• Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Get Tom’s Hardware’s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. • You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful It’s not a fun time to be a computing enthusiast in Germany. • Besides the high RAM and SSD prices everyone else is experiencing, both Asus and Acer’s German websites arecompletely downdue to the companies’ recentspat with Nokiaover the HEVC codec - meaning customers can’t find any downloads or reach support pages for their hardware. • (For example, obtaining BIOS updates and drivers.)Computerbase.defirst reported the news. • AI data centers are swallowing the world’s memory and storage supply Chip scarcity assaults auto industry amid the worsening Nexperia and DRAM crisis Samsung and SK hynix shorten memory contracts as pricing power shifts back to suppliers Memory makers are set to earn $551 billion from the AI boom It’s not just the German websites that are offline; any German user trying to work around the issue by visiting the US version of the websites will also be redirected to a page stating the sites are unreachable. • Trying to use a VPN and setting (for example) a U.S.
Article Summaries:
- Acer and Asus have shut down their German websites following a court injunction from Nokia over HEVC codec royalties. The injunction blocks the companies from offering, selling, or importing HEVC‑enabled devices in Germany, leading to the German sites being taken offline and German users being redirected to an “unreachable” page even when accessing the US sites. As a result, customers cannot download drivers, BIOS updates, or access support pages. Both firms claim after‑sales support remains available, but the extent of the outage is unclear. A workaround is to use a VPN endpoint outside Germany to reach non‑German sites for downloads.
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