6-22: Economists estimate that the probability of a recession starting next year is at 21%; BBK Electronics has launched a new brand in China imoo; Wal-Mart and Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com have reached a strategic partnership; etc.
Economists estimate that the probability of a recession starting next year is at 21%; BBK Electronics has launched a new brand in China imoo; Wal-Mart and Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com have reached a strategic partnership; Samsung new strategy is to maintain about 400 million smartphone shipments per year, and focus on profit margins; Samsung announced plans to invest USD1.2 billion for US-based research over the next 4 years on “human-centered” applications for the Internet of Things; etc.
| Chipset |
| Intel has announced that Knights Landing—now the Xeon Phi 7200 family—is available from Sept. 2016, and that they expect a broad array of new systems from OEMs and powered by the processor to hit the market, including 7210, 7230, 7250 and 7290, manufactured with 14nm process. (CN Beta, eWeek, The Inquirer, V3)
|
| Samsung Electro-Mechanics is going to work with Samsung Electronics’ System LSI and develop FoWLP (Fan out Wafer Level Package) technology that allows chip packaging without PCB, aiming to compete for orders of Apple iPhone 8 processor. However, reportedly Apple is not satisfied with the power consumption, thus iPhone 8 processor will be exclusively manufactured by TSMC. (TechNews, ET News, Korea Herald) |
| Tessera Technologies Inc., Tessera Inc., and Invensas Corp. (collectively, “Tessera”)—all of San Jose, California—filed a complaint requesting that the ITC commence an investigation pursuant to Section 337. he parties include ASUS, HTC, Broadcom, Avago, etc. 24 vendors. (TechNews, Trade, Lexology, USITC) |
| Touch Display |
| Samsung Electronics is going to use materials that were verified from Galaxy S7 for OLED Display of new Galaxy Note. Due to this plan, Samsung SDI, The Dow Chemical Company, and Idemitsu Kosan that had supplied materials for Galaxy S7 will benefit once more. (ET News) |
| Japan’s Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) demonstrated a prototype of hybrid OLED-reflective LCD display, called TR-Hybrid displays (TR means Transmissive OLED and Reflective LC) of 4.38” with 768×1024 resolution. The display used an IGZO substrate. The aperture ratio are 76% for the LCD and 3.9% for the OLED. (OLED-Info, Nikkei Technology, China FPD)
|
| Memory |
| Scientists can now detect magnetic behavior at the atomic level with a new electron microscopy technique developed by a team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Uppsala University, Sweden. With this technique, perhaps in the future the size of magnetic hard drives can be further decreased. (Eureka Alert, CN Beta)
|
| SK Hynix has presented its DRAM technology “Managed DRAM Solution (MDS)” as international standards to respond to 3D CrossPoint Memory of Intel and Micron. Although its technology is slower compared to widely-used DRAMs, it can greatly increase capacity and decrease production cost. (ET News, EE Trend) |
| Battery |
| BMW announced today that it’s working with Germany’s Beck Automation to use complete i3 battery packs as a home energy storage solution. The system is available in a 22 kWh or 33 kWh version. (CN Beta, The Verge, Ubergizmo)
|
| LG Chem and Samsung SDI are increasing efforts to pass regulations in China after they failed to get government certification as battery makers for electric vehicles (EV). (CN Beta, NASDAQ, Korea Times) |
| Tesla Motors Inc, made an offer to buy solar installation firm SolarCity Corp in a stock deal worth as much as USD2.8 billion. (TechNews, WSJ, Forbes, Yahoo) |
| Connectivity |
| GigSky expands international iPad data plans to 140+ countries with Apple SIM. (Redmond Pie, 9to5Mac, CN Beta)
|
| Apple was unable to introduce a major design change in 2016 because “new technology in the pipeline will take time to implement”. Thus, this year’s “iPhone 7” will lack major design changes—the elimination of the 3.5mm headphone jack will allow the handset to be 1mm thinner than the current model, and will also improve water resistance. (Apple Insider, WSJ, Phone Arena, Tencent) |
| Samsung announced plans to invest USD1.2 billion for US-based research over the next 4 years on “human-centered” applications for the Internet of Things. Samsung also plans to be at least among the top 3 with 5G, according to Kim Young-ky, Samsung network business chief. (CN Beta, CN Beta, Forbes, PhysOrg, Yahoo, India Times, Android Headlines) |
| Smartphones |
| Economists estimate that the probability of a recession starting next year is at 21%, up from 10 percent a year earlier. Hiring is slowing, auto sales are slipping and business investment is dropping. America’s factories remain weak and corporate profits are under pressure. All are classic signs of an economic downturn, and forecasters have certainly noticed. (TechNews, Free Beacon, FX Street, WSJ) |
| According to The Boston Consulting Group study on Chinese consumers, in 2016 75% of the Chinese consumers will maintain or increase their consuming level, which is a slight drop from 81% in 2015. The two main drivers are the consuming power and the consuming intention. (199IT, BCG report)
|
| Europe’s B2C e-commerce market is tipped to break the EUR500 billion mark this year, according to a report by Ecommerce Europe. In 2015, the e-commerce market achieved EUR455.3 billion. Large e-commerce markets such as the UK, France and Germany are leading this growth. (199IT, Europe Commerce, Consultancy, article)
|
| Wal-Mart and Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com have reached an agreement to partner with one another. Walmart will receive 144,952,250 newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares, amounting to approximately 5% of total shares outstanding, valued at roughly $1.5 billion, and JD.com will take ownership of Wal-Mart’s Yihaodian marketplace platform assets, including the Yihaodian brand, website and app. (CN Beta, Yahoo, CNN, IB Times)
|
| Apple’s “flagship” iPhones, 6 /6s, are struggling, writes Nomura’s Jeffrey Kvaal, as evinced by the fact the more recent iPhone SE has done better than expected. The SE is stealing 6s demand in developed markets, and he believes the SE is reaching its intended market, first-time buyers, in China. He forecasts 3Q/4Q16 fiscal quarter sales of iPhones would reach 42 million units (with ASP USD583). And for 1Q17 fiscal quarter, 70 million units. (CN Beta, Barron’s, blog) |
| BBK Electronics, the company that owns OPPO, OnePlus and vivo, has just launched a new brand in China. It is called imoo and it will be reportedly producing the world’s “first educational smartphone”. (CN Beta, GSM Arena, GizChina, Phone Arena)
|
| Samsung new strategy is to maintain about 400 million smartphone shipments per year, and focus on profit margins instead of market share expansion from now on. (Phone Arena, Korea Times, Sam Mobile) |
| Instagram now has 500 million subscribers, 300 million average daily users. (Phone Arena, Instagram, 163, GSM Arena) |
| HTC Digital Domain Chairman and used to be the CEO Peter Chou has reportedly left HTC. (iMobile, IT Home, CN Beta)
|
| LG Electronics is expected to report an operating loss at its mobile division led by the company’s co-CEO Cho Juno 2Q16, extending its losing streaks for the fourth straight quarter. (Android Authority, Korea Times) |
| Motorola longtime designer Jim Wicks has announced his resignation. (CN Beta, The Verge, Digital Trends)
|
| Facebook is paying media companies millions to stream live video with almost 140 contracts totaling more than USD50 million have already been signed, including CNN, NYT, Vox Media, etc. (Engadget, WSJ, Sohu, Kejixun) |
| Tablets |
| According to Digitimes, judging from the current order visibility, Taiwan’s analog IC suppliers have predicted PC shipments for 3Q16 will likely increase 20% on quarter. Clients have started pulling in orders for the 3Q16 thanks to the upcoming launch of their new models, the sources said. (Digitimes, press) |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 is official – 10.1” FHD display, Samsung Exynos 7870 processor, 8MP + 2MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM, Android 6.0, LTE optional, 7300mAh battery priced from USD310. (CN Beta, Softpedia)
|
| Wearables |
| Greenlight VR has surveyed more than 1200 US consumers about their level of personal interest in a number of virtual reality use case categories. Surprisingly, gaming ranked sixth among these categories, with 61% of respondents stating they were “interested” or “very interested” in virtual gaming. (Hypergrid Business, Venture Beat, GreenlightVR, press, CN Beta)
|
| Based on Greenlight VR survey on 1200+ US consumers in regards to VR, it seems consumers do not want to pay as much as they once did for VR with 44.7% of the respondents fall in category of USD1-199 as in Jun 2016. Samsung Gear VR the most demand among VR devices, follows by Sony Playstation VR. (Hypergrid Business, Venture Beat, GreenlightVR, press, CN Beta)
|
| Mitfit and Speedo announced Speedo Shine 2. It has a vibration motor and multicolor lights, enabling multi-faceted user feedback. It also has countdown swim timer, text and call notifications and a silent vibe alarm. It is priced at USD119.99. (CN Beta, PC Mag, SlashGear, Business Wire)
|
| Idealens K2 is an all-in-one VR headset – 2×3.81” 2.5K AMOLED display, Samsung Exynos 7420 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, Android (Ideal OS), 3800mAh battery, assembled by Foxconn. (CN Beta, Android Community, SlashGear, Idealens)
|
|
Internet of Things |
| LG Electronics has rolled out attachable smart sensors SmartThinQ and a device that can turn conventional home appliances into connected smart devices SmartThinQ Hub. (Korea Times, 163, Tencent)
|
| Brian Blau, research vice president at Gartner, gave his top five picks for personal technologies that will break away from the hype and prove to be an integral component in business over the coming years: immersive AR/VR, wearable devices, personal IoT sensors, virtual personal assistants and bots, as well as advanced camera and vision technologies. (TechNews, Gartner, press, 4-Traders) |
| IBM announced collaboration with China Taiwan manufacturer industry, launching initiative “Perceive IoT” – combining IoT and Watson cognitive computing technology involving Understand, Reason and Learn 3 phases, to help Taiwan manufacturers innovate and evolve. (TechNews, Tuicool)
|
| Ultimate Ears introducing new feature “push-to-talk” to its UE BOOM 2 and UE MEGABOOM Bluetooth speaker – users can initiate Google Now (on Android) or Siri (on iOS) by simply pressing the button. (CN Beta, Beta News)
|
