Apple’s suppliers are in talks to produce Apple Watch and MacBook in Vietnam for the first time, Nikkei Asia reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Apple’s Chinese suppliers Luxshare Precision Industry and iPhone assembler Foxconn have started test production of Apple Watch and MacBook in Northern Vietnam, the report added.

Apple has been shifting some areas of iPhone production from China to other markets, including India, where it started manufacturing iPhone 13 this year, and is also planning to assemble iPad tablets.

India, the world’s second-biggest smartphone market, along with countries such as Mexico and Vietnam are becoming increasingly important to contract manufacturers supplying American brands, as they try to diversify production away from China.

Apple, Foxconn and Luxshare Precision did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Last week, Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn gave a cautious outlook for the current quarter after posting results that exceeded expectations, citing slowing smartphone demand after a pandemic-fuelled boom.

Like other global manufacturers, Foxconn – formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry – has dealt with a severe shortage of chips that hurt production, as bottlenecks from the pandemic lingered and the Ukraine war further strained logistical channels.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

AMD has announced that it will launch the first of its Ryzen 7000 series CPUs and their new AM5 series motherboard platforms in a live-streamed event at 4:30am IST on August 30 (7pm EST on August 29). The event will be presented by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, CTO and EVP Mark Papermaster, and other company executives. Fans around the world can tune in on AMD’s YouTube channel and catch a replay shortly after the live stream ends. The chip manufacturer will finally disclose pricing and product specifications and disclose further details of the Zen 4 architecture on which these new CPUs are based. 

AMD had confirmed the upcoming launch of the Ryzen 7000 series at its Computex 2022 event in May this year, promising unmatched performance for desktop PC gamers and enthusiasts. Now, the company has teased “a new era of performance desktop PCs” in its announcement. We can expect that versions of the Ryzen 7000 series for laptops will be announced at a later date. 

Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, codenamed ‘Raphael’, are based on the new Zen 4 architecture. AMD has so far confirmed at least one model with up to 16 cores, manufactured by TSMC on a new 5nm process and arranged in modular ‘chiplets’ that allow for scalable designs and cost-effective integration. Boost clock speeds should be “significantly above 5GHz”, according to previous announcements. A new central IO die manufactured at 6nm will also be introduced.

Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will use a new LGA (land grid array) CPU package with pads instead of pins, requiring the motherboard socket to have pins that make contact with them. Also, AMD has said that all these CPUs will for the first time feature integrated graphics capabilities, based on the RDNA2 architecture. Other changes include a doubling of L2 caches and new instructions for accelerating AI workloads. AMD promises a 15 percent rise in single-threaded performance compared to the previous generation, plus significant power efficiency gains. 

The new socket and AM5 platforms break upgrade compatibility with AM4 motherboards, which have been in use since the original Ryzen desktop CPU launch in 2017. This was necessary to introduce support for DDR5 RAM and shift to the PCIe 5.0 interconnect standard. However, the cooler mount and clearance remain the same, ensuring compatibility with all existing air and liquid coolers.

There will be at least three tiers of desktop motherboards at launch time. Those based on the X670 Extreme chipset will be aimed at “the most demanding enthusiasts” who want to use multiple PCIe 5.0 devices plus overclocking capabilities thanks to high-end power delivery features. The X670 chipset is for to “the bulk of enthusiasts and gamers” and will allow PCIe 5.0 lanes for at least one graphics card plus one M.2 storage device. Motherboards based on the B650 chipset will only support PCIe 5.0 for storage devices, which will be fine for most mainstream users.

Recent leaks point to AMD announcing models with Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 designations. Due to the positioning of the new platform, it is likely that previous-generation or even new AM4 products will continue to serve price-conscious customers for some time.

Windows 10 2H22 update along with the latest Chrome Dev version will allow users to set Google Chrome as the default browser with just one click, as per a report. Currently, users have to go to Settings and then to set Chrome as the default browser. Meanwhile, Microsoft has released the Windows 10 21H2 for Windows Insiders with some quality improvements. These improvements include some language-related features as well as enhanced abilities to identify and intercept ransomware as well as advanced attacks.

As per a report by The Verge, via Reddit, it will just take one click for users to change their default browser to Chrome from Chromium. It is not known whether this quick switching could be possible for any other browser that you have chosen earlier and now want to change to Google Chrome. With the Chrome (Chrome Dev 106.0.5231.2) and Windows 10 22H2 updates, users can click the pop-up in the browser asking to make Chrome their default browser. Currently, users are directed to the Windows Settings app in order to change the default browser.

In another Windows-related development, Microsoft has released Windows 10 21H2 Build 19044.1947 (KB5016688) to the Release Preview Channel for Windows Insiders. The update is for those Insiders who are on Windows 10 version 21H2. Among various other improvements, there are two important updates released in this build.

The first is giving IT admins the ability to remotely add languages and language-related features. Additionally, the admins can now manage language scenarios across several endpoint managers. The second important update is an enhanced Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. It now includes the ability to identify and intercept ransomware and advanced attacks.

Recently, a report suggested that Microsoft will be bringing the printing capabilities from Windows 11 to Windows 10 as a part of the Windows 10 version 22H2 update. The new printing feature is said to introduce the option to add a PIN to a print job in order to avoid duplicate connections and incorrect printouts.