Morning Brief

1. Sony announces a joint venture with TCL
2. Ayaneo releases the Konkr Fit handheld
3. RedMagic launches the RedMagic 11 Air and multiple new products
4. Zhipu releases and open-sources the GLM-4.7-Flash model
5. Netflix rolls out live, real-time voting features
6. Microsoft Copilot introduces Real Talk and video generation features
7. Sony launches a limited-edition “Lost Starship: Marathon” game controller
8. Rumors You Can Just Glance At

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Sony announces a joint venture with TCL

On January 20, Sony announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with TCL Electronics to establish a joint venture focused on home entertainment. Under the agreement, TCL will hold a 51% stake in the new company, while Sony will hold 49%. The joint venture will fully take over Sony’s home entertainment business and will be responsible worldwide for the development, design, manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service of televisions and home audio products. The products will continue to use the Sony and BRAVIA brands.

Sony and TCL plan to sign the final agreement by the end of March 2026, with the new company expected to begin official operations in April 2027. Source

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Ayaneo releases the Konkr Fit handheld

On January 20, Ayaneo’s sub-brand Konkr unveiled its first Windows-based handheld, the Konkr Fit. The device is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor, featuring the Zen 5 architecture and RDNA 3.5 graphics cores. The display has been upgraded from the previous Android model’s 6-inch panel to a 7-inch OLED screen. It packs an 80Wh battery, larger than those in the Legion Go 2 (74Wh) and Legion Go S (55.5Wh). The control layout includes Hall-effect joysticks, adjustable triggers, and dual rear buttons. On the top are two USB-C ports, while the back features a large cooling air intake and exposed screws, and it will be available in Retro Gray and Yellow color options.

Pricing and release date have not yet been announced. Source

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RedMagic launches the RedMagic 11 Air and multiple new products

On January 20, RedMagic officially unveiled the RedMagic 11 Air along with several new products for its gaming ecosystem. The RedMagic 11 Air is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 “Ultimate” Edition processor and RedMagic’s in-house Red Core R4 gaming chip. It features LPDDR5X ULTRA memory and UFS 4.1 storage, and comes with a 6.85-inch 1.5K under-display camera full-screen display supporting a 144Hz refresh rate and a 2500Hz instant touch sampling rate. The display also supports 2592Hz high-frequency PWM dimming and DC dimming. The phone packs a 7000mAh battery with 120W fast charging. Its cooling system consists of an active fan spinning at up to 24,000 rpm and a 0.5mm VC vapor chamber panel. The body also integrates 520Hz gaming shoulder triggers and an X-axis linear motor.

Several other gaming ecosystem products were also announced at the event, including the RedMagic 11 Pro+, which features a carbon-fiber body, a sapphire glass back, and a “Golden Flow” liquid cooling system, as well as the RedMagic Gaming Laptop 16 Pro Golden Saga · 3D Explorer Edition, equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU and supporting glasses-free 3D display technology. The RedMagic 11 Air starts at CNY 3,699, while the RedMagic 11 Pro+ Golden Saga 24GB + 1TB version is priced at CNY 9,899.

In addition, the RedMagic Gaming Tablet 3 Pro Golden Saga is expected to go on sale by the end of January, with pricing yet to be announced. Source

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Zhipu releases and open-sources the GLM-4.7-Flash model

On January 20, Zhipu officially released and open-sourced the GLM-4.7-Flash hybrid reasoning model. The model has a total of 30 billion parameters, with 3 billion active parameters, and is positioned as a lightweight deployment option that balances performance and efficiency. It is now available on Zhipu’s open platform BigModel.cn with free access. In mainstream benchmarks such as SWE-bench Verified and τ²-Bench, the model’s overall performance surpasses gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3-30B-A3B-Thinking-2507, achieving open-source SOTA scores among models of the same size class.

GLM-4.7-Flash is primarily optimized for programming scenarios, covering both front-end and back-end development tasks, and is also suitable for general-purpose use cases such as Chinese writing, translation, long-text processing, and emotional role-playing. With the release of the new version, the previous free model GLM-4.5-Flash is scheduled to be officially retired on January 30, 2026, at which time all related API requests will be automatically routed to GLM-4.7-Flash. This iteration aims to provide developers with higher-density intelligent service support by improving logical reasoning capabilities and optimizing parameter scale. Source

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Netflix rolls out live, real-time voting features

On January 20, Netflix officially launched real-time interactive voting for live content. The feature дебuts with the talent show Star Search, allowing subscribers to participate in multiple-choice voting or star-based ratings via their TV remote controls or the mobile app. It supports real-time global vote aggregation with time-limited cutoffs, enabling viewers to directly influence the narrative progression of live broadcasts.

Netflix said that the interactive framework was previously technically validated in August 2025 with The David Chang Live Dinner Show, and that a full rollout was confirmed at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Source

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Microsoft Copilot introduces Real Talk and video generation features

On January 20, Microsoft Copilot rolled out the Real Talk interaction mode, which aims to deliver a more human-like and interactive conversational experience. It introduces multiple levels of depth for reasoning and writing style options, supports viewing chains of thought and reasoning paths, and offers long-context memory capabilities. During conversations, it can reference past interactions and user background, and will at times show curiosity or proactively challenge logical inconsistencies.

In addition, Copilot is testing a video generation feature on Android, allowing users to generate video clips of up to 8 seconds with audio. The underlying model for this feature has not yet been disclosed and is currently being rolled out gradually, with no mandatory subscription requirement at this stage. Source

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Sony launches a limited-edition “Lost Starship: Marathon” game controller

On January 19, Sony announced that alongside the March 5 release of Bungie’s Lost Starship: Marathon, it will roll out two limited-edition hardware products: a DualSense Limited Edition controller priced at USD 84.99 and a Pulse Elite Limited Edition headset priced at USD 169.99.

The DualSense Limited Edition controller is deeply inspired by the world of Lost Starship: Marathon. Bungie’s design team said their goal was to create a “real-world object” that feels as if it were taken directly from the game itself. To reflect the title’s distinctive industrial aesthetic and environmental architecture, the controller features bold graphic elements and striking color combinations. The Lost Starship: Marathon Limited Edition Pulse Elite headset follows the same design language as the controller. Source

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Rumors You Can Just Glance At

According to a January 19 post by LeicaRumors, Leica is planning to release its first 35mm focal-length lens in the Noctilux series, the Noctilux-M 1.2/35 ASPH., on January 29, 2026. This would mark the first time the series enters the 35mm documentary-style focal length category. Leaked spy photos show that the Noctilux-M 1.2/35 ASPH. continues Leica’s classic industrial design language, featuring a relatively compact aluminum body accented with the brand’s signature yellow scale markings. Notably, the lens is equipped with a fixed lens hood that users must extend by rotating it into position. Source

On January 20, Samsung published and then withdrew an upgrade announcement for Bixby on its official website. According to the notice, the new version of Bixby will deeply integrate Perplexity AI to enable web-based, real-time natural language Q&A and information retrieval, while also introducing a new device agent architecture capable of recognizing non-specific user intents and automatically triggering the corresponding system settings. The updated assistant is set to enter testing as part of the One UI 8.5 Beta program and is planned to debut as a core preinstalled feature on the Galaxy S26 series. Source