The biggest patent battle in the tech industry has come to an end-- Apple and Samsung resolve the last of a string of lawsuits spanning 4 continents, Bloomberg reports. The terms behind the agreement are not available.

The legal disputes started in 2011, after the late Steve Jobs vowed to go "thermonuclear" on Android-based iPhone rivals. The ensuing Smartphone War involved every major industry player, but the harshest battles involved Samsung. Apple insisted the S. Korean giant "slavishly" copied the iPhone design, while at one point a Samsung lawyer described Apple as a "jihadist."

Intel announces the immediate resignation of Brian Krzanich as CEO, after learning he had a "consensual relationship" with a fellow employee, a violation of Chipzilla non-fraternisation policies.

The company already has a replacement for Krzanich, at least in the interim-- CFO Robert Swan.

“The Board believes strongly in Intel’s strategy and we are confident in Bob Swan’s ability to lead the company as we conduct a robust search for our next CEO," chairman Andy Bryant says. "Bob has been instrumental to the development and execution of Intel’s strategy, and we know the company will continue to smoothly execute. We appreciate Brian’s many contributions to Intel."

Back in November 2017, Intel hired former AMD Radeon Technology Group head Raja Koduri to lead the company's graphics effort. Now Chipzilla confirms its plans by stating it will release a first discrete graphics chip in 2020.

The Intel take on discrete GPUs is dubbed "Arctic Sound." Developed as part of a wider-scale AI and machine-learning strategy, the discrete GPU effort will actually be divided in two, with one wing concentrating on datacentre solutions and the other on client offerings such as gaming or professional development.

Intel celebrates the 40th anniversary of the historic 8086 processor at Computex 2018 with a special edition CPU-- the Core i7-8086K, an 8th generation chip able to reach speeds of up to 5Ghz without overclocking.

The anniversary is actually a dual one, since Chipzilla is also celebrating 50 years in the business. However the 8086 is arguably more important, since the processor was the first running on x86 architecture, making it a chief reason as to why Intel is the giant it is today. Of course the Core i7-8086 is a bit more sophisticated than the original 16-chip 8086, being a Coffee Lake-based chip with a 6-core/12-thread part with a 4GHz base clock, 5GHz boost clock, and 12MB of L3 cache.

The saga of the sale of Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) has finally come to a close-- following a lengthy review by Chinese antitrust authorities the constortium lead by Bain Capital now owns the lucrative chipmaking business.

Confirmation comes via Toshiba, who states the sale is worth three hundred million yen (roughly $18 billion). The deal was set to close on March 2018, but the Chinese authorities took longer than expected to go through the paperwork.

Now TMC belongs to KK Pangea, a purpose-built company making part of Bain Capital. Controlling it is a consortium of buyers consisting Apple, SK Hynix, Dell and Seagate. Interestingly Toshiba owns 40% of the unit, giving it voting rights but not majority rule. That said, Toshiba is "expected" to eventually become a Pangea affiliate.

Qualcomm launches a processor aimed specifically at AR and VR headsets-- the Snapdragon XR1 Platform, described as the first dedicated processor for eXtended Reality (XR).

Current standalone VR headsets have had to make use of what are essentially repurposed smartphone processors. The XR1 claims to change the situation, since it is a platform powerful enough to handle such tasks while a fairly low price point. Admittedly the chipset does appear to be based on Qualcomm smartphone offerings, if tweaked with an emphasis on the processing of 3D XR tasks, such as audio/visual processing, user interaction and AI.

Nvidia announces an end to the GeForce Partner Program (GPP)-- an program encouraging vendors to produce machines running solely on Nvidia hardware-- just two months after the initial announcement.

A terse statement from the company simply reads “the rumors, conjecture and mistruths go far beyond [the GPP’s] intent. Rather than battling misinformation, we have decided to cancel the program.” Nvidia adds ending the program allows it to "avoid any distraction from the super exciting work we’re doing to bring amazing advances to PC gaming.” Further information, such as whether the announcement affects other Nvidia partner programs, is not available.

A "global strategic alliance" with 3 Group owner CK Hutchison brings Xiaomi to European markets, with products initially available at 3 Group stores in Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the UK.

As the two companies put it, the alliance helps accelerate the international expansion of Xiaomi. CK Hutchinson counts over 17700 retail and telecom stores worldwide, around 130 million active mobile customers and 140 million retail customers. As such, the partnership also brings Xiaomi products in Watson Fortress, Superdrug and Kruidvat stores in Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands, and the Chinese company will be collaborating with CK Hutchinson operator channels in European markets.