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According to media sources, two subsidiaries of Chinese Oppo, OnePlus and Realme, have merged.

The information is based on data from a Chinese leaker considered quite reliable, which was published on China's most popular social media service Weibo (in Chinese).

According to the information, the companies will establish a joint "sub-product center" that would coordinate the product launches and apparently also the product development of both brands. The same center would be responsible for coordinating the operations of both brands both in China and abroad.

The head of the center would be OnePlus's China director Li Jie, and his superior would be OnePlus's current head Pete Lau. In addition, the marketing of both companies will be centralized under another, separate unit.

OnePlus has been at the center of wild rumors throughout the beginning of the year, and a significant number of personnel are reported to have left the company in all Western countries. Around the same time, Oppo also re-merged Realme, which previously operated independently, back into Oppo's tighter corporate structure.

The European Commission has issued its preliminary findings from an investigation launched in January 2026, concerning Google's activities in relation to the Android operating system and AI services.

The findings, based on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), suggest that Google must open up Android's key functionalities and interfaces to competing AI services to ensure fair competition and service interoperability.

Currently, Google reserves many deep-level capabilities of Android devices primarily for its own AI products, such as Gemini.

The actions planned by the EU would force Google to allow competing AIs to perform tasks directly within other applications on the phone.

For example, a user could ask their preferred AI to send an email using their favorite app, order food, or share photos with friends, without Google's own services acting as a bottleneck.

One of the most visible changes for consumers would concern the activation of AI services.

The Commission demands that users must be able to easily activate competing AI services using their own wake words.

Valve's anticipated new Steam Controller has finally received its official unveiling. The controller will go on sale on May 4th at 8:00 PM Finnish time, and its price has been confirmed at 99 euros.

The new device is designed to work seamlessly with the entire Steam ecosystem, offering support for traditional PC computers, Steam Deck, and Steam Machine devices.

The controller's most significant technical innovation is its magnetic joysticks utilizing TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) technology. These sticks consume less power and offer a more precise response than traditional Hall sensors. The technology also effectively combats the stick drift issue that plagues many game controllers.

In terms of control, Valve has combined the familiar touchpads from the first Steam Controller with a more traditional controller layout. The device features two precise touchpads, enabling gameplay for games requiring mouse control, such as strategy and simulation games.

Precision is further enhanced by gyroscope support, which can be activated simply by resting a finger on the sticks or the new grip sensor. Additionally, the back of the controller features four programmable extra buttons.

Microsoft's operating system Windows 11 has faced exceptionally harsh criticism from two different directions in recent months: firstly, users and consumer organizations have criticized the company for aggressive sales and subscription prompts added to Windows - and secondly, users have complained about the erosion of very basic things, such as performance and reliability.

Now the company is trying to repair its damaged reputation with a new initiative, known by the codename Windows K2, which aims to restore user trust and make Windows 11 a more stable and pleasant platform.

One of the most prominent points of contention has been Windows 11's so-called "second-stage setup," which can appear to the user months or even years after the device has been put into use. For the user, this manifests as a screen popping up when the computer starts, stating that the computer's setup is "almost complete," even if Windows has been in use for years. The process guides through a series of choices, offering, among other things, "recommended settings" for the browser, linking a phone to the computer, Office subscription options, and advertisements for the Xbox Game Pass service.

One of the most popular AI-based programming tools among developers, Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot, announced today a complete overhaul of its pricing.

Starting from the beginning of June 2026, GitHub Copilot's billing will shift largely to a model based on actual usage.

In principle, the basic pricing will still be based on a fixed monthly fee. But from now on, each pricing tier will only include a limited number of tokens, the basic units of AI computation.

If the tokens run out during the monthly subscription period, the user must either purchase additional tokens or wait until the current billing cycle ends and a new one begins.

The company explains the change in its blog by saying that within a year, the shift in how AI is used for programming has been so massive that the pricing had to be changed.

Previously, AI was used mainly as an assistant that you asked for instructions or requested to code a specific part of a project. But with the rise of agentic programming, the world is completely different.

In agentic AI programming, you give the AI a description of what the end result should be like and then set it to work independently. And the requests can be for entire, massive web services that AI agents build for hours - or even days - on their own.

The immensely popular online marketplace for used goods, Vinted, is emerging as one of Europe's most valuable startups.

The company's current shareholders sold shares to new buyers in a so-called secondary transaction round, and Vinted's market value was determined to be a staggering 8 billion euros.

Lithuanian Vinted reports that the company's revenue rose to over one billion euros in 2025 - and this figure includes only the commission fees collected by Vinted itself, not the value of products sold through it.

The company operates in 26 countries and is already profitable, meaning the company did not raise any working capital for itself through a share issue this time, but rather allowed existing shareholders to sell shares to new owners (the company is not yet publicly listed).

SpaceX and Cursor, a developer of an AI-based software development environment, have entered into a mega-deal that has turned out to be an even broader power play in the AI market. According to insider sources, Microsoft also considered buying Cursor, but ultimately withdrew from the negotiations before SpaceX secured a multi-billion dollar cooperation agreement and an option for a potential acquisition.

According to reports, Microsoft seriously evaluated acquiring Cursor but did not proceed to a formal offer. There has been much speculation about why Microsoft ultimately did not make a bid for Cursor: the company already has a strong position in developer tools through GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code, but on the other hand, Cursor has rapidly grown into one of the most popular AI-based programming environments. One possible obstacle to a Microsoft bid is thought to have been that the deal would likely have come under scrutiny from competition authorities.

After Microsoft bowed out, a cooperation agreement between SpaceX and Cursor was concluded. Under it, SpaceX has two ways to move forward: first, SpaceX will in any case pay Cursor about $10 billion for computing power and collaboration under the agreement - but it also retains the option to buy Cursor outright for about $60 billion.

We recently reported how the U.S. federal police FBI had managed to extract messages from the highly encrypted Signal messaging app from a suspect's phone.

The FBI had managed to get hold of Signal messages sent to the phone owner, even though the phone owner had already deleted the Signal app from their phone.

The trick worked because Apple's iPhones stored notifications received by the phone in a separate database saved on the phone.

So, authorities did not access Signal or its messages directly, but rather the notifications shown to the phone user about new messages - which also included information about the sender and the content of the message.

Following the publicity surrounding the trick, Apple has now changed the iPhone's notification history function, and it is no longer possible to recover the content of notifications marked as destroyed by the receiving app from the history data. And if an app is deleted from the phone, the iPhone's notification history simultaneously destroys all notifications received for that app from its history data.

The global component shortage, which began in the autumn due to the growth of AI companies, and the drastic increase in memory chip prices, are biting ever more severely into companies manufacturing consumer electronics.

Media sources, such as SammyGuru report that South Korean Samsung's mobile phone unit would be turning unprofitable for 2026.

If the forecasts are correct, 2026 would be the first time in the entire company's history that its mobile phone business would be unprofitable on an annual basis.

According to South Korean information (in Korean), the problem is that, for example, memory chip prices continue to rise, and companies selling products to consumers, such as Samsung's mobile phone unit, cannot raise prices charged to consumers at the same pace.

This year, a situation will likely be seen where upcoming mobile phone releases will feature less operating memory (RAM) and storage than before.

Sony is significantly changing the licensing terms for new digitally purchased PS4 and PS5 games.

Going forward, all new digitally purchased games will require the console on which the game is installed to go online at least every 30 days. This was noticed by YouTuber Lance McDonald, who shared his findings on social media (link goes to X/Twitter).

If more than 30 days have passed since the last online license verification for a game, the game cannot be played. Access to the game will return once the console is connected to the internet again and verifies the game's license.

The change will apply to all new digitally purchased games bought through Sony's online store for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

The change does not apply to previously purchased digital downloads, nor does it apply to physically purchased games.

Apparently, the change was not meant to be implemented yet, at least a game historian referring to insider sources (X/Twitter link) claims. According to him, Sony apparently accidentally already put the updated digital rights management system into use.

Anthropic has emerged as the new face of the AI boom, as secondary market trading of the company's shares has raised its valuation to a staggering trillion dollars, surpassing competitor OpenAI. The valuation is based on transactions on private trading platforms, such as Forge Global and Hiive, where investors are willing to pay almost three times the price for the company's shares compared to the latest official funding round.

According to Business Insider , secondary market transactions value Anthropic at approximately one trillion dollars (about 853 billion euros), which means the company would be over 100 billion dollars more valuable than OpenAI. On the other hand, official funding rounds are still on a completely different level: Anthropic's latest funding round valued it at approximately 380 billion dollars, and OpenAI's corresponding latest funding round valued the company at 852 billion dollars.

The differences between the valuations of funding rounds and private trading platforms primarily indicate that smaller, private investors are willing to pay significantly more for Anthropic's shares than the large entities participating in funding rounds have paid for them so far.

Microsoft's gaming unit is experiencing new winds, as it has extensively renewed the leadership of its gaming unit.

Within a week, the first concrete changes have been seen regarding what the change in leadership means in practice.

Firstly, a few years ago, the gaming unit changed its name to Microsoft Gaming, but now that name is being abandoned. The original name will return, meaning the entire gaming unit will simply be named Xbox.

Microsoft had already announced how the price of the Xbox Game Pass monthly subscription would be significantly lowered. The company had drastically increased the price of Game Pass last autumn, which has apparently been very poorly received by players.

Now, a significant step back is being taken, as the price of the most expensive Ultimate subscription drops from $29.99/€26.99 euros/month to $22.99/€20.99/month. At the same time, however, future versions of the Call of Duty game series will no longer arrive on Game Pass immediately, but only almost a year after release.

But perhaps the most interesting is the message published by the new leaders of the Xbox unit, message to the gaming community.

The Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), has begun a transition towards European IT solutions.

The central bank has signed what is described as a major agreement for the gradual migration of its cloud services to the cloud of Schwarz Digits. Schwarz Digits is a subsidiary of Schwarz Group, the parent company of supermarket chain Lidl.

According to Dutch media sources, the country's central bank and the authority regulating the financial sector already publicly expressed their concern last year about how dependent the country's economic actors are on American IT solutions.

Schwarz Digits began building a massive €11 billion data center in Germany at the end of 2025.

Austrian StreamView GmbH, known especially as a manufacturer and distributor of Thomson-branded televisions and streaming devices, has filed for bankruptcy.

According to the bankruptcy application filed in Vienna, the company has debts of approximately 36.6 million euros.

StreamView has become known to Finns especially for its earlier role as the force behind Nokia-branded televisions and media devices, but recently the company has focused on Thomson products, which are widely available across Europe.

StreamView has been responsible for Thomson-branded products in Europe for several years and recently released new Google TV devices, including an updated version of its streaming device.

As reasons for the bankruptcy, the company states the general rise in cost levels, trade barriers, and difficulties with its Chinese partner. The company has announced that it does not intend to submit a restructuring plan, which means it will be simply ending its business operations.

However, the American company Established Inc., which owns the Thomson brand, has sought to reassure the markets. According to the brand owner, it will do everything possible to ensure the continuity of services and support for consumers while it seeks a new partner for the manufacturing and distribution of Thomson devices in Europe.

Google has been by far the world's largest company selling ad inventory for years now.

Of all advertising money spent in the world, over a quarter is estimated to end up as Google's revenue. The figure of which the quarter is taken by Google includes absolutely all ad sales worldwide - including ad space in print newspapers, street advertising, and TV advertising.

But according to estimates, Google is about to lose its top spot, according to an estimate by the analytics company eMarketer. eMarketer's analysis states that Meta's ad revenue is going to surpass Google's by end of this year.

Google would lose its position in the United States and also globally.

According to their estimate, Meta's ad revenue level for 2026 would be 243 billion dollars (appx. 207 billion euros) and Google's corresponding figure would be approximately 240 billion dollars (appx. 205 billion euros).

The gap would be widening significantly in Meta's favor in the coming years, as the same estimate predicts 316 billion dollars in ad revenue for Meta by 2028, with Google reaching 298 billion dollars in ad revenue.