired STEMs, change the volume on each, download them all separately, or use the "merge download" option to combine the STEMs you need in one file.
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Apple is really excited to share its next steps into augmented reality tech at this year’s WWDC, so much so that it’s released a teaser of its ‘AR experience’ to iPhones and iPads. We hope the company’s rumored headset is a bit more exciting than this.
On Tuesday, Apple updated its Apple Events page to promote the upcoming company conference. The page also gives iPhone and iPad users a button to “View the AR experience.” Clicking it makes Apple’s psychedelic WWDC logo float in the center of your device’s screen, and that’s it. Inside the gyrating, oil-slick colored Apple logo is some text that reads “June 5 2023.”
You can’t interact with the logo in any meaningful way, meaning there’s less to it than some Instagram filters. You can even view it in “Object” mode to see the logo without any of those IRL distractions, which—I hate to point out—is just a video. While the page could display something a bit more interesting when CEO Tim Cook rears his head on camera next week, this timid expression of AR is consistent with Apple’s hesitancy, so far, to fully enter the virtual reality space.
At the same time, that the company is pushing some form of AR ahead of its conference all but confirms it’ll have some presence there. The Cupertino, California-based company is expected to showcase its ‘Reality’ headset during its big developer conference. The reported $3,000 device has changed quite a bit from its early inception as a planned pair of AR glasses. The device has been delayed several times over the past several years, and recent reports note the device could prove controversial, as it’s expected to use an external battery pack that’s connected to the headset through a wire.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers a keynote address during the WWDC22 at Apple Park on June 06, 2022 in Cupertino, California. Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the annual WWDC22 developer conference.Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesApple is holding a launch event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Wednesday where it will unveil its latest hardware products, including the new iPhone 14.Apple has used prerecorded videos for its launch events since early 2020 thanks partly to Covid restrictions, and this will be the first iPhone launch with an in-person component since 2019. Apple is streaming the launch event online on its website and YouTube in addition to inviting some media to its campus.Apple's hype-filled fall launches are a signature event for Apple. They typically draw millions of simultaneous viewers on YouTube. They garner attention from around the world and set the stage for a holiday marketing blitz during the last three months of the year, which is when Apple's sales are the highest.This year's event has the tagline "far out," which could refer to features such as night-sky photography.Last year, Apple released new iPhones and Apple Watches at an event in September, and then followed it up with an October launch featuring iPads and Macs.Here's what Apple is likely to launch Wednesday, based on reports.iPhone 14: Four new modelsCustomers look at the iPhone13 smartphones at apple's flagship store in Shanghai, China.Xing Yun | Future Publishing | Getty ImagesApple is expected to release four new iPhone models. If Apple's current naming convention holds up, they will be called the iPhone 14.This year Apple will likely discontinue the "mini" model with a 4.7-inch screen, according to reports. Instead, Apple could offer two sizes, one with a 6.1-inch screen and one with a 6.7-inch screen, each coming in a standard model and a pricier "Pro" model.The Pro models are expected to get more upgrades, according to reports from Bloomberg News, TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and other analysts and Apple watchers.Since 2017, iPhones have included a space at the top of the phone's display with space for Apple's FaceID system, which includes several sensors and a camera. The Pro models could ditch Apple's "notch" where it houses the FaceID camera for a slimmer, more streamlined "pill" or "cutout" approach with a smaller space that has to remain blank, leaving room for an even larger display.The Pro models are also expected to get upgraded A16 processors and cameras. The camera bump is expected to get larger.Apple could release an always-on screen display for showing notifications, like some Android phones have sported for years. Beta iPhone software released over the summer suggested that Apple may be planning a similar feature because of new widgets that show weather and battery life.One of the biggest questions is how Apple will price its iPhones in a period of inflation around the world and macroeconomic uncertainty in some regions. Other consumer electronics, such as Sony's Playstation 5, have seen price cuts.Apple's least-expensive iPhone 13 model is the $699 iPhone 13 Mini, which is expected to be discontinued. That would make Apple's mainline device, which is currently the iPhone 13, the least-expensive new model at $829, if its price doesn't change. Some analysts also expect Apple to increase the price of its Pro models.Apple usually drops the price of older models when it releases new ones, giving more price-sensitive consumers an option.Apple WatchCustomers try Apple Watch devices in the Apple Marunouchi store on September 07, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan.Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty ImagesApple is likely to show the eighth major new version of its watch on Wednesday. Last year, the Apple Watch Series 7 got a slightly larger screen, but the redesign did not significantly change the look and feel of the device, which has remained mostly the same since 2014.Expect more evolution this year, too. Apple is considering a body temperature sensor in the new devices, according to the Wall Street Journal, which could help with fertility and sleep tracking. Other sleep tracking features could include the ability to detect advanced sleep patterns or apnea.But the biggest Apple Watch Series 8 announcement could be a new "Pro" model with a bigger screen and more durable finish. Apple has previously released Apple Watches with pricey case materials such as gold, ceramic and titanium, and the new "Pro" model described by Bloomberg and Kuo could be one of the first high-end Apple Watches to gain additional features over its less-expensive siblings.Also likely: A new updated version of the Apple Watch SE, its $329 entry-level Watch model.iOS 16How to edit an iMessage in iOS 16Todd Haselton | CNBCIPhone owners who don't plan to buy any new gear this fall will still get an annual update to the iPhones software, iOS 16, which was announced in June and has been in testing over the summer.The software has several new features that users will immediately notice. The biggest banner feature is the ability to customize the iPhone's lock screen with widgets that can display weather forecasts, calendar appointments and other information at a glance. Users can also change the font for the lock screen clock for the first time, as well.IOS 16 also lets you unsend or edit iMessage text messages, as long as you catch them within a few minutes of sending.IOS 16 will also introduce short-term loans from Apple called Apple Pay Later. The feature will allow users to buy stuff online with Apple Pay but pay for the item in four installments without paying interest.One cool feature in iOS 16 is if a user has both an iPhone and a Mac laptop or desktop, they can use the iPhone as a very high-definition web camera.After the event: iPads, MacsApple's September event invite.AppleApple is unlikely to release new iPads on Wednesday because their software isn't ready yet. Earlier this month, Apple told TechCrunch that iPadOS, the iPad software, will ship after iOS this fall, suggesting a staggered release.Apple's statement was terse, and the company dislikes talking about unannounced products. But in general, it likes to release new hardware together with new software, so the statement clearly suggested that new iPads would come at a later launch date than iPhones.IPadOS and iOS are very similar, but this year iPadOS is getting a feature called Stage Manager that could allow users to multitask more efficiently — but also got panned by early testers. Improved iPads could include more powerful processors that are closers to laptop processors, smoother displays and better integration with accessories.Apple also uncharacteristically teased a new "Mac Pro" in the spring. The Mac Pro is currently a $5,000 tower of power using an Intel processor.Apple wants to transition its entire Mac lineup away from Intel to its own M-series processors, but a pricey niche product doesn't fit as well with Apple's mass-market iPhones and Apple Watches. Instead, new Macs could be announced at a separate event later this year, as happened last year. | Consumer Electronics |
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India is loosening its planned restrictions on imports of laptops, tablets and other IT hardware, giving manufacturers such as Apple Inc., HP Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc. more time to prepare for potential curbs.
The South Asian country is doing away with a compulsory licensing requirement for tech importers, and will instead only ask such companies to register under its so-called import management system, people familiar with the policy said. The system will start operating on Nov. 1, they said, asking not to be named as the matter isn’t public.
India is seeking to boost local production while trying to ensure sufficient availability of consumer electronics. The federal government last month shocked companies such as Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. as it announced a plan to curb laptop and tablet imports without a suddenly required license. A day later India’s trade regulator delayed the move by three months.
Read more: India Delays Shock Move to Curb Imports of Laptops, Tablets
As part of the latest plan, all companies bringing everything from tablets and laptops to desktop computers and servers into India will have to register. But unlike under the previously considered licensing regime, where companies were expected to cut back imports immediately, the new rules won’t limit inbound shipments for about six to nine months, the people said.
A quota on imports could gradually kick in as companies begin to manufacture laptops, tablets and other hardware locally. The size of each company’s quota will depend on its local production, import of IT hardware as well as export of such products from India, the people said.
The planned new rules don’t apply to smartphones. India’s technology ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The maneuvers are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to increase local production and create a world-class tech manufacturing industry in India as companies look to diversify supply chains beyond China. India this year introduced a $2.1 billion financial incentive plan to draw computer makers to the world’s most populous nation.
Read more: India Launches $2 Billion Drive to Woo Laptop Makers Like Apple
Companies including Dell, HP, Lenovo Group Ltd., Foxconn Technology Group and Asustek Computer Inc. have sought the subsidies to make laptops, tablets and other products in India.
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When Apple held its annual launch event for the iPhone 13 in 2021, it started with a joyful video featuring jazz dancers celebrating the natural beauty of California (which can be captured with an iPhone camera, of course).The undertone of Apple's iPhone 14 launch this week was darker. After zooming in on Apple's headquarters from space, it kicked off with a video highlighting users who wrote letters to Apple CEO Tim Cook saying that they almost died — but were saved by their Apple Watch calling 911."Dear Apple: My dad was flying our small plane to Vermont. I was asleep in the back seat. I woke up when we were crashing into the tops of the trees. The plane broke into six pieces and we were miles away from civilization in the freezing cold. Then, all of a sudden, my Apple Watch started ringing," said one character named Hannah.Other characters in the short video told stories of falling into a frozen stream, getting trapped inside a trash compactor and witnessing a cardiac episode in a restaurant.Saving lives in emergency situations was the major theme of Apple's launch this year, and many of the most notable new features the company announced were oriented toward safety.The most significant new iPhone capability this year is called "Emergency SOS via satellite," which can send a message for help even if there's no cell service around for miles. Users can also share their location with family or friends in the Find My app.Apple's example of how the feature works showed a hiker with a broken leg on top of a mountain ridge calling for a helicopter. Later, Apple mentioned winding back roads as another place where iPhone users might be out of range.But this feature could be useful in outside wilderness settings. Wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters can cut cell service, and having the ability to contact emergency services or tell your family where you are can literally be a lifesaver in those circumstances.Another example: Apple's $799 or more watch, the Ultra, has an 86-decibel siren that can be heard 600 feet away, and compass features that allow the user to retrace their steps without the internet.As with the satellite feature, Apple advertised it as a helpful tool for backcountry adventurers, but it could also be useful in more mundane settings. Imagine sounding the alarm as a deterrent to an attacker, or using the retracing feature to find your way back to your car after a disaster in your community has interrupted cell service.Apple also announced this week that iPhones and Apple Watches, using motion sensors, can now call 911 if they detect a car crash has occurred."We truly hope you never need it, but that you will feel a little bit safer every time you get in the car," an Apple presenter said, moments before showing images of a driver getting hit by an air bag in slow motion after crashing.Apple's launch events are designed to do one thing: build demand for Apple's new products. The company now wants to make the iPhone even more "essential" for its users through safety features, giving users reasons not to switch to competing Android devices.Will these features meaningfully increase iPhone adoption and sales? It turns out, Apple has at least considered the possibility in the past.In a disclosure with the ESG group CDP published in January 2019, Apple representatives wrote about potential business opportunities stemming from climate change, citing a previous version of the "SOS" feature as an example of Apple's work to build features for emergency situations."As severe weather events become more frequent, consumers may come to value more highly the immediate and ubiquitous availability of reliable mobile computing devices for use in situations where transportation, power and other services may be temporarily interrupted," Apple representatives wrote.Apple cited the 9/11 disaster and "extreme weather events" like hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey that are occurring more frequently."Over time, as people begin to experience severe weather events with greater frequency, we expect an increasing need for confidence and preparedness in the arena of personal safety and the well-being of loved ones," Apple wrote in the disclosure.Apple's not the only consumer electronics company that is developing safety features for its devices. But Apple's devices also have a robust lineup of health features, like fall detection for seniors and heart monitoring, which underscore its overall safety pitch."iPhone is there when you need it most," one presenter said at the launch event. "That confidence is especially important in moments where your safety is at risk."We may be seeing the start of a new messaging strategy at Apple: Its devices are the ones you want when things go wrong. | Consumer Electronics |
Sony’s gaming arm has long been fascinated by shapes. The fact that everybody else labeled their buttons with “A” or “B” meant nothing to the legacy tech brand, as the first PlayStation controller included “X” or “O” buttons instead. Now, the gaming company finally has a release date and price for one of the most intriguing designs out there for a controller—a large, flat circle with swappable keys engineered to be one of the most accessible interfaces on the console market.
Sony’s VP of hardware and peripherals Isabelle Tomatis announced in a Thursday blog post that the company’s long-awaited “Access” controller should be here by Dec. 6 and will cost $90 to start. It’s just $20 more than a new, regular DualSense controller and significantly cheaper than Sony’s $200 Edge controller. Preorders are set to start July 21.
The Access controller is meant to be an accessibility-first option for gamers who have long struggled with your average twin-stick control design. This new device is meant to be truly customizable, with eight slots that can fit 19 different key caps that come in the box. Many of the caps are designed for specific accessible use, such as the wide flat button caps and the other overhanging button caps. One cap that comes with the controller, for example, can cover up two button sockets. You can mix and match different tags to mark the inputs based on your in-game controller mapping.
Then there’s the joystick, which can extend out from the Access controller’s main body, and comes stock with three different caps, including a ball, standard, and dome end. Users can swap between different controller profiles via a button on the outside of the access controller, and users can also create up to 30 different control profiles and adjust other settings on the PS5 itself.
There’s also three 3.5 mm AUX ports which are designed to support external accessories, including additional joysticks or keys. Sony hasn’t yet shared news of any external attachments, and any that it does release would be sold separately. Still, the universal nature of the 3.5 mm AUX port means 3rd party developers will likely be able to create any number of useful plugins for the Access. Sony also promised users can pair two access controllers and a DualSense to use them “collaboratively.”
We’ve been very interested in Sony’s take on accessibility since the company revealed its Access controller for PlayStation 5 earlier this year. Originally dubbed “Project Leonardo,” Sony said it worked with multiple gaming accessibility groups to help design the controller, and the device even comes with a slot for an AMPS compatible mount on its underside, meaning it could be set up on a wheelchair for those with limited mobility.
The Access controller is a welcome addition, as we’ve been rather disappointed by Sony’s peripherals as of late. The recently announced return to PlayStation handhelds was essentially just a DualSense controller with a screen meant for remote play. The Access controller is a truly unique piece of equipment that puts Sony far ahead of its competitors trying to bring more people into the gaming space. We still haven’t had the chance to test durability, but it’s a hopeful start for the mainstreamification of accessibility in the wonderful world of video games.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
SNEAK PEEK OVR Technology exhibited a VR headset with eight scents that may be combined to produce various aromas.
The metaverse could be around $5 trillion by 2030.
Commerce, pleasure, social connection, and learning will soon be merged with virtual reality. OVR Technology demonstrated a virtual reality headgear with eight odours that can be mixed to create different fragrances. At the Consumer Electronics Show 2023, metaverse-focused firms demonstrated the addition of the sense of smell to the interactive virtual encounter. Recent research by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company suggests that by 2030, the metaverse may generate $5 trillion in value. The study, however, emphasised that the success of the metaverse would necessitate a more developed human element that provides positive user experiences. One of these factors might be the merging of scent and touch into virtual reality experiences, as witnessed at the recent CES. According to Fortune, one of the companies, OVR Technology, demonstrated headgear with a container for eight smells that may be blended together to create different odours. The VR headgear is expected to be introduced later in 2023. An older version designed for fragrance advertising allows users to smell everything from marshmallow toasting to a bed of flowers. Extended reality will soon be integrated with commerce, entertainment, social interaction, education, and well-being, according to Aaron Wisniewski, CEO of OVR Technology. The CEO emphasised that fragrance offers these encounters “unrivalled potency.” Once the technology is widely available, their company plans to offer a VR dating app that includes realistic sensations such as touch. Ozan Ozaskinli, a CES visitor, tried certain haptics items and stated that they were distant from reality. However, the tech expert also stated that it could possibly be integrated into virtual meetings because consumers may truly feel something through the technology. Blockchain technology and the virtual world took over the CES convention in 2022. Several crypto industry leaders attended the event, including CEOs from the now-bankrupt FTX and Celsius Network. Through their booths, brands presented blockchain and metaverse technologies, including Samsung, which announced an NFT system. | Consumer Electronics |
Elon's next headache: Volkswagen previews its ID.7 - an electric family saloon car with a range of 435 miles and Tesla's Model 3 firmly in its sightsVW's ID.7 is set to be unveiled in full production form by the middle of this yearPreview model shown at CES in Las Vegas is a prototype with camouflage paintIt offers 60 miles more driving on a full charge than Tesla's Model 3 Long Range Published: 06:35 EST, 4 January 2023 | Updated: 07:28 EST, 4 January 2023 Volkswagen has given a first glimpse of its forthcoming electric family saloon model - the ID.7 - which will go head-to-head with Tesla's Model 3 when it goes on sale later this year.Revealed in prototype form - and heavily camouflaged - at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the German car giant says the ID.7 is aiming to provide a range of 435 miles.That sort of driving distance from a single charge is 61 more than the Tesla Model 3 Long Range can cover on a fully-charged battery, as VW takes aim at Elon Musk's car brand. Volkswagen's sixth electric-only car is coming: The ID.7 will be the next model in the German brand's line-up, which is due to be unveiled in full before the middle of the yearShowcasing the car in the US this week, Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, said: 'With the new ID.7, we are extending our electric model range into the upper segments. 'The sedan will offer top-class technology and quality. The ID.7 is one of ten new electric models that we are planning to launch by 2026. Our goal? To deliver suitable products for our customers in every single segment.'It is set to be sold in both saloon and estate forms, with the model unveiled in full in the second quarter of the year and order books for UK customers likely opening towards the end of 2023.The ID.7 will be the sixth fully-electric 'ID' car from the manufacturer and will be based on its tried-and-tested MEB platform that underpins the five models before it.The production-ready model should share the same dimensions as this prototype vehicle, which measures in at 4,940mm long, 1,859mm wide and 1,529mm high.Its wheelbase of 2,969mm is the same as the recently-launched ID Buzz MPV and it is longer than the two internal combustion engine family saloons VW currently offers - the Arteon and Passat. Revealed in prototype form - and heavily camouflaged - at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the German car giant says the ID.7 is aiming to provide a range of 435 miles The ID.7 is longer than the two internal combustion engine family saloons already in VW's range - the Arteon and Passat VW says the ID.7 is expected to have a full-charge range of up to 435 miles using its largest battery pack (77kWh)While the vehicle has been revealed to show-goers in Las Vegas, Volkswagen has remained tight-lipped about most of the technical details.However, it has confirmed it is targeting a full-charge range of up to 435 miles.As is the case with its other ID models, it will be sold with different battery sizes - and the 435 mile claim will likely be for the largest of these, which currently is a 77kWh pack.It is expected to be sold with the option of two or four-wheel-drive, and there should also be a 'hot' GTX versions launched. Its biggest rival will be the Tesla Model 3, which is the best-selling electric saloon in Britain currently.Prices for the Tesla start from £48,490 for the rear-wheel drive option, which offers a range of 305 miles. The furthest distance of a full charge is achieved in the Model 3 Long Range - 374 miles - and costs £57,490. With the VW potentially gazumping that by 61 miles, Elon Musk might likely see it taking sales off his most affordable electric vehicle. Its biggest rival will be the Tesla Model 3, which is the best-selling electric saloon in Britain currently. The 'Long Range' version is claimed to go for up to 374 miles between charges With the VW potentially gazumping that single-charge driving distance by 61 miles, Tesla boss Elon Musk (pictured) might likely see it taking sales off his most affordable electric vehicleThe Hyundai Ioniq 6, BMW i4, Mercedes EQE and Polestar 2 are just some of the other competition the VW will go up against.Production for the European market will take place at the company's Emden factory in Germany alongside the ID.4 SUV.The prototype unveiled in the US shows the car having a svelte silhouette, as previewed by the ID.Aero concept last summer. The prototype unveiled in the US shows the car having a svelte silhouette, which should make it aerodynamically efficient, which in turn should help it to achieve its quoted rangeIt had a drag coefficient of 0.23, which is expected to be the case for the full production version. In layman's terms, this means it will slip through the air with ease, which should help improve its range. Details of the car's exterior have been hidden by a busy camouflage, which is a special QR code-inspired feature VW calls 'Electroluminescent' made up of 40 layers of paint. When an electric current is sent through it, 22 separate sections of the car can light up independently to turn the vehicle into an interactive canvas. For what reason, we're not too sure. Details of the ID.7's exterior have been hidden by a busy camouflage, which is a special QR code-inspired feature VW calls 'Electroluminescent' paint that can light up across 22 panels The ID.7 will have 'Smart Air Vents'. These detect when the owner is approaching the car on a hot day, and automatically turn on the air-conditioning to cool the cabin The infotainment touchscreen has been improved on customer feedback, meaning drivers will can access the temperature controls directly from the home screenOne clever feature that's used in the prototype and will make it through to the showroom car is its 'Smart Air Vents'. These can detect when the owner - holding the key - is approaching the car on a hot day, and automatically turn on the air-conditioning to cool the cabin. It will also be able to do the same with the heater, heated seats and heated steering wheel on particularly chilly days.It will also get an augmented reality head-up display as standard across the range, and the 15-inch touchscreen system has been improved on customer feedback, meaning drivers will be be able to access the temperature controls directly from the home screen rather than having to navigate through sub menus.While order books are expected to open before the end of 2023, there is not yet any indication on pricing. Advertisement Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence. | Consumer Electronics |
By Euronews • Updated: 28/09/2022 - 16:15 A drone flies at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 8, 2014 - Copyright AP Photo/Jae C. HongThe European Commission on Wednesday unveiled proposals to make it easier for consumers to claim compensation from manufacturers of artificial intelligence (AI) products including robots, drones or smart-home systems if they have caused them harm.The AI Liability Directive aims to provide more legal clarity for manufacturers and consumers as the use of AI grows exponentially, the Commission said."While considering the huge potential of new technologies, we must always ensure the safety of consumers," Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders said in a statement. "Proper standards of protection for EU citizens are the basis for consumer trust and therefore successful innovation. New technologies like drones or delivery services operated by AI can only work when consumers feel safe and protected," he added.Under the proposals from the EU's executive, the burden of proof in case of injury or damage due to AI-enabled products will still be on consumers. But it will be alleviated with a so-called "presumption of causality" that will address the difficulties experienced by victims in having to explain in detail how harm was caused by a specific fault or omission, which can be particularly hard when trying to understand and navigate complex AI systems.Victims will also have more tools to seek legal reparation through a right of access to evidence from companies and suppliers, in cases in which high-risk AI is involved.For instance, in case of damage caused by a drone delivering a package where the operator did not respect the instructions of use or because the provider did not follow the necessary requirements, victims will have the right to ask the court to order the disclosure of information about the high-risk AI systems involved to identify the person that could be held liable and find out what went wrong.Meanwhile, appropriate safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the companies' sensitive information and trade secrets are protected. This will need to be approved by member states and MEPs before it can come into force. The Commission also unveiled an update to its Product Liability Directive that would make manufacturers of tangible or intangible products liable if the products they sell are unsafe. This will apply to software updates if they make the product unsafe during its lifetime. "The Product Liability Directive has been a cornerstone of the internal market for four decades. Today's proposal will make it fit to respond to the challenges of the decades to come," internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. "The new rules will reflect global value chains, foster innovation and consumer trust, and provide stronger legal certainty for businesses involved in the green and digital transition," he added. | Consumer Electronics |
An employee of electronics repair firm iFixit is seen removing the back of an Apple iPhone 14 in San Luis Obispo, California, U.S. in this undated handout picture provided to Reuters on September 19, 2022. Courtesy of iFixit/Handout via REUTERSRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSept 19 (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) new iPhone 14 base model looks similar to its predecessor but is redesigned on the inside, making it much easier to repair cracks in the back glass, repair firm iFixit said in blog post Monday.Glass backs returned to iPhones in 2017, but the way they were attached made them difficult to replace. Apple charged up to $599 to repair the back glass on some models, though much less for customers with AppleCare+, Apple's device insurance program.IFixit, which assesses the reparability of consumer electronics, said on Monday Apple has made major changes to the iPhone 14 base model. Previous iPhones had back glass glued to the phone's frame and buried under other components, meaning the device had to be almost totally disassembled to fix it.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIn the iPhone 14, the back glass is held in place by just two screws one connector, making it easy to remove.Apple did not mention the internal redesign when it announced the iPhone 14 earlier this month. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Given the cost of previous repairs "everyone was just living with phones with tape on the back," iFixit Chief Executive Kyle Wiens told Reuters. "This gives people a shot at getting them fixed. It also creates opportunities for local repair shops."The costlier iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max still have the older style of glued-in glass back. Apple's phones have long been a target of repair industry critics who argued the devices were so hard to fix that consumers were more likely to discard them and buy a new device.Apple has slowly started to embrace the repair industry in recent years as part of its environmental sustainability efforts. In 2019, Apple started selling tools, parts and manuals to independent repair shops. Last year, Apple began offering those items to the general public.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Richard ChangOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Consumer Electronics |
- From Oct. 23 to the end of day on Nov. 11, Xiaomi said it sold more than 22.4 billion yuan ($3.11 billion) worth of products on platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Douyin.
- Alibaba and JD.com declined for a second-straight year to share total figures for the Singles Day shopping festival.
- GMV from livestreaming rose by 19% during the shopping festival this year, according to estimates from data company Syntun and Morningstar senior equity analyst Chelsey Tam.
BEIJING — Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics company Xiaomi claimed record sales across platforms during the Singles Day shopping festival.
From Oct. 23 to the end of day on Nov. 11, Xiaomi said it sold more than 22.4 billion yuan ($3.11 billion) worth of products on platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Douyin.
Xiaomi shares were briefly up more than 2% in Hong Kong trade late Monday morning. Locally traded shares of Alibaba and JD.com gave up earlier gains.
For a second-straight year, the two online shopping giants declined to share total figures for the Singles Day shopping festival.
JD only said transaction and order volume reached record highs. Alibaba said that gross merchandise value, order numbers and participating merchants grew from a year ago. GMV measures sales over time.
By brand, JD said transaction volume of Apple products exceeded 10 billion yuan ($1.39 billion). That's the same figure JD shared for Singles Day results in 2021. It did not provide a comparable figure in 2022.
Lululemon, a relatively new brand to the China market, saw transaction volume on JD increase 260% during the shopping festival from a year ago, the Chinese retailer said.
Alibaba did not share much detail on sales by product or brand for the entire shopping festival period.
Xiaomi claimed its newly released Xiaomi 14 smartphone was the top-seller on Alibaba's Tmall from Nov. 4 to 11. The company also claimed first place in different categories of Chinese brands' smartphone sales across other online shopping platforms.
"Much better-than-expected Mi14 sales creates earnings accretion and potential valuation re-rating ahead," HSBC analysts wrote in a Nov. 6 report.
"We raise our smartphone shipment forecasts for Xiaomi by 7% in 2023e to c150m units and by 6% in 2024e to 160m units," the analysts said.
Over the past decade, Singles Day has expanded from a one-day shopping festival into a multi-week period of shopping promotions across different online platforms in China.
In 2022, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Alibaba had said its Singles Day sales were "in line" with the prior year, which had recorded the equivalent of $84.54 billion GMV at the time.
Uncertainty about future income has weighed on retail sales in China over the last few years.
Ahead of this year's shopping festival, a survey by Bain and Company found that 77% of consumers in China did not plan to increase spending.
Livestreaming and short videos on platforms such as Alibaba's Taobao and ByteDance's Douyin remained a growing sales channel.
GMV from livestreaming rose by 19% during the shopping festival this year, according to estimates from data company Syntun and Morningstar senior equity analyst Chelsey Tam.
Tmall accounted for the bulk of sales, or 60%, in a category that Syntun called "comprehensive e-commerce platforms," Tam said in a note.
JD accounted for 28%, while Pinduoduo had a 7% share, the report said.
Kuaishou, a short video and livestreaming app, said orders grew by nearly 50% during the Singles Day shopping period.
More details on Singles Day results and Chinese consumer trends could come out during corporate earnings calls later this week. JD.com is due to report quarterly results Wednesday evening, while Alibaba is set to release earnings Thursday evening Beijing time. | Consumer Electronics |
(Bloomberg) -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., maker of most of the world’s iPhones, warned consumer electronics revenue will fall this quarter as it grapples with a Covid outbreak that walled off its main production base in central China.Most Read from BloombergSam Bankman-Fried’s $16 Billion Fortune Is Eviscerated in DaysMeta to Cut 11,000 Jobs; Zuckerberg Says ‘I Got This Wrong’FTX Warns of Bankruptcy Without Rescue for $8 Billion ShortfallHochul Wins NY Governor Race as GOP’s Zeldin Refuses to ConcedeFTX Had a Death SpiralThe company, known also as Foxconn, reported earnings that missed estimates for the third quarter and said revenue growth will be flat for the current three-month period. Hon Hai is now trying to resume full production after a coronavirus flareup in October triggered a lockdown last week around its biggest factory in Zhengzhou, severely curtailing the flow of goods and people it needs to sustain iPhone assembly.Executives reiterated that they were working with the government to control the outbreak and get the plant back up and running.Foxconn’s warning on revenue underscores the toll of China’s Covid Zero policy, a rigid system of sudden lockdowns and mass testing that’s depressed the world’s No. 2 economy. The curbs at the factory dubbed “iPhone City” -- a giant complex housing some 200,000 workers that cranks out an estimated four out of five of the world’s latest iPhones -- dealt a blow to Apple Inc. and its most important supplier, which had struggled to stem an exodus of workers.Harsh Covid restrictions are exacerbating the fallout from weakening demand for consumer electronics worldwide. On Thursday, Pegatron Corp., Apple’s other big iPhone-making partner, warned that sales would fall in 2022 led by a 15%-20% slide in notebook revenue in the fourth quarter.Read more: Pegatron Sees Overall Sales Falling Slightly in 2022In Japan, key chip equipment supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd. slashed its forecast for operating profit this year by 24%, explaining that memory chip makers are pulling back on capital spending. The company said it will likely also lose out because of US restrictions on selling cutting-edge chip-gear to China.Foxconn’s net income rose 5% to NT$38.8 billion ($1.22 billion) in the September quarter, versus the NT$41 billion average estimate, the device maker said Thursday. Revenue climbed 24% to NT$1.75 trillion, exceeding the estimate of NT$1.52 trillion. Shares of the company fell 2% in Taipei.In the first half, the company had surpassed profit expectations thanks in part to effective management of supply during Covid lockdowns, when it secured support from local governments to keep up a critical flow of components. Foxconn has said it’s managing the Zhengzhou lockdown in concert with the authorities.If Foxconn can get its production back on track soon and the Covid situation under control, sales should still take a hit in the first half of November before gradually recovering, analysts at Citigroup Inc. wrote in a Nov. 6 note.The disruption coincides with the US holiday shopping season as well as a sharp slowdown in demand for electronics worldwide. Apple warned Sunday it would ship fewer premium devices than anticipated because of the Zhengzhou lockdown.The US company, which is grappling with tepid demand for less expensive iPhone 14s, expects to produce at least 3 million fewer iPhone 14 handsets than originally anticipated this year. The company and its suppliers now aim to make 87 million devices or fewer, compared with a target of 90 million units earlier, Bloomberg News reported this week.Foxconn intends to raise capital spending in 2023 and most of that will go toward its already giant production base, Chairman Young Liu told analysts on Thursday.Longer term, Foxconn is also making a play to expand in electric vehicles. The world’s largest contract manufacturer has targeted 5% market share in EVs in 2025, helped by its acquisition of Lordstown Motors Corp.’s electric pickup trucks factory in Ohio.--With assistance from Vlad Savov.(Updates with Tokyo Electron forecast in sixth paragraph.)Most Read from Bloomberg BusinessweekWill the No. 2 Movie Theater Chain Find a Happy Ending?Peter Thiel’s Strategy of Pushing the GOP Right Is Just Getting StartedCredit Suisse Spinoff Asks If World Needs a New Investment BankSeizing a Russian Superyacht Is Much More Complicated Than You ThinkBinance’s Thumping of FTX Shows How Centralized Crypto Can Be©2022 Bloomberg L.P. | Consumer Electronics |
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch will soon ask users to check if something more than newfound love is sending their heart a-fluttering. The watch is joining other wearables from the likes of Google and Apple that let users track if they experience any periods of irregular heart rhythm.
On Wednesday, Samsung announced that soon, the UI 5 Galaxy Watch update will include new heart monitoring features to tell if users are in atrial fibrillation, otherwise known as AFib. Samsung told Gizmodo the new feature will come packed into the built-in Health Monitor app and should be available sometime this summer, though there isn’t an official release date.
The upcoming One UI 5 Watch OS update will combine with existing electrocardiogram monitoring to monitor for AFib. While the phone is active, the app will analyze pulse rate data. If it detects any irregular heart rhythm, the watch will send users a notification to take an ECG test by placing their finger on the top outside button. According to Samsung, the app won’t notify users for every episode of slightly irregular heart rhythm. The app will “opportunistically” record pulse rate data when users aren’t active.
Google’s fitness-centric Fitbit devices introduced similar heart monitoring technology last year. Google’s system claims to use the existing ECG monitoring and an algorithm-based approach to assess heart rhythms while users are asleep or still. Apple Watches also check for irregular rhythms and notify users about potential periods of AFib and log their AFib history.
AFib is described as an irregular, often overly-rapid heart rhythm that can potentially lead to blood clots. These clots can potentially lead to a stroke or heart failure, though the issue is how often they appear. Any scan of a predetermined length could miss these random periods of arrhythmia, making a continuously worn device like a smart watch an ideal monitor.
The feature is specifically designed for users 22 years or older, and it’s also also not intended for those who regularly deal with arrhythmias that aren’t necessarily AFib. Like Google has previously mentioned with its Fitbit watches, Samsung also warned users that the ECG app isn’t an actual method of diagnosing any real medical issue. Instead, the company described the feature as for “general wellness and fitness purposes only.” In that way, you really shouldn’t take any info from the app as a sure sign of any medical distress and instead contact a real medical professional or use an actual device meant to continuously monitor for irregular heart activity.
Samsung announced it received FDA clearance for its new heart rhythm notifications back in May. The feature was likewise recently approved by regulators in the company’s home country of South Korea. Samsung said heart monitoring will be available in 11 other markets outside the U.S. and Korea, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, most of Western Europe, as well as several countries in Central and South America. The full list of available countries is available on Samsung’s announcement page.
Like its competition in wearables, Samsung has been promoting its health features with a long-sought Peloton integration alongside it finally implementing its temperature sensor on the Galaxy Watch 5.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
High-tech giants Amazon, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Samsung are looking forward to becoming anchor investors in Arm's upcoming initial public offering, according to reports from Bloomberg and Nikkei, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. This IPO might amass up to $10 billion and elevate Arm's valuation to a staggering $60 to $70 billion, according to Bloomberg's estimates.
Arm, which is owned by SoftBank Group, is preparing for what will potentially be the year's largest tech IPO, and has engaged with major customers for months regarding their participation. The company has held talks with key global chip designers about becoming anchor investors, and companies like Amazon, Apple, Intel, Samsung, and Nvidia are expected to invest in Arm upon its market listing (note that none of these companies have formally confirmed intention to buy an Arm stake, however). Arm's strategy involves offering these processor developers medium- to long-term shareholding with the intention of ensuring stock price stability during the listing.
Arm's global impact on chip designs is undeniable. In the smartphone sector, Arm-based SoCs command close to a 100% market share. They also command a sizeable share in the consumer electronics industry, and, thanks to the efforts of Apple and Qualcomm, Arm's technology is gaining traction in PCs as well. Throughout the history of Arm, over 250 billion chips based on its architectures have been produced.
Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, and Qualcomm produce some of the world's best known Arm-based SoCs, which is why Apple (who already has a stake in Arm), Samsung, and Nvidia have reason to invest in the chip IP designer. But Amazon seems to have a particularly good reason to invest in Arm: apparently, Amazon Web Services dominates the Arm server market, with over half of all Arm-based server CPUs globally deployed in AWS datacenters, according to a Bernstein Research report cited by The Register.
The Graviton system-on-chip family, introduced in 2018 and optimized for AWS powered around 20% of AWS CPU instances by mid-2022 — which is a significant portion. These SoCs, optimized for AWS's requirements, have more cores per socket than competing x86 offerings, reduced power consumption, and significant cost benefits — partly because Amazon does not have to pay premium to AMD or Intel and to a large degree because of lower total cost of ownership and power consumption. The report asserts that in some cases AWS can achieve 20% to 70% lower costs at the same performance compared to competing x86 CPUs, though the details are unclear.
Given the tangible advantages that AWS has with its Arm-based SoCs, it is evident that the company has invested massively in datacenter software ecosystem for Arm processors. Therefore, the company is likely more than interested in further development of the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA) in general and datacenter-oriented Neoverse CPU cores in particular.
SoftBank, which acquired Arm in 2016 for $32 billion, tried to sell the company to Nvidia for about $40 billion in 2020 – 2022, but regulatory issues prevented the sale. In the aftermath, SoftBank chose to steer Arm towards an IPO. If the IPO reaches its peak valuation, it would rival the tech sector's largest IPOs — such as Alibaba in 2014 and Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) in 2012. | Consumer Electronics |
Consumer electronics giant Apple (AAPL) late Thursday beat Wall Street's target for earnings its fiscal third quarter while matching views for sales. Apple stock fell in extended trading.X
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company earned $1.26 a share on sales of $81.8 billion for the quarter ended July 1. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected Apple earnings of $1.20 a share on sales of $81.8 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Apple earnings increased 5% while sales dropped 1%.
Apple's results marked its third quarter in a row of declining sales. However, earnings returned to growth after two consecutive quarters of flat or declining profits.
"Our June quarter year-over-year business performance improved from the March quarter," Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said in a news release. "During the quarter, we generated very strong operating cash flow of $26 billion, returned over $24 billion to our shareholders, and continued to invest in our long-term growth plans."
Apple Stock Retreats After Report
In after-hours trading on the stock market today, Apple stock sank 1.5% to 188.39. During the regular session Thursday, Apple stock dipped 0.7% to close at 191.17.
In the June quarter, Apple's hardware sales fell 4.4% year over year to $60.58 billion while its services revenue rose 8.2% to $21.21 billion.
Apple's iPhone revenue declined 2% to $39.67 billion and accounted for 48% of the company's total sales.
Meanwhile, Apple's Mac computer sales fell 7% to $6.84 billion. And its iPad tablet sales slid nearly 20% to $5.79 billion.
On a bright note, revenue from Apple's wearables, home and accessories unit rose 2% to $8.28 billion in the June quarter.
Apple stock is on the IBD Tech Leaders list.
Follow Patrick Seitz on Twitter at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
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Flat Lenses Made of Nanostructures Transform Tiny Cameras and Projectors
Metalenses are finally moving into consumers’ hands
Inside today’s computers, phones, and other mobile devices, more and more sensors, processors, and other electronics are fighting for space. Taking up a big part of this valuable real estate are the cameras—just about every gadget needs a camera, or two, three, or more. And the most space-consuming part of the camera is the lens.
The lenses in our mobile devices typically collect and direct incoming light by refraction, using a curve in a transparent material, usually plastic, to bend the rays. So these lenses can’t shrink much more than they already have: To make a camera small, the lens must have a short focal length; but the shorter the focal length, the greater the curvature and therefore the thickness at the center. These highly curved lenses also suffer from all sorts of aberrations, so camera-module manufacturers use multiple lenses to compensate, adding to the camera’s bulk.
With today’s lenses, the size of the camera and image quality are pulling in different directions. The only way to make lenses smaller and better is to replace refractive lenses with a different technology.
That technology exists. It’s the metalens, a device developed at Harvard and commercialized at Metalenz, where I am an applications engineer. We create these devices using traditional semiconductor-processing techniques to build nanostructures onto a flat surface. These nanostructures use a phenomenon called metasurface optics to direct and focus light. These lenses can be extremely thin—a few hundred micrometers thick, about twice the thickness of a human hair. And we can combine the functionality of multiple curved lenses into just one of our devices, further addressing the space crunch and opening up the possibility of new uses for cameras in mobile devices.
Centuries of lens alternatives
Before I tell you how the metalens evolved and how it works, consider a few previous efforts to replace the traditional curved lens.
Conceptually, any device that manipulates light does so by altering its three fundamental properties: phase, polarization, and intensity. The idea that any wave or wave field can be deconstructed down to these properties was proposed by Christiaan Huygens in 1678 and is a guiding principle in all of optics.
In this single metalens [between tweezers], the pillars are less than 500 nanometers in diameter. The black box at the bottom left of the enlargement represents 2.5 micrometers. Metalenz
In the early 18th century, the world’s most powerful economies placed great importance on the construction of lighthouses with larger and more powerful projection lenses to help protect their shipping interests. However, as these projection lenses grew larger, so did their weight. As a result, the physical size of a lens that could be raised to the top of a lighthouse and structurally supported placed limitations on the power of the beam that could be produced by the lighthouse.
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel realized that if he cut a lens into facets, much of the central thickness of the lens could be removed but still retain the same optical power. The Fresnel lens represented a major improvement in optical technology and is now used in a host of applications, including automotive headlights and brake lights, overhead projectors, and—still—for lighthouse projection lenses. However, the Fresnel lens has limitations. For one, the flat edges of facets become sources of stray light. For another, faceted surfaces are more difficult to manufacture and polish precisely than continuously curved ones are. It’s a no-go for camera lenses, due to the surface accuracy requirements needed to produce good images.
Another approach, now widely used in 3D sensing and machine vision, traces its roots to one of the most famous experiments in modern physics: Thomas Young’s 1802 demonstration of diffraction. This experiment showed that light behaves like a wave, and when the waves meet, they can amplify or cancel one another depending on how far the waves have traveled. The so-called diffractive optical element (DOE) based on this phenomenon uses the wavelike properties of light to create an interference pattern—that is, alternating regions of dark and light, in the form of an array of dots, a grid, or any number of shapes. Today, many mobile devices use DOEs to convert a laser beam into “structured light.” This light pattern is projected, captured by an image sensor, then used by algorithms to create a 3D map of the scene. These tiny DOEs fit nicely into small gadgets, yet they can’t be used to create detailed images. So, again, applications are limited.
Enter the metalens
Enter the metalens. Developed at Harvard by a team led by professor Federico Capasso, then-graduate student Rob Devlin, research associates Reza Khorasaninejad, Wei Ting Chen, and others, metalenses work in a way that’s fundamentally different from any of these other approaches.
A metalens is a flat glass surface with a semiconductor layer on top. Etched in the semiconductor is an array of pillars several hundred nanometers high. These nanopillars can manipulate light waves with a degree of control not possible with traditional refractive lenses.
Imagine a shallow marsh filled with seagrass standing in water. An incoming wave causes the seagrass to sway back and forth, sending pollen flying off into the air. If you think of that incoming wave as light energy, and the nanopillars as the stalks of seagrass, you can picture how the properties of a nanopillar, including its height, thickness, and position next to other nanopillars, might change the distribution of light emerging from the lens.
A 12-inch wafer can hold up to 10,000 metalenses, made using a single semiconductor layer.Metalenz
We can use the ability of a metalens to redirect and change light in a number of ways. We can scatter and project light as a field of infrared dots. Invisible to the eye, these dots are used in many smart devices to measure distance, mapping a room or a face. We can sort light by its polarization (more on that in a moment). But probably the best way to explain how we are using these metasurfaces as a lens is by looking at the most familiar lens application—capturing an image.
The process starts by illuminating a scene with a monochromatic light source—a laser. (While using a metalens to capture a full-color image is conceptually possible, that is still a lab experiment and far from commercialization.) The objects in the scene bounce the light all over the place. Some of this light comes back toward the metalens, which is pointed, pillars out, toward the scene. These returning photons hit the tops of the pillars and transfer their energy into vibrations. The vibrations—called plasmons—travel down the pillars. When that energy reaches the bottom of a pillar, it exits as photons, which can be then captured by an image sensor. Those photons don’t need to have the same properties as those that entered the pillars; we can change these properties by the way we design and distribute the pillars.
From concept to commercialization
Researchers around the world have been exploring the concept of metalenses for decades.
In a paper published in 1968 in Soviet Physics Uspekhi, Russian physicist Victor Veselago put the idea of metamaterials on the map, hypothesizing that nothing precluded the existence of a material that exhibits a negative index of refraction. Such a material would interact with light very differently than a normal material would. Where light ordinarily bounces off a material in the form of reflection, it would pass around this type of metamaterial like water going around a boulder in a stream.
It took until 2000 before the theory of metamaterials was implemented in the lab. That year, Richard A. Shelby and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, demonstrated a negative refractive index metamaterial in the microwave region. They published the discovery in 2001 in Science, causing a stir as people imagined invisibility cloaks. (While intriguing to ponder, creating such a device would require precisely manufacturing and assembling thousands of metasurfaces.)
The first metalens to create high-quality images with visible light came out of Federico Capasso’s lab at Harvard. Demonstrated in 2016, with a description of the research published in Science, the technology immediately drew interest from smartphone manufacturers. Harvard then licensed the foundational intellectual property exclusively to Metalenz, where it has now been commercialized.
A single metalens [right] can replace a stack of traditional lenses [left], simplifying manufacturing and dramatically reducing the size of a lens package.Metalenz
Much of the development work Metalenz does involves fine-tuning the way the devices are designed. In order to translate image features like resolution into nanoscale patterns, we developed tools to help calculate the way light waves interact with materials. We then convert those calculations into design files that can be used with standard semiconductor processing equipment.
The first wave of optical metasurfaces to make their way into mobile imaging systems have on the order of 10 million silicon pillars on a single flat surface only a few millimeters square, with each pillar precisely tuned to accept the correct phase of light, a painstaking process even with the help of advanced software. Future generations of the metalens won’t necessarily have more pillars, but they’ll likely have more sophisticated geometries, like sloped edges or asymmetric shapes.
Metalenses migrate to smartphones
Metalenz came out of stealth mode in 2021, announcing that it was getting ready to scale up production of devices. Manufacturing was not as big a challenge as design because the company manufactures metasurfaces using the same materials, lithography, and etching processes that it uses to make integrated circuits.
In fact, metalenses are less demanding to manufacture than even a very simple microchip because they require only a single lithography mask as opposed to the dozens required by a microprocessor. That makes them less prone to defects and less expensive. Moreover, the size of the features on an optical metasurface are measured in hundreds of nanometers, whereas foundries are accustomed to making chips with features that are smaller than 10 nanometers.
And, unlike plastic lenses, metalenses can be made in the same foundries that produce the other chips destined for smartphones. This means they could be directly integrated with the CMOS camera chips on site rather than having to be shipped to another location, which reduces their costs still further.
A single meta-optic, in combination with an array of laser emitters, can be used to create the type of high-contrast, near-infrared dot or line pattern used in 3D sensing. Metalenz
In 2022, ST Microelectronics announced the integration of Metalenz’s metasurface technology into its FlightSense modules. Previous generations of FlightSense have been used in more than 150 models of smartphones, drones, robots, and vehicles to detect distance. Such products with Metalenz technology inside are already in consumer hands, though ST Microelectronics isn’t releasing specifics.
Indeed, distance sensing is a sweet spot for the current generation of metalens technology, which operates at near-infrared wavelengths. For this application, many consumer electronics companies use a time-of-flight system, which has two optical components: one that transmits light and one that receives it. The transmitting optics are more complicated. These involve multiple lenses that collect light from a laser and transform it to parallel light waves—or, as optical engineers call it, a collimated beam. These also require a diffraction grating that turns the collimated beam into a field of dots. A single metalens can replace all of those transmitting and receiving optics, saving real estate within the device as well as reducing cost.
And a metalens does the field-of-dots job better in difficult lighting conditions because it can illuminate a broader area using less power than a traditional lens, directing more of the light to where you want it.
The future is polarized
Conventional imaging systems, at best, gather information only about the spatial position of objects and their color and brightness.But the light carries another type of information: the orientation of the light waves as they travel through space—that is, the polarization. Future metalens applications will take advantage of the technology’s ability to detect polarized light.
The polarization of light reflecting off an object conveys all sorts of information about that object, including surface texture, type of surface material, and how deeply light penetrates the material before bouncing back to the sensor. Prior to the development of the metalens, a machine vision system would require complex optomechanical subsystems to gather polarization information. These typically rotate a polarizer—structured like a fence to allow only waves oriented at a certain angle to pass through—in front of a sensor. They then monitor how the angle of rotation impacts the amount of light hitting the sensor.
Metasurface optics are capable of capturing polarization information from light, revealing a material’s characteristics and providing depth information.Metalenz
A metalens, by contrast, doesn’t need a fence; all the incoming light comes through. Then it can be redirected to specific regions of the image sensor based on its polarization state, using a single optical element. If, for example, light is polarized along the X axis, the nanostructures of the metasurface will direct the light to one section of the image sensor. However, if it is polarized at 45 degrees to the X axis, the light will be directed to a different section. Then software can reconstruct the image with information about all its polarization states.
Using this technology, we can replace previously large and expensive laboratory equipment with tiny polarization-analysis devices incorporated into smartphones, cars, and even augmented-reality glasses. A smartphone-based polarimeter could let you determine whether a stone in a ring is diamond or glass, whether concrete is cured or needs more time, or whether an expensive hockey stick is worth buying or contains micro cracks. Miniaturized polarimeters could be used to determine whether a bridge’s support beam is at risk of failure, whether a patch on the road is black ice or just wet, or if a patch of green is really a bush or a painted surface being used to hide a tank. These devices could also help enable spoof-proof facial identification, since light reflects off a 2D photo of a person at different angles than a 3D face and from a silicone mask differently than it does from skin. Handheld polarizers could improve remote medical diagnostics—for example, polarization is used in oncology to examine tissue changes.
But like the smartphone itself, it’s hard to predict where metalenses will take us. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2008, no one could have predicted that it would spawn companies like Uber. In the same way, perhaps the most exciting applications of metalenses are ones we can’t even imagine yet.
- Can Silicon Nanostructures Knock Plastic Lenses Out of Cell Phone Cameras? ›
- Metamaterials - IEEE Spectrum › | Consumer Electronics |
CNN — A new take on a foldable phone. A pricey toilet sensor that monitors hydration and vitamin levels. And an AI-powered oven. The Consumer Electronics Show, now in its 56th year, kicks off this week in Las Vegas with a familiar mix of cutting edge technology and oddball gadgets. The event, which is the largest consumer tech conference of the year, is known for robots roaming the show floor; flashy presentations about next generation TVs; and quirky products such as last year’s buzzy health tracking light bulbs and dehumidifying earbuds. But the event also fosters dealmaking among executives, manufacturers and retailers across various industries, and sets the stage for some of the biggest tech trends of the year. And this year’s event, in particular, could show how companies are thinking about products as pandemic concerns recede for some consumers but recession concerns remain. The Consumer Technology Association, which hosts CES each year, said it is expecting about 100,000 in-person attendees this year, up significantly from the 45,000 people who attended in 2022 amid concerns of the Covid-19 Omnicron variant. (CTA is once again offering a livestream for attendees who’d rather watch the event remotely). This year, featured speakers will include executives from traditional tech companies such as Samsung, Sony and Amazon, as well as other brands like John Deere, Delta and BMW. Although CES is traditionally a gadget show – and there will be no shortage of gizmos on display this year – about 60% of the Fortune 500 companies are participating this year, enabling more diverse product launches and discussions around all areas of tech. “Despite a pretty tough economy, the companies we’re seeing [attending] are really strong,” Gary Shapiro, president of the CTA, which hosts the event, told CNN ahead of the event. Some of the key themes at this year’s CES will include sustainability, artificial intelligence and foldable devices. Among the products teased ahead of the 2023 CES is Samsung Display’s Flex Hybrid prototype, which features a foldable and slidable display (the right side slides to offer more screen space). Laptop maker Acer will show off a bicycle desk called eKinekt, allowing users to both work and pedal to generate kinetic energy that is used to help charge smartphones and laptops via the desk itself. Health and wellness companies will once again dominate the show floors, even as pandemic concerns ease for some. Kohler already announced an aromatherapy shower system that attaches to shower heads and infuses the water stream with scents, such as lavender and eucalyptus, intended to help soothe the skin. Meanwhile, fitness wearables will be in heavy supply too. Meanwhile, Withings roughly $500 U-Scan device collects from your urine stream to detect vitamin deficiencies, check hydration and monitor metabolism (an additional device called the U-Scan Cycle Sync tracks periods and ovulation cycles). Cars, trucks and boats will also get the spotlight this year. Stellantis will show off a concept version of its upcoming all-electric Ram pickup truck that will show where that brand is headed. Meanwhile, BMW will reveal an all-new user interface for its cars because, in today’s luxury car market, that matters to consumers at least as much as engine power and handling. Boating companies will also be showing off the latest in electric and autonomous watercraft tech as that market goes green, too. “CES is getting away from being a Consumer Electronics Show and getting more and more into being a Consumer Experience Show,” said Ramon Llamas, a director at IDC Research. “We may see a new device pop up here and there, and it is easy to expect big televisions, cool cars, and gadgets galore. But the secret sauce is what the software can do.” He believes artificial intelligence will particularly allow companies “to make sense of how a consumer behaves and set up the device experience to best serve those needs.” But at least one hot topic from the prior year may be less of a focus now: the metaverse, or Meta’s idea of the metaverse. In late 2021, Facebook ignited a wave of interest in the metaverse by changing its company name to Meta and announcing plans to invest heavily to continue developing virtual and augmented reality technologies that support more immersive online experiences. Months later, at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show, talk of the metaverse was everywhere. As Axios reported at the time, “many CES observers suggested a drinking game in which keynote watchers took a shot every time the metaverse was mentioned — but that would have been a recipe for alcohol poisoning.” Now interest in the immersive virtual world appears to have simmered as Facebook has so far struggled to gain mainstream traction for its VR offerings. Still, the topic of virtual reality products will remain a focus for some companies. HTC is expected to launch the Vive Focus 3 this week at the show, with an emphasis on the metaverse. CES runs through Sunday, January 8. – CNN’s Peter Valdes-Dapena contributed to this report | Consumer Electronics |
Away from novelties like a smart bird feeder and camera-equipped oven, one corner of the world's biggest technology event is inviting attendees to meet their virtual twin.Set up in the Las Vegas Convention Center at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the ambitious "living heart" and "living brain" initiatives are the work of French software company Dassault Systemes.
Both are attempts to use the digital world to improve the physical one.Much as an engineer would design an aeroplane or car on a computer in 3D before the physical work begins, the concept of a "digital twin" aims to predict how a person might perform in real-world scenarios.In the case of Dassault, the goal is to apply the technology to health care.
"My daughter was born with a very rare clinical heart defect," senior director Dr Steve Levine told Sky News."I watched, as most parents would, kind of helplessly, some of the best doctors really guessing what might work."It dawned on me that they really didn't understand the function - and didn't have tools to address things they had never seen before."If we can give an engineer a fully functioning jet to try out, why can't we give a doctor a fully functioning heart?" Visitors to the firm's CES booth can strap on an augmented reality headset to hold, rotate, and squeeze 3D-printed replicas of a heart and brain.More from CES 2023:Is this the future of the electric car?PlayStation unveils accessibility controllerThe most eye-catching gadgets at the show Image: People don an AR headset to go hands on with the heart and brain. Pic: Dassault Systemes As they do it, their actions are mirrored on a digital recreation of themselves in real time, displayed on a connected touchscreen which measures their heart rate and projects it back on to the virtual clone.The idea is to showcase what goes into the creation of a virtual twin, and how the results are being used to help doctors and surgeons in the field.Speaking to Ian King Live, Dr Levine explained: "The way an engineer can predict how a car might crash, fix the weaknesses before it actually gets into production, we can now start to do that in health care."We can begin to predict how treatment will affect and be used on a real body before it is tried."With a virtual twin, you could perform a surgery beforehand, optimise the surgery, so when it's time to go into the operating room, you can actually know you've got the best surgery and execute it."Researchers are already utilising the "living heart" to test potential treatments before they are carried out.The technology is being used around the world, including at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. | Consumer Electronics |
The mask that silences noisy phone calls: French firm unveils device that stops those around the wearer from hearing their conversationMask worn by person speaking stops those around them from hearing themBizarre-looking mask relies on military-grade material used to silence jet enginesDevice was designed for business people to make private calls while on the go Published: 19:39 EST, 5 January 2023 | Updated: 19:47 EST, 5 January 2023 Fed up with fellow passengers talking too loudly on the phone?French firm Skyted has the solution – a mask worn by the person speaking that stops those around them hearing their conversation.The bizarre-looking device relies on military-grade material used to silence jet engines.Weighing 220 grams, a microphone sits inside the mask so the person on the other end of the call doesn’t hear external noise either. While 80 per cent of the voice vibration is absorbed by the mask, users can still breathe easily as the airflow moves in and out without constraint. French firm Skyted has the solution – a mask worn by the person speaking that stops those around them hearing their conversation. The bizarre-looking device relies on military-grade material used to silence jet enginesFounder Stephane Hersen – who previously worked for Airbus – designed the device for business people to make private calls while on the go.Speaking at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, he said: ‘Working in the aviation industry, it was logical to engineer the mask with an aerospace sourced acoustic absorber, so our mask is made of metamaterial, an acoustic liner [originally] developed... to silence the blast in jet engines.’ Advertisement | Consumer Electronics |
You’ll get about three to five years of use out of the average laptop — at that point, it might start to lag, run out of memory, or have trouble holding battery life.
The way the consumer electronics industry is set up, repairing or upgrading laptops isn’t easy, so most people just buy a new one every few years and throw the old one away.
Now, San Francisco-based startup Framework has announced a new modular laptop that’s easy to repair and upgrade — potentially allowing it to last twice as long as the average laptop.
“The person who buys a notebook every four years … but is kind of suffering through the last two years, we want to give them the ability to have eight happy years out of this product,” Nirav Patel, Framework’s founder, told Fast Company.
A Built-In Problem
Breathing new life into an aging desktop computer isn’t terribly difficult — after cracking open its case with a screwdriver, you’ll be able to identify most of the components, which you can then remove and replace with relative ease.
Because laptops are designed to be as compact as possible, though, the components are packed together more tightly. That can make it hard to identify different parts, and you may have to remove several to get to the one you want to upgrade or repair.
In many cases, the parts you’d want to upgrade aren’t even individually removable — they’re all soldered onto a single motherboard to save space. Often, finding guides on how to replace the parts you can remove — or the replacement parts themselves — is all but impossible.
Eventually, it becomes more cost-effective for the consumer to just buy a new laptop than repair the old one. Those old laptops can then end up in landfills, contributing to the world’s already massive — and growing — e-waste problem.
Patel told Freethink that he’s confident that it’s possible to build a business around easy to repair and upgrade laptops with longer lifespans than those currently on the market.
“It is not technical difficulty or a missing customer base that has held this back — it is that consumer electronics companies have not been willing to do the right thing,” he said. “Their business models depend on not doing the right thing.”
“The core of our mission, strategy, and product design is longevity, upgradeability, and repairability,” he added, “and we have built a team to deliver on that.”
The Modular Laptop
Framework’s modular laptop is designed so that most components — from the screen and keyboard to the battery and CPU — are easy for owners to individually remove and replace.
“When you crack a MacBook screen, you’re replacing the entire lid assembly, which includes the CNC aluminum housing, the webcam, the front glass, and all of that,” Patel told Fast Company. “Whereas with the Framework laptop, if you happen to crack the screen, you’re just replacing the screen.”
Consumers can sell used parts as they upgrade, which is great for them and the environment.
Nirav Patel
To help even the least-experienced DIY-ers make such repairs to its modular laptop, Framework has placed QR codes directly on the various parts — scan a code, and it’ll take you to a how-to guide for replacing the component.
Each modular laptop is made from 50% recycled aluminum and an average of 30% recycled plastic, and Framework plans to establish an online marketplace where users can buy and sell parts they no longer need.
“Consumers (can) re-sell their used parts as they upgrade, which is great for both individuals in that transaction and great for the environment by reducing the number of items sitting in drawers or going into the landfill,” Patel told Freethink.
In addition to giving Framework-built components a second life, this marketplace will also be open to third-party manufacturers, which will increase the customizability of the laptops.
“Our goal is to have a healthy ecosystem in the Framework Marketplace, with not just our products and modules, but also compatible ones from third-party companies and individuals in the community,” Patel said.
Buying a Framework Laptop
Framework expects to begin shipping its modular laptop in the summer of 2021, and while it hasn’t announced a price yet, Patel told Fast Company it’ll be comparable to that of premium laptops with similar tech specs.
We want to give them the ability to have eight happy years out of this product.
Nirav Patel
“Our intent is to make (our laptop) an obvious choice,” he said. “We don’t want people to have to pay a premium for longevity. We don’t think that works or makes sense.”
If the modular laptop is a success, Framework plans to release other types of devices in the future — and hopefully, shift the consumer electronics industry toward a more sustainable model.
“We are pushing the change we want to see (in the industry) by building great products that are easy to repair and showing consumers and other companies that there is a better way,” Patel told Freethink. “Companies will ultimately respond to proof of consumer demand.”
We’d love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at [email protected]. | Consumer Electronics |
A Best Buy store is seen in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 13, 2017.Lucy Nicholson | ReutersBest Buy on Tuesday surpassed Wall Street's expectations for quarterly earnings, as demand for big-ticket consumer electronics held up despite inflation.The consumer electronics retailer reiterated its outlook for the holiday quarter. It raised its full-year forecast to reflect the beat, saying it expects comparable sales to decline about 10%.Shares of the company rose more than 6% in premarket trading Tuesday.Here's how the retailer did for the fiscal third quarter ended Oct. 29 compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, according to a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:Earnings per share: $1.38 adjusted vs. $1.03 expectedRevenue: $10.59 billion vs. $10.31 billion expectedNet income for the three-month period fell to $277 million, or $1.22 per share, from $499 million, or $2 per share, a year earlier.Best Buy is staring down a more uncertain sales environment this holiday season. Some inflation-pinched consumers are pulling back on discretionary items and spending more money on necessities and experiences. The company joined other retailers in slashing its outlook this summer. It said at the time that it expects same-store sales to drop by about 11% for the 12-month period ending in January.A month after Best Buy warned of slower sales, it cut jobs across the country.Shares of Best Buy are down about 30% so far this year, underperforming the S&P 500 Index. Shares closed on Monday at $70.83, down nearly 2%. The company's market value is $15.95 billion.This is breaking news. Please check back for updates. | Consumer Electronics |
Story by Ioanna Lykiardopoulou Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she's all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she's all about shifting perspectives. EU lawmakers have agreed on a new set of rules aiming to make batteries in the bloc more sustainable and reusable.
The regulations will cover the entire battery life cycle: from the extraction of materials and industrial production, to disposal. They will apply to all types of batteries sold in the EU, including portable batteries used in electronic devices, industrial batteries, SLI batteries used in automotive applications, as well as batteries used in two-wheelers and EVs.
The green requirements of the newly-agreed rules set an impressive milestone for the Union as part of its goals to advance its energy transition and increase its competitiveness in the sector.
They might, however, present a series of challenges to manufacturers — especially in the consumer electronics and automotive industries.
Under the new rules, all companies selling batteries in the EU market must implement a “due diligence policy,” addressing the social and environmental risks linked to the sourcing, processing, and trading of raw materials.
They will also need to use a set percentage of recycled materials: 16% cobalt, 85% lead, 6% lithium, and 6% nickel.
In addition, the EU has set ambitious collection targets to secure a steady stream of recycled materials. In the case of electronic devices the targets are set at 45% by 2023 and 73% by 2030; in the case of EVs, at 100%.
These developments might prove especially challenging for global automotive manufacturers and battery producers, as they would need to start preparing for the new requirements by carefully reviewing their supply chains, reviewing their supply chains, reevaluating their operations, and moving into strategic partnerships with recyclers.
Portable batteries in electronic devices, meanwhile, must be designed to allow consumers to easily remove and replace them.
This threatens the current practices of major consumer electronics brands, such as Apple and Samsung.
The vast majority of smartphones and laptops currently on the market come with non-removable batteries — the argument being that this design enables the development of slimmer and more durable products.
In cases of battery failure, consumers are directed to dedicated service stores where the repair or replacement is performed by a technician.
The new battery rules along with the EU’s “right to repair” legislation would not only mean less manufacturer profits from servicing, but also the prospect that brands will have to rethink their products’ overall design.
The battery regulation is pending final approval by the Parliament and the Council, and if it passes, it will set a high green standard for the global battery market in the years to come. Also tagged with | Consumer Electronics |
When heated to a high temperature and then cooled, new chemical composition can change the way glass behaves. For Gorilla Glass, Corning narrows down the number of compositions to a few dozen, does more melting, then picks two or three candidates to test. It can take one to three years of testing to reach the one composition Corning ends up putting into the next generation of Gorilla Glass.CorningCorning stock fell over 4% on Tuesday morning after the company reported a weaker-than-expected outlook for the current quarter, blaming slow smartphone glass sales.Corning makes a variety of different components and supplies many of the top electronics companies, like Samsung and Apple, which reports earnings this week amid concern over slowing consumer electronics sales. But there is optimism that slowing electronics sales won't hurt the high-end of the market as much as less expensive devices.Corning said it expected $3.55 billion in core, or adjusted, sales for the fourth quarter, short of a FactSet analyst consensus of $3.75 billion.The company said that it would wait to see positive signs before telling investors about future recovery in the business.In the quarter ending in September, Corning saw smartphone unit sales decline 14% on an annual basis, and tablet and notebook demand fall 17%, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks said on an earnings call. He added that annual automotive production is also behind its previously expected pace."So now the question is, when will the glass market recover?" asked Weeks. "My answer is we would like to see additional positive evidence before we guide a robust recovery in glass demand."Corning's biggest business is making cables and components for fiber-optic systems, which grew 16% to $1.31 billion during the quarter.But the company saw a 28% annual decline during the quarter to $686 million in sales in its displays technologies division, which makes glass for smartphones and other computer displays.And the consumer electronics slowdown doesn't seem to be getting better this year, Weeks said."We now expect smartphones to be down about 12% for the year, and we expect notebook and tablet demand to decline 15%," Weeks said. "We expect the year-over-year decline in smartphones, notebooks and tablets to be greater in the second half than in the first half."Corning reported third-quarter sales of $3.49 billion, under FactSet's consensus of $3.66 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of 51 cents, in line with expectations. | Consumer Electronics |
- Hua Hong is China's second-largest chip foundry after Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.
- The listing comes as Chinese companies seek to raise capital to ramp up on advanced chip tech as China seeks self reliance on advanced chip tech amid Washington's efforts to cut Beijing off from advanced chip tech.
- Hua Hong first listed in Hong Kong in 2014. Its Hong Kong-listed shares plummeted 7.4% on Monday.
Shares of Chinese chipmaker Hua Hong jumped 13% at the open during its market debut on Shanghai Stock Exchange's Star Market on Monday, but quickly gave up gains.
Hua Hong is China's second-largest chip foundry after Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC). Hua Hong's initial public offering is the largest one in Mainland China so far this year, according to EY's global IPO report.
Shares of the chipmaker opened on the Nasdaq-style Star Market at 58.88 Chinese yuan, according to Refinitiv data. That's a 13.2% jump from its offer price of 52 Chinese yuan ($7.23).
The Shanghai-listed shares have since pared gains and were trading lower at 53.99 Chinese yuan on Monday afternoon.
The company, which produces semiconductors using advanced wafer process technologies, previously said that it will sell 407.75 million shares at a price of 52 Chinese yuan per share, according to a filing. That represents 21.2 billion yuan ($2.95 billion) raised.
Chips produced by the Shanghai-based company are used in industries spanning consumer electronics, communications, computing, industrial and automotive.
Hua Hong has been listed in the Hong Kong exchange since 2014. Its Hong Kong-listed shares plummeted as much as 7.4% on Monday.
Phelix Lee, equity analyst at Morningstar Asia, said the size of Hua Hong's IPO is not significant.
"I don't think it's a big deal in the grand scheme of things as the deal size is smaller than SMIC's IPO 2 or 3 years ago," said Lee. "The trend of encouraging local chipmakers and other semi-related companies to list domestically is intact and we view there are more semiconductor IPOs to come."
SMIC raised 46.28 billion yuan ($6.62 billion) during its IPO in 2020.
Hua Hong's listing comes as Chinese companies seek to raise capital to ramp up on advanced chip tech as China seeks self reliance on advanced chip tech amid Washington's efforts to cut Beijing off from advanced chip tech.
Hua Hong is the latest semiconductor firm to launch an initial public offering in mainland China this year.
Semiconductor Manufacturing Electronics (Shaoxing) Corporation listed on the Star Market in May, while Nexchip Semiconductor debuted there the same month.
China has poured more than 1 trillion Chinese yuan ($140 billion) into its chip industry, according to a Reuters report. Domestic chip makers already benefit from government subsidies and state-backed research projects. | Consumer Electronics |
Apple is holding a launch event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Wednesday where it will unveil its latest hardware products, including the new iPhone 14.Apple has used prerecorded videos for its launch events since early 2020 thanks partly to Covid restrictions, and this will be the first iPhone launch with an in-person component since 2019. Apple is streaming the launch event online on its website and YouTube in addition to inviting some media to its campus.Apple’s hype-filled fall launches are a signature event for Apple. They typically draw millions of simultaneous viewers on YouTube. They garner attention from around the world and set the stage for a holiday marketing blitz during the last three months of the year, which is when Apple’s sales are the highest.This year’s event has the tagline “far out,” which could refer to features such as night-sky photography.Last year, Apple released new iPhones and Apple Watches at an event in September, and then followed it up with an October launch featuring iPads and Macs.Here’s what Apple is likely to launch Wednesday, based on reports.iPhone 14: Four new modelsApple is expected to release four new iPhone models. If Apple’s current naming convention holds up, they will be called the iPhone 14.This year Apple will likely discontinue the “mini” model with a 4.7-inch screen, according to reports. Instead, Apple could offer two sizes, one with a 6.1-inch screen and one with a 6.7-inch screen, each coming in a standard model and a pricier “Pro” model.The Pro models are expected to get more upgrades, according to reports from Bloomberg News, TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, and other analysts and Apple watchers.Since 2017, iPhones have included a space at the top of the phone’s display with space for Apple’s FaceID system, which includes several sensors and a camera. The Pro models could ditch Apple’s “notch” where it houses the FaceID camera for a slimmer, more streamlined “pill” or “cutout” approach with a smaller space that has to remain blank, leaving room for an even larger display.The Pro models are also expected to get upgraded A16 processors and cameras. The camera bump is expected to get larger.Apple could release an always-on screen display for showing notifications, like some Android phones have sported for years. Beta iPhone software released over the summer suggested that Apple may be planning a similar feature because of new widgets that show weather and battery life.One of the biggest questions is how Apple will price its iPhones in a period of inflation around the world and macroeconomic uncertainty in some regions. Other consumer electronics, such as Sony’s Playstation 5, have seen price cuts.Apple’s least-expensive iPhone 13 model is the $699 iPhone 13 Mini, which is expected to be discontinued. That would make Apple’s mainline device, which is currently the iPhone 13, the least-expensive new model at $829, if its price doesn’t change. Some analysts also expect Apple to increase the price of its Pro models.Apple usually drops the price of older models when it releases new ones, giving more price-sensitive consumers an option.Apple WatchApple is likely to show the eighth major new version of its watch on Wednesday. Last year, the Apple Watch Series 7 got a slightly larger screen, but the redesign did not significantly change the look and feel of the device, which has remained mostly the same since 2014.Expect more evolution this year, too. Apple is considering a body temperature sensor in the new devices, according to the Wall Street Journal, which could help with fertility and sleep tracking. Other sleep tracking features could include the ability to detect advanced sleep patterns or apnea.But the biggest Apple Watch Series 8 announcement could be a new “Pro” model with a bigger screen and more durable finish. Apple has previously released Apple Watches with pricey case materials such as gold, ceramic and titanium, and the new “Pro” model described by Bloomberg and Kuo could be one of the first high-end Apple Watches to gain additional features over its less-expensive siblings.Also likely: A new updated version of the Apple Watch SE, its $329 entry-level Watch model.iOS 16IPhone owners who don’t plan to buy any new gear this fall will still get an annual update to the iPhones software, iOS 16, which was announced in June and has been in testing over the summer.The software has several new features that users will immediately notice. The biggest banner feature is the ability to customize the iPhone’s lock screen with widgets that can display weather forecasts, calendar appointments and other information at a glance. Users can also change the font for the lock screen clock for the first time, as well.IOS 16 also lets you unsend or edit iMessage text messages, as long as you catch them within a few minutes of sending.IOS 16 will also introduce short-term loans from Apple called Apple Pay Later. The feature will allow users to buy stuff online with Apple Pay but pay for the item in four installments without paying interest.One cool feature in iOS 16 is if a user has both an iPhone and a Mac laptop or desktop, they can use the iPhone as a very high-definition web camera.After the event: iPads, MacsApple is unlikely to release new iPads on Wednesday because their software isn’t ready yet. Earlier this month, Apple told TechCrunch that iPadOS, the iPad software, will ship after iOS this fall, suggesting a staggered release.Apple’s statement was terse, and the company dislikes talking about unannounced products. But in general, it likes to release new hardware together with new software, so the statement clearly suggested that new iPads would come at a later launch date than iPhones.IPadOS and iOS are very similar, but this year iPadOS is getting a feature called Stage Manager that could allow users to multitask more efficiently — but also got panned by early testers. Improved iPads could include more powerful processors that are closers to laptop processors, smoother displays and better integration with accessories.Apple also uncharacteristically teased a new “Mac Pro” in the spring. The Mac Pro is currently a $5,000 tower of power using an Intel processor.Apple wants to transition its entire Mac lineup away from Intel to its own M-series processors, but a pricey niche product doesn’t fit as well with Apple’s mass-market iPhones and Apple Watches. Instead, new Macs could be announced at a separate event later this year, as happened last year. | Consumer Electronics |
Israel has the cheapest mobile internet in the world, with one gigabyte of data costing on average just $0.04 in 2022. With three in four Israelis owning a smartphone, the country has an even higher smartphone penetration than the United States. This is according to UK-based price comparison website cable.co.uk, who analyzed 5,292 mobile data plans across 233 countries.As our chart shows, Italy places second in the global ranking, with a low cost of $0.12 per 1GB. The country has excellent internet infrastructure with 5G now available to around 95 percent of its residents. It also maintains the internet of neighboring San Marino ($0.14), which places third in the global ranking. According to Dan Howdle, a consumer telecoms analyst at cable.co.uk, many of the cheapest countries have excellent mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure which allows providers to offer large amounts of data at cheap prices. In some countries, economic conditions dictate the price which has to remain low so people can afford it.Some of the costliest data plans, however, are in the remote island nations of Africa and South America. For instance, the Falkland Islands rank in 231st place with 1GB of internet costing $38.45, while the same amount of mobile data in Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory located in the South Atlantic, costs an average of $41.06 - more than 1,000 times that of Israel’s. Regionally, North America is the most expensive overall, with an average cost of $4.98 per GB, which is higher than the global average of $3.12. Canada is the most expensive of the region ($5.94), followed by the United States ($5.94), while Greenland is the cheapest ($3.36). Infographic Newsletter Statista offers daily infographics about trending topics, covering:Economy & Finance, Politics & Society, Tech & Media, Health & Environment, Consumer, Sports and many more. Check our upcoming releases FAQ The Statista "Chart of the Day", made available under the Creative Commons License CC BY-ND 3.0, may be used and displayed without charge by all commercial and non-commercial websites. Use is, however, only permitted with proper attribution to Statista. When publishing one of these graphics, please include a backlink to the respective infographic URL. More Information The Statista "Chart of the Day" currently focuses on two sectors: "Media and Technology", updated daily and featuring the latest statistics from the media, internet, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries; and "Economy and Society", which current data from the United States and around the world relating to economic and political issues as well as sports and entertainment. For individual content and infographics in your Corporate Design, please visit our agency website www.statista.design Any more questions? Get in touch with us quickly and easily. We are happy to help! Statista Content & Design Need infographics, animated videos, presentations, data research or social media charts? More Information | Consumer Electronics |
Alienware has not been the type of company to shy away from outlandish, expensive, and sometimes gaudy case designs. That being said, Alienware is trying something a little more quaint compared to previous years, as the latest in its Aurora mid-sized desktop PCs, the R16, now features a boxier design that the company said reduces the tower’s footprint while making it both cooler and quieter.
Alienware’s mid-tower desktop PC line has been straining the bounds of tower cases with more out-of-this-world looks. The Aurora line and its “Legend 2” silhouette had become the epitome of this design philosophy. The entire case was angled up like a howitzer and it featured a large, floating LED oval eye in front.
By comparison, the Aurora R16 is far more constrained and compact than earlier iterations. It’s shorter, and now measures only 16.5 inches tall compared to past versions’ over-20 inches. This so-called “Legend 3” design has seen a return of the traditional square shape so it will fit in amid the other mid-sized towers.
There’s still the optional see-through plastic panel to look into the machine’s guts, but it now far more resembles an actual PC tower, with only a single glowing LED “Stadium” lighting loop found circling the primary vent on the case. There are additional airflow vents on the side and top, and Alienware claimed it’s done some better cable management to improve the desktop’s airflow.
There are some added benefits to this design, at least according to Alienware. The company said this “streamlined” latest case is a 40% decrease in total volume compared to the R15, so more people can actually fit it under their desk. The Aurora 16 should also be 20% quieter and run 6% cooler on the GPU than previously, according to the company.
As far as actual components, the R16 comes with options from Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 Series and either the 12th or 13th gen Intel processors. There are options for either 64GB of 5200 MT/s DDR 5 or 32GB of 5600 MT/s DDR5 RAM. The rig can come with up to 8 TB of SSD storage (through two, 4 TB drives) and another optional 1TB of hard drive storage. And if you already couldn’t guess, this is a Windows 11 PC.
The case also comes with the new Commander Center 6 dashboard to change out the lighting strip color, as well as monitor and customize the internal thermal profiles. Over time, Alienware said it will come out with newer GPU and CPU options for supposedly beefier cards. Considering some version of the RTX 4090 are around 6.4 inches wide, that’s going to be a lot of real estate for a case that’s stated width is just 7.76 inches
The Aurora R16 should be available from Dell starting Thursday for $1,750. The unit contains a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 and a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Supposedly, we’ll see more versions in the future with different pricing points.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. Click here to save on the best deals of the day, courtesy of our friends at The Inventory. | Consumer Electronics |
Samsung finally enabled temperature tracking on a smartwatch launched nearly nine months ago. The Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro now offer detailed menstrual tracking by measuring your core body temperature. Samsung says the new feature is rolling out “progressively” to the Samsung Health app in the U.S., Korea, and select European countries.
Rather than simply counting the number of days from when you input your last period, the new Samsung Health will measure your basal body temperature, or BBT, right as you wake up, according to the press release. If your Samsung Health app has been updated, you can find the feature under Cycle Tracking. Samsung says it uses “infrared technology” to track your temperature to determine whether you’re close to ovulating or starting your period.
Samsung collaborated with Natural Cycles to offer this feature, which it announced as a partner in February. In the fine print, Samsung cautions that if you take hormonal birth control or undergo treatment that pauses ovulation, the service “will not be useful for tracking ovulation.” Predictions also depend on whether you wear the watch consistently—you’ll probably have to sleep with the Galaxy Watch 5 on to get a proper reading. Samsung also says this feature is intended for users 18 years and older.
Cycle Tracking will evaluate your symptoms as you track them in the daily log and recommend lifestyle adjustments as you approach that time of the month. For instance, Samsung Health might suggest you take a rest day after heavy exercise or serve you a video on stretches to help relieve pelvic pain. I’ll be curious to try this out versus an online yoga class I’ve used before.
Want more of Gizmodo’s consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones, best laptops, best cameras, best televisions, best printers, and best tablets. And if you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 15. | Consumer Electronics |
Subsets and Splits