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E3 2023

E3 2023 has been canceled. But Why?

E3 2023 is no longer happening. The biggest gaming event of the summer was scheduled to take place in person in the city of Los Angeles for the very first time since 2019. It has been postponed after major gaming firms like Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Nintendo all announced they wouldn’t be attending the event.

E3 2023
Image Source: polygon.com

The dates for E3 2023 were June 13–16, with a mix of days devoted to the gaming business and days that were supposed to be open to the general public. But there existed some concerning indications that the resurrection of E3 might be in trouble prior to June.

Also Read: Finally, Arc is coming to iPhone. Will it replace Safari?

E3 2023 “simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry,” according to an email sent to employees and confirmed by IGN.

Kyle Marsden-Kish, global VP of gaming at ReedPop, stated in an email to The Verge, “This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what’s right for the industry and what’s right for E3.

We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome.

For those who did commit to E3 2023, we’re sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences.”

Marsden-Kish wrapped up the email by saying ReedPop and the ESA will collaborate on upcoming E3 events and hinted that the convention might reappear in the future. IGN claimed in January that Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft would all be skipping the event, and Microsoft and Nintendo later verified this.

Also Read: Apple launches ‘buy now, pay later’ service in the US

Although ReedPop told The Verge that E3 was going ahead, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot suggested on a February earnings call that it might not even materialize. Later, Ubisoft made a commitment to attend the event that it later broke. Additionally, IGN claimed in March that neither Sega nor Tencent would attend E3.

Despite this, June is still expected to be a busy month for gaming news. According to IGN, the in-person Play Days element of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest will return this year on June 8. On June 11, Microsoft will hold both its yearly Xbox preview and its Starfield-focused event. The following day, on June 12, Ubisoft will host Ubisoft Forward Live in person.

Hansjörg Wyss

How Swiss Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss Built His Empire

Johann Georg Wyss, also known as Hansjörg Wyss, is a Swiss billionaire industrialist who supports political liberalism and environmental initiatives in the United States. He founded Synthes Holding AG and served as its first president and chairman.

His Wyss Foundation has assets worth more than $2 billion. According to Forbes, Hansjörg Wyss had an estimated net worth of over $5.1 billion as of March 2022. He is presently Chelsea’s co-owner in the Premier League.

Hansjörg Wyss
Image Source: news.harvard.edu

Early Life

Hansjörg Wysswas born in 1935 in Bern, Switzerland. His mother was a stay-at-home mom, and his father marketed mechanical calculators. He was raised with his two sisters in an apartment. Wyss graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich with a master’s degree in civil and structural engineering in 1959.

Also Read: The Rise of Ivan Glasenberg: Mining Magnate’s Success Story

He later graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA in 1965. Wyss spent several years working for a variety of organizations, including Monsanto Europe. He had a side business selling aircraft, and it was through this that he encountered a founding member of the Synthes company, which produces precise medical equipment and joined them in the 1970s.

Success Story

In 1977, Wyss established and assumed leadership of Synthes USA, the American subsidiary of the Swiss-based Synthes, a maker of medical devices that includes internal screws and plates for broken bones. After meeting the AO Foundation’s creator, Martin Allgoewer, and securing approval to market the group’s products in the Americas, he established the business.

In 2012, Wyss sold the business to Johnson & Johnson for $19.7 billion. He got 97.4 million Johnson & Johnson shares and $3.2 billion in cash, according to Bloomberg. Wyss is “among the most philanthropic people in the world,” according to Forbes. Businessweek calculated that Wyss personally gave roughly $277 million in donations between 2004 and 2008.

His charitable contributions grew after the 2012 sale of Synthes. In 2013, he pledged to donate the bulk of his wealth by signing The Giving Pledge. His charitable organizations have assets worth close to $2 billion.

His efforts resulted in the founding of the Harvard University Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in 2009, as well as the Wyss Foundation, which works to protect the ecosystem. Working closely with regional allies, the Wyss Foundation has already contributed USD 450 million and made it possible to conserve 16 million hectares across the globe in just 20 years.

Also Read: Guillaume Pousaz: From Small Village to Billion-Dollar Empire

Hansjörg Wyss has also contributed to a plethora of projects that support fresh approaches to global problems in the areas of art, medicine, conservation, and humanitarian causes.

He is a part of the group that established Campus Biotech, a center of expertise for biotechnology and the life sciences in Switzerland. Additionally, he helped his buddy Ernst Beyler establish the Fondation Beyeler, which he presided over.

Arc

Finally, Arc is coming to iPhone. Will it replace Safari?

For many years, all Apple products, including their laptops, iPads, and iPhones, have used Safari as their primary browser instead of Arc. It functions similarly to Android devices’ Google Chrome browser. In January 2003, Mac OS X Panther debuted Safari.

The browser is well-liked for its speed, security features, and compatibility with Apple gadget services. Apple is well-known for its broad and cutting-edge web tools, including HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.

Arc
Image Source: theverge.com

Because of this, web designers and writers favor Safari over other browsers. On the other hand, Arc is a browser that uses the same technology as Chrome and has easy tools for importing favorites.

Also Read: Why are OPPO and OnePlus exiting the UK and Europe markets?

The Verge claims that Arc’s mobile application will function as an iPhone desktop browser extension. The tabs, user accounts, bookmarks, drawings, and notes made using the desktop edition will all be synced by the app.

Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company, stated that the current Arc mobile app does not serve as a substitute for a primary mobile browser. At least not right now, the app edition cannot compete with Safari.

Instead of being a full-fledged mobile browser, it functions more as a companion tool for the desktop browser. The idea of a distinct browsing experience is still there, though.

That said, users who want to test the Arc mobile application should already have the desktop version set up on their computers. The functions of the mobile edition cannot be used until Arc has been installed on Mac, according to Ellis Hamburger, a representative of The Browser Company.

It should be noted that the Arc browser is presently accessible on Mac computers, and anyone interested in downloading Arc for Mac should sign up for a waitlist or request an invitation from an Arc user.

The Verge pointed out that even though Arc will be available as an iOS app, it is only compatible with iPhones. Additionally, since the functions of the desktop edition might be challenging to translate to mobile devices, users who are already acquainted with the Arc on desktop shouldn’t expect exactly the same feeling from the iPhone version.

What users can anticipate from Arc as a mobile application was explained to Inverse by Nate Parrott of The Browser Company. Parrott claims that it ought to resemble “chopping off Arc’s sidebar and then putting it into an app.”

Nevertheless, users can anticipate features like “delightful animations, interactions, and haptics,” adhering to The Browser Company’s mission to make the browsing experience “more alive.”

Also Read: Twitter to Begin Culling Legacy Verified Marks From April 1

The company began sharing sneak peeks of Arc’s mobile application via TikTok in January, ahead of the app’s release on iPhones. According to Inverse, the style of the mobile app ushers in the re-emergence of skeuomorphism on iOS devices.

The word “skeuomorphism” refers to a design of an object that closely resembles its real-world equivalent. When the first iPhone was introduced, Apple utilized skeuomorphism for its software design, but by the time iOS 7 became available, it had been neglected.

chip

Will China’s new policy help to tackle the chip talent shortage?

China is stepping up efforts to cultivate domestic semiconductor ability as it attempts to quickly fill a skills gap that has been exacerbated by American efforts to restrict Beijing’s access to cutting-edge chip technology.

Thanks to increased funding for prestigious universities and a boom in smaller, private schools with an emphasis on shorter-term education, enrollment in undergraduate and graduate programs has increased over the past five years.

chip
Image Source: theprint.in

While entry-level salaries have doubled, certain graduates with degrees in other fields are being drawn into the expanding sector. A white paper estimates that China will be short 200,000 industry employees this year.

Also Read: Why are OPPO and OnePlus exiting the UK and Europe markets?

Closing this gap is becoming even more crucial since the U.S. wants to cut China out of global supply chains due to concerns that any advanced chips it produces will ultimately be used by China’s military.

Liu Zhongfan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told local media earlier this month that China needs to prioritize developing talent even over finding quick fixes to its supply-chain problems.

Students and experts, however, told Reuters that more modern schools in Taiwan and the US give more practical industry experience than China’s emerging chip curricula. According to a poll conducted in 2022 by the Chinese research company ICWise, more than 60% of students majoring in chip engineering in China graduate without having held a relevant internship.

Professors at Chinese colleges are frequently rewarded for writing papers rather than imparting cutting-edge techniques that are helpful in a company lab or chip manufacturing facility.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), a leading chip manufacturer, has set up research facilities at four universities in Taiwan. In China, there have been some moves in this direction. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), its largest chip foundry, announced in 2021 the establishment of a School of Integrated Circuits at Shenzhen Technology University.

According to Hu Yunwang, founder of a Shanghai-based employment agency for chips, the average yearly salary for an entry-level engineer in the industry has increased since 2018, from approximately 200,000 yuan ($28,722.43) to 400,000 yuan, underscoring the supply-demand imbalance.

Also Read: Accenture to Cut 19000 Jobs as IT Spending Slows

With chip engineering training programs that claim to offer a fast track and primarily target graduates who specialized in a topic tangentially associated with chip engineering, several private schools have popped up to provide a temporary answer.

A former engineer from Arm Ltd. founded EeeKnow in Shanghai in 2015, offering in-person courses on topics like “Cortex-M3 MCU front-end design and verification in 60 days,” costing between 2,000 and 4,000 yuan.

OnePlus and Oppo

Why are OPPO and OnePlus exiting the UK and Europe markets?

According to reports, the ongoing conflict between Nokia, OnePlus, and Oppo is getting worse as the two BBK Electronics-owned businesses have allegedly decided to pull their devices out of some European markets. France, the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands are among these countries.

Oneplus and Oppo have been having difficulties in Europe for a while. A patent dispute between the two businesses and Nokia has essentially prevented them from marketing their goods in Germany. The two Chinese smartphone companies had to stop their sales in Germany after losing a patent lawsuit with Nokia.

OnePlus and Oppo
Image Source: fonearena.com

According to a report from the European patent news siteJuve Patent, the latter accused OnePlus and Oppo of using their patented technology for processing 4G and 5G signals without paying the license fee.

Also Read: Why is Meta being sued by its home county, San Mateo?

Numerous 5G patents are held by the Finnish tech firm Nokia. Some Chinese smartphone manufacturers, like Oppo and OnePlus, are having issues as a result of this. In July of last year, a German court declared that Oppo and OnePlus were unauthorized users of Nokia’s 5G technology.

The judge warned them to come to an agreement on a reasonable fee for using the technology or risk losing the right to sell their smartphones. The judge prohibited Oppo from retailing its smartphones after they were unable to come to an agreement.

An Oppo representative told Android Police, “OPPO and OnePlus are committed to all the existing European markets. We had a great start in 2023 with the successful launches of several products in Europe and have a line-up of upcoming products for the rest of the year.

As always, OPPO and OnePlus will continue to provide more innovative products and the best-in-class service for users moving forward.”

Nokia demanded an “unreasonably high fee” for patents, according to a statement made by OnePlus’ head of communications Spenser Blank to The Verge. He also reaffirmed the suspension of OnePlus phone sales in Germany.

Oppo is reportedly getting set to stop operating in Germany and the UK, according to the Chinese publication 36Kr. It claims that even though Oppo devices are popular in Europe, the company’s return on investment isn’t very high. The business is essentially losing money.

This made some sense for Oppo in the past because it was optimistic about long-term gains due to its cautious strategy to European markets. The company’s stance appears to have been altered, though, by increasing worries about macroeconomic events like rising prices, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a contracting smartphone market.

Also Read: Accenture to Cut 19000 Jobs as IT Spending Slows

Oppo and OnePlus, despite being well-known brands in the technology industry, shipped significantly fewer smartphones in Q2202 to European consumers.

According to a report from Counterpoint Research, OnePlus shipped even fewer smartphones than Oppo did, accounting for just 5% of the European market. Although the move wouldn’t be completely unexpected, it wouldn’t be beneficial to competitors and would give consumers fewer options.

Dark and Darker

Why is Dark and Darker no longer on Steam?

Renowned hardcore action RPG Dark and Darker, created by Ironmace, is still embroiled in legal issues because Nexon, the distributor from South Korea, issued a cease-and-desist order that caused Steam to remove the game.

The DMCA takedown notification that Nexon has issued is the most recent in a string of legal actions the company has taken against the hapless independent publisher.

Dark and Darker
Image Source: wccftech.com

It all started with claims that former employees had used stolen assets and codes in Dark and Darker. In Dark and Darker, gameplay that is reminiscent of Escape from Tarkov’s survival extraction is combined with aspects of traditional dungeon crawling.

Also Read: Is it possible to transfer games between PCs and Steam Deck?

Dark and Darker’s gameplay loop immerses players in a hostile dungeon where their objective is to endure until a portal appears and they can escape. Currently, in open beta, the game has experienced a huge increase in popularity and has rapidly risen to the top of the charts on Steam. However, the Korean publisher Nexon has taken note of this achievement.

According to Nexon, the founders of Ironmace were discovered trying to steal code and other resources from the P3 project and then utilizing these assets to make the popular game Dark and Darker.

Although Ironmace has formally refuted these claims, the legal dispute has reached a point where Korean police have recently searched the company’s headquarters. A cease and desist order was issued on March 24 and, apparently overnight, the game was taken down from Steam.

Players first noted that the game’s online functionality, assets, and screenshots had been removed and that the game had vanished entirely from the platform.

The delisting of Dark and Darker from Steam, one of the biggest and possibly the most significant gaming platforms, could deal a fatal setback to the title as it continues to undergo beta testing. Ironmace must submit a Counter-Notice to Steam, agreeing to the authority of a US Federal Court, and describing why Dark and Darker was incorrectly flagged under risk of perjury in order to have the game relisted.

After that, Nexon has 14 days to file a lawsuit against Ironmace in US Federal Court. Steam will relist the game if no suit is launched. To prevent costly litigation, Ironmace and Nexon will probably settle these disputes in a settlement agreement.

Also Read: We may soon get an Xbox mobile gaming store. Is it a good move?

The competitive and well-liked game Dark and Darker is regarded as an independent treasure by many. Nexon has a lot at risk in this conflict as evidenced by its actions, including the removal of the game from Steam and high-profile accusations of theft made by the Ironmace team.

To prove the veracity of its mission and the studio as a whole, Ironmace must succeed. The fate of Dark and Darker and Ironmace as a whole is currently very up in the air, but one thing is for sure: the RPG and the dungeon-delving audience will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of the impending legal dispute