Due to the various major events that affected the global economy and politics, the overall demand for consumer electronics made a sharp downward turn in 2022, and global shipments of notebook (laptop) computers began to fall over the quarters. TrendForce's latest analysis finds that global shipments of notebook computers (from ODMs) reached just around 186 million units for 2022, showing a YoY drop of 24.5%. As for 2023, the outlook on the performance of the notebook computer market remains uncertain at this moment. TrendForce expects the YoY decline to moderate to about 7.8%, but shipments are projected to total only 171 million units.

Because market demand was anemic in 4Q22, promotional activities related to the traditional year-end peak season did not generate a lot of sales momentum. Looking at regional markets, notebook brands (PC OEMs) slashed prices in the US and China, but their sales results still did not meet expectations. This development was mainly attributed to factors such as high inflation suppressing consumers' disposable income. Since the sales results for 4Q22 were lackluster, efforts to get rid of the existing stockpile of whole devices might continue through 2Q23. Furthermore, order placements from channels are going to be much more restrained.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, SanDisk, and Western Digital today revealed "Project Phenix" (working title), an initiative that will give consumers an easier and faster way to organize, store and move their high definition digital movies and TV shows - including new releases in up to full 1080p quality - across multiple devices. In addition to local storage, the content will also be backed up via the UltraViolet industry standard as well as other cloud-based services.

The project is being developed by the newly formed Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA). Established as an LLC, this coalition will create and license solutions that secure high definition and other premium copyright-protected content on local and portable hard drives, and flash memory products such as USB flash drives, SD cards and solid state disk drives (SSDs). Once content is downloaded to a hard drive or flash memory product, it could then be accessed, online or offline, on any SCSA-enabled device such as a connected TV, laptop, Blu-ray player, tablet, mobile phone or game console. The optimized content will be made easily available for purchase via digital download, digital files bundled with physical media, kiosks in retail stores, or other means of secure digital delivery.

Today Fox Business is reporting U.S. and European regulators approved Google Inc's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility on Monday and said they would keep a sharp eye on the web search giant to ensure patents critical to the telecom industry would be licensed at fair prices. The U.S. Justice Department also approved an Apple Inc -led consortium's purchase of a trove of patents from bankrupt Canadian company Nortel Networks.Both the Justice Department and European antitrust authorities said that they would monitor how patents are used to ensure they comply with antitrust rules. Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned that patents essential to ensuring communications devices sold by different companies work together are licensed for a reasonable fee.

NVIDIA today announced that system builders worldwide are now shipping the fastest PC gaming platforms ever built, thanks in part to NVIDIA SLI technology and the just-released Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and X79 chipset-based motherboards.

The combination of NVIDIA SLI technology -- which allows for multiple GPUs to run on a single PC -- and new X79-based motherboards allow gamers to customize their PC experience with up to four NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, the world's fastest DX11 GPUs. Licensed by the world's leading motherboard manufacturers -- including Intel, ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI, SLI technology is crucial for playing this year's hottest graphics-intensive games, such as the recently released Battlefield 3 and upcoming Batman: Arkham City with detail, resolution and immersion settings cranked up.

AMD today launched its 9-Series chipset line-up today, helping PC builders to develop next generation high performance desktop platforms. The company also unveiled its 2011 HD Tablet Platform, based on the AMD Z-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), enabling vivid media display and content creation capabilities for the fast-growing market of Microsoft Windows-based tablets. These new AMD products are designed to enable more immersive digital experiences for the PC and tablet markets.

"As consumer appetites for more compelling, lifelike visual experiences increase, there is greater need for high performance, smooth, vibrant graphics as well as unparalleled computing power," said John Taylor, product marketing director, AMD. "From tablets to desktops, AMD is making powerful computing accessible to everyone."

Microsoft Corp. issued the following statement, attributable to Kevin Johnson, President, Platform and Services Division, after the announcement today that Microsoft would join forces with a newly formed Fox/Newscorp and NBC/Universal joint venture to distribute a vast library of online video content to MSN consumers:

Today's announcement is a great win for MSN's more than 460 million consumers and for online video more broadly. When launched, this new venture will provide free access to an unprecedented library of high-quality video content.