Intel launches the 8th generation Core U- and Y-series processors optimised for ultra-low and extremely-low power devices-- the U-series (codenamed Whiskey Lake) and Y-series (aka Amber Lake).

The U-series brings an Intel first in the shape of integrated gigabit wifi, promising up to 12x faster wireless connectivity. Chipzilla also claims up to 2x better performance (compared to a 5-year old PC, at least) and "double-digit" gains in tasks such as web browsing and light content creation over the previous generation. The result is faster downloads, 4K/360-degree video creation and sharing, and better game performance.

What can a customer buy for a gamer who has everything? The Next @ Acer IFA 2018 presentation might include a suggestion-- the Acer Predator Thronos, a gaming chair that is a sure candidate for most impressive product at the show.

While technically a "chair," the Predator Thronos is more of a cockpit equipped with everything the serious gamer needs. It looks like something out of a futuristic arcade, and consists of a 1.5m tall chair and an imposing motorised arm able to hold three 27-inch gaming monitors in front of the user's face. Built out of steel, the setup weighs 220kg.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon is working on a "new type of digital recorder for the streaming era"-- essentially a TiVo rival able to work around cable providers.

Reportedly dubbed "Frank," the device includes physical storage and paires with Fire TV boxes through the same wireless technology used by Echo devices. The story adds users will be able to record live TV and stream the video to smartphones for later viewing, functionality already offered by TiVo and Dish Network's Slingbox.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes the SIGGRAPH 2018 main stage to unveil the company's 8th generation GPU architecture-- Turing, described as "the greatest leap since the invention of the CUDA GPU in 2006."

The biggest claim for Turing is hybrid rendering, a combination of ray tracing with traditional rasterisation. Nvidia says Turing architecture features an RT core, a set of dedicated processors able to render ray tracing in real time. For the curious, the RT core does by accelerating ray-triangle intersection checks and bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) manipulation, a popular data structure for object storage in ray tracing.

A gaming hardware announcement from Chinese brand Zhongashan Subor provides a glimpse of future AMD offerings-- a semi-custom SoC bringing together a Ryzen CPU with Vega graphics.

The high-performance SoC consists of a 4-core/8 thread Ryzen CPU running at 3GHz and a 1.3GHz 24CU Vega GPU. Also included in chip are 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. The chip will power a "new gaming PC and upcoming console" aimed at the Chinese market revealed at ChinaJoy, the largest game and digital entertainment exhibition in China and Asia.

Logitech steps into something different with the acquisition of Blue Microphones, maker of well known USB condenser microphones such as the Snowball and Yeti. The asking price? A cool $117 million.

“Logitech’s acquisition of Blue Microphones will accelerate our entry into a growing market, and offers another way for us to help bring people’s passions (from music to blogging) to life," the company says. "Joining with Blue is an adjacent opportunity for us – a new way to grow – with additional synergies related to our existing gaming, PC webcam and audio categories.”

Apple continues making headway into becoming a $1 trillion company, with revenues growing by 17% Y-o-Y to reach $53.3 billion, leading to profits worth $11.5bn, even during the traditionally slow fiscal Q3 2018 (ending June 2018).

“We’re thrilled to report Apple’s best June quarter ever, and our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth,” CEO Tim Cook says. “Our Q3 results were driven by continued strong sales of iPhone, Services and Wearables, and we are very excited about the products and services in our pipeline.”

The European Commission fines Asus, Denon & Marantz, Philips and Pioneer for breaking EU antitrust rules, leading to higher prices for "kitchen appliances, hair dryers, notebook computers, headphones and many other products."

The announcement follows the recent €4.3 billion antitrust fine put on Google, the result of "illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices to strengthen dominance of Google's search engine." As for the 4 above mentioned vendors, the EC points out all engaged in "fixed or minimum resale price maintenance (RPM)," or not allowing retailers to set own product prices.