Sports fans today don’t just want to watch the game—they want to feel it. From surround sound to live player chats, the push for immersive sports audio is changing how we experience the action.

This is why “all current trends from both the creative and technological side focus on the same objective: Access and bringing fans closer to this great game,” says Jason Hedgcock, Major League Baseball’s senior director of technical production and special projects for Apple TV+.

By Thomas Buckley | Bloomberg

Walt Disney Co. is laying off several hundred employees across its film and TV businesses, cuts that underscore the tough times in Hollywood are far from over.

The staff reductions began Monday and are falling on employees in marketing, publicity, casting and development, along with corporate financial operations, according to the company.

WARSAW, Poland, June 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As a leading brand in smart technology, HAVIT has not only cultivated expertise in acoustics for over two decades but also achieved groundbreaking progress in gaming peripherals. At the Poland ES Expo, HAVIT proudly presents the revolutionary FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo, introducing the industry-first OHS (Open-Headphone Stereo) architecture that redefines gaming audio standards.

Explore our comprehensive lineup of spatial audio innovations. We cordially invite attendees to experience these transformative products at our exhibition booth.

Exhibition Details
Dates: 2025.6.13-2025.6.15
Booth: B1.03
Location: Warsaw, Poland

FUXI-H8: Redefining E-sports Acoustics Through Leading Innovation

Engineered for gaming enthusiasts, the FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo headset features the pioneering open-headphone stereo (OHS). Its hollow-out ear cups and ultra-soft cushions eradicate discomfort during extended use, while avant-garde design commands attention.

Equipped with advanced spatial audio technology and dynamic head tracking, the FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo headset creates 360° soundscapes for precise enemy localization. Three operational modes enhance both immersive experience and competitive advantage through seamless switching.

Six connectivity modes ensure universal compatibility across devices, enabling uninterrupted gaming transitions.

FUXI Series Elevates Professional Esports, Radiates Global Influence

HAVIT Gaming empowers Brazil’s VKS Esports team with professional-grade peripherals, particularly through headsets featuring dynamic head-tracking spatial audio that exposes enemy positions. In high-stakes competitions where victory hinges on millisecond decisions, HAVIT’s reliable acoustic technology enables players to strike first. What once seemed extraordinary becomes routine when equipped with HAVIT Gaming gear.

Dominating Brazil’s Amazon and Mercado Libre, HAVIT claims No.1 market share in gaming headsets through technological prowess. From Brazil through Latin America to global markets, HAVIT remains committed to delivering cutting-edge technology that helps players transcend limits and dominate virtual battlegrounds.

About HAVIT

HAVIT is a global consumer technology brand and an innovator in smart listening experiences.

Our success in gaming peripherals stems from profound user understanding and groundbreaking technological exploration. Since inception, HAVIT has integrated global resources through large-scale innovation in manufacturing, R&D, omnichannel solutions, and brand development. Connecting user needs with technological advancement across 100+ countries, we create win-win ecosystems while infusing technology with human-centric designs. Make every product interaction a compelling experiential journey.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2696448/pr.jpg

Tesonet is investing €2 million in the Lithuanian SportsTech startup FPRO. This is FPRO’s first round of outside investment, marking a new phase in its development. The funds will help the startup to leverage smart tech solutions to expand professional training opportunities in youth football worldwide.

A made-in-Lithuania solution for the global football market

FPRO is a SportsTech startup that is developing innovative football training solutions for children. Working in collaboration with UEFA-certified coaches and experts in sports science, FPRO has devised a unique interactive app for children ages 6 through 12. The app is designed to improve their technique, coordination and ball control skills.

Having founded the Football Pro Academy back in 2018, founders Ernestas Pilypas, Darius Jankauskas, and Vilius Petkevičius were forced to move operations online during the pandemic. This was the impetus behind the development of their digital product, which was released in 2022. The platform’s user base currently consists of 140,000+ children from the UK, Germany, the US, and other countries. Most of the company’s revenue comes from sales outside of their home market.

“Football is the most popular sport in the world, but the market is currently short on qualified coaches. We wanted to create a solution that would be accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial means or location. FPRO fills this gap by offering young athletes an accessible, tech-driven method geared towards raising their physical fitness and developing their personalities in a comprehensive way. It helps to build their self-confidence, discipline, and passion for football through a focused and personalised coaching process. We see Tesonet’s investment as confirmation that we’re on the right track,” said Vilius Petkevičius, co-founder of FPRO.

Ambitious partnership for innovation in children’s sports

“The sports technology market has enormous potential, and football unites billions of people worldwide. Given our substantial experience with SportsTech, the latest investment reflects our strategy to expand the sports innovation ecosystem while strengthening the community both in Lithuania and globally. This is a profitable and growing startup with a broad user base, an unstoppable team, and founders who are experts in their field. It’s a perfect combination, and one that mirrors our own values,” commented Tomas Okmanas, co-founder of Tesonet.

Tesonet co-founder Eimantas Sabaliauskas added: “When making a decision to invest, we consider not only market potential, but also a given team’s vision and ability to solve real problems on a global scale. FPRO has created a strong product, and our goal as investors is to help them not just financially but also in terms of strategy. We see clear synergies where our contribution could help them optimise business processes, develop new revenue streams, expand their user base, and further accelerate growth internationally.”

Another SportsTech investment in Tesonet’s portfolio

This is not our first venture in the sports vertical. In 2022, we acquired shares in BC Žalgiris Kaunas, helping the basketball club with its digital transformation and commercial expansion. Then in 2024, we invested in basketball club BC London Lions, aiming to promote the development of young talent and bolster the club’s competitiveness internationally.

ABOUT TESONET:

Tesonet is one of the largest venture builders and investors in the Baltic States. It houses globally recognized companies such as joint cybersecurity powerhouse Nord Security and Surfshark, a market-leading web intelligence collection platform Oxylabs, the fastest-growing brand among hosting providers Hostinger, nexos.ai – an AI orchestration platform, and others.

With over 3,500 in-house talents and a fully developed infrastructure, Tesonet supports, funds, and scales businesses globally. Since 2018, Tesonet has extended its reach by investing in successful ventures like Hostinger, Cast AI, Eneba, BC Žalgiris, London Lions, Artea, Zapp, Turing College, and others.

Tesonet is known for its innovative ecosystem and strong infrastructure, which support product development, testing, and global growth. The company is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and helping grow the broader ecosystem.

ABOUT FPRO:

FPRO is a sports technology startup dedicated to developing innovative training solutions for children’s football. Collaborating with UEFA-certified coaches and sports university experts, FPRO has created a unique interactive mobile app designed to help children aged 6–12 improve their technique, coordination, and ball control skills.Currently, the platform is being used by over 140,000 children across the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and other countries.

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street News

Global GPU leader NVIDIA is collaborating with MediaTek to develop high-performance APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), which is planned to be launched as early as early 2026, in partnership with Dell’s gaming brand Alienware to introduce new machines.

If this collaboration materializes, it will break AMD’s monopoly in the APU field and reshape the competitive landscape of the gaming laptop market.

The collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek focuses on the deep integration of heterogeneous computing. The APU will adopt NVIDIA’s latest Blackwell architecture GPU module (speculated to be a simplified version of GB206 or GB207) and integrate MediaTek’s customized Arm architecture CPU cores.

The Blackwell architecture is based on TSMC’s 4nm process, with its third-generation RT Core (Ray Tracing Core) and fourth-generation Tensor Core (dedicated hardware unit) achieving breakthroughs of 2x ray tracing performance improvement and 4x AI inference speed enhancement.

Taking GB206 as an example, it is equipped with 36 SMs (Streaming Multiprocessors), 4608 CUDA cores, paired with 128-bit GDDR7 memory, with overall performance expected to be close to the 65W version of the RTX 4070 mobile graphics card, significantly surpassing the existing mobile APU graphics performance.

The new generation CPU core after MediaTek’s Cortex-X925 (similar to the Dimensity 9500 architecture) can provide efficient multitasking capabilities, and after collaborative optimization with the GPU, the overall energy efficiency ratio is improved by about 30%.

By sharing the power supply system and collaborative thermal design, the thermal design power (TDP) of the APU is controlled around 65W, reducing power consumption by about 30% compared to traditional “CPU + discrete GPU” solutions.

MediaTek’s energy efficiency management technology accumulated in the mobile processor field (such as Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling) combined with NVIDIA’s DLSS 3.5 super-resolution technology can ensure high performance while extending battery life.

TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging technology is used to achieve high-density integration between chips.

TSMC plans to increase CoWoS monthly production capacity to 75,000-80,000 wafers by the end of 2025, with CoWoS-S and CoWoS-L exceeding 20,000 and 45,000 wafers respectively, providing capacity assurance for the mass production of APU.

This packaging technology not only avoids the signal delay issues of traditional multi-chip packaging but also supports future upgrades to HBM4 high-bandwidth memory (expected to be launched in 2026), with data transfer rates reaching 8.0Gbps+.

The strategic intent of this collaboration directly targets two major market opportunities.

First, the performance innovation of gaming laptops.

Currently, the gaming laptop market is dominated by the “discrete graphics card + CPU” mainstream configuration, but the heavy cooling modules and high power consumption limit portability.

The APU solution from NVIDIA and MediaTek, through integrated design, is expected to reduce the thickness of the body by 15%-20% while maintaining performance, meeting users’ demand for “lightweight gaming.”
According to IDC statistics, the global gaming laptop shipment is expected to grow by 9% year-on-year in 2024, with the Chinese market’s shipment expected to reach 9.2 million units by 2028, representing a compound annual growth rate of 4.2%, which provides ample space for high-performance APU.

Market news indicates that Dell’s Alienware new machine may adopt “liquid metal cooling” technology, achieving performance close to a 120W discrete graphics card under a 65W TDP.

Secondly, the computing power upgrade of AI PCs.

With the popularity of generative AI applications, user demand for local computing power has surged.

The integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in this APU can support tasks such as real-time voice recognition and image generation. The new machine in collaboration with Dell’s Alienware may come pre-installed with NVIDIA’s AI development toolkit, aiming to capture the enterprise-level AI PC market.

According to a Canalys report, global AI PC shipments are expected to exceed 103 million units by 2025, accounting for 40% of total PC shipments, making this field a new battleground for tech giants.

Of course, the collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek will also impact the existing market landscape.

Firstly, it will affect AMD’s market share. AMD’s Ryzen APU, with its “Zen CPU + RDNA GPU” combination, holds an advantage in the thin and light laptop market.

AMD’s latest Strix Halo APU integrated graphics performance is already close to RTX 3080, and it further optimizes energy efficiency through FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) technology.

Additionally, AMD’s collaboration with TSMC on 3nm process technology (such as the Instinct MI355X accelerator) may strengthen its position in the high-performance computing field.

Secondly, Intel will also be impacted by this collaboration. Currently, Intel is accelerating the advancement of “Intel 4” process and Arc graphics card technology, with its Meteor Lake processors achieving integration of CPU, GPU, and NPU through Foveros packaging.

At the same time, Intel’s AI PC ecosystem in collaboration with Microsoft (such as Windows Copilot) may compensate for hardware performance gaps through software optimization.

It is worth noting that Intel plans to use TSMC’s 3nm process for its Falcon Shores AI chip, which may directly target NVIDIA’s APU layout.

The collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek marks the entry of APU technology into the “high-performance era.”

Product forms may see technological innovations not seen in years. Thin and light gaming laptops may become mainstream, and traditional gaming laptop manufacturers will need to redesign cooling modules and industrial designs. Dell’s Alienware new machine may adopt “fanless” or “liquid metal cooling” technology, further reducing the size of the device.

Industry standards will also be restructured. The popularity of APU may promote the application of open standards such as UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express), facilitating interoperability of chips from different manufacturers
NVIDIA’s recently launched NVLink Fusion technology has provided a technical foundation for cross-vendor hardware collaboration.

With changes in product forms and industry standards, market competition will also intensify. AMD may accelerate the integration of the Zen 5 architecture with RDNA 4 GPUs, and Intel may increase its investment in Arc graphics cards. Will Qualcomm, Apple, and other manufacturers be eager to join the PC APU competition?

In any case, this technological race will ultimately benefit consumers, driving gaming laptops towards higher performance and lower power consumption.

The APU collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek is an important milestone in the semiconductor industry’s trend of “heterogeneous computing.” This technological breakthrough, market positioning, and impact on the industry chain are all worth close attention

Swedish-headquartered Betsson has terminated its agreement to acquire Holland Gaming Technology and Holland Power Gaming in favour of pursuing other business opportunities.

Betsson agreed to acquire Netherlands-licensed operator Holland Gaming and games studio Holland Power Gaming in February 2024. The deal was valued at €27.5 million ($31.4 million).

Completion of the double acquisition was subject to approval by Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA). However, as the KSA did not issue a decision by the agreed long-stop date, Betsson elected to withdraw from the deal.

As such, the purchase price, minus the break fee, will be returned to Betsson. In total, the group will receive back €26.7 million. Betsson said the unwinding will not have any notable effect on its consolidated income statement.

Does Betsson have a future in the Netherlands?

The acquisition would have seen Betsson re-enter the regulated Dutch market. Under the deal, Holland Power Gaming would have continued to supply games exclusively for Holland Gaming Technology.

Betsson was pursuing a licence of its own in the Netherlands but withdrew its application in July 2023. The group blamed “significant delays” in the approval process for the decision.

Betsson was previously operational in the country but has been inactive since exiting the market in September of 2021. Its withdrawal came one day before the Dutch regulated iGaming market launched.

At the time, Betsson said it hoped this would facilitate a future entry to the country’s legal market. Operators offering iGaming without a licence may face disciplinary action and this could impact any licence applications to operate in the market legally.

Incidentally, in March Betsson was ordered to repay a customer more than €500,000 after a player lost funds while gambling on websites that were unlicensed. The Rotterdam District Court ruled Betsson was liable to repay the funds on the case that dated back to 2014, when iGaming was not legal in the Netherlands.