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Theranos founder can cite Silicon Valley hyperbole in defense
Crowdsec leverages crowdsourcing to reinvent cybersecurity economics
Dell Patched a Critical Driver Flaw from 2009 Affecting Hundreds of PC Models
Hunter Fan Company Now Offers 15 Homekit-Enabled Ceiling Fans
Chromebooks sales grew 275% in Q1; Amazon tablet shipments climb nearly 200%
This is the final design of the Galaxy Z Fold 3, says leaker
Netflix IT exec forced employees to use products from vendors that bribed him
Zammo unfurls conversational AI integration service
Call of Duty: Mobile has 500 million downloads, $1 billion in player spending since 2019
Game distribution is so much more than Steam, Epic, and mobile stores

Theranos founder can cite Silicon Valley hyperbole in defense

Posted: 04 May 2021 05:42 PM PDT

Startup CEOs are known for talking big games. A judge says Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes may bring up that fact in defending herself against criminal charges.

Crowdsec leverages crowdsourcing to reinvent cybersecurity economics

Posted: 04 May 2021 04:40 PM PDT

Crowdsec, based in Paris, announced today it has raised a $5 million round of funding for its crowdsource security platform.Read More

Dell Patched a Critical Driver Flaw from 2009 Affecting Hundreds of PC Models

Posted: 04 May 2021 03:46 PM PDT

If you or anyone you know has a Dell computer, old or new, they should probably update it right away. Dell just released a security patch that addresses multiple vulnerabilities in hundreds of its computers dating back to 2009.

Read This Article on Review Geek ›

Hunter Fan Company Now Offers 15 Homekit-Enabled Ceiling Fans

Posted: 04 May 2021 03:46 PM PDT

Hunter Fan Company just announced that it is expanding its SIMPLEconnect collection to include 15 Wi-Fi enabled ceiling fans. All of the fans feature HomeKit support, allowing users to control them with Siri or Apple's Home app on iOS.

Read This Article on Review Geek ›

Chromebooks sales grew 275% in Q1; Amazon tablet shipments climb nearly 200%

Posted: 04 May 2021 03:46 PM PDT

Everyone needed a new computer in 2020, and for a lot of people, that ended up being a Chromebook. (Canalys chart; click to enlarge)

Despite manufacturing shortages, the global PC market saw its fourth consecutive quarter of growth, with shipments of new systems up 53.1% year-over-year for Q1 to 122.1 million units and Google's Chromebooks seeing an enormous 274.6% spike to 12 million units.

This data comes from analyst firm Canalys, headquartered in Singapore, which released its latest report on the international PC market on Tuesday.

Personal computer sales worldwide have been on an upswing since last year, thanks to widespread adoption of work-from-home measures and remote schooling.

Chromebooks in general posted record shipment numbers in the first quarter of 2021, with HP, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, and Dell making up the top five vendors in the market. HP in particular accounts for 36.4% of the Chromebook market, which is nearly double its share from this time last year.

"While the education sector still accounts for the majority of [Chromebook] shipments, their popularity with consumers and traditional commercial customers has reached new heights over the course of the last year," wrote Canalys research analyst Brian Lynch.

The Chromebook is generally considered a low-powered but affordable option that primarily runs off of web apps, which has made it a strong choice for consumers who had to shift to remote work at short notice. We're also starting to see a few higher-end Chromebooks for more advanced users, at price points that rival or surpass a roughly equivalent Windows laptop.

Last year Chromebooks outsold Macs globally for the first time, cutting into Windows market share.

Huawei effectively bowed out of the market in late 2020, leaving Lenovo and Amazon to fill the gap. (Canalys chart; click to enlarge)

Canalys also released numbers from the tablet sector. Samsung, Lenovo, and Amazon all saw gains; Amazon in particular saw its tablet shipments climb by 197.9% over the course of the last 12 months. Apple has lost a slight amount of ground since last year, with 38.2% market share in 2021 vs. 38.6% in Q1 2020, but it's still shipping almost double the tablets of its closest competitor.

"Even beyond the traditionally strong holiday season, vendors are seeing elevated demand as the need for affordable computing power and connectivity persists," said Canalys Research Analyst Himani Mukka. "At a time when the overall PC market is facing a supply crunch, the vendors that have strong tablet offerings have been able to squeeze out even greater gains from the increased demand for screen access and remote productivity brought about by the pandemic."

Huawei is losing out on tablets, with Canalys tracking a steep 6% overall loss in market share. This can be attributed to Huawei's decision in November, following U.S. sanctions, to spin off its Honor brand into its own independent company.

The desktop PC market, by comparison, has shrunk by 4% in the last two years, though it did see a slight upswing over the course of 2020. It'd be easy to blame those lowered sales on the chip shortage that's been affecting electronics manufacturing worldwide since early last year — if the supply can't meet demand, then expect the demand to fall — but Canalys' estimates show that the downswing started in Q4 of 2019.

While the Canalys report doesn't touch upon it, desktop PC sales in general have been on a slow decline for years.

Other analysts have blamed the shift away from desktops on the increasing growth in other parts of the computing market, such as cloud solutions and more powerful smartphones. A modern user doesn't necessarily need a full desktop PC, particularly in the face of more affordable solutions like the Chromebook.

This is the final design of the Galaxy Z Fold 3, says leaker

Posted: 04 May 2021 03:46 PM PDT

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 are Samsung's next foldable phones, which are reportedly going to launch as soon as July. The phones will take the place of the Galaxy Note 21, which Samsung decided to skip this year. The official reason is the chip shortage which is currently impacting various industries. But reports preceding the component crisis suggested that Samsung wanted to discontinue the Note series anyway. The lack of Note 21 rumors was further evidence that Samsung wouldn't be making the phone this year. By comparison, the rate at which Samsung foldable rumors are dropping is beginning to peak, especially after the most recent leak.

Someone got a hold of purported marketing materials for the Fold 3 and Flip 3, sharing key design and specs for both phones. The leak all but confirmed many recent Fold 3 and Flip 3 rumors, including a few exciting details about Samsung's 2021 foldable phones. One of them concerns the Fold 3 display, which is expected to be the first Samsung screen with an under-display camera. The leaks did not offer high-quality images of the purported Fold 3 design, but a leaker gives us an idea of what the Fold 3's main display will look like.

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The leaked materials showed that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 would be the first foldable with Under Display Camera (UDC) technology, as seen in the tweet below:

Samsung has raised the resolution of the selfie cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 to retain sharpness.

Also, with Samsung mentioning that the Z Fold 3 is the first foldable with an Under Display camera, it confirms that the Z Flip 3 will have a traditional punch hole selfie camera. pic.twitter.com/2RXGq3eWGU

— Anthony (@TheGalox_) May 3, 2021

Samsung will not miss the opportunity to boast of this achievement during the Unpacked press conference, and this leaked presentation seems to confirm that. The image above gives us a look at the Fold 3's foldable screen, but it's unclear where the selfie camera will be placed.

The Fold 2's internal hole-punch camera is found off-center, as seen below. But that's because Samsung can't place the camera in the middle of a foldable display, where the hinge mechanism sits. The Fold 2's selfie camera is placed in the middle of the screen's right half.

The Galaxy Z Fold 2's internal hole-punch selfie camera is placed in the top-center of the screen's right half. Image source: Samsung

It makes sense to assume Samsung will resort to a similar placement for the Fold 3's UDC selfie camera, but that's just speculation based on the Fold 2 design. Well-known Samsung insider Ice Universe posted an image of a foldable phone that features no discernible selfie camera. The person holding the foldable phone also has a stylus in the same hand:

Galaxy Z Fold3 looks like this pic.twitter.com/We7n9GBGFA

— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) May 4, 2021

The leaker says that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 looks "like this." That doesn't mean the handset in the image is a Fold 3 test unit. We might be looking at a photoshopped Fold 2 image with the hole-punch camera edited out.

All Fold 3 leaks say the phone will support S Pen, as the new glass cover is more durable than last year's glass. Also, the new stylus has been redesigned to prevent accidental screen damage, yesterday's Fold 3 and Flip 3 leaks claimed. If Samsung plans to start selling the Fold 3 at some point this summer, then the phone should already be in testing. It's only a matter of time until we see the actual Fold 3 screen design in new leaks.

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Netflix IT exec forced employees to use products from vendors that bribed him

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:43 PM PDT

Netflix’s former vice president of IT operations was convicted of taking bribes from technology vendors in exchange for awarding them contracts with Netflix, the US Department of Justice announced Friday. The former Netflix VP’s illegal scheme forced colleagues to use a variety of products, including one that suffered from “severe” performance problems and another that Netflix employees objected to because they preferred a different product the company was already paying for, the DOJ said.

Michael Kail, the ex-Netflix executive, was convicted by a federal jury of wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering. He used his position at Netflix to approve contracts for vendors that gave him bribes and kickbacks, the DOJ announcement said:

As Netflix’s Vice President of IT Operations, Kail approved the contracts to purchase IT products and services from smaller outside vendor companies and authorized their payments. The evidence demonstrated that Kail accepted bribes in ‘kickbacks’ from nine tech companies providing products or services to Netflix. In exchange, Kail approved millions of dollars in contracts for goods and services to be provided to Netflix. Kail ultimately received over $500,000 and stock options from these outside companies. He used his kickback payments to pay personal expenses and to buy a home in Los Gatos, California, in the name of a family trust.

“Michael Kail wielded immense power to approve valuable Netflix contracts with small tech vendors, and he rigged that process to unlock a stream of cash and stock kickbacks to himself,” acting US Attorney Stephanie Hinds said.

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Zammo unfurls conversational AI integration service

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:43 PM PDT

Zammo.ai launched a platform for integrating a diverse range of conversational AI technologies across a workflow.Read More

Call of Duty: Mobile has 500 million downloads, $1 billion in player spending since 2019

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:43 PM PDT

Call of Duty: Mobile has crossed 500 million downloads worldwide since its launch in October 2019. It has also crossed $1 billion in spending.Read More