Kaz Hirai is retiring from Sony

Sony chairman Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai has announced his retirement, drawing a 35-year career with the company to a close. Hirai stepped down as CEO a little over a year ago, passing the role to Kenichiro Yoshida, the CFO with whom he orchestrated Sony’s turnaround from a money-losing gadget maker to a profitable company focused on components and the PlayStation business.
Hirai will leave his chairman role on June 18th, but will continue to act as occasional “senior advisor” for the company upon the request of Sony’s management team. “Hirai-san and I have been working on management reforms together since December 2013,” says Yoshida in a statement. “While he will be retiring from both Chairman and our Board of Directors, we look forward to his continuing high-level support to Sony’s management that encompasses a breadth of diverse businesses.”
“Since passing the baton of CEO to Yoshida-san last April, as Chairman of Sony, I have had the opportunity to both ensure a smooth transition and provide support to Sony’s management,” Hirai’s statement says. “I am confident that everyone at Sony is fully aligned under Yoshida-san’s strong leadership, and are ready to build an even brighter future for Sony. As such, I have decided to depart from Sony, which has been a part of my life for the past 35 years. I would like to extend my warmest gratitude to all our employees and stakeholders who have supported me throughout this journey.”
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Record labels sue Charter for not kicking off music pirates

Major music labels are suing Charter Communications for not kicking pirates off its service. Late last week, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal Music Group, and several subsidiaries claimed Charter had “knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers.” Specifically, the complaint says Charter received notices that its subscribers were pirating music through BitTorrent and other services, but it refused to terminate their accounts. A similar suit has been filed against Charter subsidiary Bright House Networks.
“Charter did not want to lose subscriber revenue by terminating accounts of infringing subscribers,” the complaint reads. “Nor did Charter want to risk the possibility that account terminations would make its service less attractive to other existing or prospective users.” As Ars Technica pointed out, it actually comes close to suggesting that Charter promoted piracy simply by advertising high download speeds — complaining that “Charter has told existing and prospective customers that its high-speed service enables subscribers to ‘download just about anything instantly,’” and “told subscribers that its Internet service ‘has the speed you need for everything you do online.’”
The suit says that “tens of thousands” of Charter subscribers were flagged for copyright infringement, and it’s asking a court for damages that include Charter’s profits from maintaining these accounts. Charter told The Verge in a statement that “we will defend against these baseless accusations.”
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Huawei’s FreeLace neckbuds pair and charge by plugging into your phone

Huawei has a quirky new idea for wireless earphones, and I’m into it. The company’s new FreeLace neckbuds can be disconnected from one another, exposing a USB-C plug that can be jacked into your Huawei phone to facilitate seamless Bluetooth pairing or simply charge up the buds. This eliminates the need for a separate charging cable, and it sidesteps one of the biggest pain points with wireless audio.
The Huawei FreeLace are rated to last for 18 hours of music or 12 hours of calls on a single charge, and they can be fast-charged to run for four hours off of five minutes of being plugged in.
The look, shape, and function of the FreeLace are super reminiscent of OnePlus’ Bullets Wireless. The design is IPX5-certified for water and sweat resistance, and it’s balanced in weight, with two elongated modules housing batteries and the in-line volume and playback controls. Huawei has done a terrific job of creating chunky, clicky buttons that are a pleasure to use with the FreeLace.
I tried out these earphones for myself, and my lingering impression is all about the joy of those buttons. I won’t comment much on the FreeLace sound yet, other than to say that it’s rich on bass and tuned to generate excitement. The audio driver inside of each bud measures 9.2 mm in diameter.
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Apple might update the iPod touch

Apple has already announced a few product refreshes this week, but it might not be done just yet. The iPod touch may be the next device to get a hardware update, and according to MacRumors, the seventh-generation model may be announced tomorrow via a press release, as Apple did with the low-profile announcements of the new iPad Air, iPad mini, and today’s iMac.
A new iPod touch hitting soon seems plausible, as it has been name-dropped by Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with a good record for predicting Apple launches. MacRumors also notes that developer Steve Troughton-Smith discovered references to what could be a refreshed iPod touch in iOS 12.2 code.
Aside from that, an iPod touch upgrade makes sense because it’s among the oldest devices that Apple still features on its store. It was last updated in 2015, and it’s beyond due for an upgrade since it is powered by the aging A8 processor that’s also found in the iPhone 6.
As far as what could change, it’s safe to expect a significant boost to the iPod touch’s processing power. But otherwise, it’s unclear if Apple will stick with the thick-bezeled design to draw a clear line between its iPhones and the last remaining iPod, or welcome it to the notch party.
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Walmart is planning to launch its own low-cost Android tablet

Walmart is planning to release an inexpensive tablet under its in-house ONN brand, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed to Bloomberg. The report claims the device will be manufactured by a Chinese supplier, run on Android, and it’s expected to be aimed at kids.
The tablet is the latest attempt by the retailer to establish itself in the electronics space after it released a Walmart-branded lineup of gaming PCs and laptops last year under its new Overpowered brand. We reviewed the so-called Overpowered 17+ laptop and were left disappointed by its flimsy build quality, poor specs, and insufficient customer support. Reviews of the desktop gaming model have been similarly unimpressed.
What’s different about the upcoming Android tablet is that it will reportedly be aimed at the budget end of the market. Its main competitor will be Amazon, which produces tablets like the $79.99 Fire HD 8 and $149 Fire HD 10 — both of which are available as child-friendly Kids Editions. However, Amazon’s tablets run on its own Amazon Fire OS, a fork of Android, and so they don’t have access to a full range of Android apps. If Walmart’s tablets run on stock Android rather than a fork, this could be a key advantage for it.
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Dropbox adds three-device limit for free users

Dropbox has quietly updated its website to allow users on the company’s free storage plan to only connect up to three laptops, tablets, or phones to their account at one time, as spotted by Liliputing.
Users with more than three devices linked before March 2019 will be allowed to keep those devices connected, even if they’re over the three-device limit. But adding new devices — say, if you get a new computer or phone — won’t be allowed. If you have more than three devices that you’d like to use with your account, you’ll either have to pay for a Plus or Professional plan or get used to constantly linking and unlinking devices. Mobile devices count toward the three-device limit, too. So if your account is linked to a laptop, a phone, and a tablet, you’ll already run into the new limit.
It’s hard to view the new restriction as anything but a move by Dropbox to encourage customers to pay for its paid plans, which include the $9.99-per-month Plus subscription for 1TB of storage or the $19.99-per-month Professional plan with 2TB of storage. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this sort of device limit from companies that are looking to push premium subscribers.
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Windows 7 users to receive notifications from Microsoft about end of support

Microsoft is planning to push notifications to Windows 7 users warning them about the upcoming end of support. The software giant will stop supporting Windows 7 on January 14th, 2020, and it will start warning consumers about this cutoff date next month. Microsoft’s end of support date means that Windows 7 and Office 2010 will no longer receive security updates, and the company wants consumers to upgrade to Windows 10 PCs and Office 365.
The notification won’t specifically mention upgrading to Windows 10, but it will warn of the date of support and link to microsoft.com/windows7, a site that will encourage consumers to upgrade to Windows 10 or purchase a more modern PC. “Beginning next month, if you are a Windows 7 customer, you can expect to see a notification appear on your Windows 7 PC,” explains Matt Barlow, CVP of Windows. “This is a courtesy reminder that you can expect to see a handful of times in 2019.”
Microsoft has learned from its persistent nagging notifications during the free Windows 10 upgrade period, and Windows 7 users will be able to select “do not remind me again” on the notification so they never see it again. If they simply dismiss it by closing the prompt, then it will trigger again. Microsoft says it will only be displayed a “handful” of times during 2019, and the notifications will stop once Windows 7 support ends in January.
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