The OpenWrt One WiFi 6 router by Banana Pi has recently completed its journey from the first announcement in January 2024, through sampling in April, and is now available for retail to end-users. The OpenWrt One is the first board designed by Banana Pi in collaboration with the OpenWrt open-source community, with assistance from MediaTek. Banana Pi is also handling the manufacturing and distribution of the router board, with part of the generated income being used by OpenWrt to cover the costs of hosting and conferences, as well as donations to the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) organization.

The router uses MediaTek's MT7981B (Filogic 820) SoC and MediaTek MT7976C dual-band WiFi 6 chipset, offering 2x2 2.4 GHz and 3x3 5 GHz connectivity. It features a dual-core Cortex-A53 processor running at 1.3 GHz, 1 GB of DDR4 RAM, and 256 MB of SPI NAND flash storage. It also includes 16 MB of additional protected storage for system backup, and integrated M.2 2230/2242 NVMe PCIe 2x1 ports that can be used for adding external storage. The router comes with the board, including a heatsink, assembled in a metal case, three antennas, and an external power supply. In terms of connectivity, the OpenWrt One offers (aside from wireless connections) 1x Gigabit RJ45 and 1x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, 1x USB 2.0 Type-A host port, and 1x USB Type-C port.

LG Electronics (LG) has collaborated with Razer and MediaTek to introduce the world's first Bluetooth Ultra-Low Latency (BT ULL) Controller at LG webOS Summit 2024 on September 27. This groundbreaking technology was showcased through an LG webOS smart TV and Razer's Bluetooth gaming controller, demonstrating the game-changing 1 ms input lag.

The webOS summit, which welcomed 300 representatives from 140 partner companies - including content developers, producers and providers - from 24 countries, shared LG's strategic vision and future initiatives for expanding its AI webOS ecosystem and platform business.

MediaTek, one of the first adopters of Wi-Fi 7 technology, today announced that it is working closely within Wi-Fi Alliance to launch a complete first wave of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 products, which will be featured as part of MediaTek's global ecosystem showcase at CES 2024. In an era where people rely on artificial intelligence to improve their lives and productivity, a fast and reliable network ensures consumers and professionals have the connectivity needed to utilize the latest AI tools. These devices, powered by MediaTek Filogic Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 chipsets, represent fast, reliable and always-on connected experiences for a wide variety of consumer and enterprise products, including residential gateways, mesh routers, televisions, streaming devices, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more.

"As a technology leader, we make significant investments in formulating the standards that drive the industry, in addition to developing products that utilize those standards," said Alan Hsu, corporate vice president at MediaTek. "The recent announcement of our family of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 chipset solutions has enabled us to work with Wi-Fi Alliance to provide testbeds for devices on both the access point and client sides, streamlining the product certification process for manufacturers."

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 is here, introducing powerful new features that boost Wi-Fi performance and improve connectivity across a variety of environments. Cutting-edge capabilities in Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 enable innovations that rely on high throughput, deterministic latency, and greater reliability for critical traffic. New use cases - including multi-user AR/VR/XR, immersive 3-D training, electronic gaming, hybrid work, industrial IoT, and automotive - will advance as a result of the latest Wi-Fi generation. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 represents the culmination of extensive collaboration and innovation within Wi-Fi Alliance, facilitating worldwide product interoperability and a robust, sophisticated device ecosystem.

Wi-Fi 7 will see rapid adoption across a broad ecosystem with more than 233 million devices expected to enter the market in 2024, growing to 2.1 billion devices by 2028. Smartphones, PCs, tablets, and access points (APs) will be the earliest adopters of Wi-Fi 7, and customer premises equipment (CPE) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) equipment will continue to gain early market traction. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 pushes the boundaries of today's wireless connectivity, and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED helps ensure advanced features are deployed in a consistent way to deliver high-quality user experiences.

MediaTek, one of the first adopters of Wi-Fi 7 technology, now has the industry's most comprehensive Wi-Fi 7 portfolio with today's introduction of the company's new Filogic 860 and Filogic 360 solutions. Together, these second-generation additions aim to further expand MediaTek's platform of cutting-edge products that utilize the latest technology advancements in connectivity while achieving peak performance and always-on reliability.

Filogic 860 combines a Wi-Fi 7 dual-band access point with a new advanced network processor solution and is ideal for enterprise access points, service provider Ethernet gateways and mesh nodes, as well as retail and IoT router applications. Filogic 360 is a stand-alone client solution that integrates Wi-Fi 7 2x2 and dual Bluetooth 5.4 radios in a single chip, and is designed to deliver next-generation Wi-Fi 7 connectivity to edge devices, streaming devices and a vast array of other consumer electronics.

Banana Pi recently released the specifications of their upcoming BPI-R4 router SBC with a host of new connectivity and features over the last generation BPI-R3. The new BPI-R4 adds dual 10GbE via the SFP ports, with a second board design offering 10GbE+2.5GbE instead, as well as a large daughterboard addon that enables 36 Gbps tri-band WiFi 7 and fits to a pair of mPCIE connectors on the bottom. There is also now support for 5G cellular via a M.2 B-Key port laid over the top of a trio of NanoSIM card slots. Enabling this improvement in connectivity is the updated MediaTek 'Filogic 880' MT7988A SoC which features four Cortex-A73 cores at 1.8 GHz as well as a host of dedicated improvements specifically tuned for high speed networking which combines most functions into the single SoC. Now instead of surrounding the main processor with a host of co-processing chips like the BPI-R3 did, the BPI-R4 simply surrounds the SoC with 8 GB of DDR4 and an 8 GB eMMC flash module. The remaining wireless logic now lives on the NIC daughterboard. The BPI-R4 does give up one of its gigabit RJ-45 ports despite the topside space savings, but reuses this empty space by offering an optional plug-in POE module, and both a 12 V power input as well as 20 V USB-PD with the added Type-C port.

Features retained from previous generations are the M.2 M-Key for SSD storage expansion, a microSD card slot, rear facing USB 3.2 Type-A, the bootstrap toggle switch, and 26-pin GPIO. The BPI-R4 retains roughly the same physical dimensions as the BPI-R3 except for the additional height from the WiFi 7 module which hugs the bottom of the main board when installed. The BPI-R4, like its predecessors, will support Debian Linux and OpenWRT at launch with images available on the Banana Pi wiki product page. Banana Pi hopes to launch the BPI-R4 by Q1 2024 and has yet to announce any pricing. Our hope is that pricing stays roughly in line with the BPI-R3 which launched at just shy of $90 USD. Given the swath of new technologies on the BPI-R4 it's a fair guess that it is going to be over the $100 mark.

Today, Lenovo announced the latest 8th generation of Lenovo Legion Slim laptops, allowing gamers to harness the freedom that the newest series has to offer. The Lenovo Legion Slim series is all about empowering players to crush their gaming goals while also pursuing their creative passions, and there are more options than ever among the new Lenovo Legion Slim 7i and 7 (16", 8), Lenovo Legion Slim 5i and 5 (16", 8), and—an all-new size for this year—the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 (14", 8), which elevates laptop power and portability to a whole new level. This newest generation of the series is also the first to sport the Lenovo Artificial Intelligence (LA) family of chips. These are onboard physical AI chips that power Lenovo AI Engine+, which dynamically adjusts the Lenovo Legion ColdFront 5.0 thermals to optimize cooling on the fly and maintain maximum output with minimal noise.

Lenovo Legion Slim series laptops are designed to meet the multi-faceted needs of gamers, with an SD slot, rapid charging battery technology Windows 11, three months of free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, as well as access to Nahimic by SteelSeries 3D immersive audio, and Lenovo Vantage helping users get the most out of their machines. Offering peace of mind, Lenovo's Legion Ultimate Support service is available with round-the-clock tech support, guidance and assistance so gamers don't have to miss a beat, and with Legion Arena, users can create their ultimate gaming hub with all their titles accessible in one place rather than having to switch between apps. Additionally, gamers looking to expand their horizons—literally—can look forward to the new Lenovo Legion R45w-30 44.5" 32:9 ultrawide curved display and the new Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 Gaming Monitor that delivers extreme clarity and vivid color with its 34-inch mini-LED backlit panel.

MediaTek, one of the first adopters of Wi-Fi 7 technology, will be demonstrating a full ecosystem of production-ready devices featuring the next generation of wireless connectivity for the first time at CES 2023. These products are the culmination of MediaTek's investment in Wi-Fi 7 technology, focusing on reliable and always-on connected experiences on a wide variety of devices in several product categories, including residential gateways, mesh routers, televisions, streaming devices, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more.

As the most current and powerful Wi-Fi standard, Wi-Fi 7 utilizes record-breaking 320 MHz channel bandwidth and 4096-QAM modulation to greatly improve overall user experience. Multi-Link Operation (MLO) also enables the Wi-Fi connection to aggregate channel speeds and alleviate link interruption in congested environment for time-demanding applications.

MediaTek today announced its new Kompanio chipsets for Chromebooks: the Kompanio 520 and Kompanio 528. With upgraded computing performance and battery life for entry level Chromebooks, the newest Kompanio chipsets provide a seamless experience so consumers can browse, cloud game, stream and use Google Play apps while enjoying all-day battery life.

"Enhanced power efficiency, speedy performance and reliable connectivity are at the core of a great user experience, and that's exactly what MediaTek's new Kompanio chipsets deliver," said Adam King, Vice President and General Manager, Client Computing Business Unit at MediaTek. "As the No. 1 provider of Arm-based Chromebooks, MediaTek makes the latest AI, connectivity, display and imaging features accessible at every price point."

MediaTek today announced the Filogic 880 and Filogic 380 Wi-Fi 7 platform solutions for high-bandwidth applications in the operator, retail, enterprise and consumer electronics markets. This pair of chips will be among the first Wi-Fi 7 solutions to hit the market, allowing device makers to deliver cutting-edge products with the latest connectivity technology. Filogic 880 is a complete platform that combines a Wi-Fi 7 access point with a new advanced host processor solution to provide the industry's best router and gateway solution for operator, retail and enterprise markets. It offers a scalable architecture that can support up to penta-band 4x4 with a maximum speed of 36 Gbps. Filogic 380 is designed to bring Wi-Fi 7 connectivity to all client devices, including smartphone, tablet, TVs, notebooks, set-top boxes and OTT streaming devices. The chip's dual concurrent 2x2 capability will be optimized "out-of-the-box" for these devices as MediaTek also supplies the corresponding platform solutions. This helps to streamline the design process, maximize performance and accelerate time-to-market.

"Our wireless connectivity solutions are designed to deliver the fastest performance using the most advanced technologies, and represent MediaTek's commitment to drive Wi-Fi 7 adoption in a large number of new markets," said Alan Hsu, corporate vice president and general manager of the Intelligent Connectivity business at MediaTek. "With Filogic 880 and Filogic 380, our customers can deliver fast, reliable and always-on connected experiences to meet the industry's growing connectivity demands." MediaTek's Filogic 880 combines a Wi-Fi 7 access point with a powerful application processor and network processing unit (NPU) to support maximum Wi-Fi, Ethernet and packet processing performance. The chip offers a wide range of interfaces and peripherals, making it easy to customize designs for various end products and applications.