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☆ Best Buy plans to open more outlet stores selling used and refurbished items as consumers pull back on buying new electronics
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Best Buy plans to open more outlet stores to appeal to "value-focused" shoppers. Best Buy forecasts another "down year" for the electronics industry, but expects a rebound in 2024. The outlet stores, which Best Buy began opening in 2021, allow customers to shop for open-box electronics and appliances. "We will open more outlet stores that support our value-focused customers," Barry said. Insider Intelligence predicts computer and consumer electronics sales will grow just 2.5% in 2023 — in 2021, the category grew 13.8%.

☆ Activist hedge fund manager Dan Loeb takes a passive stake in AMD
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The hedge fund manager took the bet when AMD shares struggled, according to sources. AMD shares have underperformed the rest of the sector over the last 12 months, down more than 30% as the PHLX Semiconductor Index declined 14%. Third Point's Dan Loeb has taken a passive stake in chipmaker AMD , sources told CNBC's Scott Wapner. AMD recently reported fourth quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations, but guided for a 10% decline in year-over-year sales in the current quarter. The semiconductor sector has been grappling with lower consumer demand for finished electronics and gluts of parts needed to make PCs and servers.

☆ Dell's tepid outlook casts pall over strong quarter
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A Dell laptop is seen for sale in a store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 24, 2021. Meanwhile, revenue from the commercial and consumer units, which indicate PC demand, was down 17% and 40%, respectively. Dell forecast first-quarter revenue to decline between 17% and 21%. Dell's full-year profit and revenue forecast also disappointed Wall Street even as the lifting of lockdowns in China was expected to ease supply chain pressures and reduce component and freight costs. Separately, Dell said Chief Financial Officer Tom Sweet would retire by the end of its fiscal second quarter, and named company veteran Yvonne McGill as his successor.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg is turning Facebook into Instagram as part of his self-declared “year of efficiency.”
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

He chatted with a woman who was locked out of her Apple account minutes after her iPhone was stolen. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is structurally changing Facebook to mimic Instagram. The restructuring — which will likely include layoffs, as Insider reported — is part of Zuck's planned "year of efficiency." 8. iPhone users could soon send iMessages through PCs. These are the best MagSafe battery packs for iPhone users.

☆ iPhone users will soon be able to send iMessages through their PCs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Phone Link for iOS will let iPhone users send and receive iMessages on their Windows devices. Despite not being able to share photos on Phone Link, iCloud Photos is already integrated into the Windows 11 Photos app. Messages sent from Phone Link appear as iMessages on iPhones, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's head of consumer marketing, told The Verge. "It's something we've been wanting to do for a long time," Mehdi told The Verge about bringing iOS users to Phone Link. However, Apple hasn't budged towards switching to RCS, and CEO Tim Cook has previously said he doesn't hear many Apple users request a change to texting between iPhones and Androids.

☆ Microsoft Windows 11 update puts AI-powered Bing front and center
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

(A preview version of the AI tool remains available on a limited basis.) Last year, Microsoft unveiled several AI-powered Windows 11 features, such as quieting background noise like lawnmowers and baby cries on video calls and automatic framing so the camera follows the speaker’s movements. A look at the new Bing on Windows 11 MicrosoftThe Bing integration is just one of several notable updates coming to Windows 11. Apple users will now be able to receive iOS alerts and messages directly on their Windows 11 devices, potentially chipping away at Apple’s closed ecosystem. It’s also adding a Recent Websites feature that allows users to transfer their browser sessions from their smartphone to their Windows PC.

☆ HP forecasts strong quarter as cost cuts, easing supply chain pressures help
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 28 (Reuters) - PC maker HP Inc (HPQ.N) on Tuesday forecast second-quarter adjusted profit above estimates and re-affirmed its full-year earnings target, expecting to benefit from cost cuts and higher shipments as supply chain pressures ease. HP forecast second-quarter adjusted per share earnings between 73 cents and 83 cents, above analysts' average estimate of 76 cents. It also maintained its full-year adjusted profit target of $3.20 to $3.60 per share. The strong profit forecast overshadowed a nearly 19% drop in first-quarter revenue to $13.8 billion that also missed analysts' average estimate of $14.12 billion, according to Refinitiv data. PC shipments are expected to be down 6.8% this year, compared with a 16% decline last year, according to projections by market research firm Gartner.

☆ Meet the $10,000 Nvidia chip powering the race for A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Kif Leswing | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Powering many of these applications is a roughly $10,000 chip that's become one of the most critical tools in the artificial intelligence industry: The Nvidia A100. The A100 is ideally suited for the kind of machine learning models that power tools like ChatGPT, Bing AI, or Stable Diffusion. Huang, Nvidia's CEO, said in an interview with CNBC's Katie Tarasov that the company's products are actually inexpensive for the amount of computation that these kinds of models need. "We took what otherwise would be a $1 billion data center running CPUs, and we shrunk it down into a data center of $100 million," Huang said. Huang said that Nvidia's GPUs allow startups to train models for a much lower cost than if they used a traditional computer processor.

Last quarter, Nvidia said tech giant Microsoft was deploying “tens of thousands” of its GPUs in its cloud unit Azure to train and use AI. Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT runs entirely on Nvidia chips, Piper Sandler analyst Harsh Kumar said. Revenue from the data center business was $3.62 billion for the fourth quarter, slightly below analyst estimates of $3.84 billion. Gaming chip sales were $1.83 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.52 billion, according to Refinitiv data. Adjusted profit was 88 cents per share for the fourth quarter, beating analyst estimates of 81 cents.

WHAT IS THE ACTIVISION DEAL? A group of 10 gamers in the United States has filed a private consumer antitrust lawsuit over the deal. Both companies have signed 10-year licensing deals that will bring Call of Duty to their gaming platform if the Activision deal is approved. Spain's Nware also signed a 10-year deal to bring Xbox and Activision Blizzard games to the Spanish cloud-gaming platform. Microsoft's Smith said the company would fight the FTC's request to block the deal.

Persons: Tencent, Martin Coleman, Brad Smith, Smith, Spain's Nware, Meta, Microsoft's Smith, Foo Yun Chee, Aurora Ellis, Maju Samuel Organizations: U.S . Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft, Activision, ACTIVISION, HK, Sony, U.S . FTC, Britain's, Markets, FTC, Nintendo, Sony Group, CMA, Commission, WHO, United States, May, Games Development, UNI Global Union, Nvidia, MICROSOFT, Britain, NINTENDO, NVIDIA, Xbox, Activision Blizzard, Antitrust, Facebook, Thomson Locations: metaverse, U.S, United, Brazil, Chile, Serbia, Saudi Arabia

☆ Horror juggernaut Blumhouse to launch video game division
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Sarah Whitten | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The world of video games is about to get scarier. Blumhouse, the powerhouse horror movie and TV production company, said Tuesday that it is launching Blumhouse Games. Blumhouse Games will partner with independent game developers and target indie-budget games of under $10 million. To lead Blumhouse Games, the company tapped video game industry veterans Zach Woods as the group's president and Don Sechler as chief financial officer. Wood has been a video game producer for more than 25 years and published games on every platform including Game Boy, Playstation and Xbox.

☆ China's Lenovo Q3 revenue tumbles 24% as PC demand slumps
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Josh Ye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HONG KONG, Feb 17 (Reuters) - China's Lenovo Group Ltd (0992.HK) reported a 24% revenue decline for the third quarter, its second consecutive decline as global demand for computers and smartphones continued to slump. The world's largest maker of personal computers (PCs) said on Friday that total revenue during the October-December quarter was $15.3 billion, down 24% from the same quarter a year earlier. However, demand has begun to fall and Lenovo's revenue started contracting in the July-September quarter last year. Net income attributable to shareholders for the October-December quarter also plunged 32% to $437 million. PC shipments are likely to slide 6.8% this year after falling 16% in 2022, Gartner said.

☆ Applied Materials forecasts strong Q2 as chipmakers scale up production
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 16 (Reuters) - Chip tools maker Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) on Thursday forecast second-quarter revenue broadly above market estimates, as it benefits from higher production of semiconductors that had been in short supply for the most of last year. After a global shortage of semiconductors affected everything from smartphones to car production, chipmakers are now scrambling to boost capacity in the United States and Europe and reduce reliance on Asian hubs. The company forecast current-quarter revenue of $6.40 billion, plus or minus $400 million, compared with analysts' average estimate of $6.29 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data. Revenue for the first quarter was $6.74 billion, compared with analysts' average expectation of $6.69 billion. Excluding items, the company earned $2.03 per share, beating estimates of $1.93 per share, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

☆ Microsoft pushing you to set Bing and Edge as your defaults to get its new OpenAI-powered search engine faster is giving off big 1990s energy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Shona Ghosh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft was once king of computing, with more than 90% market share. Microsoft has integrated some OpenAI deep-learning technology into Bing, its ailing competitor to Google, so that the search engine can answer questions in a more nuanced way. And rather than just returning a list of results, Bing will present the information in a more useful way. What is less futuristic is Microsoft's maneuvering to juice its own market share as much as possible. Microsoft is juicing Bing's market share right now Shona Ghosh/InsiderAt present, Bing's share of the search market is a mere 3%, according to data firm Stat Counter.

☆ A corner of tech is up 50% from its 2022 lows — and strategists recommend these stocks to play it
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Zavier Ong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The semiconductor sector has seen quite a turnaround of late. Chip stocks were among the worst performers last year, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) shedding more than 35% of its value. Despite this, chip stocks have flown somewhat under the radar since the beginning of the year as the buzz around artificial intelligence and a recovery in Big Tech dominated investor attention. While the semiconductor sector is notorious for its cyclicality and boom-bust cycles, several Wall Street pros are urging investors to take a longer-term view. Europe stock ideas In Europe, a raft of chip stocks made Bank of America 's list of "2023 European Best Stock Ideas."

☆ AMD wins nearly a third of processor market, Arm's climb slows, analyst report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 9 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O) has captured nearly a third of the market for central processor units while British chip technology firm Arm Ltd's rise in the PC market slowed in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to an analyst report. In the fourth quarter, Intel had 68.7% market share for x86 processors versus AMD's 31.3%, which was up from 28.5% a year earlier, according to Mercury Research. But the PC sales slump has also affected Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) Mac computer lineup, which is the leading source of sales for Arm-based PC chips. Mercury said Arm PC chips, led by Apple's in-house chips but also joined by Qualcomm Inc's (QCOM.O) recent PC chips for Windows machines, now have 13.3% share of the market PC chips, down from 14.6% a quarter earlier but still up from 10.3% share a year ago. Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; editing by Diane CraftOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Dell, On Semiconductor, PayPal, Catalent & more
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Pia Singh | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The PayPal logo displayed on a smartphone screen with a stock market graphic in the background. On Semiconductor — Shares gained more than 1% after the company reported earnings Monday that beat Wall Street estimates. The company posted $2.1 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 13.5% increase from $1.85 billion in revenue last year. Dell — The tech company saw its shares fall 3.7% after it announced its plans to lay off 5% of its workforce. PayPal — Shares of the payments company fell more than 3% after Raymond James downgraded the stock to market perform from outperform.

The PlayStation VR2 headset launches February 22 for $550, and preorders are available now. Sony says more than 30 PS VR2 games will be released during the initial launch window. PlayStation VR2 The PS VR2 is a new virtual reality headset built for the PS5. PS VR2 featuresThe PlayStation VR2 carries over many features found on the original model released in 2016, while offering a few key upgrades and new options. The PlayStation VR2 base package costs $550 and includes the headset, two wireless PS VR2 sense controllers, and a pair of headphones.

☆ Dell to lay off 6,650 workers, or 5% of its workforce
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Dell on Monday announced plans to lay off 5% of its workforce, or about 6,650 employees, according to an SEC filing. As of Jan. 28, 2022, Dell had 133,000 total employees, according to a company filing with the SEC. In the memo to employees, Clarke said Dell has navigated economic downturns before, and "emerged stronger" as a result. The company's layoffs announcement marks the latest round of job cuts in the tech industry, as PayPal announced plans to cut 2,000 jobs Tuesday. Earlier this month, Google announced plans to lay off more than 12,000 workers, Microsoft announced plans to cut 10,000 employees and Salesforce announced plans to lay off 7,000 workers.

Feb 2 (Reuters) - German chip equipment supplier Siltronic (WAFGn.DE) on Thursday said demand for its wafers was still strong even as it warned a slowdown in end-markets could weigh on 2023 results. The Munich-based supplier of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry said demand for its products had remained high so far this year, but added some of its customers expected weaker orders in the first half of 2023. German chipmaker Infineon (IFXGn.DE), one of Siltronic's biggest customers, said on Thursday it saw significantly weaker demand in areas such as smartphones, PCs and data centres in the first quarter. The group, which did not provide detailed financial targets for 2023, also said it expected the high inflation to keep pushing up unit costs this year. ($1 = 0.9076 euros)Reporting by Andrey Sychev and Anastasia Kozlova in Gdansk; Editing by Milla NissiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Bill Gates calls ChatGPT 'every bit as important as the PC' or the internet
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Bill Gates says AI chatbots like ChatGPT will become "every bit as important" as PCs or the internet. Gates' Microsoft helped launch the era of personal computers decades ago. "This is every bit as important as the PC, as the internet," the Microsoft cofounder added. According to Gates, AI could have a similar impact on society. The company also called in Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help address the issue, the Times reported in January.

☆ Infineon Q1 revenue comes in slightly below expectations
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Infineon (IFXGn.DE), a leading supplier of microchips to the auto industry, on Thursday bumped up its segment result margin outlook for fiscal 2023 to adjust for currency effects as it came in slightly below revenue expectations for its first quarter. The Munich-based company's revenue fell 5% from the previous quarter to 3.95 billion euros ($4.35 billion) in the quarter ending Dec. 31, slightly under the 4 billion euros expected in a poll of analysts by Vara Research published on Jan. 24. Infineon's segment result margin rose to 28.0% from 25.5% the previous quarter, beating expectations of 24.7%. Infineon also said investments for the full year are still expected to amount to approximately 3 billion euros. For the second quarter, Infineon expects revenue of around 3.9 billion euros and a segment result margin of around 25%.

☆ Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360: Hands-on and how to preorder
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Mike Andronico | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The Galaxy Book series has consistently impressed us with its range of slim, attractive and versatile designs, so it’s no surprise that Samsung isn’t reinventing the wheel for the Galaxy Book 3 range — though it is bringing a powerful new member to the family. This year’s lineup consists of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, the convertible Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 and the debuting Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, the latter of which features the highest-end Intel and Nvidia chipsets for serious productivity and immersive PC gaming. Galaxy Book 3 price and preordersAll three Galaxy Book 3 models are available for preorder now, and will ship on Feb. 17. The 16-inch Book 3 Pro 360 starts at $1,900 in the same colors, while the 16-inch Book 3 Ultra will run you at least $2,400 and comes only in Graphite. Slim looks, big power and cross-device functionalityMike Andronico/CNNI spent the majority of my hands-on time with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, a mouthful of a laptop that improves on the Book 2 Pro 360 we really dug last year (seriously, Samsung needs to streamline these names).

☆ EA Shows Why Mobile Games Are a Minefield
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Dan Gallagher | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

When one of the biggest videogame makers in the business gets hung up in the mobile end of the market, it can say something for the whole industry. With annual revenue now over $7 billion, Electronic Arts is the largest stand-alone game publisher in the U.S. save for Activision Blizzard . EA also has a few games capable of generating more than $1 billion a year on their own, including “Apex Legends.” The battle-royale style shooter was EA’s answer to the blockbuster “Fortnite” and has been a resounding success since its surprise launch in 2019 for consoles and PCs. Analysts estimate the game’s total revenue has surpassed that of “Madden NFL” to become EA’s second-biggest property next to the blockbuster soccer franchise “FIFA,” according to Visible Alpha.

☆ AMD’s Profit Plunges Amid Weaker PC Sales
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Sabela Ojea | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. reported Tuesday a 98% decline in net income for the fourth quarter as operating expenses more than doubled and sales linked to its PC clients were cut in half. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker, whose central processing units are used to build videogame consoles and gaming PCs, said net income for the period fell to $21 million, or 1 cent a share, from $974 million, or 80 cents a share, for the same period a year earlier. The company said the decline was mostly linked to its acquisition of semiconductor company Xilinx Inc.

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