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🆕 good morning! Today’s smartphone launch is the Huawei P50. The P-Series, once a true top in hardware, was the early guide to what camera technology will look like in future flagships. Even if this HarmonyOS is running, not Android.
Despite ongoing shortages and very human battles with bots / scalpers, Sony announced that the PlayStation 5 is the fastest-selling PlayStation of all time.
- Sony said it has now sold over 10 million units, up from 7.8 million announced in April, breaking speed records.
- That’s even without a PS5-only title with massive pulling power – more on the games in a second.
- First off, let me tell you that after months of trying, I bought a PS5 this week and I need help from Monitoring bots sending tweets when marketplaces have stocks. And in the end, I actually paid a finder fee to someone who helped me on a Discord server who helped me find one.
- Even so, Sony didn’t push up the console’s price.
- At the gaming front gamesindustry.biz noted Sony data that said, “Spider-Man: Miles Morales has sold over 6.5 million copies since it was launched last year. The exclusive PS5 Returnal, which was released in April, exceeded 560,000 copies, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which was released last month, is already on over 1.1 million units worldwide.
- And China is a major player in moving consoles. Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said: “The only launch I would mention is China. The console game model isn’t well established there, it’s all free and mobile, but we had an inkling that it might be time to change that and rolled a few dice. We made a lot of noise at launch, allocated a good amount of inventory and it took off very, very quickly. The same kind of energy that we see in the west. It’s just getting started, but that encourages us. “
- Ryan also said: “While PS5 has reached more homes faster than any of our previous consoles, we still have a lot of work to do as the demand for PS5 continues to outpace supply. “
Xbox had its own moments this week:
- We’re not getting Xbox sales – the company stopped giving out details in the Xbox One era, so we don’t know the X and S series numbers, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the company’s conference call this week that “The Xbox Series S and X are our fastest-selling consoles of all time, with more consoles sold to date than any previous generation. “
- And the next-gen Xbox series is having its own big event this week, though not limited to their newest consoles: Halo Infinite‘s first multiplayer beta kicks off today, July 29th (The edge).
- It only runs until Sunday August 1st, and it’s all about testing gameplay against bots and a three-card bot arena. “The bots still have their quirks” said 343 Industries, the developer of the next Halo game.
🎁 Poco X3 GT launched: fast chip, fast screen, fast charging (Android authority).
🔑 The latest details on the Galaxy Z Flip 3 now show off some funky case designs from Samsung (Android authority).
👉 898: This could be the name of Qualcomm’s flagship phone chip from 2022 (Android authority).
⌚ Oppo Watch 2: Oppo second generation Apple Watch clone has 16 days of battery life and includes the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip (Android authority).
⛔ Google bans “Sugar Daddy” apps as part of new restrictions on sexual content (Engage).
🍎 Apple says you shouldn’t buy replacement AirTag CR2032 batteries that have a bitter coating on them. I had to look that up; It’s something that keeps children from swallowing batteries (MacRumors).
📈 Facebook was able to maintain its growth despite upcoming regulations, iOS reduced tracking and more, despite warnings of coming headwinds. Zuck said video accounts account for half of the time spent on Facebook (TechCrunch). Facebook’s (expensive) metaverse was also discussed (Protocol).
📉 Apple, AMD and Intel are shifting priorities and making preparations as chip shortages persist (Ars-Technica).
💉 Google “will start asking for vaccines on campus” as companies start drawing the line. Google has also delayed the return to the office by more than a month (Google blog). At least the same vaccine requirement on Facebook in the US.
🍄 This robot arranged 100,000 dominoes into a Super Mario Bros. mural in one day (The edge).
☀️Extreme heat could also mean a lack of electricity and water (Wired).
🤔 A damning report said the British monarch somehow lobbied Scottish ministers to become the only person in Scotland not bound by a green energy rule (The guard).
Animals appeared 350 million years earlier than previously thought, a fossil discovery suggests: maybe 890 million years ago, before oxygen really played a role through the neoproterozoic oxygenation event, but still a few billion years after bacterial fossils about 3 Found 5 billion years ago. Further tests will follow (Gizmodo).
🏀 The 2021 NBA Draft will take place in person tonight: Cade Cunningham is expected to be the first selected by the Detroit Pistons to be picked (ESPN).
🚀 Rocket Lab launched a U.S. military satellite early this morning for a return to flight after a May outage (Space).
🥃 “What happens on a chemical level when a schnapps bottle is allowed to” rest “?” (R / question science)
On that day in 2009, Yahoo Search was sold to Microsoft for $ 0 … more or less.
This was noteworthy since much of 2008 was spent doing it after Microsoft put Yahoo! for tens of billions.
The story of Yahoo! … is a lot. There are books, textbooks, case studies. But in this transaction there is a thread that you need to follow:
- In 2006, Yahoo was the most popular website on the Internet.
- In 2008, Yahoo! Co-founder Jerry Yang turned down offer after offer from Microsoft to buy the company for a reported $ 44.6 billion in cash and stock.
- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yang discussed publicly throughout the year, and the value of Yahoo! crashed when Microsoft left in mid-2008.
- The result of it all was that Yahoo Search was sold to Microsoft for 10 years a year later with no money changing hands (BBC). Bing would use the Yahoo! drive.
- As part of the deal, Yahoo! Retain 88% of revenue from all search ad sales on their website for the first five years of the contract.
- As you may know, reading didn’t go so well in 2021. Yahoo shares closed 12.1% that day.
- Fortunately, Yahoo! had invested in Alibaba in 2005, and the stock would rebound during the Marissa Mayer years when the story more or less fizzled out in a sale to Verizon and renamed Altaba, a private fund.
Anyway, the point is, what if Microsoft invested $ 45 billion in Yahoo (and Alibaba, which was roughly a $ 50 billion stake when it was finally sold in 2019?)
Applause,
Tristan Rayner, Managing Editor.