The year coming to a close is a time for both celebration and contemplation, especially when the year was as tumultuous as that known as 2018. In our case we ponder about the year in our industry, so join us as we take a look at what we believe were the biggest stories.
iPad Pro Gets USB-C: Apple confirmed months of rumours with the latest iPad iteration, even if it still had one surprise. After all, Apple is hard to give up on the proprietary connectors, which is why the adoption of USB-C in the 2018 iPad Pro is something of an eye opener. Also surprising is the lack of familiar Home button, replaced by the TrueDepth camera inside the top bezel and Face ID.
Stable 2018 for EMEA PCs: The PC market was somewhat stable in 2018, at least according to IDC, who reports Q2 2018 saw the strongest growth in traditional PCs since 2014, in good part thanks to the commercial segment. Q3 2018 was also stable, as Windows 10 adoption within the commercial segment helped offset a consumer market in perpetual decline.
Intel Claims Best Gaming Processors: October 2018 saw Intel reveal the 9th generation Core desktop processor line, including the Core i9-990K, described as nothing less than "the world's best gaming processor." As the highest-end processor, it features 8C/16T with a base frequency of 3.6GHz and 5GHz boost, together with 16MB L3 cache (2MB per core) and dual-channel DDR4-2666 support. Joining it are 2 other processors, the Core i7-9700K and i5-6900K.
Maplin Closure: Spare a thought for Maplin Electronics, the most prominent victim of the high streets for 2018. The retailer had something of an annus horribilis throughout, going through a slow motion annihilation of job losses and store closures before administrator Price Waterhouse Cooper declared it, effectively, dead. Also joining it in the British high street hard times are other retailers, including Carpetright, New Look, Moss Bros and Mothercare.
Gamescom Reveal for Nvidia GeForce RTX GPUs: Nvidia takes to Gamescom to present the GeForce RTX series-- the first gaming GPUs based on the recently revealed Turing architecture, promising to bring advanced features such as real-time ray tracing to the consumer market. The company claims the RTX series offer hybrid capability able to deliver "6x more performance" than Pascal, allowing for 4K HDR gaming running at no less than 60 frames per second, even on advanced titles.
HP Makes Laptop... Out of Leather: The Spectre Folio represents an unusual notebook design-- whereas other high-end MacBook-style notebooks are clad in metal, the HP convertible has an external clamshell made wholly out of leather, down to the accent stitching and a smooth sheen, a first according to the company.
Caphone Warehouse's Data Breach: Back in June 2017 Carphone Warehouse announce to a data breach leading to the leak of 1.2 million personal data records. However this year had the retailer admit the situation was even worse, since it involved no less than 10 million customers. The personal data includes names, addresses and email addresses, but no bank records were included, and so far no evidence ponts to fraud resulting from the breach.
A VirtualLink Connector for VR Hardware: Next generation VR headsets needs a different kind of connection standard, the industry declares. Enter the VirtualLink standard, a USB-C alternate mode able to provide all necessary power and data through a single Type-C cable and connector. It is developed by a newly formed industry consortium bringing together big names including Nvidia, AMD, Oculus, Valve and Microsoft, and is set to be an "open industry standard" boiling down all VR headsets plugs into a single, thin cable.