HTC One A9 (Aero) dummy unit images leaked

HTC is scheduled to announce a new device on October 20 and for all we know, it's going to be the One A9. Not the best kept of secrets, the smartphone has been photographed on a few occasions already, but now we get a more detailed look at it, albeit through a dummy unit. The leaked shots, courtesy of @OnLeaks, show the One A9 (conceived as HTC Aero)...

GranitePhone is a security-obsessed phone by Sikur/Archos

After a seven-month period following its MWC announcement, the GranitePhone is now available for purchase. The phone, conceived by IT security specialists from Sikur, and made by Archos, can now be ordered from its dedicated website for the hefty sum of $849. The hardware you get for that is not unlike the existing Archos 50 Diamond. There's the...

Gionee's first made-in-India smartphone coming in next few weeks

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Gionee, which has just launched its Elife E8 smartphone in India, has said that its first made-in-India smartphone will be launched in the country before the festival of Diwali, which is just a month away now. "By March, 2016 we expect to assemble all phones that will be sold in India at two outsourced locations in...

Hulu will launch a VR app next month, in time for Samsung's new Gear VR release

The days when your brain used lack of content as a reasonable excuse not to follow your impulse and buy a VR headset seem to be numbered. For one, Hulu is launching its virtual reality app next month alongside the market release of Samsung's latest Gear VR rig. Not only will the new Oculus-made headset make it easier on your pocket with its $99 asking...

Report: Job cuts are coming to Twitter

Just days after co-founder Jack Dorsey - who is currently also the chief executive and chairman of payments startup Square - was announced as Twitter's new CEO, there are reports that the company is planning cost cutting measures, including job cuts. The layoffs are said to be company-wide, and are expected to be announced as soon as next week. There...

Unannounced OnePlus handset gets pictured at the FCC

Before the end of the year, OnePlus will launch its third smartphone ever, and the second one of 2015, to complement the OnePlus 2 in its portfolio. The new device will probably be smaller than the OnePlus 2, and it may be called either OnePlus X or OnePlus Mini. Not long ago a purported full list of specs for the OnePlus Mini got leaked, and now...

Gione Elife E8 hands-on: First look

Gionee has established Elife as its flagship series. This year, Gionee decided to go big with the new E8, and quite literally at that. The E8 is a big phone thanks to a new 6.0-inch QHD but it also packs in quite a lot of features, including a 24 megapixel rear camera, a fingerprint sensor, and an octa-core MediaTek Helio X10 processor. All packed...

Soak test for Moto X Pure Edition starts soon, could be Android 6.0

Motorola has started sending surveys for a software soak test to owners of the Moto X Pure Edition (2015), which is basically the US version of the Moto X Style sold internationally. Unfortunately the company isn't saying what exact firmware update is the one that the soak test will be sent out for. However, it seems pretty likely that we're talking...

Samsung Galaxy A9 spotted in AnTuTu, S620 chipset confirmed

The Samsung Galaxy A9 poked its head above water again, surfacing at the AnTuTu benchmark database. It casts another vote for a 5.5" 1080p screen, even though the naming scheme suggests the A9 should be better than the Galaxy A8 (5.7" 1080p). It's definitely better in terms of chipset - the Snapdragon 620 has next-gen CPU cores and a next-gen GPU....

Elon Musk takes a jab at Apple, says it only hires people Tesla fires

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk is currently in Germany, discussing the future of electric vehicles with the local government. However this didn't stop him from taking digs at Apple while interacting with media. During an interview with German business newspaper Handelsblatt yesterday, when he was asked to comment on Apple hiring Tesla's engineers for its...

Starbucks to start accepting Apple Pay this year; Chili's and KFC to hop on in 2016

Coffee chain Starbucks will start accepting Apple's mobile payments service this year, while Chili's and KFC will hop on the Apple Pay bandwagon next year. This was announced by the Cupertino-based company's Vice President Jennifer Bailey at the Re/code technology conference yesterday. In fact, Starbucks has already begun an Apple Pay pilot program...

BlackBerry Priv handled unofficially: thinner than Note5

One lucky Redditor got to handle the BlackBerry Priv, something we've seen only the BB CEO do so far. The initial impressions are quite positive. Most surprising is that the Priv is reportedly thinner than the Galaxy Note5, which is a slender 7.6mm thick. As for weight, it was reported more than the Note5 (171g). The BB slider is not a small device...

Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus arrive in 42 new countries

Apple has revealed that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus smartphones, which were released on September 25 in the first wave of countries, will be available in over 40 more countries by October 10 - tomorrow. Over 35 countries will get the handsets today. These include Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,...

Sony's new PS4 media remote can also control your TV and cable box

Sony's new Universal Media Remote for PS4 - which was leaked earlier this year in retail listings - is now up for pre-order on various retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, and Toys R Us. Carrying a price tag of $30, the device will be released on October 27. The Japanese company describes the remote as "a convenient and intuitive way...

Meizu Pro 5 delayed until November due to factory flood

The Meizu Pro 5, which was made official later last month and was scheduled to go on sale on October 12 won't be released until next month. According to the company, the delayed was caused by floods that hit a manufacturing facility in the Chinese city of Guangdong. The facility in question manufactures the unibody chassis. There was, however, no...

Motorola launches Moto X Style in India

Motorola has announced the Moto X Style for the Indian market. The phone will be available exclusively through Flipkart and pre-ordering starts from October 14, midnight. The Moto X Style has a 5.7-inch QHD IPS LCD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB RAM, 16/32GB storage with microSD support, 21 megapixel rear camera with 4K video and phase detection...

OnePlus 2 to be available in India sans invite on October 12

OnePlus has announced that its latest flagship, the OnePlus 2, will be available for purchase on Amazon India without any invite on October 12, which is coming Monday. However, the open sale will last for just one hour - 12:00 to 1 PM. "While we've alleviated the invite demand to a reasonable extent on account of faster roll-outs, we feel that we...

Lumia 950 will be AT&T exclusive after all, Microsoft confirms

Shortly after Microsoft announced its new Windows 10-powered Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL smartphones earlier this week, there were reports that the former will only be available through AT&T. However, it was later said that the deal isn't an exclusive one. Clearing the confusion, Microsoft has now issued a formal statement on the matter, confirming...

Facebook Messenger update brings support for Apple Watch

Facebook Messenger has received an update, bumping it to version 38.0 and bringing some new features, including support for the Apple Watch. The update comes just a month after Apple announced that the Messenger app would soon be available on their smartwatch. As you can see in the image above, in addition to normal messages, Facebook Messenger on...

Apple quietly begins selling unlocked iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus in the United States

Apple quietly began selling unlocked iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus in the United States. The SIM-free variants of the smartphones arrive on the market less than two weeks after the product family's retail launch. The SIM-free Apple Phone 6s sports the model number A1633. Its larger sibling features the model number A1634. Both devices require the...

Skype is giving you 20 minutes of free calls to apologize for its big outage

On September 21, Skype suffered one of its worst outages in history. The extremely popular service for chatting and calling was down for many hours for most users, a development which obviously didn't go unnoticed. The Microsoft-owned company did eventually manage to get things under control again, and it's been smooth sailing ever since. Now though...

Lenovo K3 Note review: Note for less

It was not that long ago that you could hardly get a feature phone for $150, and these days this amount gets you a ridiculously good smartphone like the Lenovo K3 Note. It's an affordable large-screen phablet with little compromise on the important stuff. Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_k3_note-review-1319.p...

OnePlus running pizza-style '60 minutes or free' delivery promotion for its One smartphone in India

Taking cue from some of the leading pizza delivery companies in the country, OnePlus has launched a promotional campaign in India under which the company is promising to deliver its One smartphone to customers within 60 minutes, else they'll get it for free. "Can you ever imagine receiving a smartphone in about the same time as you order a pizza?...

Apple iPad Pro will be available to order in late October, rumor says

The (literally) biggest device Apple announced last month at its fall event was the iPad Pro. The 12.9-inch tablet is the largest Apple's ever made, and it's still not available to purchase unfortunately. That, however, may change towards the end of this month. According to certain unnamed sources that are said to be reliable, you'll be able to order...

comScore: Apple is largest OEM, Android most popular mobile OS in the US

The latest US smartphone market stats for August are in, courtesy of market research firm comScore. A total of 191.1 million people in the US own a smartphone in the three month period ending in August, resulting in a 77.1% mobile market penetration. The analytic data shows that Apple is still the leading OEM in the US with 44.1% of the market, up...

Belgian image sensor company Softkinetic is now part of the Sony family

News just got out about Sony's latest purchase - a Belgian image sensor technology company by the name of Softkinetic. Its business is be centered around 3D technology, from the development of CMOS 3D sensors and camera modules, through connecting middleware hardware and software, all the way to analyzing and mapping algorithms. No specifics about...

Unofficial Samsung Galaxy J3 spotted with big upgrades over the J2

Hot on the heels of the J2 (announced just a month ago), the Samsung Galaxy J3 has already passed the Geekbench test. The phone offers a great deal of upgrades over the affordable Super AMOLED-packing Galaxy J2. The screen goes up to 5" 720p, though software measurements of the diagonal are inaccurate and this may still be a 4.7" screen. The resolution...

BeatsPill+ is the first Beats speaker post Apple acquisition

You can't be a part of Apple and not have a Plus model, Beats Electronics will testify. The first product out of the company after the acquisition is the BeatsPill+ wireless speaker. Sporting an updated design compared to the Pill 2.0, the new model keeps the shape of its namesake, but has the controls on a flat top plate and the drivers firing forward...

Sony is giving its mobile division a year to turn profitable or face a split

It's a dog-eat-dog world out there and a lot of industry pioneers and former titans, like Siemens and Nokia, for example, have all but disappeared from the handset scene. Others, like Sony have been struggling to stay relevant and afloat in the market. But being successful on a large scale and long-term means that you really have to address the weaker...

InFocus M812 goes on sale for $300

US-based smartphone maker InFocus launches its latest flagship the M812 today in India. Available through Snapdeal, the phone costs $300 (INR 19,999) and packs quite the features for the price. The InFocus M812 is built around a 5.5" 1080p IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3 layer of protection. Beneath the aluminum unibody ticks a Snapdragon 801 chipset...

The PlayStation 4 gets a price cut to $350

There is nothing like a healthy competitive market to help deliver a constant stream of new and better deals to users and few modern businesses know this better than the gaming industry. Keeping a console fresh, relevant and appealing is no easy task, especially with the hardware's extended life span so constant bundles, exclusives and price drops...

iPhone 6s: Samsung and TSMC A9 chips yield different battery life

The Apple iPhone 6s/6s Plus pair has been available for two weeks now and initial hype around its new camera and 3D Touch is starting to wear off. Curious minds are now digging deeper and are looking into the difference between the Samsung and TSMC A9 chips in terms of performance and battery life. The Samsung-made piece is manufactured on a 14nm...

Nexus 6P will be exclusively sold by SoftBank in Japan

The Huawei-made Google Nexus 6P smartphone, which was made official last week along with the LG-made Nexus 5X, will be carrier exclusive to SoftBank in Japan. The carrier will begin taking pre-orders for the device on October 9 - tomorrow. What's good is that you'll also be able to pre-order the Japan-exclusive Gold color model of the handset (shown...

Report: Hackers using LinkedIn to connect with potential victims

Cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks published a report yesterday revealing that they discovered a network of fake LinkedIn profiles which they say belonged to an Iran-based hacker group known as Threat Group-2889 (TG-2889). A total of 25 such profiles were identified. While a few among them were those of "leaders" (who claimed they held top positions...

Gionee launches Elife E8 in India

Gionee has launched its flagship device - the Elife E8 - in the Indian market. The phone is priced at INR 34,999 ($539) and will be sold exclusively through Snapdeal. This is the first time Gionee will be selling any of its devices officially through an online retailer in India. The Elife E8 has a 6.0-inch, QHD AMOLED display, MediaTek Helio X10...

Zuckerberg says net-neutrality principles not relevant for Internet access

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that net-neutrality principles are not relevant for Internet access. He made the comment at a conference hosted by Vanity Fair magazine. "If an operator wants to advantage their own video program and charge more for Netflix, then that is bad," he said, adding that "if you're a student in India and you're getting...

Kantar: Windows Phone market share rises in several countries

Market research firm Kantar WorldPanel has released its latest report on mobile operating system market share. The report, which covers the 3 months ending August, reveals that Windows Phone's share has increased in several countries around the world. As you can see in the image above, the countries where Windows Phone has seen its market share increase...

Hackers attacked LoopPay, a Samsung subsidiary that helped develop Samsung Pay

According to a New York Times report, Chinese hackers in March this year infiltrated the computer systems of LoopPay, a company which was acquired by Samsung just the prior month and helped develop the South Korean firm's mobile payments service Samsung Pay. As per the report, it was only in August - which means after a long gap of 5 months - that...

Google for iOS updated with the ability to play GIFs in image search results

Google has updated its iOS app, bumping it to version 9.0 and brining a few new features, including some interesting ones such as the ability to play GIFs. The updated app now lets you tap and play animated GIFs in image search results, something which is not only convenient but also saves you some time. In addition, you can now also add a photo...

Samsung's giant Galaxy View tablet approved by FCC

The Samsung Galaxy View tablet, which was recently spotted at GFXBench, has been approved by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The device carries a model name of SM-T677A. If you take a look at the sketch of the back of the tablet (see image above), you'll notice that there's an AT&T logo in the top middle, suggesting that the slate...

WhatsApp content backup to Google Drive finally becomes official

A new feature of WhatsApp that lets you back up all your content from the messaging app to Google Drive has been in testing for many months now. It worked for some people on certain versions of WhatsApp back in April, for example, but not everyone got this ability enabled. Now it turns out that those who did may have either used beta versions of...

LG V10 arrives in South Korea first, available tomorrow for $693

After many leaks and rumors, LG finally made the V10 official at the beginning of this month, and now it's almost ready to become available. The smartphone with two screens and two front-facing cameras will go on sale in LG's native South Korea first, starting tomorrow. It will be priced at KRW 799,700, which right now translates into $693 or €616....

Asus will launch a ZenPad tablet in India on October 9

In just two short days from now, Asus is set to launch a new tablet in India. This will be part of its ZenPad line which made its official worldwide debut in June. Since then we've seen the ZenPad S go on sale in the US, and it or one of its siblings may now be headed to the Indian market. The image you can see below is a teaser posted by Asus' Indian...

Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review: The overachiever

When it comes to the Compact family, Sony has quite a reputation to live up to. The Z3 Compact is arguably one of the company's most-successful models. Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z5_compact-review-1318.p...

Caviar's new Putinphone is based on the iPhone 6s

Russian phone customization company Caviar is back at it again, with yet another version of the Putinphone. The update was necessary of course, since Apple has launched a new iPhone. So, predictably, the new Putinphone is based on the iPhone 6s. You get the same internals, but a totally different exterior, as you'd expect. Vladimir Putin's face is...

Barnes & Noble unveils the 9.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab E Nook

Book store chain Barnes & Noble has announced the latest tablet in its Nook line today. And like the last few offerings to bear the Nook brand, this is also nothing more than a rebranded Samsung tablet. The new model is the Galaxy Tab E Nook, and it's based on the 9.6-inch Galaxy Tab E. It comes with Nook Profiles, which let you customize the...

Samsung rumored to implement in-house GPU in 2017-2018

It's not news that Samsung is building its own GPU to complement home-grown Mongoose CPU cores already in testing. It's the only logical step after in-house SoCs have evolved from a regional option to a global chipset of choice with the Exynos 7420 in the entire 2015 flagship lineup. According to a Korean source outed on Chinese social site Weibo,...

The Samsung Galaxy S7 might actually have three processor variants

Although still quite a few months away, the Galaxy S7 is already exciting the tech world and stirring up controversy. Samsung reassured fans that the absence of a Qualcomm chipset in the S6 lineup isn't the end of the two parties partnership and by all accounts it seem that the Korean giant's next flagship will once again have a Snapdragon version,...

Huawei announces Honor 7 and Honor Z1 Band in India

Huawei has announced the Honor 7 for the Indian market. The phone is priced at INR 22,999 ($354) and will be available exclusively through Flipkart starting October 15. The Honor 7 has a full metal body, 5.2-inch Full HD LCD, HiSilicon Kirin 935 processor with octa-core (2.2GHz Cortex-A53 x 4 + 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 x 4) CPU and Mali-T628 MP4 GPU, 3GB...

10,000 Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact owners can test drive Android Marshmallow

This way for the Marshmallow trial. Sony's Concept for Android initiative will allow 10,000 Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact owners to beta test Android's new major version. The new software is built on feedback Sony received from the initiative launched earlier this year. If you want in, you'll have to check in with the Concept Sign-up app. It's...