Durov closes TON

Pavel Durov announced that the TON blockchain platform project will be closed. As he said in his address, Telegram will not participate in the TON project in the future. More than two and a half years of the Telegram team’s work on this project and the creation of the Gram cryptocurrency have been completed due to the actions of American regulators, who through the courts obtained blocking of activities and prohibited the sale of Gram to American investors. The Court of the Southern District of New York recognized the Gram tokens as securities and prohibited the transfer of them to buyers, which was what the US Securities and Exchange Commission was seeking.

The Telegram company has attracted money from 175 investors in the amount of $ 1.7 billion and will now be forced to return it. In his address, Pavel Durov says that the decision of the American court demonstrates the dependence of 96% of the world’s inhabitants on the actions of the United States in the financial and technological spheres. Telegram made this difficult decision for itself, realizing the consequences and realizing that the US authorities have tools to influence industry leaders – Apple and Google, on which the presence of the Telegram application in Google Play and App Store depends.

According to available information, in two years, Durov’s team spent $ 405 million invested in TON, and most of it went to the development of Telegram, and not to work on the blockchain platform. Now Durov offers US investors to return 72% of their investments in cash, but not everyone is happy with this option. Investors are waiting, as an option, that Pavel Durov will turn Telegram into a corporation and give them the company’s shares as compensation for investments and losses incurred.

New smartphone POCO presented

POCO has unveiled the POCO F2 Pro smartphone, which, as predicted by many leaks, has become the global version of the Redmi K30 Pro. The device received a 6.67 ”AMOLED screen with Full HD + resolution, HDR10 + support and a 360-degree light sensor. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, equipped with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. The device also received a LiquidCool 2.0 cooling system and a Game Turbo 3.0 software mode. The resolution of the outgoing front camera is 12 MP, and the main one consists of four sensors: 64 MP, ultra wide-angle 13 MP, telemacro 5 MP and depth sensor 2 MP. The smartphone supports Bluetooth 5.1, Wi-Fi 6, Hi-Res audio, a headphone jack, an NFC chip, and an infrared port.

The 6 + 128GB version costs $ 499, while the 8 + 256GB version costs $ 599. The device has not yet entered traditional sales channels and will be sold in partner online stores Banggood, Gearbest and AliExpress. The younger version of the POCO F2 Pro has already gone on sale.

I would not say that 37 rubles for the POCO F000 Pro is a very tempting offer, the first Pocophone F2 was more interesting in terms of price, but on the other hand, the F1 Pro has better body materials and more functions, so the price increase is quite justified.

You can learn more about the POCO F2 Pro from our separate material following the presentation:

And you can find out about the first Pocophone F1 from our detailed review:

Two dialers from HMD

HMD Global will launch two of its new phones in the third quarter, the Nokia 125 and Nokia 150 (2020). Both phones are dual-SIM, they have a 2.4 ”display with a resolution of 240×320 pixels, they work under the Series 30+, have an FM radio in their arsenal, and the older model also has an MP3 player and a VGA camera. The battery in both models has a capacity of 1020 mAh, according to the manufacturer, the devices can work with it for up to several weeks in standby mode.

In general, the devices are not bad, but, of course, at the current time their specifications look ridiculous against the background of even the simplest smartphones. On the other hand, the demand for pushbutton dialers is still quite stable, so the Nokia 125 and Nokia 150 (2020) will be in demand. In Russia, phones will also appear on sale in the third quarter of this year at estimated prices of 2 rubles and 390 rubles, respectively.

New items realme

The realme company held a presentation, within the framework of which it presented for the Russian market a line of realme 6 smartphones. Realme 6 and 6 Pro are one of the most affordable devices with screens with a refresh rate of 90 Hz. The older model, realme 6 Pro, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G processor with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It has a dual front camera and 4 main sensors, including a 1 MP Samsung GW64. The fingerprint scanner is on the side, and the 4300 mAh battery supports 30W fast charging.

Realme 6 received a MediaTek Helio G90T processor, a single front camera in the hole in the display and other characteristics like the realme 6 Pro. The youngest model, realme 6i Pro, has a 6,5-inch screen with HD + resolution, a Helio G80 processor, four cameras with a 48MP main sensor, an NFC chip and a 5000mAh battery with 18W fast charging support.

Realme 6 Pro costs 24 rubles, realme 990 – 6 or 19, depending on the amount of RAM, and realme 990i – 21 rubles. Sales will start on May 990, but until early June, each model will be on sale at a discount of 6 rubles.

We have already released a detailed review of the realme 6 Pro, you can read it. The device is interesting and seems to be quite pleasant for the price, but there is a question: will you buy yourself a realme smartphone?

We also released a review of the realme Buds Air TWS headphones, which were presented along with the company’s new smartphones:

Despite the fact that realme 6 and realme 6i work on the basis of MediaTek, they should not be written off, as the chipset manufacturer has recently tightened up its products, and they are no longer as “sad” as they used to be. You can read about what is happening now with MediaTek in our separate article:

Beeline gives 2 months of films and TV series

Operator “Beeline” gives 2 months of subscription to the service “Movies ivi” to all users of home and mobile Internet, regardless of the operator. You just need to go to the “Beeline TV” service on your smartphone, tablet, computer or Smart TV and activate the free period of access to “ivi Movies”. Given that we’re still at home, getting two months of access to new movies, cartoons and TV shows is pretty good.

Fall of Sony

Sony has released its fiscal year results, which provide an overview of the company’s latest achievements. As expected, the mobile direction showed weak results in the last quarter. From January to March 2020, Sony delivered only 400 smartphones, with a forecast of about 000 units, and for the entire 700 financial year – 000 million smartphones, which is half of the number that was in 2019 (3,2 million units) … Interestingly, last year’s figure was also half that of 2018, when 6,5 million smartphones were shipped. At the same time, Sony did not publish a forecast for the 2017 financial year, explaining this step by the unpredictability of the market amid the COVID-13,5 pandemic.

Apparently, in 2020 it’s time to close Sony’s mobile division, which is rolling down from year to year. Or Sony’s management should still set aside their pride and set prices for the company’s smartphones below market leaders and compete in the niche of Xiaomi and other Chinese. Alternatively, you can do it like HMD, play on the feelings of nostalgia of users and revive the legendary models with a new sauce, thereby attracting the attention of buyers to the brand. But the Japanese are very proud: driving at full steam to the abyss, they pretend that everything is fine with them, and run counter to the market, continuing to produce peculiar expensive devices that are not in demand on the market.

And on our website there was an interesting material about the president of Sony Corporation and his vision of the company’s future:

Electric cars fell in price in Russia

Due to the zeroing of the duty on the import of electric vehicles to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union from May 4, 2020, their prices in our market have dropped slightly. So, Jaguar Land Rover Russia announced a price cut for the Jaguar I-PACE electric crossover from May 8, 2020, the starting cost of the model is now 5 rubles. The decline, in fact, is not very large and amounts to about 946%, but here it is worth taking into account the fall in the ruble exchange rate. If everything were stable, the cost of the car would be even lower. But on the whole, the news is good, especially considering that two more electric vehicles from Mercedes-Benz and Audi are due to arrive on the market this year.

The first look at the electric Jaguar I-PACE has already been released on our website:

Business Mobility, Hyundai’s new service

Last year, the Korean car manufacturer Hyundai launched the Hyundai Mobility program in Russia, a symbiosis of car sharing and car loans, with which you can rent a new car of the brand for a period from 1 day to 1 year. Hyundai Mobility currently has 500 customers and 11 active users, according to the company. In the near future, the company will launch a similar program for its premium brand Genesis, which will be called Genesis Mobility, and at the first stage it will be possible to rent the Genesis G000 model also for a period of days to a year.

Last Friday Hyundai Russia announced the launch of the Business Mobility service for leasing a corporate fleet directly from the automaker. Under the program, customers can rent any model of the Hyundai and Genesis brand. The advantages of Business Mobility over the offers of other leasing companies are a large and varied model range, from Hyundai Solaris to Genesis G90, service in 184 dealerships throughout Russia, as well as efficient fleet management using its own IT system, developed by partners from Skolkovo specifically for Hyundai.

… and dessert

2K Games has announced a collection of Mafia: Trilogy, which will include a remake of the first part of the game, which was released in 2002, and a remaster of the second and third parts. If everything is clear with the latter, these are just old games, only with a new picture, then everyone is looking forward to the remake of the first Mafia, since it will be a game created from scratch, with an extended plot and capabilities. The release of the Mafia remake is scheduled for August 28 this year.

And on July 17th, Paper Mario: The Origami King launches on Nintendo Switch, a new origami-themed Mario adventure.

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