Tom's Hardware Weekly News Recap: July 20, 2018

This was the week seemingly every tech company--with the exception of Intel and Micron--decided to make friends. AMD, Nvidia, and numerous VR companies partnered up to introduce a new standard for USB Type-C to simplify the VR setup process. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft revealed a new Data Transfer Project to help consumers move between various services. And, unfortunately, Apple decided to give control over the data of Chinese iCloud users over to the state-owned China Telecom.

Gearbox

Rumors about Nvidia's upcoming 11-series GPUs including a new connector meant specifically for VR cropped up over the last month or so. This week saw confirmation that, like many rumors, this scuttlebutt was partly correct. Nvidia, AMD, Oculus, Microsoft, and other companies banded together as the VirtualLink consortium to announce a new USB Type-C standard that would simplify the VR setup process. Presumably that means Nvidia's next GPUs will support this standard, meaning they'll improve VR support but will do so without some kind of proprietary connection.

Here are the other gear-related stories we covered this week:

XPoint Shakeup: Intel and Micron to Cease Joint Development of 3D XPoint Next YearDell Leaks New XPS 13 2-in-1, Amber Lake CPUs Samsung Develops Industry’s First 8Gb LPDDR5 DRAM ChipPerformance Preview: 13-inch MacBook Pro Benchmarks Are HereGigabyte Unveils Four B450 MotherboardsGigabyte Announces the Aorus P850W and P750W Power SuppliesCorsair Launches Carbide Spec-06 RGB CasesNZXT Teams Up With Seasonic for Semi-Digital E Series PSUsGorilla Glass 6 Is Ready for Your Device to Drop 15 TimesHow the New MacBook Pro Solves Apple's Keyboard ProblemSamsung's New Monitor Can't Decide If It's for Gaming or BusinessASRock, Asus, MSI Detail Z370 BIOS for 9000-Series Intel CPUs

Calling Insecurity

Tech companies have long struggled to enter China without having to bow to its government. Some are more willing to compromise than most, and now it seems that Apple's particularly eager to continue selling its products in the obscenely highly populated country. News broke this week that China Telecom, a state-owned wireless provider, will manage iCloud data. That doesn't bode well for the privacy of Chinese consumers.

Here are the other security and privacy stories we covered this week:

AMD Ryzen Mobile Processors to Gain Support for Hardened Biometrics SecurityBackdoors Keep Appearing In Cisco's RoutersRobocaller's Misconfigured AWS Cloud Storage Leaks U.S. Voter DataMicrosoft Will Pay up to $100,000 via 'Identity Bounty Program'Why You Should Make Venmo Payments PrivateInsecure Dahua DVRs Expose Passwords to IoT Search Engine

The Best Of The Rest

Earlier this month the U.S. government introduced $200 billion tariffs on Chinese products that fell into a large number of categories. (Including several types of helicopter.) Now we might know the first victims of these tariffs: wearable devices like the Apple Watch and smart speakers. That's because they are considered "data transmission machines," which is one of the 6,000 categories of product that can be hit by the tariffs.

Here are the other stories that rounded out our week:

EU Fines Google $5 Billion Over Illegal Android PracticesMicrosoft, Facebook and Friends Looking to Drive Data PortabilityWestern Digital Shutting Down Hard Drive FactoryNvidia Merging GeForce Now Service for Shield TV and Desktop PCs8BitDo DIY Kit Makes Retro Controllers WirelessMicrosoft and Walmart Tag Team Against Amazon

That’s everything we have from this week. Enjoy your weekend!