On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Braun returns to audio after 28 years away from the industry with the announcement of plans to bring back the classic LE speaker range, set to make a first appearance at the upcoming IFA 2019 in Berlin, Germany.

As the company puts it, the launch will make a "perfect reintroduction to the heritage of Braun Audio," with a focus on the "purity of design, purity of performance and, above all else, the purity of sound." Further details on the speakers are scant, but Braun does promise "state-of-the-art technology and connectivity," within elegant and minimalist design. That said, actually making the speakers is British speaker maker Pure, with a license for the Braun name from owner Procter and Gamble.

Asus announces a sequel to the gaming-focused ROG Phone-- the predictably named ROG Phone II, an update the company claims is the first smartphone featuring a 120Hz AMOLED display, together with a more powerful Snapdragon 855 Plus processor.

The aforementioned display is 6.59-inch, and features both an integrated fingerprint sensor and 10-bit HDR support. Resolution is FHD+ (2340 x 1080), and customers can scale down the refresh from 120Hz to 90 or 60Hz in order to save battery life. Furthermore, Asus claims the touch latency is 49ms, the lowest in any phone yet.

Powering the handset is the Snapdragon 855 Plus, a chipset designed for gaming smartphones promising a 15% faster GPU and higher peak CPU clock speeds. Built using a 7nm processor, the chip generates less heat than previous Qualcomm processors such as the Snapdragon 845, but just in case the ROG Phone II also includes a vapor chamber, heat sink and air vents in order to keep things cool. Also included are 128GB RAM, up to 512GB of UFS 3.0 storage, 48MP rear-/13MP front-facing cameras and a 6000mAh battery.

The European Commission (EC) opens a formal antitrust investigation in Amazon-- one set to determine whether the use of sensitive data from independent retailers by the the online retail giant represents a breach of EU competition rules.

"European consumers are increasingly shopping online. E-commerce has boosted retail competition and brought more choice and better prices. We need to ensure that large online platforms don't eliminate these benefits through anti-competitive behaviour," commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager says. "I have therefore decided to take a very close look at Amazon's business practices and its dual role as marketplace and retailer, to assess its compliance with EU competition rules.”

While Amazon is, of course, best known as the online retail giant, it also provides a marketplace for independent sellers wanting to sell products directly to consumers. Amazon continuously collects data of the activity taking place on its platform and, according to preliminary fact-finding by the EC, Amazon appears to competitively use sensitive information about marketplace sellers, products and transactions taking place.

According to Gartner, global device-- namely PCs, tablets and mobile phones-- shipments will total 2.2 billion in 2019, a -3.3% decline, with mobile phones recording the worst performance with a -3.8% decline.

“The current mobile phone market of 1.7bn shipments is around 910% below the 1.9 billion shipments reached in 2015,” the analyst says. “If mobile phones don’t provide significant new utility, efficiency or experiences, users won’t upgrade them, and will consequently increase these devices’ life spans.”

The trend of lengthening mobile phone lifespans started in 2018, and will continue through 2019. Gartner says high-end phone lifespans will increase from 2.6 years to around 2.9 years through 2023. In addition, smartphone sales are set to drop by -2.5% in 2019, the worst decline yet.

This year saw the launch of 5G services in Switzerland, Finland and the UK, as well as parts of the UK and S. Korea. However it will take time for carriers to expand 5G coverage beyond major cities, and by 2020 around 7% of global communications service providers will have a commercially viable wireless 5G service. This is "significant" progress from the proofs of concept and commercial network construction work of 2018, Gartner remarks.