Samsung jumped the gun on its own Aug. 5 Unpacked event Wednesday, announcing its next foldable phone, the 5G version of the Z Flip, launched in February. The $1,449 Galaxy Z Flip 5G, built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G mobile platform, will be available Aug. 7, said the company. In free-standing Flex mode, the phone’s display automatically splits into two 4-inch screens, allowing users to view content on the top half of the display and control it on the bottom half. In YouTube with Flex mode, the phone shows a video on the top half, and lets users browse, read descriptions and comment on the bottom half, said the company. Four months of YouTube Premium are included. Consumers trading in an eligible device on Samsung.com can get up to $650 toward the purchase.

No company “has an obligation to commit its patents to a standard,” commented the App Association Monday (login required) in opposition to Nokia’s Tariff Act Section 337 complaint at the International Trade Commission alleging Lenovo laptops, tablets and desktop PCs infringe four H.264 patents, plus a fifth on data search and discovery (see 2007080048). When a company volunteers to commit its patents to a standard, “as Nokia has,” the “promise” it makes to the standard-setting organization to license the intellectual property on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms “acts as a crucial constraint on the abuse of market power” associated with standards-essential patents (SEPs), said the group. App Association members “rely on a competitive information and communications technology hardware environment, specifically with respect to SEP licensing,” it said. Without that, members would be “significantly hampered” in providing U.S. consumers and enterprises “with leading-edge software and hardware products and services that require an increasing amount of bandwidth and computing power to meet customer demands,” it said. The exclusion order Nokia seeks “should only receive consideration” when a licensee is “demonstrably acting unreasonable” or is acting “outside of the scope of the SEP holder’s voluntary FRAND commitment,” said the association. Lenovo is guilty of neither, it said: “SEP holders denied an exclusion order do not become disenfranchised as they have the ability to recover monetary damages through the courts.”

Best Buy signed on as a founding member of Parity.org’s Corporate ParityPledge in support of people of color, blogged the retailer Monday. The pledge is a public commitment to interview at least one qualified person of color for every open leadership role at the vice president level or higher, including the C-suite and board, it said. There are no quotas or deadlines, it said. Best Buy previously signed a similar pledge in support of women in leadership. “We know we won’t get there overnight, but we are committed to increasing the representation of people of color at Best Buy and being an inclusive employer that empowers and supports all of our employees,” said Mark Irvin, chief inclusion and diversity officer. Best Buy CEO Corie Barry last month appointed a group within the company to come up with ways of addressing racial inequalities and injustices after protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody (see 2006030030).

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security is considering imposing new license requirements on facial recognition software and surveillance items that may be used by China for crowd control reasons or to violate human rights. BIS seeks feedback by Sept. 15, said Friday's Federal Register. BIS said it's interested in imposing new license requirements for facial recognition software, “other biometric systems for surveillance,” voice print identification systems and other products.

Yank Technologies said its contactless wireless charger, MotherBox, landed FCC Part 18 certification. Yank introduced the automotive charging concept in 2017. MotherBox operates with a receiver and can charge multiple devices simultaneously. It’s Android and iOS-compatible and allows free movement of the devices being charged, said the company. Certification will help the company produce a high-power, scalable wireless charger for new industries, including the automotive market, it said.

Global shipments of microLED displays are expected to “soar” to more than 16 million units by 2027, from “negligible levels” this year, reported Omdia Tuesday. Smartwatch and TV applications will drive microLED growth, said the former IHS Markit research company. It expects microLED display shipments to the smartwatch industry to top 10 million units in seven years. Shipments to TV makers will exceed 3.3 million units in 2027, it said. MicroLED is expected to become “the next self-emissive display technology” of choice, following OLED, said Omdia. “Numerous startups, display manufacturers and consumer brands now are developing their own microLED displays, devices and process in various sizes, ranging from medium-to-large sizes to ultra-small dimensions.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is buying Silver Peak for $925 million to extend its reach in the software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) space, said HPE Monday. The purchase will speed HPE's edge-to-cloud strategy, said CEO Antonio Neri. Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold said the purchase makes sense for HPE to play in the developing SD-WAN market, but called the price “high.” Cisco leads the SD-WAN market with about 17% share, said Leopold, but analysts don’t agree on rankings after that in what he called a fragmented and immature market that also includes Fortinet and Versa Networks. The deal is expected to close in fiscal Q4 ending Oct. 30. Shares closed 2% higher Monday at $9.44.

Zens is taking preorders for an accessory that charges an Apple Watch or AirPods from a USB-C port, it said Friday. The Qi and MFi-certified accessory is dual-sided and is designed to plug into a laptop’s USB-C port for “reversible” wireless charging: The Watch fits on one side; AirPods in a wireless charging case on the other. Pricing through the Zens website is about $67, with shipping in October.

Rendering high-quality HDR faithfully on a home TV screen can be “a giant can of worms,” Aurora Gordon, senior colorist at post-production studio ArsenalFX Color, told a SMPTE webinar Thursday. “A lot of different factors and variations in home viewing environments” could botch HDR content or make it look ideal, she said. How consumers “have their settings dialed in” can be another, she said. As a colorist, “basically you can’t think about it,” she said. “What we can do is correct our images in a controlled environment.” Colorists can’t control the “modulations that are going to happen in a home viewing environment,” she said. Gordon's personal favorites of her coloring include The Tick for Amazon Prime Video, with a character’s “very, very vivid” blue suit that “can take advantage of the gamut part of the HDR transform,” she said. Raising Dion on Netflix had lightning, "a really fun element in HDR,” she said.

A second station in Phoenix began broadcasting ATSC 3.0, said Pearl TV Wednesday. E.W. Scripps’s KASW-TV is broadcasting under the new standard, the release said. “The station will host KSAZ-TV (Fox) as part of the initial launch." The other 3.0 station is Univision's KFPH-CD.