In the days since the US put Huawei on an “entities list” and prohibited US companies from doing business with the Chinese tech company, the implications have kept piling up.
A number of companies based outside the US have ceased working with Huawei, including UK-based chip designer Arm since the company uses some technology developed in the US. Now the SD Association has followed suit, which means future Huawei devices may not be able to include SD cards. And several standards-setting bodies have put their relationships with Huawei on hold too, which could limit the company’s influence moving forward if nothing changes.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
- Huawei’s voice in future tech standards restricted [Nikkei]
The latest impact of US trade restrictions on Huawei: the company is no longer an active member of the Wi-Fi Alliance or JEDEC (memory and storage standards-setting body). - Huawei barred from SD Association [Android Authority]
Oh look, the SD Association has also blocked Huawei from using SD card readers in future phones. Existing handsets shouldn’t be affected, but the hits just keep coming. - Tor Browser 8.5 [Tor]
First stable build of the Tor Browser for Android is now available. The privacy/anonymity-focused browser is based on Firefox, and has some (but not all) the same features as the Tor Browser for desktop computers. - Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions [Bloomberg]
Amazon may be developing a “wrist-worn gadget” for “health and wellness” that can “recognize human emotions,” according to this report from @business. There’s no word on if it will ever see the light of day (I’m guessing no). - Mario Kart Tour Is Pretty Good When It’s Not Nickel And Diming You [Kotaku]
Mario Kart Tour beta for Android is now live — it’s apparently full of microtransactions, but otherwise seems like a pretty faithful extension of the Mario Kart platform for mobile devices. - Features removed from Windows 10 May 2019 Update [Microsoft]
Liliputing Published by Hootsuite · Yesterday at 10:15 AM · Windows 10 May 2019 Update can no longer sync SMS messages from Windows Phone. Both remaining users are probably disappointed. Here are other features being removed and/or no longer developed. - MacBook Pro 15″ Touch Bar 2019 teardown [iFixit]
iFixit tore apart Apple’s new MacBook Pro to see if they could figure out if the keyboard is really less prone to failure. They found new materials on the key switch covers, and a modified metal dome. So… maybe? The laptop is still virtually unrepairable though. - GPD P2 Max preview (video)
This 3 minute video gives you a good idea of the size (and usability) of the upcoming 8.9 inch GPD P2 Max mini-laptop.
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I wonder how the rest of the world is interpreting this trade war and the current situation with Huawei. Will this result in a long term effort of non-US countries gradually trying to depend less on the US and weakening the US economically and politically? Will this make the US a more dominant world power? Will something else end up happening?
This is definitely going to be taught in US history classes in the future.
Honestly the SD association/huawei news is the least impactful of Huawei related news so far. Ever since they switched to Nano SD I have basically treated their phones as NOT having expandable storage.
I had no idea they were doing that, but I just googled it. Funny, so they are tryinna pull a Sony in this case. Bon boyage.
Maybe amazon is just making an excuse to train an algorithm to recognize vocal emotional expressions, since the software would be more profitable when loaded onto everything with a microphone.