Welcome to the first real work week of the new year and new decade. Some of you may have been among the 200,000 others wandering around CES. Even if you were there, you probably missed most of the CES newsbits we start off with, along with other tidbits swept away by the tidal wave of CES news.
Greetings from Las Vegas. If you’re a traveling gamer you’re always searching for better graphics and faster play. AMD’s new Radeon RX 5600M GPU was designed to give world-class 1080p gaming for laptops. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 line supports lots of desktops, too.
But wait, there’s more! The new AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Mobile Processor family built on the Zen 2 core architecture with the advanced 7nm process technology were announced at CES as well. A hot new mobile processor to go with the hot new mobile GPU.
ASUS pulled the curtain on a batch of new products, like the ultrathin Chromebook Flip C436, the VivoBook S (S333/S433/S533) series (13-, 14-, and 15-inch laptops) and ExpertBook B9450.
Motherboards, monitors, and network products also got in the spotlight. Drilling down, the ExpertBook B9450 weighs just 1.91 lbs. even with a 10th Gen Intel Core processor, two 1 TB PCIe 3.0 SSDs, and 16 GB of RAM. Hard to appreciate all that power on one screen, so it includes a full-sized HDMI port for a second monitor.
Prefer gaming? Peruse the new ASUS Zephrus G14 and G15 gaming laptops with new AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Mobile Processors. More gaming goodness from ASUS? The ROG Strix Impact II Wireless mouse, ROG ITX Z11 case, and ROG Strix GA15 gaming desktop for serious esports performance.
Dynabook Americas, (formerly Toshiba America Client Solutions) announced processor upgrades for its entire Tecra A Series product line, including the Tecra A50-F, Tecra A40-G and the newly rebranded Tecra A30-G. 10th Gen Intel Core processors and the +Care Service warranty as well. And don’t miss the new Portege X30L, a 13.3-inch laptop that weighs only 1.92 pounds.
NETGEAR is doubling down on its Nighthawk Wi-Fi 6 products with the launch of Nighthawk Mesh WiFi. We reviewed the NETGEAR Nighthawk AX12 WiFi 6 Router in November. Also out now? The NETGEAR Orbi Tri-Band Mesh WiFi system with 4G LTE cellular connection as an alternative to wired Internet connections.
Inexpensive surveillance cameras make monitoring cheaper and easier than ever, but those cameras need juice. Say hello to the new NETGEAR Gigabit Ethernet PoE+ and Ultra60 PoE++ powered switch models now available worldwide. Unmanaged and Smart Managed Pro options from 10 to 48 ports.
TP-Link expanded its Wi-Fi 6 product line with two new tri-band routers: the Archer AX90 and Archer GX90. The AX1500 Range Extender could come in handy as well.
Looks like it’s a Wi-Fi 6 world now, at least at CES. Here’s a batch of new mesh Wi-Fi products from D-Link:
- COVR-1902 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi System
- DIR-1750 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Gigabit Router
- DIR-1950 MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router
- DAP-1755 Mesh Wi-Fi Range Extender
- DAP-1955 Mesh Wi-Fi Range Extender
And another half-dozen, including the new DIR-X1560 Smart Wi-Fi 6 Router.
From another department, D-Link has a new set of cameras that can tell the difference between people and objects and trigger an alarm when glass breaks. Hello to the Full HD Pan and Tilt Pro Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-8302LH) and Full HD Indoor and Outdoor Pro Wi-Fi Camera (DCS-8526LH)
What, no 5G products yet? Here’s some: D-Link 5G NR Enhanced Gateway, 5G Gateway, and 5G NT Outdoor Unit. Speeds up to 3 Gbps.
Linksys, Wemo, and Phyn, the connected home division from Belkin and Foxconn, had some fun 5G and Wi-Fi 6 announcements of their own. Linksys showed 5G hotspots, modems, routers, and mesh gateways along with Wi-Fi 6 routers. The Wemo WiFi Smart Plug is small yet has voice assistant capabilities. Drink in the coolness of the Phyn Smart Water Assistant.
Non-hardware CES news. Linksys also partnered with Axiros and its IoT device management. Linksys Velop mesh Wi-Fi now teams up with the Axiros Remote Device Management platform to help handle IoT devices and more.
Schneider Electric jumped into the residential market in a big way, mostly through its Square D group. Look for the Wiser Energy System from Square D, with Smart Home Monitor and Smart Home Solar edition, routed through the Square D Energy Hub.
Sprint’s IoT Factory gets a redesign to better help small businesses solve operational problems with IoT. Look for IoT In a Box and tailored solutions based on proven technology. Sprint and Wirecard (digital financial tech) mashed up to create a platform to deliver the “Internet of Payments.”
Did you know BlackBerry QNX was in more than 150 million cars? New tools for the auto market include BlackBerry QNX Hypervisor, CylanceProtect, CylanceOPTICS, and more.
Early NRF news. Might not be as mega as CES, but the National Retail Federation show in NYC next week is a big deal too, so that’s where HP has decided to announce new cloud services for retailers and hospitality operators. Howdy, HP Engage Console (pictured) and HP Engage Catalog.
Retail chains have lots of locations, and the Aruba SD-Branch solution, part of the company’s Edge-to-Cloud strategy, provides a single point of control and management for SD-WAN, wired, and wireless networking.
Cradlepoint, with its LTE and 5G products, just announced new machine learning capability for its NetCloud Service. All 5G ready when the carriers get to your location.
Other product news. NComputing took the Raspberry Pi 4 platform, added Stratodesk NoTouch OS, and made it Citrix ready. The result? The RX420(HDX) Citrix Ready workspace hub, an enterprise ready thin client.
Automation is great but getting there can be pretty labor intensive. The Nintex Process Platform just added a new gallery of templates to help companies automate more quickly and accurately.
CaaB, the company name that stands for Cloud as a Business, now has a Single-Click App to help users migrate to the cloud of their choice.
It won’t be winter forever, which mean people will wander outside again in a few months. Be ready to help them stream their kitten videos, and, oh yeah, work, with the new EnGenius Technologies WiFi 6 outdoor access point.
Need a cooler case, in both definitions of the word? Hello, Velocity Micro NX2, a new aluminum Small Form Factor chassis with the Velocity Micro LiquiCool 8 all-in-one cooling solution.
Look, ma, vendors but no products. Ivanti announced Chairman of the Board Jim Schaper has been appointed CEO. Longtime CEO Steve Daly has retired but will remain a board member.
WatchGuard welcomes Andy Reinland (pictured) as its new CFO.
Kaspersky rolled out the red carpet for Rob Cataldo as he becomes managing director, North America, responsible for sales, business development, and marketing.
Talend (data integrity) ordered lots of new business cards. Christal Bemont takes over as CEO from Mike Tuchen, who will remain on the board. Ann-Christel Graham is now chief revenue officer and Jamie Kiser is chief customer officer. That’s an impressive three new women in the C-suite, in case you’re counting.
Pam Murphy joins Imperva (security) as its CEO.
Claroty (security) has a new Chief Marketing Officer: Jennifer Leggio.
NETGEAR brings in Dr. Martin Westhead as CTO of software.
Data security company Mimecast acquired Segasec, a provider of digital threat protection.
This week’s stats ticker:
The Zix | AppRiver Cyberthreat Index for Business collected data online in October 2019 from companies with 1 to 250 employees across a range of industries. Respondents were all executives, from CEO to head of data management or compliance officer. 99% of the larger companies that responded are interested in AI for use in their business, especially companies in the telecom (98%), financial services and insurance (95%), and government (94%) segments. Yet nearly 7 of 10 (68%) weren’t aware of potential cybersecurity risks. Doesn’t matter: even the aware companies will use AI anyway. 54% of all SMBs plan to use AI no matter the risks. And people wonder how the movies came up with the idea for Skynet.
Don’t dis the BBQ sauce. In some parts of the country (warmer parts), BBQ sauce can be a prized family recipe, point of pride, winner of blue ribbons, and source of solace to the afflicted. Yet when Hussien Mehaidli of Fastenal got a single †$5.99 bottle of Hickory BBQ Sauce from Get Sauced as his Christmas gift, he became one of the afflicted. The addition of a grill scraper with the company logo didn’t help, because Mehaidli lives in British Columbia, where outdoor grilling season is about six months away.
So the Fastenal general manager griped in social media that he missed the nice gift box from previous years that included cookies, candies, and beef jerky, which his American-based coworkers received. Did he get some cookies? Nope. He got canned. Fired. Shown the door. Released. RIFed. Dumped.
Mehaidli was not stupid, because he had complained on his anonymous Twitter account. Didn’t matter. His boss called him, referenced the Twitter account comments, and sent him packing for violating the company’s “standards of conduct policy.” Odd that a company has a “no complaints” code of conduct. We thought the “No Whiners” signs were just quaint office humor.
Sorry, no single bottle of BBQ sauce is worth your job. Worse, Fastenal cheapening out to give Canadian employees lousier gifts than their American counterparts seems pretty darn Scrooge-like.
