ARM will keep supplying Huawei with its chip designs at least through the next generation, the company said today. From a report: That's a reversal from earlier this year, when ARM had reportedly notified personnel to halt all dealings with the Chinese company. "ARM can provide support to HiSilicon for the Armv8-A architecture, as well as the next generation of that architecture, following a comprehensive review of both architectures, which have been determined to be of non-U.S. origin," the company told Engadget in a statement. ARM, purchased by Japan's Softbank for $32 billion back in 2016, was forced to halt its business with Huawei after the US effectively forbade US companies from dealing with it. Last month, Huawei was forced to release the Mate 30 Pro without Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube and other key Google services. However, it was able to find alternative suppliers for other components and makes its own Kirin 990 mobile processor for the Mate 30 using ARM's design architecture.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been appointed chairman of the advisory board at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, a role that could provide access to top Chinese leaders at a time the iPhone manufacturer is facing mounting challenges in the world's second largest economy. From a report: Cook will assume the role for three years and replace Jim Breyer, the founder and chief executive of Breyer Capital, according to a statement from the university released on Friday. Cook said he would work with other members on the board, who have not been named, to make the Beijing-based school into a "world-class" education institution. Apple's market share in China is sliding as nationalist rhetoric calling for consumers to switch to Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei has gained momentum amid the trade war between China and the United States. New appointments to the board, which is usually stacked with business and political leaders, could offer clues on the relationship between Beijing and some of the world's most influential business leaders at a time when trade tensions have reached new highs.

An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Blacklisted Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei is in early-stage talks with some U.S. telecoms companies about licensing its 5G network technology to them, a Huawei executive told Reuters on Friday. Vincent Pang, senior vice president and board director at the company said some firms had expressed interest in both a long-term deal or a one-off transfer, declining to name or quantify the companies.

"There are some companies talking to us, but it would take a long journey to really finalize everything," Pang explained on a visit to Washington this week. "They have shown interest," he added, saying conversations are only a couple of weeks old and not at a detailed level yet.

Forbes senior contributor Jason Evangelho dedicated a whole article to a coming update for one Chinese-domestic Linux distribution: If you haven't been paying attention to a little Linux desktop distribution called Deepin, it's time to put it on your radar. Nevermind that Huawei chose Deepin to ship on their MateBook laptop lineup. Nevermind that Deepin Cloud Sync [for system settings] is a killer, forward-thinking feature that every Linux distro needs to adopt. Nevermind that its slide-out control center resembles something sexy and sensible straight out of the future. But looking toward 2020, Deepin is poised to be absolutely stunning.

This is without question the most beautiful desktop environment I've ever laid eyes on... For me, the UX is more intuitive and more enjoyable than macOS and Windows 10. And fortunately, a quick setting can also transform Deepin to resemble the traditional Windows or macOS desktop paradigms you're already comfortable with. Hell, even the installer is a breath of fresh air.

But let's take a peek at what's coming next. This week, the Deepin Linux Youtube channel quietly released a preview of its Deepin v20 Launcher (just one component of the forthcoming OS), and it's bound to turn some heads. Take a look [YouTube video]. It's merely a tease ahead of this November's expected Deepin v20 beta release, but the Deepin developers have apparently devoted most of 2019 working on the upcoming version. From the category-driven app browser and animations, to the basic desktop layout we see in the teaser video, things appear quite polished already.
The article points out that Deepin is also a stand-alone desktop environment for any current Linux distribution -- and that it's one of the 248 operating systems available for online testing at DistroTest.net.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. government widened its trade blacklist to include some of China's top artificial intelligence startups, punishing Beijing for its treatment of Muslim minorities and ratcheting up tensions ahead of high-level trade talks in Washington this week. The decision, which drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing, targets 20 Chinese public security bureaus and eight companies including video surveillance firm Hikvision, as well as leaders in facial recognition technology SenseTime Group Ltd and Megvii Technology Ltd. The action bars the firms from buying components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval -- a potentially crippling move for some of them. It follows the same blueprint used by Washington in its attempt to limit the influence of Huawei for what it says are national security reasons. The Commerce Department said in a filing the "entities have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups." "The U.S. Government and Department of Commerce cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China," said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

In response, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the U.S. should stop interfering in its affairs and that it will continue to take firm and resolute measures to protect its sovereign security.

A U.S. House panel unveiled bipartisan legislation this week that would authorize $1 billion for small and rural wireless providers to replace network equipment from companies including Huawei and ZTE that lawmakers say pose a national security risk. From a report: The legislation is similar to a bill approved in July by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee that would authorize about $700 million in grants to remove Huawei equipment, in a bid to boost the security of the U.S. telecommunication network's supply chain. The top Democrats and Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said in a joint statement the bill would protect the "nation's communications networks from foreign adversaries by helping small and rural wireless providers root-out suspect network equipment and replace it with more secure equipment."

Xiaomi introduced its first phones compatible with the latest, fifth-generation cellular technology in China, as the country's once-biggest smartphone maker prepares for an uphill battle against domestic rival Huawei Technologies. From a report: At an event in Beijing, billionaire co-founder Lei Jun introduced the 5G-capable Mi 9 Pro, the latest of Xiaomi's classic product line, and gave the world a first look at a new concept phone called MIX Alpha, with a display wrapping all the way around the device. The Mi 9 Pro, built with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor and a gluttonous serving of memory and storage, has seven antennas to ensure the fastest possible cellular speeds, with Lei showing off real-world speeds in China of over 2 gigabits per second. It will start at 3,699 yuan ($520), while a 4,299 yuan model will max out the storage at 512GB. The long-awaited phone upgrade cycle that 5G networking is set to trigger will be hotly contested ground among China's leading smartphone vendors.

The Mate 30 series of smartphones from Huawei is now official, starting with the Mate 30 Pro and the Mate 30. From a report: The announcement of Mate 30 series comes at a difficult time for Huawei, whose presence on the USA's entity list prevents US companies from doing business with the Chinese firm. Google said last month that these phones won't ship with Google's apps and services, nor will they come with the Play Store pre-installed, which is how most Android users outside of China download their apps. Huawei's response to the problem has been to nurture its own ecosystem of apps that are available through the Huawei App Gallery. The company announced that rather than shipping with Google's services pre-installed, the Mate 30 Series would instead ship with the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) Core, which it claims is already integrated with over 45,000 apps. The company announced that it was investing $1 billion into its software ecosystem with an investment that would be split across a development fund, a user growth fund, and a marketing fund. Here's what happens when you attempt to sideload an app developed by Google.

A scam. A publicity stunt. Premature. These are just a few of the things Chinese developers are saying about the release of Huawei's supposed secret weapon: The Ark Compiler. From a report: Developers are even claiming the program feels incomplete. The reception has been so bad that one programmer told Abacus that he wondered whether it was released just for publicity. "Maybe they're doing it to help in the PR and trade war, adding leverage against the US," said Max Zhou, co-founder of app-enhancement company MetaApp and former head of engineering at Mobike. The Ark Compiler is a key component of Huawei's new operating system, HarmonyOS. The tool is meant to allow developers to quickly port their Android apps to the new OS, ideally helping to quickly bridge the gap of app availability. It is also said to be able to improve the efficiency of Android apps, making them as smooth as apps on iOS. As of right now, though, developers say promises are too good to be true.

A growing number of countries are following China's lead in deploying artificial intelligence to track citizens, according to a research group's report published Tuesday. From a report: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says at least 75 countries are actively using AI tools such as facial recognition for surveillance. The index of countries where some form of AI surveillance is used includes liberal democracies such as the United States and France as well as more autocratic regimes. Relying on a survey of public records and media reports, the report says Chinese tech companies led by Huawei and Hikvision are supplying much of the AI surveillance technology to countries around the world. Other companies such as Japan's NEC and U.S.-based IBM, Palantir and Cisco are also major international providers of AI surveillance tools.

Hikvision declined comment Tuesday. The other companies mentioned in the report didn't immediately return requests for comment. The report encompasses a broad range of AI tools that have some public safety component. The group's index doesn't distinguish between legitimate public safety tools and unlawful or harmful uses such as spying on political opponents. "I hope citizens will ask tougher questions about how this type of technology is used and what type of impacts it will have," said the report's author, Steven Feldstein, a Carnegie Endowment fellow and associate professor at Boise State University. Many of the projects cited in Feldstein's report are "smart city" systems in which a municipal government installs an array of sensors, cameras and other internet-connected devices to gather information and communicate with one another.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Huawei's chief executive has proposed selling its current 5G know-how to a Western firm as a way to address security concerns voiced by the U.S. and others about its business. Ren Zhengfei said the buyer would be free to "change the software code." That would allow any flaws or supposed backdoors to be addressed without Huawei's involvement. Huawei has repeatedly denied claims that it would help the Chinese government spy on or disrupt other countries' telecoms systems, and says it is a private enterprise owned by its workers.

Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei made the proposal in interviews with the Economist and the New York Times. It would include ongoing access to the firm's existing 5G patents, licenses, code, technical blueprints and production engineering knowledge. "[Huawei is] open to sharing our 5G technologies and techniques with U.S. companies, so that they can build up their own 5G industry," the NYT quoted Ren as saying. "This would create a balanced situation between China, the U.S. and Europe." Speaking to the Economist he added: "A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei's survival." A spokesman for Huawei has confirmed the quotes are accurate and the idea represents a "genuine proposal." South Korea's Samsung and China's ZTE are other alternatives. "Huawei misunderstands the underlying problem," Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, from the European Centre for International Political Economy, told the BBC. "The issue is not the trustworthiness of Huawei as a vendor but the legal obligations that the Chinese government imposes on it.

"China's National Intelligence Law requires Chinese businesses and citizens to surrender any data or 'communication tools' they may have access to, under strict punitive sanctions," said Lee-Makiyama. "Any equipment or software that Huawei licenses to an U.S. entity would still fall under this obligation, and there is no way that the licensing entity or the intelligence agencies could scrutinize millions of lines of code for potential backdoors."

Huawei is now selling the Matebook 13, Matebook 14, and Matebook X Pro to consumers in China with Deepin Linux preinstalled. "Deepin is a Chinese-domestic distribution, with their own desktop environment -- appropriately also called Deepin," notes TechRepublic. From the report: Huawei is passing along the savings to consumers as well, with the Matebook 13 and 14 models receiving a 300 yuan ($42 USD) price cut, though the Linux version of the MateBook X Pro is listed at 600 yuan ($84) higher. This pricing should be considered tentative, as the products are listed on VMALL, Huawei's ecommerce marketplace in China, though only allow users to be notified when they are in stock. It is possible that Huawei may lose the ability to purchase Windows licenses from Microsoft due to their placement on the "entity list," restricting companies dealing in U.S.-origin technology from conducting business with Huawei, constituting an effective blacklisting by the U.S. government. Sales of Linux laptops to consumers -- by Huawei, and in general -- could result in better driver support for fingerprint readers and other hardware with inconsistent Linux support. Huawei has yet to announce any Linux versions available in the West.

U.S. prosecutors have charged a Chinese professor with fraud for allegedly taking technology from a California company to benefit Huawei, in another shot at the embattled Chinese telecommunications equipment maker. From the report: Bo Mao was arrested in Texas on Aug. 14 and released six days later on $100,000 bond after he consented to proceed with the case in New York, according to court documents. Bo Mao was arrested in Texas on Aug. 14 and released six days later on $100,000 bond after he consented to proceed with the case in New York, according to court documents. According to the criminal complaint, Mao entered into an agreement with the unnamed California tech company to obtain its circuit board, claiming it was for academic research.

The complaint, however, accuses an unidentified Chinese telecommunications conglomerate, which sources say is Huawei, of trying to steal the technology, and alleges Mao played a role in its alleged scheme. A court document also indicates the case is related to Huawei. Although Huawei has not been charged, the company said it views the case against Mao as the U.S. government's latest instance of "selective prosecution."

With the Huawei Mate 30 launch right around the corner on September 19th, Huawei announced the new flagship chipset that will be powering the phone. AnandTech reports: Huawei is for the first time splitting its [5G] strategy, with two versions of the Kirin 990. These versions will officially be known as the Kirin 990 and the Kirin 990 5G. The (4G) I've put here is simply to add a differentiator to tell them apart. The two Kirin chipsets are, and a standard base level, pretty much the same. Same core configuration, same camera support, same memory, same storage. However, in a few key areas beyond the modem, there are differences, such as NPU performance and core frequencies.

The Kirin 990 5G is a true unified design, supporting Sub-6 GHz 5G networks on both SA and NSA architectures. In order to keep the die size in check, Huawei is using TSMC's latest 7+ manufacturing process with EUV, which helps enable a smaller die size for the sorts of devices this chip will be going into. As mentioned, one of the key elements to the Kirin 990 5G is its use of TSMC's 7FF+ with EUV, which enables the chip to have a small(er) die size. We are told the chip is over 100mm2, which is up from 74.13 mm2 on the Kirin 980 (TSMC 7nm) and 96.72 mm2 on the Kirin 970 (TSMC 10nm), possibly making it Huawei's largest smartphone SoC to date. This is compared to the Kirin 990 4G version, which is around ~90 mm2, but is built on the same 7nm process as the Kirin 980, making it a little bigger. Transistor counts for the two chips put the 990 5G at 10.3 billion, while the 990 4G is ~8 billion. XDA Developers has a spec sheet comparing the Kirin 980 against the Kirin 990 and 990 5G.

ProtonMail is in talks with Huawei about including its encrypted email service in future mobile devices, part of the Chinese phone maker's plan to develop an alternative to Google ecosystem. From a report: The Swiss company's service could come preloaded on future Huawei mobile devices or be offered inside its app store, AppGallery, said Andy Yen, ProtonMail's chief executive officer. The company hasn't made a final decision about offering its service on Huawei's channel, he said. Huawei may lose access to Google's programs after the U.S. added it to a trade blacklist in May, meaning American businesses need a special license to do business with the Chinese company. The restrictions also affect updates for the Google Android operating system that powers all its smartphones abroad, and without which Huawei can't offer critical apps like Gmail. As a result, Huawei has been racing to build out its own mobile operating system, HarmonyOS, and enlisting developers to offer services on its app store. "What they see from us is having an alternative to Google in case they can't offer Google anymore," Yen said in an interview.

Huawei's next flagship smartphone will not come with Google's popular apps, such as Maps, YouTube, and Drive. The BBC reports: Google confirmed that due to a U.S. government ban on sales to Huawei, it could not license its apps to the Chinese smartphone giant. It also means the next Huawei phone will not have access to the Google Play app store, which could leave customers without access to other popular apps. The U.S. government restricted American companies from selling products and services to Huawei in May, citing national security concerns, which Huawei rejects.

Huawei is just weeks away from launching its next flagship phone, the Mate 30 Pro. It will be Huawei's first major phone launch since the U.S. restrictions were applied in May. But analysts say launching without Google's apps in Europe will be a major blow. Consumers expect to have access to all the major apps they are used to - including Maps and YouTube. Without them, Huawei's phones will seem a lot less appealing. And losing the Play Store means Huawei will need to provide another way for customers to access other popular apps such as Facebook, Twitter and BBC News. Huawei said in a statement: "Huawei will continue to use the Android OS and ecosystem if the U.S. government allows us to do so. Otherwise, we will continue to develop our own operating system and ecosystem."

Tom's Guide notes that consumers can still download apps from APK repositories like APKmirror.com. "While this is certainly a nuisance, it's far from crippling."

China's Huawei has begun talks with Russia about installing Russian operating system (OS) Aurora on 360,000 of its tablets to conduct Russia's population census next year, Reuters reported Monday, citing two sources. From the report: Huawei has been seeking alternative operating systems to Google's Android OS after Washington put the world's second-largest smartphone maker on a so-called Entity List that threatens to cut off its access to the essential U.S. components and technology. "This is a pilot project. We see it as the first stage of launching the Russian OS on Huawei devices," the first source told Reuters. Huawei is in talks with the Russian Ministry of Communications, a spokeswoman for Huawei said, but did not provide any other details. Last week, Huawei said the U.S. trade restrictions could cut its smartphone unit's revenue by about $10 billion this year. Russia is discussing the use of Aurora OS on 360,000 Huawei tablets by August 2020.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to extend a reprieve given to Huawei Technologies that permits the Chinese firm to buy supplies from U.S. companies so that it can service existing customers, two sources familiar with the situation said. The "temporary general license" will be extended for Huawei for 90 days, the sources said.

Commerce initially allowed Huawei to purchase some American-made goods in May shortly after blacklisting the company in a move aimed at minimizing disruption for its customers, many of which operate networks in rural America. An extension will renew an agreement set to lapse on August 19, continuing the Chinese company's ability to maintain existing telecommunications networks and provide software updates to Huawei handsets. The situation surrounding the license, which has become a key bargaining chip for the United States in its trade negotiations with China, remains fluid and the decision to continue the Huawei reprieve could change ahead of the Monday deadline, the sources said.

According to the state-owned China Daily, Huawei is working on a Google Maps alternative with Yandex and Booking.com. The service is expected to be unveiled in October. CNET reports: It's apparently designed to use a tool for software developers to create apps based around its mapping capabilities, rather than for consumer use. It'll connect to local mapping services, cover 150 countries and regions, and be available in 40 languages, the report said.

Huawei didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company's ability to access Google's services has been threatened since President Trump blacklisted it in May. That came as a result of U.S. lawmakers' concerns about Huawei's tight relationship with the Chinese government and fears that its equipment could be used for spying. Trump has since said the ban will be eased.

phalse phace writes: A WSJ investigation appears to have uncovered multiple instances where the African governments in Uganda and Zambia, with the help of Huawei technicians, used Huawei's communications equipment to spy on and censor political opponents and its citizens. From the report, writes phalse phace: Huawei Technologies dominates African markets, where it has sold security tools that governments use for digital surveillance and censorship. But Huawei employees have provided other services, not disclosed publicly. Technicians from the Chinese powerhouse have, in at least two cases, personally helped African governments spy on their political opponents, including intercepting their encrypted communications and social media, and using cell data to track their whereabouts, according to senior security officials working directly with the Huawei employees in these countries.

It should be noted that while the findings "show how Huawei employees have used the company's technology and other companies' products to support the domestic spying of those governments," the investigation didn't turn up evidence of spying by or on behalf of Beijing in Africa. Nor did it find that Huawei executives in China knew of, directed or approved the activities described. It also didn't find that there was something particular about the technology in Huawei's network that made such activities possible. Details of the operations, however, offer evidence that Huawei employees played a direct role in government efforts to intercept the private communications of opponents.