The Samsung Galaxy MWC 2021 virtual event is scheduled for June 28. It will be live-streamed on YouTube and on the official MWC website.
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Apple’s investment helps support more than 1,000 jobs across Corning’s US operations in Kentucky and other facilities.
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Google announced today that it is halving its Play Store commission fee from 30% to 15%. However, there is a catch. The fee is being reduced to 15% for the first $1M USD of revenue every developer earns each year. This means, the company will charge the usual 30% commission if your app has earned $1M USD.
Google wrote in a blog post that it chose $1M USD as the threshold because “we’ve heard from our partners making $2M, $5M and even $10M a year that their services are still on a path to self-sustaining orbit.”
The latest move from Google follows the footsteps of Apple. In late 2020, the Cupertino giant reduced its 30% App Store commission to 15% under its Small Business Program.
Google’s reduced commission will come into effect starting July 1, 2021. According to the company, 99% of developers will benefit from this move. “With this change, 99% of developers globally that sell digital goods and services with Play will see a 50% reduction in fees. These are funds that can help developers scale up at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding to their marketing staff, increasing server capacity, and more,” wrote Google.
The whole reduce-the-fee movement started with the Apple-Epic Games fiasco where Fortnite was banned from the App Store in August, 2020. Further, Apple just terminated Epics Developer Account, to which Epic responded by taking it up the legal way. Apple also had spats with Facebook, Microsoft, and WordPress who accused Apple of forcing to add in-app purchases in some way or the other.
Interestingly, Google’s fee cut comes after it doubled-down on its 30% commission in September last year. It announced that apps submitted this year will have to rely on Google Play Store’s native billing system for in-app payments. As a result, it would ensure that Google gets its cut of 30% for purchases made via apps downloaded from the Play Store. However, that fee is now being halved for most developers.
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Carl Pei’s Nothing has introduced Teenage Engineering as a founding partner. The company is known for its unique craftsmanship and industrial design prowess. They have been designing products for over 10 years. Teenage Engineering’s portable wonder synthesizer OP-1 that was launched in 2010 is still used by world-famous musicians. The company will now design products for Nothing.
Jesper Kouthoofd, co-founder & CEO of Teenage Engineering, is the Creative Lead and the visionary behind Nothing’s design world, while Tom Howard has been appointed as Head of Design of Nothing.
I’m really excited to welcome teenage engineering to the growing Nothing family. They consist of some of the best designers and creatives that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Together, we’ve created a product roadmap that’s unique and true to Nothing’s vision.
Carl Pei, CEO and co-founder of Nothing
There is still no concrete information on what the Nothing brand is planning to launch for the consumers. According to some speculations, the brand could launch an array of wireless earbuds with a wider focus on smart home technology.
Nothing recently acquired Essential. For the unaware, Essential was said to be working on a Home smart hub and speaker with Ambient OS. However, it didn’t see the daylight. Essential also has numerous patents relating to “Voice setup instructions” and “voice-enabled home setup.” These could help Nothing with their focus on products for smart homes. It is still unknown if former engineers from Essential have also joined Pei’s Nothing. As of now, the process seemingly only includes the branding and trademark portfolio.
Nothing has already confirmed that it will be releasing its first smart devices in the first half of this year. It plans to release products across multiple categories and build an ecosystem of devices.
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HP has announced a definitive agreement to acquire HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston. For the unaware, HyperX makes a range of gaming peripherals, including headsets, keyboards, mice, mousepads, USB microphones, and console accessories. With PC gaming continuing to be one of the most popular forms of video gaming, HP could soon foray into the gaming peripherals business with this deal. The company already has the OMEN brand for gaming needs. The global peripherals market is expected to grow to $12.2 billion by 2024, with gaming peripherals representing a disproportionate share of this growth.
Under the terms of the agreement, HP will pay $425 million, subject to customary working capital and other adjustments, to acquire HyperX’s gaming peripherals portfolio. However, Kingston will retain the DRAM, flash, and SSD products. The acquisition is expected to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis to HP in the first full year following closing. The transaction is expected to close in calendar Q2 2021, pending regulatory review and other customary closing conditions.
“Adding HyperX to HP’s broader gaming ecosystem will deliver innovative new experiences across everything gamers see, hear, and touch,” says the company.
“HyperX is a leader in peripherals whose technology is trusted by gamers around the world and we’re thrilled to welcome their outstanding team to the HP family,” said Enrique Lores, President and CEO, HP Inc. “We continue to advance our leadership in Personal Systems by modernizing compute experiences and expanding into valuable adjacencies. We see significant opportunities in the large and growing peripherals market, and the addition of HyperX to our portfolio will drive new sources of innovation and growth for our business.”
“HyperX products are designed to meet the most rigorous demands of all gamers – from casual to the most hardcore – giving them a winning edge and helping them stay on top of their game,” said John Tu, Co-founder and CEO, Kingston. “Both of our companies thrive because we focus on our employees and share the same core values and culture. David Sun (Co-founder and COO) and I saw the possibilities for the HyperX business and its employees and we both realized that this change brings a brighter future for HyperX.”
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In October 2020, Vivo entered the European market with the launch of its Vivo X51 and three other phones. After its success in China, India, and several Southeast Asian countries Vivo plans to expand its presence in the European market. Now, the company aims to double its presence across Europe this year, following six successful European market entries in 2020. It has expanded in the Romanian and Czech markets.
Vivo says it is doubling down its presence in Europe. Up until now, it was present in six European countries. Now, it is expanding to Romania and Czech. Online media events were held for both markets respectively to mark the company’s official entry into the two new markets. During the events, the company took the opportunity to discuss key partnerships and present the first line-up of smartphones.
We’re delighted to say Hello in Romanian and Czech! And to officially introduce ourselves, as well as our first smartphones for consumers in Romania and the Czech market. We are saying our first hello here amid a very challenging time for people and businesses worldwide. However, our plans and our commitment to expand our business across Europe have remained unchanged. This follows our company philosophy of doing the right thing, and doing it right.”
Denny Deng, Vice President, President of European Business at Europe
Vivo will soon be available in more than 12 markets during 2021. In addition to Romania and the Czech market, Vivo also has plans to expand into Serbia and Austria in the first half of this year.
“Moving forward, we are more than excited to share the passion of football with our friends around the world, which is, even more, a reason for us to look forward to the partnership with UEFA, for the upcoming, as well as the UEFA EURO 2024 Championships. Both UEFA and we share the passion for excellence and providing unique and fantastic new experiences for our plans. Our role will be as the UEFA EURO
2020 Global Smartphone,” said Deng.
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Carl Pei, the former OnePlus co-founder who left the company, recently announced his own venture, “Nothing.” The company saw $7 million round in seed financing in December 2020 that included notable tech leaders and investors including the likes of Tony Fadell, Casey Neistat, and more. Now, a new report reveals that Nothing has acquired Andy Rubin’s one-time smartphone brand Essential.
The latest development comes from 9To5Google, which found recent filings at the UK Intellectual Property Office showing that former Android founder Andy Rubin has sold his Essential brand to Carl Pei’s Nothing Technologies Limited. The application was made in November, and the process is already completed as of January 6, 2021. Now, the existing trademarks, logo, and the Essential brand are the intellectual property of the Nothing brand.
We have Essentially Nothing here
There is still no concrete information on what the Nothing brand is planning to launch for the consumers. According to some speculations, the brand could launch an array of wireless earbuds with a wider focus on smart home technology. For the unaware, Essential was said to be working on a Home smart hub and speaker with Ambient OS. However, it didn’t see the daylight. Essential also has numerous patents relating to “Voice setup instructions” and “voice-enabled home setup.” These could help Nothing with their focus on products for smarthomes.
This acquisition doesn’t mean that Nothing will launch a smartphone. However, it could be planning to do so in the future. It is still unknown if former engineers from Essential have also joined Pei’s Nothing. As of now, the process seemingly only includes the branding and trademark portfolio.
Nothing has already confirmed that it will be releasing its first smart devices in the first half of this year. It plans to release products across multiple categories and build an ecosystem of devices.
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Last year in September, TikTok reached a deal with Oracle and Walmart to avoid its US ban. The Trump administration had approved the deal, which was supposed to effectively establish a new company called TikTok Global headquartered in the US. Tiktok was given the December 4 sale deadline, which came and went with no response from the outgoing Trump administration. Reportedly, Trump also demanded that the US Treasury get a “lot of money” from any sale.
Now, it seems like President Biden has other plans. According to Wall Street Journal sources, TikTok’s forced sale to Oracle and Walmart has been put on hold “indefinitely”. The step comes as Biden reviews past efforts to handle security risks from Chinese technology companies. While the officials haven’t ruled out a sale, it might happen under different terms or might not happen at all.
The Biden administration might make a decision on TikTok soon. The government is yet to offer a formal response to TikTok’s legal challenge against the divestiture on February 18. We are yet to see what the official stance will be.
TikTok is said to be in talks with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) to resolve security concerns. It is being reported that an alternative to a sale might involve sending data to a “trusted” third party in a bid to combat the allegations of sending Americans’ information to the Chinese government. However, the Chinese government would prevent TikTok parent ByteDance from exporting the algorithms the app uses to recommend videos.
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A few months ago, late last year, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei left the company to start his own venture. Today, Carl has announced Nothing. Well, he has announced something, it’s just that the name of his new company is “Nothing.” This announcement comes shortly after a $7 million round in seed financing in December 2020 that included notable tech leaders and investors such as Tony Fadell, Casey Neistat, Kevin Lin, Steve Huffman and Josh Buckley.
“It’s been a while since anything interesting happened in tech. It is time for a fresh breeze of change,” said Carl Pei, CEO and founder of Nothing in a press release. “Nothing’s mission is to remove barriers between people and technology to create a seamless digital future. We believe that the best technology is beautiful, yet natural and intuitive to use. When sufficiently advanced, it should fade into the background and feel like nothing.”
Nothing is Carl Pei's new venture
Nothing will be releasing its first smart devices in the first half of this year. However, what exactly the products will be and which products Nothing plans to release is still unclear. There is no information on what form Nothing’s first “smart devices” will take. There is also no information on which companies Nothing plans to compete with. The only thing we know as of now for sure is that Nothing plans to release products across multiple categories. It aims to build an ecosystem of devices.
“Consumer tech is a tidal wave of limitless potential. Nothing will be the brand at the forefront and I can’t wait for the world to experience its products,” said Casey Neistat, YouTuber and Investor in Nothing.
“I’m excited to see what Carl and the team at Nothing will build given their passion and experience in the space.”Kevin Lin, Co-founder of Twitch
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Huawei recently announced that it will be selling all of its Honor business assets to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd., which is a government-backed consortium. It is a company formed by a technology enterprise owned by the government of the southern city of Shenzhen. This move freed Honor from all the US sanctions levied on Huawei. Now, Honor has now signed partnerships with key chipmakers including Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and more.
The latest development comes from Reuters, which reports that Honor has signed partnerships with major chip suppliers such as Intel and Qualcomm after its split from Huawei. Earlier today, Honor launched its Honor V40 smartphone in China. It is the brand’s first device as an independent company. At the launch, Honor said in a statement it now had its own deals with some tech firms. These include AMD, MediaTek, Micron Technology, Microsoft, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Sony.
Chief Executive George Zhao launched the Honor V40. “The last five months have been an extremely difficult but meaningful time for Honor,” Zhao said. “We feel the weight of expectation from industry partners and consumers.” While Honor focused on the budget devices under Huawei, it will now aim to move into the middle and higher tier market and expand overseas, Zhao said. The company said it would pursue the ‘internet of things’ market, calling its strategy ‘8+1+N’, the same term used by Huawei.
It was recently reported that Google Mobile Services (GMS) could soon make a comeback on Honor devices as the company is no longer a Huawei subsidiary. The Honor V40 could launch globally as the Honor View 40 and feature GMS instead of Huawei’s AppGallery. Earlier, it was reported that GMS could make a comeback on Honor smartphones around Spring. Honor is said to have been working on two new phone lineups with support for GMS.
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Yesterday, reports of LG selling its smartphone business started doing the rounds. It was reported that LG CEO Kwon Bong-Seok on Wednesday sent out a message to staff. This message hinted that there would be a “major change” in the operation of the smartphone segment. LG is said to be considering all possible measures, including “sale, withdrawal, and downsizing of the smartphone business.” Now, a new report claims that LG Electronics wants to sell off its smartphone business to Vietnam’s Vingroup Co.
The latest development comes from Business Korea. It reports that Vingroup has put forward the most attractive offer among the companies that covet LG Electronics’ smartphone business.
Vingroup is a big conglomerate in Vietnam
For the unaware, Vingroup is a big conglomerate in Vietnam. It has a market capitalization of US$16.5 billion as of the end of 2020. Plus, it accounts for 14 percent of the total market capitalization of Vietnamese listed companies. The company has its hands dipped in diverse business areas, including hotels and tourism, real estate, distribution, construction, automobiles, and mobile phones. However, its presence is still small on the global stage.
Vingroup has been producing smartphones under an original design manufacturing (ODM) contract with LG Electronics since 2018. It is currently the third-largest smartphone producer in Vietnam after Samsung Electronics and OPPO. The company is reportedly interested in LG’s smartphone business in the United States as LG shares 12.9 percent smartphone market in North America as of 2020.
The report goes on to say that LG is contemplating selling off its smartphone business piece by piece as selling it in its entirety is practically difficult. Meanwhile, LG has reportedly stopped the production of LCD panels at one of its key assembly lines back in the third quarter of 2020 because of low profitability. It is tipped that LG will now focus its efforts on producing larger panels for automobiles instead of smartphones.
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LG is said to be contemplating exit from the smartphone business. The company has registered six successive loss-making years. Hence, as per The Korea Herald, “a change is coming.” The publication reports that LG CEO Kwon Bong-seok on Wednesday sent out a message to staff. This message hinted that there would be a “major change” in the operation of the smartphone segment.
“Regardless of any change in the direction of the smartphone business operation, the employment will be maintained, so there is no need to worry,” he said. On the other hand, an LG official explained, “since the competition in the global market for mobile devices is getting fiercer, it is about time for LG to make a cold judgment and the best choice.” The official went on to say that the company is considering all possible measures, including “sale, withdrawal, and downsizing of the smartphone business.”
It is tipped that about 60 percent of the staff at LG would be moved and reassigned to other business units within the company or other LG affiliates. However, the future of the other 40 percent of employees is not clear. They might remain in the far smaller mobile arm or let go. Engadget reports that LG could follow the footsteps of Sony as it will need to retain some of that institutional knowledge. Sony kept its mobile division running so long to ensure it can leverage the technologies used in phones for any future frontier of gadgets.
This is not the first time LG has been subject to such rumors, since it announced the outsourcing of its low-end and midrange phone production in 2019. At that point in time, LG denied the rumors, explaining that it was increasing the volume of original development manufacturing in a bid to raise efficiency. However, as of last year, LG has posted operating losses for 23 consecutive quarters. Hence, the exit could be happening. The company’s accumulated loss has reached 5 trillion Won (over $4.5 trillion) over the last five years.
As of now, LG is working on its Project Explorer, under which it announced the LG Wing. It is gearing up to launch its rollable phone this year. The device is said to pack a 7.4-inch display, which could be used in phone mode, video mode, and productivity mode. That said, are “wow factors” enough to keep LG’s smartphone business alive? Only time will tell.
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Late last year, Huawei announced the sale of its smartphone brand Honor citing ‘tremendous pressure as of late.’ It decided to sell all of its Honor business assets as there was persistent unavailability of technical elements needed for their mobile phone business due to the US sanctions. It sold the assets to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd., which is a government-backed consortium. In a bid to move away from Honor, Huawei has now delisted all of the brand’s devices from its online store in China.
The latest development comes from Huawei Central, which reports that the next step of separation has already happened as all Honor devices were removed from Huawei-owned online website vmall.com that used to sell devices by both brands in China. Honor has launched its own Honor Mall as its e-commerce site in the country. For the unaware, the link to the Honor online store was announced on January 12. ITHome reports that aside from the website, there is also a WeChat app version of the store. However, an app is yet to be announced for the e-commerce site.
Honor Mall will sell the brand’s products including smartphones, tablets, smart displays, notebooks, earphones, and smartwatches. Reportedly, the 75-inch Honor X1 Smart Screen is already listed for purchase. Plus, registrations for the new Honor MagicBook notebooks and upcoming Honor V40 smartphone are also open.
Further, Honor has been in talks with chip manufacturers, MediaTek and Qualcomm, for chip supply after its separation. from Huawei, which is blocked from access to most US tech, which includes Google services. To recall, Huawei has been at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology, security, and spying. As per American officials, Huawei might facilitate Chinese spying, which the company denies. Further, the Trump government is lobbying European and other allies to exclude Huawei and other Chinese suppliers as they upgrade networks.
The post Huawei delists Honor products from Vmall as Honor Mall goes live appeared first on Pocketnow.
Late last year, Huawei announced the sale of its smartphone brand Honor citing ‘tremendous pressure as of late.’ It decided to sell all of its Honor business assets as there was persistent unavailability of technical elements needed for their mobile phone business due to the US sanctions. It sold the assets to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd., which is a government-backed consortium. In a bid to move away from Honor, Huawei has now delisted all of the brand’s devices from its online store in China.
The latest development comes from Huawei Central, which reports that the next step of separation has already happened as all Honor devices were removed from Huawei-owned online website vmall.com that used to sell devices by both brands in China. Honor has launched its own Honor Mall as its e-commerce site in the country. For the unaware, the link to the Honor online store was announced on January 12. ITHome reports that aside from the website, there is also a WeChat app version of the store. However, an app is yet to be announced for the e-commerce site.
Honor Mall will sell the brand’s products including smartphones, tablets, smart displays, notebooks, earphones, and smartwatches. Reportedly, the 75-inch Honor X1 Smart Screen is already listed for purchase. Plus, registrations for the new Honor MagicBook notebooks and upcoming Honor V40 smartphone are also open.
Further, Honor has been in talks with chip manufacturers, MediaTek and Qualcomm, for chip supply after its separation. from Huawei, which is blocked from access to most US tech, which includes Google services. To recall, Huawei has been at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology, security, and spying. As per American officials, Huawei might facilitate Chinese spying, which the company denies. Further, the Trump government is lobbying European and other allies to exclude Huawei and other Chinese suppliers as they upgrade networks.
The post Huawei delists Honor products from Vmall as Honor Mall goes live appeared first on Pocketnow.
Late last year, Huawei announced the sale of its smartphone brand Honor citing ‘tremendous pressure as of late.’ It decided to sell all of its Honor business assets as there was persistent unavailability of technical elements needed for their mobile phone business due to the US sanctions. It sold the assets to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd., which is a government-backed consortium. In a bid to move away from Honor, Huawei has now delisted all of the brand’s devices from its online store in China.
The latest development comes from Huawei Central, which reports that the next step of separation has already happened as all Honor devices were removed from Huawei-owned online website vmall.com that used to sell devices by both brands in China. Honor has launched its own Honor Mall as its e-commerce site in the country. For the unaware, the link to the Honor online store was announced on January 12. ITHome reports that aside from the website, there is also a WeChat app version of the store. However, an app is yet to be announced for the e-commerce site.
Honor Mall will sell the brand’s products including smartphones, tablets, smart displays, notebooks, earphones, and smartwatches. Reportedly, the 75-inch Honor X1 Smart Screen is already listed for purchase. Plus, registrations for the new Honor MagicBook notebooks and upcoming Honor V40 smartphone are also open.
Further, Honor has been in talks with chip manufacturers, MediaTek and Qualcomm, for chip supply after its separation. from Huawei, which is blocked from access to most US tech, which includes Google services. To recall, Huawei has been at the center of US-Chinese tension over technology, security, and spying. As per American officials, Huawei might facilitate Chinese spying, which the company denies. Further, the Trump government is lobbying European and other allies to exclude Huawei and other Chinese suppliers as they upgrade networks.
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