Huawei is adding a micro-pump chip to keep the Mate 80 cooler under load

Staying on the 7nm process node, Huawei will upgrade the top-end phones in the Mate 80 lineup, presumably the Mate 80 Pro and Mate 80 Pro+, to the new chipset. The vanilla variant will most likely stick to the Kirin 9020.

This new chip is said to bring decent performance gains, with over 20% gain over last year’s Kirin 9020. Also, Huawei will be putting a new “micro-pump driver chip” to push better power numbers and to keep thermals in check, especially during intensive tasks like gaming or high-res recording.

The Kirin 9030, when compared to a bit older SoCs, like the Kirin 9000s in the Mate 60 Pro from 2023, shows a whopping 40% increase in performance figures alone. The GPU on the Kirin 9030 will also be upgraded, though the exact details of the Maleoon die aren’t known at this point.

Just like every year, Huawei is also rolling out a limited-edition RS model for the Mate 80 series. This will top the lineup this year, and will come with a ceramic back, a titanium alloy frame, and the dual-OLED display from last year’s Mate 70 RS Ultimate.

There hasn’t been a lot of word on pricing for the Mate 80 series just yet, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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Battlefield 6 Beta Timeline

• The early access beta went live for code holders and subscribers on August 7–8. 
• The first open beta weekend took place on August 9–10, opening participation to all players without requiring a code.
• The second open beta weekend was held on August 14–17, available across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.
• Preloading began on August 4, 2025, giving players time to download before the beta went live.

How Players Can Join the Early Access

To participate in the Battlefield 6 beta, players must link their gaming platform (Steam, PlayStation, Xbox) with their EA Account. This connection is essential for the beta to verify account eligibility.

Access on PC

PC players can conveniently install the beta through Steam or the EA App.

Through Steam:

1. Launch Steam on your PC.

   

2. Search for Battlefield 6.
3. Click Play Now under the Open Beta section.
4. Select the installation path and click Install.
5. Once installation completes, launch the beta.

Through EA App:

1. Open the EA App and log in with your EA Account.
2. Search for Battlefield 6 and select Open Beta.
3. Click Download and choose your installation path.
4. Confirm with Next, then press Download to begin.
5. Once installation finishes, launch the game to play.

Access on Consoles

Console players must link their EA Account with either PlayStation Network or Xbox Live to gain access. Linking can also be done directly when launching the game for the first time.

How to Link EA Account with PlayStation Network or Xbox Live

1. Visit the official EA website.
2. Click the Profile icon and choose Sign In.
3. Log in using your EA credentials.
4. Navigate to Account Settings from the profile menu.
5. Verify your identity by selecting SEND CODE and entering the verification sent to your email.
6. Go to the Connections tab.
7. Select either PlayStation Network or Xbox Live and link your account.
8. Provide your console login details to finalize the connection.
9. Open the PlayStation Store (PS5/PS4) or Microsoft Store (Xbox One/Series), search for Battlefield 6 Open Beta, and download it if still available. 

Looking Ahead

The full release of Battlefield 6 is set for October 10, 2025. The beta weekends provide a preview of the multiplayer experience, giving players an early opportunity to test new features and provide feedback before the final launch.

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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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Weibo leaker, Fixed Focus Digital, who has a track record of accurate leaks, has pointed out that Apple will be using the A19 Pro on the iPhone 17 Air. This chip will have the same configuration, on the CPU side, though it will cut down on a GPU core.

The reduced core could be to contain thermal figures on the thinner Air, or simply the result of using binned chips from production. In any case, the A19 Pro for the iPhone 17 Air will come with a 5-core GPU, as opposed to a 6-core setup on the Pros.

The vanilla iPhone 17, though, is expected to come with the base A19 chip. This contradicts insider Ming-Chi Kuo’s claim of the iPhone 17 using the A18, but supply chain analysts have also now concluded that the A19 series will be used across the line.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

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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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Xiaomi will only phase out support for legacy devices; the decision is seemingly linked to the EU’s RED directive

The new provisions of the European RED directive were put into effect earlier this month, which caused quite an uproar in the Android enthusiast community, as it legally gave phone makers the power to limit bootloader unlocks. Though these claims were later found to be exaggerated, industry patterns say otherwise.

A leak earlier this month revealed that Samsung will also be cutting off the option to unlock the bootloader in OneUI 8, as part of meeting stringent compliance deadlines. In the U.S., the South Korean OEM didn’t allow for tinkering with the software. But now, the regulation extends to outside the region, and it comes at a similar time to Xiaomi’s end of legacy bootloader support.

We’ve seen a similar trend when HUAWEI blocked access to custom ROMs by cutting off official bootloader unlock support. Users then turned to third-party, risky avenues, which the manufacturer can not audit. At least, now, the company has a licensing system to keep the unlocks in check, though with heavy limitations.

In the enthusiast scene within the Android community, Xiaomi devices were once seen as the go-to phones, that just worked, with third-party ROMs or unofficial mods. It was one of the company’s strong suits, especially with solid hardware in its budget and mid-tier devices. That seems to be changing now, especially when the company moved to a licensing system a few years ago.

This change would affect some of the company’s iconic device lines, with the likes of Redmi Note (Note 6 and later) and the Mi Max series. The affected devices include those running MIUI (12, 13, 14) and HyperOS 1.

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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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The upcoming Pixel 10 is reported to come with a heap load of Gemini-powered camera features. Using on-device AI, Google will now allow you to edit photos using text or voice prompts. It doesn’t require you to have previous knowledge of editing photos, just a simple prompt, and wait for the AI to work its magic.

You can tell Gemini to either make your photos brighter, remove objects, or fix the blur on certain parts. All of the aforementioned editing tools aren’t new per se, but now they won’t require you to “know” what or how to edit.

Gemini may give real-time suggestions via “Camera Coach” on taking better photos

Not only this, but the new Pixel will also come with “camera coach,” which will guide you through taking better photos, when you pull up the camera app, in real-time. It’ll also be coaching you through choosing the best lighting, adjusting framing, or the camera angles.

At the moment, we don’t have more information on how this “coaching” will work, or how fast it’ll give suggestions. But it’s interesting to see Google diving headfirst into using AI to play to its strengths. The Pixel 10 comes out on August 20th, at the “Made by Google” event, and will be available to pre-order the same day.

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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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