Gaming headset vendor Turtle Beach announces the acquisition of a fellow game accessory maker-- Germany-based PC peripheral specialist Roccat, through a deal worth $2.9 billion.

According to Turtle Beach, the purchase benefits both companies. After all, Roccat provides Turtle Beach with a more firm position within the PC-centric markets of Europe and Asia, while Turtle Beach will push Roccat products through the N. American channel. Thus the two companies make for an interesting combination, with Roccat offering popular PC peripherals (such as the recently released Kone AIMO gaming mouse) and Turtle Beach claiming over 40% of the console gaming headset market over the past 9 years.

The dream of consumer 3D displays is well and truly over as Nvidia announces the end of support for 3D Vision, a take on 3D involving involving a pair of active glasses hooked to the PC.

3D Vision support officially ends after a driver update released on April 2019.

The Nvidia approach to 3D involves active glasses with 120Hz LCD shutters in each eye. The lenses sync with the display, rapidly flipping on and off to deliver different images. First released back in 2008 as GeForce 3D Vision, the system saw a number of iterations (including a lower-priced wireless version) and Nvidia claimed over 550 games were compatible with the 3D visuals.

Intel announces the Compute Express Link (CXL)-- an interconnect technology designed to improve performance and remove bottlenecks between CPUs and other system components, such as GPUs, memory and FPGAs.

The result of 4 years of development by Intel, CXL is an open technology belonging to the CXL Consortium, an industry body formed in collaboration Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei and Microsoft with the aim to promote and push adoption of the technology.

Intel releases the Thunderbolt 3 protocol specification to the USB Promoter Group, allowing other chip makers to make Thunderbolt-compatible silicon without need to pay royalties to Chipzilla.

“Releasing the Thunderbolt protocol specification is a significant milestone for making today’s simplest and most versatile port available to everyone," Intel says. "This, in combination with the integration of Thunderbolt 3 into upcoming Intel processors is a win-win for the industry and consumers.”

Amazon buys into home mesh networking with Eero, an acquisition the online retailer turned industry giant says will “help customers better connect smart home devices.” Financial details of the deal are not available.

“We are incredibly impressed with the Eero team and how quickly they invented a wifi solution that makes connected devices just work,” Amazon says. “We have a shared vision that the smart home experience can get even easier, and we’re committed to continue innovating on behalf of customers.”

Apple gets a change in leadership as senior retail VP of retail Angela Ahrendts announces her departure from the iPhone maker after 5 years for, as she puts it, "new personal and professional pursuits."

“The last 5 years have been the most stimulating, challenging and fulfilling of my career. Through the teams’ collective efforts, Retail has never been stronger or better positioned to make an even greater contribution for Apple,” Ahrendts says. “I feel there is no better time to pass the baton to Deirdre, one of Apple’s strongest executives. I look forward to watching how this amazing team, under her leadership, will continue to change the world one person and one community at a time.”

Intel decides on a 7th CEO in its 50-year history-- and it is no other than CFO Bob Swan, the man leading the company in the interim for the past 7 months since the resignation of previous CEO Brian Krzanich.

Chipzilla announced the immediate resignation of Krzanich on June 2018, after learning he had a "consensual relationship" with a fellow employee, a violation of company non-fraternisation policies.

Swan has been Intel CFO since 2016, and comes from a primarily financial and investment background. He was CFO of eBay for 9 years, starting in 2006, before joining venture capital General Atlantic. Swan was also the CFO, COO and CEO of Webvan, a grocery delivery startup that was one of the many victims of the 2000 dot-com market crash.

AMD reports revenues for 2018 total $6.48 billion, a 23% increase, with operating income of $451 million and net income of $337m. As for Q4 2018, revenues reache $1.42bn (a 6% Y-o-Y increase) with operating income worth $28m and net income of $38m.

“In 2018 we delivered our second straight year of significant revenue growth, market share gains, expanded gross margin and improved profitability based on our high-performance products. Importantly, we more than doubled our EPYC processor shipments sequentially and delivered record GPU datacenter revenue in the quarter,” CEO Dr. Lisa Su says. “Despite near-term graphics headwinds, 2019 is shaping up to be another exciting year driven by the launch of our broadest and most competitive product portfolio ever with our next-generation 7nm Ryzen, Radeon, and EPYC products.”