News without the noise
Hardware and devices: chips, phones, computers and the companies making them, from launches to supply chains.
266 articles · page 5 of 6
Arm has announced its next-generation Neoverse CSS N4 platform, codenamed Ranger, built on TSMC's N3P process and supporting up to 128 cores per die. The semi-custom compute subsystem offers substantial upgrades in cache, memory bandwidth, and I/O over its predecessor, targeting cloud and infrastructure deployments.
Apple's upcoming iPhone launch this week is expected to bring higher prices as the company faces a sustained memory chip shortage that has reversed long-standing trends of falling component costs, with no end to the memory crunch in sight.
A growing trend of do-it-yourself plug-in solar systems is allowing US homeowners to dramatically cut their electricity bills without professional installation. In a recent test, one journalist plugged an 800-watt solar array directly into a household power outlet and saw their electricity bill drop to nearly zero on a sunny day, highlighting the potential and the challenges of this emerging technology.
AMD has announced the Threadripper Halo, a high-end AI workstation designed for local machine learning, at IFA 2026. The system, set to launch next year, marks the first time AMD's Instinct accelerators have been offered in a workstation form factor, positioning it as a competitor to Nvidia's DGX Station.
Dutch ethical smartphone maker Fairphone has entered the US market with the Gen 6+, a $650 device that prioritizes easy repairability and user ownership over the glass-and-glue design of mainstream competitors. Fairphone CTO Chandler Hatton says the goal is to enable customers to 'fully own' their device, even as the company makes trade-offs in build materials to achieve that vision.
· 2 sourcesAustralian quantum computing company Diraq has installed what it says is the world's first silicon spin quantum computer in a shared commercial data centre, placing the system inside Equinix's Sydney facility ahead of an October go-live date.
Motorola has unveiled the Moto Watch Ultra, its first premium smartwatch running Google's Wear OS, marking a departure from the custom operating system used on the company's earlier 2026 model. The device comes in one size and two colors and is powered by a Snapdragon W5 Plus Gen 1 chip.
Nvidia has officially announced that its RTX Spark N1X superchip will launch in October, bringing a unified memory architecture to laptops and mini PCs for the first time from the company. Two configurations are on offer, with the top-end model boasting a 20-core Grace CPU, a 6,144-core Blackwell GPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory.
· 2 sourcesHohem has unveiled the Eyepic, a handheld stabilized camera that combines a three-axis gimbal with a detachable magnetic camera module, allowing it to function both as a steadycam and a tiny standalone action camera capable of 4K video at 60fps.
SwitchBot has launched a new retrofit smart lock that offers homeowners up to 19 ways to enter their homes without a traditional key. Announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin, the Lock Ultra Max Vision Pro Combo includes facial and palm vein recognition, fingerprint scanning, passcodes, NFC card access, and app-based remote unlocking.
TSMC has nearly doubled its projected requirements for semiconductor production equipment since the end of last year, driven by surging demand from the AI sector. The world's largest contract chipmaker now forecasts 2026 capital expenditure of $60 billion to $64 billion, up from an initial $52 billion to $56 billion, as it races to build new fabs in Taiwan and the United States and upgrade existing facilities.
A working Apple 1 computer motherboard signed by co-founder Steve Wozniak, accompanied by a letter signed by Steve Jobs, is heading to auction at Bonhams in New York next month with an estimated value of US$500,000 to US$800,000. The so-called 'Hatfield' Apple 1, which last sold for $686,000 in 2013, is described by the auction house as beautifully preserved and fully operational.
LTO tape storage is experiencing a renaissance, with capacity shipments jumping 57% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, driven by soaring demand from AI data centers, traditional archiving, and cyber-resilient backup requirements, the LTO Program Technology Provider Companies reported Tuesday.
Acer has announced the Swift Blade 14, a laptop designed to compete directly with Apple's MacBook Air on portability, coming in at just 1.76 pounds — nearly a pound lighter than Apple's 13-inch model — while measuring 0.51 inches thick and featuring Intel's new Wildcat Lake processors.
Jaguar Land Rover has officially debuted the 2027 Range Rover Electric, a battery-electric variant that joins the lineup alongside existing internal combustion and plug-in hybrid models. Priced from $138,000, the fully electric SUV marks a significant step in JLR's electrification transition, with 80,000 potential buyers already registered as 'hand-raisers'.
John Ternus officially became Apple's CEO on September 1, 2026, succeeding Tim Cook after 15 years, and promptly sent his first staff memo teasing a 'huge launch next week' that he called 'phenomenal.' The memo, reported by Bloomberg and detailed by The Verge, also hints at 'incredible products already in the works,' setting the stage for the company's upcoming iPhone event on September 9, where a foldable iPhone Ultra and iPhone 18 Pro are rumored to debut.
· 5 sourcesSmart-home company Shelly has introduced its first security camera, a $49.99 wired model that records in 1080p and can be used without any subscription fees, though optional paid plans may expand its features. The camera, available in black or white, goes on sale soon from Shelly’s online store and other resellers.
Sonos announced the Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar, Sonos Ace Ultra headphones, and a major software update called Sonos 27 at an event in New York City, marking its biggest product push since the 2024 app rollout that led to widespread customer backlash.
Poco, the Xiaomi spinoff brand, has announced its flagship F9 Pro and F9 Ultra smartphones, featuring a continued partnership with Bose for enhanced audio. The F9 Ultra includes a Bose-branded 2.1 sound system with a light-up subwoofer, alongside ultra-bright displays and large batteries.
JBL is entering the connected whole-home audio market with its new Cove series of speakers, which can be used independently, as a stereo pair, or linked together for multi-room sound. The range, announced today, places the company in direct competition with established players like Sonos and Bose's new Lifestyle Ultra system.
Samsung has detailed a three-phase roadmap for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that progressively integrates logic and compute capabilities into the memory stack, culminating in a radical 'zHBM' design that places DRAM directly above the processor. Presented at Hot Chips 2026, the plan leverages an advanced logic process for the HBM base die to address rising bandwidth and power constraints in AI accelerators.
NVIDIA has announced the Jetson Orin Nano 2, a new entry-level edge AI board that the company says delivers twice the AI performance of the original Jetson Orin Nano — or matching performance at 40% less power — with availability expected in the first half of 2027.
Apple is preparing to launch two new small, powerful Macs, according to reports ahead of the company's anticipated September event, where it may also debut a foldable iPhone.
BYOK, the no-frills writing gadget designed for distraction-free drafting, is set to receive custom extensions, according to founder Nick Sjolinder. The move aims to address the demands of users who want the device to handle note-taking, screenplay writing, or novel organization without compromising its core appeal.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has revealed that Project Helix, Microsoft's codename for its next-generation hardware, will encompass a 'family of devices' rather than a single console, broadening the scope of the company's gaming strategy.
Meta is rolling out a software update for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses that closes a privacy loophole allowing wearers to continue recording after covering the front-facing LED indicator. The company is also launching a new marketing campaign aimed at combating the device's reputation, which has been derided as 'pervert glasses' in online discourse.
Pollen Robotics, a subsidiary of AI model hosting platform Hugging Face, has announced the Microduck, a $399 bipedal robot duck designed to teach users about hardware AI and machine learning. Standing just 25 cm tall and weighing 800 grams, the robot comes with an open-source software stack, onboard sensors, and a simulation environment for reinforcement learning, but its hardware is not open source. The announcement comes amid reports that Nvidia is in talks to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $13 billion.
Apple this week announced a new lineup of Mac mini and Mac Studio computers and officially sent invitations for its September iPhone event, where the iPhone 18 Pro is expected to take center stage. The product news was tempered by a rare round of layoffs affecting approximately 200 employees, a move that stands out for a company that has long avoided broad workforce reductions.
Speedo has unveiled a removable smart module for its Vanquisher goggles that tracks a swimmer's performance across all four major swim strokes—freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly—transmitting data wirelessly to a smartphone app after each session.
Sony has announced the Bravia 6 OLED TV, a more affordable addition to its OLED lineup designed to compete directly with midrange models from LG and Samsung, featuring a 120Hz panel, Dolby Vision and Atmos support, and Google TV with Gemini AI.
Google has unveiled a Pokémon Sleep-inspired special edition of its Fitbit Air wearable, featuring a 'Sleepy Blue' band decorated with a snoozing Pikachu. The device is available for preorder now for $129 and begins shipping September 15, timed to Pokémon's 30th anniversary celebrations.
Nvidia reported record quarterly revenue of $96.2 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2027, up 106% year-over-year, as CEO Jensen Huang declared that artificial intelligence 'has reached its inflection point.' The company also disclosed memory procurement commitments of up to $160 billion, including a long-term supply pact with SK hynix, underscoring the scale of the AI infrastructure buildout.
Samsung has introduced the Galaxy S26 FE, a phone that prioritizes software parity over hardware innovation, retaining the same 6.7-inch OLED display, 4,900mAh battery, and triple rear camera as its predecessor while adding the Exynos 2500 chip and software features borrowed from this year's flagship models.
Samsung has announced its 2027 Odyssey gaming monitor lineup at Gamescom 2026, headlined by a 27-inch G6 model that now boasts an unprecedented 1,100Hz refresh rate — an upgrade from the 1,040Hz target revealed earlier this year. The company also introduced new OLED versions of the Odyssey G9, G8, and G7, which it says feature world-first innovations in display speed and design.
At the Hot Chips conference, OpenAI disclosed new architectural details and performance figures for its Jalapeño inference processor, claiming the custom ASIC co-developed with Broadcom beats Nvidia's GB200 and GB300 in low-latency inference and performance-per-watt. The chip, which reached tape-out in just nine months, uses a NUMA-style spatial architecture and can scale to 2,048 accelerators delivering a combined 27 exaFLOPS of MXFP4 performance.
Atari has announced the Atari x Activision Collection, a compilation of 39 classic Activision titles released on physical cartridges, with pricing ranging from $34.99 for individual standard editions to $999.96 for the Ultimate Deluxe Set that includes all games. The collection will be rolled out in four themed batches starting November 2026, targeting retro gaming fans and collectors who value physical media in an era increasingly dominated by digital distribution.
Apple is preparing to enter the camera-enabled wearable market with both smart glasses and AirPods equipped with integrated cameras, according to multiple reports, signalling a major push by the tech giant into a product category that has struggled to gain mainstream acceptance due to privacy and social concerns. The move comes as debate over glasses with built-in cameras continues, with industry observers suggesting Apple’s entry could normalise a technology that many consumers have so far rejected as intrusive or gimmicky.
· 3 sourcesMeta has detailed its new MTIA 400 custom AI accelerator at the Hot Chips conference, revealing a chip designed to handle both large language model training and the deep learning recommender model inference that powers its advertising business — a rare combination of workloads with vastly different performance demands.
Nvidia has announced NVHBM, a custom high-bandwidth memory implementation designed for partners in its NVLink Fusion program. The company says the tailored base die delivers up to 30% higher bandwidth per stack and 15% lower power consumption than commodity HBM4e, while also shrinking the memory-related footprint on custom accelerator dies.
IBM has announced a new dual-architecture processor for its IBM Z and LinuxONE systems, designed to natively support both the company's proprietary z/Architecture and Linux workloads. The chip, disclosed on August 24, 2026, represents the latest step in IBM's strategy to modernize mainframe computing for hybrid cloud deployments while preserving the reliability and security that have made mainframes indispensable for global financial, insurance, and government institutions.
Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch 2 console will increase in price by $50 starting Tuesday, September 1st, taking the base 256GB model from $449.99 to $499.99. The move, announced weeks in advance, comes amid an industry-wide memory chip shortage dubbed 'RAMageddon' that has also driven up prices for competing handhelds like the Steam Deck OLED by more than $200.
Apple on Wednesday sent invitations to a September 9 launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater, using the tagline “Surprise and shine.” The event, which will be livestreamed at 1PM ET, is expected to be the company’s first major product launch under incoming CEO John Ternus and could finally bring the long-rumored foldable iPhone to the stage.
· 7 sourcesFujitsu detailed its 144-core Monaka server CPU at Hot Chips 2026 on August 24, confirming the Arm-based chip runs dual 256-bit SVE2 vector units and stacks its entire last-level cache on a separate 5nm die beneath a 2nm compute die. Evaluation samples are available now, with volume production scheduled for 2027.
Apple is upgrading recent Mac mini purchases to the newly announced M6 and M5 Pro models at no charge, according to reports from customers whose orders were still pending. The move, confirmed by multiple online sources, applies to backordered M4 configurations placed before yesterday's unveiling of the redesigned Mac mini line.
Microsoft has set an official price of $899 for its special-edition 25th anniversary Xbox, the company confirmed Tuesday, with preorders opening August 27th at 10AM ET. The translucent green console — a throwback to the original Xbox's iconic "OG Green" colorway — will launch November 13th and includes a matching controller, a full download of Halo: Campaign Evolved, and individually laser-etched numbering on each unit.
Arm provided extensive architectural details of its AGI data center CPU at the Hot Chips 2026 conference, revealing a dual-chiplet processor with up to 136 Neoverse V3 cores, a 2 TB/s UCIe interconnect, and a design philosophy that eschews the heterogeneous multi-chiplet approaches of rivals AMD, Intel, and Nvidia in favor of monolithic per-chiplet SoCs aimed at reducing DRAM latency.
At Hot Chips 2026, Google revealed its eighth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) family, including the TPU 8t for training and the TPU 8i for inference. The new chips mark a departure from previous unified designs, as Google continues to develop its own custom hardware for AI workloads, positioning itself as one of the few hyperscale cloud providers to build training-specific accelerators.
Apple on Tuesday announced the imminent refresh of its Mac mini and Mac Studio lines, positioning the compact desktops as powerful AI inference machines while acknowledging that rising memory costs are being passed on to customers. Pre-orders open now with shipping on September 22, 2026, and the new hardware runs macOS 27, expected in mid-September.