IF / News

Chipset

Apple is allegedly in advanced talks to buy Intel’s smartphone-modem chip business for USD1B, which is a move that would jump-start the iPhone maker’s push to take control of developing the critical components powering its devices. (Apple Insider, WSJ, CN Beta)

Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, Eric Xu has announced that to advance the Kunpeng industry ecosystem, Huawei plans to invest CNY3B in the next 5 years. Huawei will focus on technological innovation in the Kunpeng and Ascend processors, as well as Kunpeng and AI cloud services, provide open capabilities, and enable partners to jointly expand the computing industry. (CN Beta, Huawei, Tencent)

Touch Display

Apple is reportedly close to signing a deal with two Taiwanese manufacturers for Apple Watch micro LED displays in 2020. The two manufacturers are believed to be PlayNitride, which develops micro LED processors, and RitDisplay, which assembles displays. (Apple Insider, UDN, CN Beta)

LG Display (LGD) has revealed that it would invest KRW3T (USD2.6B) in its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels production line in South Korea. (Apple Insider, Reuters, CN Beta)

OPPO has filed for a patent with the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) entitled “wearable electronic device”. A special feature of this smartwatch is that the display module is foldable so that the user has a larger screen area within no time if desired. (Gizmo China, LetsGoDigital, Sina, IT Home)

Camera

Redmi has teased a smartphone featuring an impressive 64MP resolution sensor. Apart from Redmi, other vendors makers such as Realme will also roll out phones with a 64MP camera in 2019. (Android Central, Android Authority, Weibo, CN Beta)

Xiaomi has filed a phone design patent with triple rear camera with Chinese Patent Office (CNIPA). The LED flash is beneath the cameras all of which aligns to the left of the device. There is no physical fingerprint sensor on the rear of this smartphone. (GizChina, Tiger Mobiles)

Xiaomi’s patent shows a phone with 4 cameras at the rear. These cameras are arranged on the rear within a circle. The patent seems to have multiple options for the placement of the flash. The LED flash could be outside the main circle which has the 4 camera sensors or in-between the 4 camera sensors (can also be beneath them). (Tiger Mobiles, GizChina)

Connectivity

Huawei board member and senior vice president Catherine Chen has revealed that the company has signed over 50 5G commercial contracts across the world, of which 28 are from Europe. (Gizmo China, Xinhuanet, Huanqiu)

Phone

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly finalized a settlement with Google in its investigation into YouTube for violating federal data privacy laws for children. The company is expected to pay a multimillion-dollar fine, but the exact amount and the contours of the FTC’s settlement are unclear. (Android Central, Washington Post, CN Beta, Techbang)

Google is poised to pay a modest USD13M to end a 2010 privacy lawsuit that was once called the biggest U.S. wiretap case ever and threatened the internet giant with billions of dollars in damages. The settlement would close the books on a scandal that was touched off by vehicles used by Google for its Street View mapping project. (Android Central, Bloomberg, CN Beta)

IDC research director Navkendar Singh indicates that with aggressive pricing of K series by Xiaomi, with its absolute flagship specifications, hardware and design, the reason for the existence of Poco as a brand is in doubt. Jai Mani, head of Poco, recently quit the company. This further adds fuel to this speculation. (Gizmo China, Economic Times)

Worldwide shipments of devices — PCs, tablets and mobile phones — will total 2.2B units in 2019, a decline of 3.3% year over year, according to Gartner. The mobile phone market is set to record the worst performance of these device types, declining by 3.8%. 5G-capable phones will represent 6% of total sales of phones in 2020. By 2020, 7% of global communications service providers will have a commercially viable wireless 5G service, Gartner indicated. This will mark significant progress from 5G proofs of concept and commercial network construction work in 2018. (Digitimes, press, Gartner, data)

Benefiting from the strong demand of China’s domestic vendors, the overall 2Q19 production value of Foxconn’s Longhua and Guanlan Park has increased 12% on year; and in Jun 2019 the production value in single month has increased 4% on year. Considering Flex International cannot guarantee production and business, and Huawei has removed it from its supply chain, it is believed that the main China’s vendor is Huawei. (My Drivers, CN Beta, TechNews, CGTN, Cai Xin Global)

Apple iPhone XR took 48% of U.S. iPhone sales during the Jun 2019 quarter, according to CIRP research. In fact the XR’s share is believed to have surpassed what the iPhone X and 8 Plus achieved together in the same quarter of 2018. (Phone Arena, CIRP press, CN Beta, Apple Insider)

ByteDance, the owner of video sharing app TikTok, will set up a data center in India and take other steps to ensure the safety of its users in the country. India is one of TikTok’s biggest markets, with over 200M users. ByteDance is investing USD1B in India over the next 3 years. (CN Beta, CNN)

Honor 9X and 9X Pro are announced, features 6.59” 2340×1080 FHD+ IPS, HiSilicon Kirin 810, Android 9.0, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, 4000mAh: 9X – rear dual 48MP-16MP + front pop-up 16MP, 4+64GB or 6+64/128GB, CNY1,399 / CNY1,599 / CNY1,899. 9X Pro – rear tri 48MP-8MP-2MP + front pop-up 16MP, 8+128/256GB, CNY2,199 / CNY2,399. (CN Beta, Gizmo China, iGyaan, Android Authority)

ASUS ROG Phone II is announced – 6.59” 1080×2340 FHD+ 120Hz refresh rate 240Hz touch sampling 10-bit HDR AMOLED, Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+, rear dual 48MP-13MP ultrawide + front 24MP, 12+256/512GB, Android 9.0, under display fingerprint scanner, 6000mAh 30W fast charging. (Android Authority, CN Beta, The Verge, GSM Arena)

Wearables

Honor Band 5 is announced – 0.95” 240×120 282PPI AMOLED, capable of measuring blood SpO2 level, 24×7 heart rate monitoring, sleep monitor (able to detect 6 different types of sleeping problems), 10 different sports modes, waterproof up to 50m, CNY189 / CNY219 (NFC). (CN Beta, Gizmo China)

Augmented / Virtual Reality

Morpholio has teamed up with Theia Interactive to create augmented reality (AR) tools for home design in Morpholio’s Board tool for designers. The idea is to enable designers, as well as ordinary shoppers, to design their own furniture for AR viewing that looks realistic. (VentureBeat, Arch Daily)

Pegatron has reportedly entered the supply chain of the third-generation Google Glass featuring a design that is lighter than the previous generations, according to Digitimes. The Google Glass product line was solely supplied by Quanta Computer previously. Quanta has been a long-term investor in AR-related development. (Digitimes, press, Digitimes, press, Yivian)

Home

Canalys expects that the installed base of smart assistant devices in China (either built-in or compatible) will reach 5.8B by 2023. This will make the installed base in China about twice the size of the US market. Devices for the home such as air conditioners, door locks, TVs and refrigerators, which will be able to be operated by a smart assistant via the network, will reach 3.6B in 2023. (GizChina, IT Home, Canalys, press, Canalys)

Automotive

Amazon is expected to grow its Alexa-enabled offerings in the coming months and years, including a significant expansion into the embedded software systems of vehicles. Amazon and car manufacturers have begun working together since 2016. (Digital Trends, Auto News, 36Kr)

Robotics

Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games are fast approaching, and Toyota is playing a key role in on-site mobility and transportation. The company has unveiled 5 robots it is going to be bringing to the games, which will each help in some way to support athletes and attendees at venues get around, get information, experience the games remotely and ferry food, drinks and equipment and much more. The robots range from humanoid to strictly purpose-built and functional in design. (CN Beta, TechCrunch, Auto Blog)

Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft is investing USD1B in OpenAI to support us building artificial general intelligence (AGI) with widely distributed economic benefits. The partnership is to develop a hardware and software platform within Microsoft Azure which will scale to AGI. (CN Beta, CNBC, Reuters, OpenAI, Microsoft)