Envision Peripherals Inc. (EPI), the Brand license partner for Philips Audio in North America, announces today the latest addition to the Philips audio line with the Philips Wireless over-ear noise cancelling headphone (TAPH805BK). The headphones are now available on Amazon, competitively pricedat $199.99 USD. Ideal for at Home, in the Office, or on-the-go, the new Philips (TAPH805BK) headphones provide users with an unparalleled listening experience.

Music or Silence
Eliminate outside noise through a press of a button with Active Noise Canceling mode or flip to Awareness Mode to stay in tune with your surroundings. Users can control volume by swiping up or down on the ear-housing touch control panel. Activate or deactivate Active Noise Canceling or engage in Awareness Mode with a simple press. While carrying out a call over Bluetooth, its built-in mic with echo cancellation keeps sound crystal clear.

ECS unveiled its latest generation Liva Z3 Plus and Z3E Plus compact desktops. The two implement 15-Watt Intel Core i7 "Comet Lake-U" 6-core/12-thread processors. The only thing setting the two apart from each other is the addition of a 2.5-inch SATA drive bay on the Z3E Plus. Both models support an M.2-2280 SSD with both PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring. An M.2 E-key slot lets you drop in 802.11ax or 802.11ac WLAN cards. Other networking options include two 1 GbE interfaces, one of which is driven by an Intel i219-V controller.

The Liva Z3 Plus series come with Amazon Alexa built in, with four A4PC (Alexa for PC) microphones listening for natural voice input, while a headset combi-jack handles the rest of the audio. USB connectivity includes three USB 3.1 gen 1, and a USB-C 3.1 gen 1. HDMI 2.0 and mini-DisplayPort 1.2 display outputs make for the rest of them.

Amazon Web Services, a part of Amazon that is in charge of all things cloud, has announced plans to release 32 core CPU based on Arm Neoverse N1 microarchitecture that is designed to handle a diverse workload that today's cloud infrastructure needs. This new CPU should be the second iteration of AWS'es custom CPU based on the Arm architecture. First-generation AWS CPU was a processor called Graviton, which Amazon offered on-demand in the cloud.

The still-unnamed second-gen CPU will utilize a 7 nm manufacturing process if the Neoverce N1 core at its base is to be believed. Additionally, everything from the Neoverse line should translate to this next-gen CPU as well, meaning that there will be features like high frequency and high single-threaded performance, cache coherency, and interconnect fabric designed to connect special-purpose accelerators to the CPU complex. For reference, Arm's design of Neoverce N1 has a TDP of 105 W for the whole SoC and its packs 64 cores running at 3.1 GHz, delivering amazing power efficiency and high core count.

The United States Department of Defense (DOD) Friday awarded a USD $10 billion contract to Microsoft to build the JEDI Cloud (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), a massive piece of connected IT infrastructure that seeks greater electronic integration within the U.S. Military, and prepare it for emerging forms of warfare. According to the New York Times, Amazon was the front-runner for the contract, having executed similar infrastructure contracts for the CIA. The NYT comments that President Donald Trump's spat with The Washington Post, a paper owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, could have affected Amazon's bid. Some of the biggest American cloud companies participated in the bidding, which include Amazon AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and Oracle.

ARCTIC, a leading manufacturer of low-noise PC coolers and components, today launches its new Liquid Freezer II series of AIO water coolers. Designed for high performance, the second generation Liquid Freezer includes four product versions: Liquid Freezer II 120, Liquid Freezer II 240, Liquid Freezer II 360, and Liquid Freezer II 280.

For the Liquid Freezer II series, ARCTIC has incorporated an in-house developed, energy-efficient PWM-controlled pump with a copper bottom plate that operates with extreme efficiency and quiet. At low loads, the pump reduces rotational speed, thereby lowering power consumption. The 40 mm fan on the pump provides consistent cooling for the motherboard voltage converter, while the sealed water circuit is maintenance-free.

Thermaltake, the leading PC DIY premium brand for Cooling, Gaming Gear and Enthusiast Memory solutions, today announced the release of the Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB DDR4 Memory Series, comes with the frequencies of 3,600 MHz, 3,200 MHz and 3,000 MHz 8x 2 GB modules. As the first Thermaltake gaming memory product, it aims to deliver outstanding performance for gaming enthusiasts.

Featuring 10-layer PCB construction for enhanced overclocking performance and stability, the TOUGHRAM RGB boasts to have the highest quality of components including tightly-selected memory chips, 2 oz copper PCB for enhanced electricity conduction, and 10μ gold fingers for high resistance to ensure the ultimate gaming performance. Meanwhile, the TOUGHRAM RGB memory can be controlled by the TOUGHRAM RGB software which can simply monitor the real-time temperature, frequency and performance.

SK hynix Inc. announced today the launch of its "Gold S31" solid-state drive (SSD). Gold S31 (SATA III - first generation) is the first of the Company's new SuperCore series of consumer SSDs, an internal drive lineup based on SK hynix's core technology. With its speed and reliability, SK hynix's Gold S31 will be a perfect choice for all PC users, particularly for gamers, designers, and content creators. Gold S31 pushes the limits on high-performance SSDs, providing users the next level of speed with sequential read speeds up to 560 MB/s, as well as superior quality, reliability, and five-year warranty.

The 2.5-inch drive supports the SATA III interface based on 3D NAND Flash technology, and is now available in 1 TB, 500 GB and 250 GB capacities on Amazon US. All key components in Gold S31, from NAND Flash and built-in controller to DRAM and firmware, were designed and produced by SK hynix. The in-house components are built for robust performance and reliability.

Major American PC and consumer-electronics OEMs, namely Dell, HP, Microsoft, and Amazon, are reportedly moving some of their manufacturing out of China, in the wake of the ongoing US-China trade-war, an offshoot of which inflicts import-tariffs on a spectrum of products imported from China. This impacts China as a destination for manufacturing. According to Japanese business publication Nikkei, HP and Dell are each moving 30 percent of their laptop manufacturing volume out of China. This roughly aligns with their volumes bound for the US market. They could continue manufacturing in China for volumes headed to other markets.

Currently, the U.S. Government imposes import tariffs on $200 billion worth goods imported from China, and fully built PCs were immune to these tariffs. This has had an adverse and unfair impact on U.S.-based system integrators such as OriginPC, Falcon Northwest, etc., who import components and assemble gaming PCs and notebooks on U.S. soil, on a build-to-order basis. A new round of import tariffs proposed by Washington changes this, and brings even fully-built laptops, smartphones, and gaming consoles under the ambit of import tariffs. This explains why Microsoft and Amazon are eager to change their manufacturing landscapes. Microsoft makes its Surface line of premium portable computers, and Xbox game consoles in China, while Amazon makes a vast array of IoT products under its main brand, and various knick-knacks under its Amazon Basics brand.

First seen at Computex this year, Corsair seems to be first to market with a PCI-Express x4 Gen 4 SSD. Amazon Japan has the Corsair MP600 listed now for pre-order, with a "July 13" release date - it was also listed on Amazon US earlier today, but the product page has vanished since then. Corsair's MP600 SSD comes in capacities of 1 TB and 2 TB, and will be priced at $250 for the 1 TB version, and $450 for the 2 TB model. With PCIe 4.0, the bandwidth per pin is once again doubled over what 3.0 offered. According to Corsair, the MP600 SSD will reach up to 4.95 GB/s sequential write speed and up to 4.25 GB/s sequential read. Like most other PCI-E Gen 4 SSDs that we saw at Computex, the MP600 is based on Phison's PS5016-E16 controller and uses 3D TLC NAND memory.

Update Jul 1st: The drive is now listed at Amazon US, release date is "July 1st", so today: MP600 1 TB ($249.99) and 2 TB ($449.99). It is sold and shipped by Amazon itself.

NVIDIA today reported revenue for the first quarter ended April 28, 2019, of $2.22 billion compared with $3.21 billion a year earlier and $2.21 billion in the previous quarter. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.64, compared with $1.98 a year ago and $0.92 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.88 compared with $2.05 a year earlier and $0.80 in the previous quarter.

"NVIDIA is back on an upward trajectory," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "We've returned to growth in gaming, with nearly 100 new GeForce Max-Q laptops shipping. And NVIDIA RTX has gained broad industry support, making ray tracing the standard for next-generation gaming.

AMD today announced revenue for the first quarter of 2019 of $1.27 billion, operating income of $38 million, net income of $16 million and diluted
earnings per share of $0.01. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $84 million, net income was $62 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.06.

"We delivered solid first quarter results with significant gross margin expansion as Ryzen and EPYC processor and datacenter GPU revenue more than doubled year-over-year," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We look forward to the upcoming launches of our next-generation 7nm PC, gaming
and datacenter products which we expect to drive further market share gains and financial growth."

Samsung Electronics Q1-2019 preliminary reads like a horror story to investors, as the company posted its worst drop in operating-profit in over four years. Operating income fell 60 percent in the quarter ending March 2019, to about USD $5.5 billion, beating Bloomberg analysts who had predicted a 56 percent drop. Sluggish sales to IoT major Amazon, smartphone major Apple, and other handset makers, compounded by swelling inventory in the supply chain, has triggered sharp drops in DRAM prices that were offsetting critically low NAND flash prices. Demand for Samsung SoCs (application processors) is also on the decline.

Samsung is betting heavily on the success of its Galaxy S10 family of smartphones to recover from losses faced in the three component markets. Prices of DRAM prices fell 22 percent YoY, and NAND flash continues to slide by roughly that much, at 23 percent. NAND flash prices have been on a continuous decline over the past 3 years. DRAM prices, on the other hand, rallied in that period, and it's only now that it posted its first price-drop since 2016. NAND flash prices are expected to slide further down, as oversupply and failure of newer technologies like QLC taking off, hurt NAND flash manufacturers.

ARCTIC today introduced the new Freezer 34 air cooler series. Development of the new Freezer series focused on increasing cooling capacity. With static pressure optimized P-fans and the improved heatsink, the Freezer 34 series offers high quality products with high-powered performance. The series consists of the standard Freezer 34 model; the Freezer 34 CO, a new tower CPU cooler; the Freezer 34 eSports; and the Freezer 34 eSports DUO.

The Freezer 34 coolers come with all the perks of ARCTIC's high static pressure P-fans: an extended shelf life, a wide RPM range, lower power consumption, high quality bearings and less vibration. Plus, when the PWM signal falls below 5%, the passive 0 dB mode is activated. With newly developed fans, a streamlined cooling fin design, and offset direct-touch heatpipes that distribute heat more efficiently, the Freezer 34 delivers robust cooling for high-end processors with up to 18 cores. During internal testing, at a normalized 28db(A) noise level, the Freezer 34 models achieved results up to 4° C cooler than their predecessor series.

LucidSound, the fastest growing gaming headset brand, announced today shipping of the LS41 Wireless Surround Headset, a premium surround sound, multi-format headset and a new flagship model for the Company. Available now via Amazon and other leading gaming retailers, the LS41 features wireless audio when used with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and can also be used with Nintendo Switch and other mobile devices via the 3.5mm wired connection.

Multiple sources confirmed to GamersNexus that the GTX 1080 Ti is starting to be really difficult to find. Supplies are decreasing and the reason seems to be clear: NVIDIA could have stopped the production of those graphics cards. This has had an immediate effect on these cards' prices, which in the last few days have increased everywhere in the world. The performance differences with the new GeForce RTX 2080 are not that important if you don't need the RT part of the equation -we could confirm this on our own review-, but the price of these new graphics card have made considering a 1080 Ti a viable option for many users that are looking to upgrade their systems.

Prices for the RTX 2080 start at $769 at Newegg for example, while the cheapest GTX 1080 Ti costs $850 there. The story is the same at Amazon, where we can find the cheapest RTX 2080 at $799,99 versus the $878.12 for a used model of the GTX 1080 Ti. The high-end model of the Pascal series competes directly with the RTX 2080 and was cheaper not long ago, but that's not the story now. With prices climbing, some are claiming the same will happen to the GTX 1080, GTX 1070 or GTX 1070 Ti in the next few weeks. Reports of RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti inexplicably dying on users could also be fueling consumer-fear, as well as a [temporary] erosion in the value proposition of the RTX 20-series itself, as Microsoft pulled Windows 10 1809 Update, leaving fewer people with DirectX Ray-tracing, the software foundation for RTX.

AOC, a worldwide leader in monitor display technology, today announces the first member of the premium AGON monitor line with HDR support, the AG322QC4 gaming monitor. The AG322QC4 is a curved 32-inch, QHD HDR gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 144Hz, 4ms response time and AMD's FreeSync2 technology. FreeSync2 is AMD's HDR-compatible technology. This monitor is made for enthusiast gamers, who want both high-performance visuals without stutter, screen tearing or motion blur, and a gorgeous visual experience with HDR. This is AOC's first monitor with Display HDR400 certification.

The 32-inch monitor features a 2560 x 1440 QHD screen with a 1800R curve. The curved VA panel offers vibrant colors with high dynamic range for a more exciting and immersive visual experience to be enjoyed while gaming. The display also covers 85 percent of the NTSC. The AG322QC4's curve conforms to the way the eye sees and helps reduce eye fatigue.

In a development that underlines the national security necessity of moving electronics manufacturing out of China, server motherboards made by Supermicro in China, have been found to carry a "spy chip." This startling development is the result of a secret 2015 US Government investigation unearthed by Bloomberg. The Chinese government has allegedly been using hardware-based spyware in Supermicro motherboards that are manufactured in China; to spy on major American enterprises, including (but not limited to) Amazon Web Services and Apple, among others, who use Supermicro motherboards in their data-centers. The level of surveillance includes attempts to steal trade-secrets and intellectual property.

Fearing loss in business, affected cloud-computing providers, including AWS and Apple, have each posted strong denials that their hardware infrastructure is vulnerable to foreign government surveillance. Apple stated: "We are deeply disappointed that in their dealings with us, Bloomberg's reporters have not been open to the possibility that they or their sources might be wrong or misinformed. Our best guess is that they are confusing their story with a previously reported 2016 incident in which we discovered an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs. That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple."

This news post really does serve as a symbolic gesture for the state of the GPU market in the last months (going on to a year now, really). Mainly due to increased demand from crypto users looking to farm and mine their way to financial security and shortages of GPUs, the time to buy a new or even second-hand, latest generation graphics card hasn't been the best. However, now, we're seeing something that wasn't seen for a long time: actual decent pricing in graphics cards. It's still a process, but in that process, this Gigabyte AORUS RX 580 deal at Amazon is the proverbial pin in a haystack.

The Gigabyte AORUS Radeon RX 580 8GB (GV-RX580AORUS-8GD) is available now from Amazon for $209.99 (after a $20 mail-in rebate). If you're in the states and looking for a graphics card that guarantees 1080p performance at max settings, or a decent 1440p experience with somewhat reduced IQ, this could be the graphics card for you - and judging by its Best Seller status, it may very well be the same for many other customers. And for now, there's even stock - how about that. If you're shopping from outside the states and still find this deal mesmerizing (here in Portugal a similar graphics card would go for $410 so... yeah. Take the deal). Here's hoping this is a sign of the incoming times, and not just a freak event.

TP-Link , a leading global provider of consumer and business networking products, today announced the upcoming launch of the Archer C2700, a next level AC2600 Dual-Band WiFi Router that utilizes Intel technology to provide lightning-fast WiFi at speeds up to 1733 Mbps on the 5 GHz band and 800 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band.

As leaders in their respective industries of networking and computing, TP-Link worked closely with Intel to develop the Archer C2700, which is the first in a portfolio of TP-Link routers that will use Intel technology. "By relying on Intel's extensive processing expertise when building this router, we've managed to optimize the router signal so that multiple devices can receive a smooth uninterrupted signal without any loss of performance," said Louis Liu, CEO of TP-Link USA Corporation.

Thermaltake launches the latest Riing Trio 12 LED RGB Radiator Fan TT Premium Edition (3-Fan Pack) today. A brand new flagship fan series and newly added member of the TT RGB PLUS Ecosystem. The Riing Trio provides LED lighting and fan speed customization via Thermaltake's patented TT RGB PLUS Software and TT AI Voice Control. Starting from the end of the third quarter of 2018, the Riing Trio will be officially Amazon Alexa supported. With the support of the Amazon Alexa Voice Service, users can sync the Riing Trio RGB lighting effects with local or international weather conditions.

In terms of the fan structure, the Riing Trio features a PWM controlled 120mm high-static pressure fan and 3 independent 16.8 million colors LED rings that are pre-installed with 30 addressable LEDs in total. Furthermore, the long-life hydraulic bearing and compression fan blade design guarantees excellent cooling performance and quiet operation.

Aquantia, a leader in Multi-Gigabit Ethernet, is pumping new life into networked gaming. Today the company announced the availability of a special gamer edition AQtion AQN-107 Ethernet adapter, available exclusively on Amazon for an introductory price of $89.99. The AQN-107 10Gigabit adapter takes high-speed Multi-Gig networking to the next level, and the gamer edition provides exclusive access to new Aquantia gaming prioritization software. The AQtion AQN-107 gamer edition hardware is clad in classic black and comes with both full-height and half-height powder coated black brackets for the gamer who wants a beautiful, fragging machine.

Dark, reliable, affordable - these are ARCTIC's new CPU coolers, the Alpine AM4 Passive and the Alpine 12 Passive. Both passive coolers are available now and provide silent cooling for the AMD AM4 platform as well as for PC's with an Intel 115X base. The active coolers in other Alpine series will likewise be replaced with newly developed models during the course of the year.

The Alpine AM4 Passive and the Alpine 12 Passive operate fanless and completely silent, yet they are powerful enough to cool all compatible CPUs up to 47 watts. The black anodization of the aluminum heat sink is not just an optical improvement: the heat dissipation of the heat sink is also increased through anodic oxidation.

Twitch joins in the celebration of Amazon Prime Day with the largest giveaway in the subscription service's history. Twitch Prime members can redeem a new game everyday during the duration of the giveaway, which lasts from July 2 to July 17. You can redeem the games at this link. Once the games have been added to your account, they are yours to keep. The list of games includes Pillars of Eternity, Metal Slug 3, The Last Blade, and many more.

A Supreme Court decision last Thursday may be just what the doctor ordered for states' ability to collect taxes on online sales from a much wider variety of businesses. The decision, passed with 5-4 votes from the Justices involved, overrules previous understandings regarding the physical presence rule: essentially, that a business was only forced to collect sales tax and send it to the State it's operating if it had some sort of physical presence (be it warehouses or some such) in that particular state. If not, taxes were still due - but shoppers had to take the initiative of delivering their taxable amount to the state. That, naturally, very rarely happened, which led to reported billion dollar losses in tax revenue for a variety of US states.

Now, states have essentially been given the green light to pass laws requiring out-of-state sellers to collect the state's sales tax from customers and send it to the state. More than a dozen states have already adopted such laws even ahead of the court's decision, confident in the decision's direction, said state tax policy expert Joseph Crosby.

Acer today announced that several of its popular Windows 10 notebook lines are the industry's first to offer Alexa pre-installed, including the Acer Spin 3 and Acer Spin 5 lines, which are available at retailers now. The news today is the first step in Acer's plans to roll out Alexa across its PC portfolio. Alexa will also be pre-installed on the Acer Nitro 5 Spin convertible gaming notebook line next month. It will also be available on select Aspire, Switch and Swift notebooks, as well as Aspire all-in-one PCs, as they are rolled out to Acer's retail partners over the next few weeks.

Additional product lines already purchased by customers will soon be able to be updated with Alexa via the Acer Care Center. The first Acer notebook lines to receive the update will be the Acer Spin 5 and Spin 3 convertible families on May 23 and May 26, respectively.