Fujitsu has today officially completed the delivery of the Fugaku supercomputer to the Riken scientific research institute of Japan. This is a big accomplishment as the current COVID-19 pandemic has delayed many happenings in the industry. However, Fujitsu managed to play around that and deliver the supercomputer on time. The last of 400 racks needed for the Fugaku supercomputer was delivered today, on May 13th, as it was originally planned. The supercomputer is supposed to be fully operational starting on the physical year of 2021, where the installation and setup will be done before.

As a reminder, the Fugaku is an Arm-based supercomputer consisting out of 150 thousand A64FX CPUs. These CPUs are custom made processors by Fujitsu based on Arm v8.2 ISA, and they feature 48 cores built on TSMC 7 nm node and running above 2 GHz. Packing 8.786 billion transistors, this monster chips use HBM2 memory instead of a regular DDR memory interface. Recently, a prototype of the Fugaku supercomputer was submitted to the Top500 supercomputer list and it came on top for being the most energy-efficient of all, meaning that it will be as energy efficient as it will be fast. Speculations are that it will have around 400 PetaFlops of general compute power for Dual-Precision workloads, however, for the specific artificial intelligence applications, it should achieve ExaFLOP performance target.

Belkin, global consumer electronics leader, today announces its collaboration with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Grainger College of Engineering for the design of the FlexVent Gas-Operated Ventilator ("FlexVent") and Belkin's production of the FlexVent, pending the review and approval of its Emergency Use Authorization application by Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This emergency ventilator is based on the Illinois RapidVent concept, which was published by the University of Illinois in March 2020.

This collaboration was started in response to the ongoing demand for additional, critical respiratory care supplies worldwide during the COVID-19 crisis. As proposed to FDA, the FlexVent will be used as a single-use, emergency ventilator that can provide constant-flow, pressure-cycled ventilation automatically to patients in respiratory distress.

Logitech International today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of Fiscal Year 2020, ended March 31, 2020. "We have delivered five consecutive years at or near double-digit growth, and Logitech's products have never been more relevant," said Bracken Darrell, Logitech president and chief executive officer. "Video conferencing, working remotely, creating and streaming content, and gaming are long-term secular trends driving our business. The pandemic hasn't changed these trends: it has accelerated them."

"We finished a solid year with a very strong fourth quarter," said Nate Olmstead, Logitech chief financial officer. "The COVID-19 pandemic introduces operational challenges, yet our ability to execute and strong long-term growth drivers give us the confidence to maintain our financial outlook for Fiscal Year 2021."

As E3 2020 has been canceled due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, game developers and publishers have been scheduling their events to announce new games and more. Ubisoft will feature "exclusive game news, reveals and more" at their upcoming all-digital event "Ubisoft Forward". The event will live-streamed on YouTube and Twitch at 8 PM BST July 12th. Some games we are expecting to see showcased at the event include; Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion, Rainbow Six: Quarantine, and more.

With the current world pandemic happening, it is quite difficult for every manufacturer to keep its production lines running, as the factory needs a big amount of staff to look out for the processes happening and that creates big gatherings, which is potentially dangerous for spreading the COVID-19. In the most recent report by Bloomberg Law, Intel has been accused to prioritize chip output over the safety of its employees, meaning that Intel is forcing CPU production, where the fab working conditions are not the best. Workers have reported that Intel has been pushing them to work in big groups, without proper protective equipment like shields or masks. It is reported that few managers have told that the 6 feet distancing rule is fine to break, as long as the contact is under 30 minutes. There have been four of such complaints filed against Intel, and Intel has already responded stating the following:

Woes for Computex 2020 refuse to end, as its biggest lure for PC enthusiasts - motherboard and graphics card vendors - are reportedly planning to withdraw from this year's edition. Organizers of the popular PC ecosystem trade-show had announced a postponement of the show to late-September from its early-June original scheduled, in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Among the big companies confirmed by DigiTimes to have withdrawn from Computex 2020 are Gigabyte, MSI, TUL (parent of PowerColor), Chaintech (major OEM of several DIY brands); and ECS. ASUS said it's still following existing plans for the event. Some brands are planning online events around the same time as Computex, in which they will announce new products.

Sales of Nintendo's hybrid console the Nintendo Switch have surged with combined sales of 55.77 million units worldwide. The Nintendo Switch family of systems which includes the Nintendo Switch & Nintendo Switch Lite sold 21.03 million units last year which reflects a 24.0% increase in sales from the previous year, this was likely due in part to the launch of the Switch Lite and the recent demand from the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Software sales saw an even more impressive jump of 42.3% over the previous year with 168.72 million units sold this year which brings lifetime software sales for the Nintendo Switch to 356.24 million units. Animal Crossing: New Horizons along with other best-selling games all saw strong success. These numbers put the Nintendo Switch ahead of the failed Wii U, GameCube, Nintendo 64, and SNES. The switch is also quickly approaching the NES and will probably take its spot to become the second best-selling home console Nintendo has ever produced right after the original Wii.

Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system has historically been rising in market share thanks to the slow depreciation of Windows 7 OS, and Microsoft's efforts to push it as only Windows OS available for desktop users. However, according to the information by NetMarketShare, a company providing statistics about the market share of Internet Technologies (browsers and OSes), Windows 10 has seen a decrease in market share. This news is a surprising discovery, given that the OS is expected to be gaining new market share slowly, given that Windows 7 has reached the end of life in January.

From 57.37% of market share in February, Windows 10 got down to 57.34% in March and 56.08% in April. While this may seem just like a few percentage decrease, given the massive amount of PCs available, it can be counted in thousands. What could be the reason behind this is the current COVID-19 related pandemic and slower demand for office PCs, as everyone is working from home now. This was a big growth sector for Windows 10 as the previous version of Windows, the 7, was very popular in office space before its EoL. Of course, this is just a speculation which you should take with a big grain of salt. Some of the interesting things to point out is that Ubuntu, a Linux kernel based operating system, has massively increased its market share from 0.27% in March to 1.89% in April.

Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to soon launch their next-generation consoles, which are highly anticipated among console gamers as they will bring some of the latest advancements in graphics, like ray tracing. The current situation in the world is that everything is slowed down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Companies across the world have mostly slowed down their production lines due to the less demand, however, AMD has done exactly the opposite for their custom SoC customers. In wake of expected high demand, AMD has ramped up its production lines so it can supply Sony and Microsoft for their next-generation consoles—PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. This is an encouraging sign that the demand is going to be strong - and that AMD is up to the task of delivering.

The demand for Microsoft Teams has skyrocketed in recent months because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to working/learning from home. In Microsoft's recent Q3 FY2020 earnings report, they revealed that Microsoft Teams had reached over 75 million daily users up 70% from the 44 million active daily users in mid-March. Total subscribers for Microsoft's Office 365 business plans which include access to Teams hit 258 million paying users. Microsoft expects demand for its Office 365 products to remain strong through Q4 FY2020 as remote working and learning continues.

Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax Media and our global family of studios want to do more than keep you entertained and connected through our games during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the impact of this health crisis being so great and widespread, we want to help by donating to an array of international and local charities which are directly involved with COVID-19 relief efforts. We plan to donate $1,000,000 to the following front-line organizations.

Samsung in its Q1-2020 financials release disclosed that the company will commence mass production of chips on its cutting-edge 5 nanometer EUV silicon fabrication process within Q2-2020 (that's before July 2020). This is big, as it lends credence to rumors of NVIDIA secretly developing 5 nm GPUs. Suddenly, it's possible that "Ampere," if not "Hopper," is 5 nm EUV-based, as NVIDIA has chosen Samsung to be its foundry partner for next-generation GPUs.

"In the second quarter, the Company aims to expand EUV leadership, beginning with the start of mass production of 5 nm products, while closely monitoring the uncertain market situation caused by COVID-19," the company states in the release. Samsung also announced that following commencement of mass production on 5 nm, further development of GAAFET (gate all-around FET) 3 nanometer silicon fabrication process will get underway. The company appears to be erring on the side of caution with its forward-looking statements, though. Much of what Samsung does will be dictated by the impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain and market.

NVIDIA has announced that their annual GTC (Graphics Technology Conference) keynote will be held on May 14th, via a fully online distribution through YouTube set for 6 a.m. PST. Originally canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NVIDIA planned to make a digital-only event covering GTC on the same day of March 23rd, but elected to postpone it since "there were no announcements that were too critical not to be able to be told at a later time". The "Get AMPED" catchphrase does seem to point to some Ampere announcements, though, and the entire PC enthusiast community very much thinks that is one critical announcement.

The GTC 2020 note will be a recorded announcement led by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. The leather jacket-toting CEO will highlight the company's latest innovations in AI, high performance computing, data science, autonomous machines, healthcare and graphics during the recorded keynote, which will be made available, on demand, on YouTube. Starting on May 19th, though, the graphics technology event will continue via live webinars, demos, and recorded talks discussing the very latest in AI, HPC, data science, graphics, and more.

In a recent report by CNBC, news that Google plans to slash its marketing budget in half for H2 2020 were revealed, this comes as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on the economy and shows that not even Google is immune to the effects. Google is also halting most hiring of full-time and contract employees particularly in Marketing long with reducing employee skills training as part of the company "recalibrating".

This news comes after Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google would be scaling back its investments for the remainder of the year. At the time Sundar only said it would recalibrate "non-business essential marketing" and "significantly slow down" hiring. Action this drastic seemed unlikely at the time, Alphabet shares dropped nearly 2% after hours following the news.

Computex is always one of the many highlights of our tech/gaming event lineup, however due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the health of our employees and tech community is our primary concern. With the evolving health concerns surrounding COVID-19, Patriot and Viper Gaming by Patriot will not be attending Computex this year. In the meantime we'll be working cautiously and are advising all employees to refrain from traveling during this time of stay-in-place solidarity.

We'd like to thank Computex, for all they've done the past successful years in hosting a great show to help build the tech industry, and appreciate all their efforts in sharing safety guidelines and additional health measures as the event draws closer. With great optimism, we will definitely be returning to Computex next year once the pandemic is confirmed to be cleared and safe to return to normal activities.

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2020 financial results. "Our first-quarter performance is a testament to our team's focus on safeguarding employees, supporting our supply chain partners and delivering for our customers during this unprecedented challenge," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO."The role technology plays in the world is more essential now than it has ever been, and our opportunity to enrich lives and enable our customers' success has never been more vital. Guided by our cultural values, competitive advantages and financial strength, I am confident we will emerge from this situation an even stronger company."

In the first quarter, Intel achieved 34 percent data-centric revenue growth and 14 percent PC-centric revenue growth YoY. The company maintained essential factory operations with greater than 90 percent on-time delivery while supporting employees, customers and communities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a new Intel Pandemic Response Technology Initiative to combat the virus where we can uniquely make a difference with Intel technology, expertise, and resources.

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today reported financial results for its fiscal third quarter ended April 3, 2020. "Seagate executed very well in the third quarter while navigating the unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our teams worked tirelessly to safeguard the health of their colleagues, support customer demand, and execute our product roadmap. In this challenging environment, we achieved strong financial performance, delivering revenue and non-GAAP EPS that were above our guidance midpoint and continuing to generate solid free cash flow," said Dave Mosley, Seagate's chief executive officer.

"Our results demonstrate the resilience of our business model, which combined with our strong balance sheet and liquidity offer stability to manage through this uncertain environment. Over the long-term, we believe the strength of our technology innovation and product portfolio position Seagate well to capitalize on secular demand for mass capacity storage as well as the growing necessity for cost effective data management solutions driven by the transition to IT 4.0."

Magic Leap the augmented-reality startup has raised over 2 billion dollars from investor such as Alphabet and Alibaba to develop AR products. In a recent blog post by CEO Rony Abovitz titled "Charting a New Course" he announces that the company has come under financial hardship due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and will focus all of its resources on the enterprise market and the launch of Magic Leap 2. This restructuring will involve Magic Leap abandoning its consumer developments in the near-term and significant layoffs, Bloomberg reports layoffs may be 1000 which would result in the companies workforce halving.

SK hynix Inc. today announced financial results for its first quarter 2020 ended on March 31, 2020. The consolidated revenue of first quarter 2020 was 7.20 trillion won while the operating profit amounted to 800 billion won, and the net income 649 billion won. Operating margin for the quarter was 11% and net margin was 9%.

Despite abrupt changes of external business conditions due to COVID-19, our first quarter revenue and operating income increased by 4% and 239% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) respectively, driven by increased sales of server products, yield rates improvement, and cost reduction. For DRAM, strong demand of server clients offset the weak mobile demand which declined due to both seasonal slowdown and the COVID-19 impact. As a result, the Company's DRAM bit shipments declined only by 4% QoQ and DRAM average selling price increased by 3% QoQ.

In an email sent out to GeForce NOW Founders NVIDIA announced that they would be delaying the initial billing date until June. This gesture is likely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lackluster reaction for the platform. Companies such as Playstation have been offering free games to customers and publishers such as Xbox Game Studios & WB Games have joined the long list of publishers removing their games from the platform so this is likely an attempt to convince customers to keep their GeForce Now subscriptions.

"As you can imagine, we're experiencing a substantial increase in the number of GeForce NOW players and their amount of playtime. While the service continues to grow, we have decided to take this opportunity to show our early Founders members our appreciation, and will not begin billing until June 2020. Your first charge date has been extended. Please check account.nvidia.com for more information. Stay safe and happy gaming."

Kojima Productions announced that in light of temporary closure of its offices, the PC platform release of "Death Stranding" has been delayed. The game will now release on 14 July, 2020. The delay was necessitated by the development teams falling behind schedule amidst work-from-home orders in Japan. "Following the temporary closure of KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, we have had to delay the PC launch of DEATH STRANDING to July 14, 2020, to allow more development time amidst the current work-from-home orders in place. Thank you all for your patience and continued support," reads the brief statement by Kojima on its English Twitter handle.

In a letter addressed to employees, NVIDIA CEO Jen Hsun Huang promised that the COVID-19 crisis will not cause job-losses anywhere along the company's regular payroll. Instead, the company will expedite pay-raises, the CEO's letter reads. Jen Hsun stressed the importance for NVIDIA's 13,775-strong workforce to remain home and safe. The letter comes in the wake of industry-wide fears of job losses, which NVIDIA's workforce isn't immune from.

"Immediately I received questions about whether we are also planning a layoff. NO - precisely the opposite," he said. "We are accelerating your raise to put some extra money in your hands. We can put tens of millions of more dollars in the hands of our families in the coming months." Much of Jen Hsun's confidence despite a revenue hit stems from the rise in PC sales in the wake of COVID-19, as more organizations and individuals are picking up laptops or upgrading their home desktops, to prepare for an extended stint in their pyjamas. Then there's also the rise in gaming as a mass-entertainment.

Intel has regained its position of semiconductor leader by revenue from Samsung for the 2019 period. Intel had been trailing Samsung for the last 2 years but after a decline in DRAM demand Intel reclaimed the leading position. The overall semiconductor market saw revenue drops of 12% in 2019 which hit other companies worse than Intel.

Andrew Norwood, research VP at Gartner says: "Oversupply in the DRAM market helped push the overall memory market down 32.7% 2019. The memory market accounted for 26.1% of semiconductor sales in 2019 and was the worst-performing device segment,". Samsung being a large DRAM supplier was hit hard by this compared to Intel with limited memory production. Gartner the research firm has also cut its global semiconductor market outlook this year to a 0.9% dip from the 12.5% growth estimated at the end of 2019 due to the effects of COVID-19.

Tor, like much of the world, has been caught up in the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other nonprofits and small businesses, the crisis has hit us hard, and we have had to make some difficult decisions. We had to let go of 13 great people who helped make Tor available to millions of people around the world. We will move forward with a core team of 22 people, and remain dedicated to continuing our work on Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem.

The world won't be the same after this crisis, and the need for privacy and secure access to information will become more urgent. In these times, being online is critical and many people face ongoing obstacles to getting and sharing needed information. We are taking today's difficult steps to ensure the Tor Project continues to exist and our technology stays available. We are terribly sad to lose such valuable teammates, and we want to let all our users and supporters know that Tor will continue to provide privacy, security, and censorship circumvention services to anyone who needs them.

In response to popular demand, we have created an update to the Folding@home software that allows you to prioritize COVID-19 projects. We encourage you to upgrade as the new software includes important bug fixes and security updates. Downloads are available here. Please also join me in thanking the Center for the Science and Engineering of Living Systems (CSELS) at Washington University in St. Louis for funding the development of this software update.

Our top priority for this release was to add the COVID-19 option as quickly as possible. We also took the opportunity to fix many of the issues raised by our volunteers, but did not address those that would have caused significant delays in the release of the new software. To better address important bugs in the future, we've organized a team of volunteer developers who are sorting through and prioritizing our issue tracker on GitHub. They are already making huge strides.