IF / News

As a part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, Intel has inked a 3-year agreement with Sandia National Laboratories to explore the value of neuromorphic computing for scaled-up AI problems. Sandia will kick off its work using the 50M-neuron Loihi-based system recently delivered to its facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. (VentureBeat, Intel)

realme has announced the world’s first SLED 4K smart TV. The SLED technology will debut on a 55” TV. The new type of panel will deliver 108% coverage of the NTSC color spectrum, but will keep the amount of blue light under control, something that TÜV Rheinland has attested. (GSM Arena, realme)

Micron shares fell after the largest U.S. chipmaker said it recently halted shipments to Huawei. Micron has also cut capital spending plans, warned about weaker demand from some corporate customers and forecast possible oversupply in a key market in 2021. (CN Beta, Reuters, Caixing Global, Yahoo)

Omdia has assessed the deployment progress of 5G based on operator launches, network coverage, subscriber take-up as well as 5G spectrum availability and regulatory ecosystem for 22 countries. Omdia has again ranked South Korea as the leading country for 5G deployment. South Korea’s adoption has already reached 5.88M users at the end of Mar 2020, accounting for almost 10% of the wireless services market. (Light Reading, GizChina)

Huawei currently has 17% market share in the USD600+ high-end smartphone category (as of 2Q20), and over the last 12 months has shipped 25M USD600+ smartphones, as well as 23M units in the USD450-600 price tier. Barclays expects Samsung and Apple to capture most of the share loss by Huawei in the high-end segment. The low-end units lost will likely also go to Samsung along with the other Chinese vendors.  (Barclays report)

OnePlus is back with round two of its IDEAS co-creation campaign. The IDEAS 2.0 campaign will allow the OnePlus community to provide inputs to help improve the user experience of OxygenOS, the company’s custom Android skin. The campaign will run from 28 Sept to 6 Nov 2020. (Android Headlines, OnePlus)

Google has announced that the company will be paying around USD1B over 3 years to news publishers for content and to support the launch of a new product, which is dubbed as Google News Showcase. (Gizmo China, Google)

The central government will consider requests from technology entrepreneurs to launch an Indian digital application store. Union minister for electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that he is happy to receive notable suggestions from Indian app developers on how to encourage the ecosystem. (CN Beta, TechCrunch, Economic Times)

LG K62 and K52 are announced: K62 – 6.6” 1080×2400 FHD+ IPS HiD, MediaTek Helio P35, rear quad 48MP-5MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 28MP, 4+128GB, Android 10.0, side fingerprint scanner, 4000mAh, EUR252. K52 – 6.59” 720×1600 HD+ IPS HiD, MediaTek Helio P35, rear quad 48MP-5MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 13MP, 4+64GB, Android 10.0, side fingerprint scanner, 4000mAh, price not known. (NDTV, GSM Arena, Droid.news, Geeky-Gadgets, Gizmo China)

Google unveils the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G: Pixel 5 – 6.0” 1080×2340 FHD+ 90Hz OLED HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, rear dual 12.2MP-16MP ultrawide + front 8MP, 8+128GB, Android 10.0, rear fingerprint scanner, 4080mAh 18W, reverse charging, wireless charging, USD699. Pixel 4a 5G – 6.2” 1080×2340 FHD+ OLED HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, rear dual 12.2MP-16MP ultrawide + front 8MP, 6+128GB, Android 10.0, rear fingerprint scanner, 3885mAh 18W, USD499. (Android Authority, Android Central)

OPPO A33 (2020) is announced in Indonesia – 6.517” 720×1520 HD+ 90Hz IPS HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 460, rear tri 13MP-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 8MP, 3+32GB, Android 10.0, rear fingerprint scanner, 5000mAh 18W, IDR2.2M (USD155). (GSM Arena, OPPO)

OPPO A93 is launched in Vietnam – 6.43” 1080×2400 FHD+ AMOLED 2xHiD, MediaTek Helio P95, rear quad 48MP-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front dual 16MP-2MP depth, 8+128GB, Android 10.0, fingerprint on display, 4000mAh 18W, VND7.49M (324美元)。(GSM Arena, OPPO)

Huawei P Smart 2021 is unveiled in Germany – 6.67” 1080×2400 FHD+ IPS HiD, HiSilicon Kirin 710A, rear quad 48MP-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 8MP, 4+128GB, Android 10.0 (no Google Play Service), side fingerprint scanner, 5000mAh 22.5W, EUR229. (GSM Arena, Huawei)

Xiaomi Mi 10T, 10T Pro and 10T Lite 5G phones are announced in Europe: 10T – 6.67” 1080×2400 FHD+ 144Hz IPS HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, rear tri 64MP-13MP ultrawide-5MP macro + front 20MP, 6+128 / 8+128GB, Android 10.0, side fingerprint, 5000mAh 30W, EUR499 / EUR549. 10T Pro – 6.67” 1080×2400 FHD+ 144Hz IPS HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, rear tri 108MP-13MP ultrawide-5MP macro + front 20MP, 8+128 / 8+256GB, Android 10.0, side fingerprint, 5000mAh 33W, EUR599 / EUR649. 10T Lite – 6.67” 1080×2400 FHD+ 120Hz IPS HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 750, rear quad 64MP-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 16MP, 6+64 / 6+128GB, Android 10.0, side fingerprint, 4820mAh 33W, EUR279 / EUR329. (GSM Arena, GSM Arena, GizChina, GizChina)

vivo X50e 5G is launched in Taiwan – 6.44” 1080×2400 FHD+ AMOLED u-notch, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, rear quad 48MP-13MP telephoto 2x optical zoom-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro + front 32MP, 8+128GB, Android 10.0, fingerprint on display, 4350mAh 33W, NTD13,990 (USD483). (GSM Arena, Gizmo China)

Microsoft Surface Pro X is announced – 13” 2880×1920 PixelSense multi-touch display, Microsoft SQ2 based on  Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G, rear 10MP + front 5MP, 8 / 16GB RAM, up to 512GB SSD, Windows 10 Home on ARM, 38.9Wh, up to USD1,799, optional accessories include Surface Pro X Signature Keyboard with Slim Pen Bundle. (Liliputing, Windows, PC World)

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go is announced – 12.4” 1536×1024 PixelSense multi-touch display, Intel Core i5, front 720p camera,  4 / 8GB RAM, up to 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Home, up to 13 hours battery life, LTE optional, start at USD549. (Windows, Liliputing, Microsoft, VentureBeat, The Verge)

Sonos has sued Google again for allegedly copying wireless audio technology. Nest and Chromecast devices supposedly violate 5 wireless audio patents. (Android Authority, The Verge, Sonos)

Google unveils Nest Audio smart speaker for USD99. It is powered by a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at 1.8 GHz. The speaker connects to Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, and its enclosure is made from 70% recycled plastic. The Media EQ lets Nest Audio to tune itself depending on the audio content. With Ambient IQ, the Nest Audio adjusts the volume based on the background noise.  (CN Beta, GSM Arena, Google)

Google announces new Chromecast with Google TV for USD50. It is capable of outputting 4K at 60Hz along with Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HDR10 support. It can process Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos pass-through. The device also features dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and an unspecified version of Bluetooth. (CN Beta, GSM Arena, Google)

Uber has revealed that an investor group led by New York-based investment firm Greenbriar Equity Group has committed to invest USD500M in a Series A preferred stock financing for Uber Freight. The deal values the unit at USD3.3B on a post-money basis. (TechCrunch, CN Beta, CNBC)

Having tested out its aircraft in Dubai, Singapore, Helsinki and Germany, Volocopter has reached a new agreement with Japan Airlines, and says it is preparing for a commercial launch in the country within a few years. Its flying taxi is designed to carry goods or two passengers over distances of up to 35 km (21 mi), at speeds of up to 110 km/h (68 mph). (CN Beta, New Atlas, Flight Global)

According to statistics from the Chinese Institute of Electronics, China’s service robot market has grown year by year from 2014 to 2018. In 2018, China’s service robot market reached USD1.65B, a year-on-year increase of 30.1%; China’s service robot market in 2019 was approximately USD2.2B. In particular, China’s domestic service robots, medical service robots and public service robots have a market size of USD1.05B, USD620M and USD530M, accounting for 47.7%, 28.2% and 24.1% respectively. (Forward report)

Google has launched AI Platform Prediction in general availability, a service that lets developers prep, build, run, and share machine learning models in the cloud. It is based on a Google Kubernetes Engine backend and features an architecture designed for high reliability, flexibility, and low overhead latency. (VentureBeat, Google)