Mate XTs carries the same design scheme; comes in a new color and stylus support

Samsung has been hard at work at bring its first “Galaxy Z TriFold” to the market, and while rumors have it that the South Korean tech giant will be debuting a triple-screen foldable, it certainly won’t be at next week’s Galaxy event (that’s dedicated to the Galaxy S25 FE and Tab S11).

Huawei has opened up pre-orders for the new Mate XTs, while giving us a brief glimpse into what the phone will look like. Largely, it carries the same design scheme from the original Mate XT, mostly with the octagonal camera bump, but comes in a new color: white and gold.

Not only this, but the Mate XTs also comes with stylus-support. It’s somewhat ironic that this addition comes at a time when Samsung is facing a heap of critisim for removing the S-Pen support on the Galaxy Fold 7.

The Mate XTs will be announced at a dedicated Huawei event on September 4th in China.

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Some Phone (3) demo units claimed to show stock imagery as photos taken by Nothing’s users

In an anonymous tip to certain publications, the tipster has stated that the photos weren’t taken by community members, but in fact were bought by Nothing off the photo licensing platform, Stills. These images were touted as taken using the new Phone (3), when in fact they were captured using a professional camera.

It’s come to light that the London-based company hadn’t contacted the rightful owners before putting up the images as part of their marketing material.

A user captured a screen recording (via Android Authority) of a retail demo unit in New Zealand, which reads: “Judge for yourself. Here’s what our community has captured with Phone (3).” From this, it’s clear that the company is claiming that the photos were taken with their own device.

Here’s a list from Stills of links for the image shown in the ad above: spiral staircase, woman wearing a scarf, rounded headlight, a full glass, and person by the window.

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Trump’s threats are likely to force companies to move to the U.S. to avoid losing clientele to local firms

Talking to journalists aboard Air Force One, Trump stated that he is “going to have a rate that is going to be 200%, 300%.” Twice in two weeks now, the U.S. President has put uncertainty into the supply chain in what looks like a way to “force” faster decisions from the companies.

Last week’s tariff hike plans from the U.S. have already put chipmakers in a position to make a decision to either abandon clientele in the U.S. or to shift their production lines to American soil. Either way, large companies like TSMC, Apple, and NVIDIA have been exempt because of sufficient investment in the country.

In a bid to quickly build local manufacturing lines, the President seems confident that the “threat” of high tariffs will push companies to move to the U.S. Trump has also said that he plans on keeping rates low in the early stages, allowing chipmakers to come and build first.

We reported last week that the mere threat of 100% tariffs has made companies directly negotiate the best possible outcome, since the tariffs would be exempt for chipmakers building from within the U.S. The industry is in somewhat of a “wait and see” mode, and such statements give rise to a lot of volatility in the market.

Earlier today, semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials’ stock fell 14% on the news of increasing tariff rates. Micron, which manufactures chip memory, also saw a 5% drop in share prices.

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Musk believes Apple is siding with ChatGPT and is pushing xAI and Grok out of the spotlight

Musk, who is the founder of Grok’s xAI, publicly alleged that Apple is guilty of an “unequivocal antitrust violation,” citing that Apple’s App Store works in a way that favors OpenAI and makes it impossible for other companies to reach the #1 position on the platform.

It’s important to note that OpenAI is currently in a partnership with Apple that allows the latter to use ChatGPT’s services across its product line.

Under Musk’s post, however, readers added context that earlier this year, China’s DeepSeek took the top spot, and later, Perplexity in India’s App Store. The Community Notes also added that both events occurred after the OpenAI–Apple partnership was announced on June 10, 2024.

In a later tweet, Musk called out Apple again, alleging that the company had put ChatGPT in “literally every list where they had editorial control.” He wrote, “Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your ‘Must Have’ section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?“

To this, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, responded by stating that Musk had made a “remarkable claim,” and that X’s CEO is said to “harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.”

Then, it all spilled out…

In the replies to this post, Musk claimed that the claim was baseless since Altman had more views than most of his own posts, given that he has 50 times the follower count. To which Altman replied, “skill issue.“

Apple has since refuted Musk’s claims and issued a statement to the BBC, stating that the App Store is “designed to be free and fair of bias.“

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Trump’s absurd tariff figures are likely to exempt TSMC, which was the first to establish factories in the U.S. It currently has a $165B investment planned in Arizona that could, in the future, push to $200B. But other, much smaller companies will likely bear the burden.

At this point, the industry is in somewhat of a “wait and see” mode, where they’ll be eyeing exact details on moving to the U.S. It isn’t clear at this point whether the tariff exemptions would hold for equipment makers.

Taiwan’s chip industry won’t absorb massive tariffs, likely pushing up costs for equipment headed to the U.S.

Taiwan’s local media have reported that if the tariffs were to be imposed on the equipment manufacturers, the cost would be passed onto the customers, not the suppliers, and since most of Taiwan’s chips are sold in the U.S, the costs would essentially be pushed back to the U.S. buyers.

This, however, may not be an issue for local factories, as they had already mapped alternate supply lines during the de-China shifts. But still, a response plan could only be drafted once the tariff details are inked.

Mature process foundries, like Taiwan’s United Microelectronics, aren’t interested in local production because the U.S. already has domestic lines in these areas, particularly with Texas Instruments, and this competition makes U.S. investment less attractive for the Taiwanese company.

UMC is currently in collaboration with Intel on its 12nm process node, but if these tariffs were to come into effect, the company would risk losing these orders to local suppliers. At the moment, the exact details are yet to be confirmed, and other Taiwanese companies are also negotiating with America on lowering the 20% reciprocal tax imposed on them.

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Excel will now show a #BLOCKED error when trying to reference file types blocked by the Trust Center. In Build 2509, users will only see a warning bar, which will extend to full restriction starting Build 2510. In this version, unless the policy is reconfigured, users will not be able to add or update these blocked links.

In the company’s Microsoft 365 admin center message, it explained that the default behaviour on Excel will now prevent it from adding such references, and recommends users to stick to this setting. Most phishing attacks will use these high-risk links to redirect users to malicious code.

Early this year, Microsoft added “.library-ms” and “.search-ms” to the list of blocked formats for Outlook and disabled ActiveX controls, which were risky in that they could execute unauthorized code without the user knowing.

This change merely comes from Microsoft in an attempt to “harden” its Office and Windows environments. The company is now moving away from its legacy openness that has long allowed hackers to abuse the system, which is what it is now aiming to shut close.

To re-enable references to the blocked file types, simply head on to regedit, and navigate to: “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Excel\Security\FileBlock\FileBlockExternalLinks.” There, double-click on “FileBlockExternalLinks” and set its value to 0.

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For those who might not be aware, Intel is heavily banking on the 18A process node to close the gap built by TSMC over the years, but the node hasn’t performed nearly as well. The chipmaker will push new Series 3 Core Ultra (codenamed Panther Lake) chips in the last quarter of this year, which are built on 18A, and yet, the yields still stand at an abysmal rate.

Panther Lake could come with terrible 18A yield numbers as Intel tries to win back PC market share

Reuters reports that 18A is still producing chips at a high defect rate. While the yield numbers weren’t specified, we know they aren’t good enough to scale production for the chips coming later this year. Intel is facing issues with Panther Lake, and while a yield rate of ~50% is typically enough to ramp up production, Intel’s numbers are nowhere near that.

Sources close to the matter have reported that the yield stands around 10% as of this summer, which is miles short of the 70-80% yield required for a profitable mass production. This, however, doesn’t mean the chips would be delayed as the company will push Panther Lake to avoid losing market share to the competition.

At this point, Intel does remain optimistic, at least to the public, as it has told Reuters that Panther Lake is “fully on track.” The company will be dishing out more chips next year, but given these yield numbers (which are said also not to improve any time soon), Intel could be eyeing a tough road ahead, especially given its delicate financial situation right now.

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In Q2 2025, Samsung has seen the biggest growth amongst the top five manufacturers since 2021. In the midst of an otherwise modest consumer demand, the company focused on “smart volume” in pushing out more numbers for its budget line.

Most of Samsung’s success can be attributed to its consumer-friendly Galaxy A series, with this quarter’s sales being backed by Galaxy A06 and A16 in particular. Not only this, but the company also frontloaded its inventories into the U.S. amidst tariff concerns, which allowed its yearly shipments to see a whopping 38% rise in the region.

Apple’s sales see weaker numbers; expected to recover in the last quarter with new iPhones

Apple followed suit, with a dipping, but predictable trend. Each year, Apple’s lowest sales come in Q2 and Q3, mainly because consumers generally show buying restraint just before the release of the new iPhone in September. In the last quarter, however, the Cupertino tech giant usually closes the gap in an otherwise underwhelming quarter for the rest.

Nothing, the smartphone maker, was inarguably explosive this quarter, pushing nearly a 177% YoY increase in sales, shipping more than 1 million units for the first time. This trend is partly due to the company’s growing investments in regions like India, where its sub-brand, CMF, has also found firm ground.

All in all, Samsung topped charts with 57.5 million shipments this quarter, with a 7% YoY rise. Apple took the second spot with 44.8 million units. Xiaomi, Vivo, and Transsion followed with 42.4 million, 26.4 million, and 24.6 million, respectively, to round up the top five.

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There’s a lack of credible information at this point, but we do know that Huawei has emerged as a strong force on its home turf. US export controls, which were meant to squeeze China’s access to advanced semiconductors, have not only proved ineffective but have also fueled self-sufficiency in Chinese chipmaking markets.

Google may look towards a strategic return to Huawei phones to stall China’s growth in global markets

In an unconfirmed rumour, it has been noted that Google may bring its services back to China, specifically to Huawei devices. Not only did the removal of GMS (Google Mobile Services) from Huawei devices in 2019 lead to the accelerated development of HarmonyOS, but it also hurt the very objective of the sanctions: to cut back the growth of the US’s technological rivals.

While users of Huawei devices can, in theory, run Google apps via third-party services like Lighthouse and GBox to access Gmail or YouTube, much of the functionality is restricted. This move from Google could be a step to curb Huawei’s rising dominance, and for the Chinese tech giant, it could mean a step back into the global markets.

It’s important to note that the news is simply a rumour at this point, and Google China has denied such claims on its official Weibo channels. Even without Google services, though, Huawei has risen to the top in China, closing in on Xiaomi to take the top spot.

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This process is part of the Epic vs. FTC’s case of 2022, where Fortnite’s maker was forced to pay $520 million, of which $275 million was reserved for refunds to affected players. Epic was charged with violating COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) after it used design tricks to force users to buy in-game items.

Epic was allegedly charged for showing in-game purchase options when waking the game up from sleep or when previewing certain items. At the moment, nearly 969,173 users have been issued refunds and will be getting this not in the form of in-game currency, but as either cheques or PayPal payments.

You are eligible to apply for a refund if:

• You were charged in-game currency for items you didn’t want between January 2017 and September 2022
• Your child made charges to your credit card without your knowledge between January 2017 and November 2018
• Your account was locked between January 2017 and September 2022 after you complained to your credit card company about wrongful charges.

You can apply online at www.fortniterefund.com/file-a-claim till July 9th, 2025.

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