Toshiba was one of the first companies to release a portable computer that could reasonably be called a laptop. But that was 35 years ago. The company formally exited the personal computer space a few years ago when Toshiba sold its laptop business to Sharp, which formed a new subsidiary called Dynabook.
But Toshiba still had a small stake in Dynabook… until this summer, when Sharp acquired Toshiba’s shares, thus truly and finally ending Toshiba’s space in the market that it helped to create more than three decades ago.
I’ll particularly miss the company’s trend to try weird things… like when the company released a laptop with a 21:9 aspect ratio display in 2012, or a dual-screen laptop in 2010 — something that Microsoft doesn’t even plan to do until next year.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
- Toshiba formally and finally exits laptop business [The Register]
Toshiba already sold most of its laptop business to Sharp, which rebranded it as Dynabook. Now Sharp has acquired the last 19.9 percent of shares in the business it hadn’t already owned… which means Toshiba is truly out of the laptop PC business. - Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft [Ars Technica]
Security vulnerabilities in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips mean leaves over a billion Android phones open to attack. Malware in the form of a video file could allow an attacker to steal data. Qualcomm has a fix, but it hasn’t rolled out to phones yet. - 5G Just Got Weird [IEEE Spectrum]
The latest 5G standards add support for connecting vehicles to other wireless devices, direct communications between 5G-enabled vehicles (without going through a tower) and new location and private network features, among other things. - Kodi 19.x “Matrix” – Alpha 1 [Kodi]
Kodi 19 Alpha 1 released, bringing new features to the open source media center app including support for the AV1 video codec, adjustable subtitle opacity, improved handling of album info for music, UI updates, and more. - GitHub Reinstates ‘Chimera13’ iOS Jailbreak After DMCA Counter Notice [TorrentFreak]
Infighting in the iOS jailbreaking space: Last month GitHub removed the code for a jailbreak tool, not because of a request from Apple, but from another jailbreak team that claimed their code was copied. It’s back online now, but unclear what happens next. - Anker PowerCore Play 6K Mobile Gaming Power Bank for Android and iOS [Amazon
Anker’s new PowerCore Play 6K looks like a smartphone game controller, but it’s really a 6,700 mAh power bank designed for mobile gamers. Slide your phone into place and you get a better grip for comfortable gaming and an active fan to prevent overheating.
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