Instagram brings back the Peek feature to its Android app

After momentarily introducing the Peek feature in the Android version of its app in the previous beta, Instagram later pulled the feature for unknown reasons. It seems the company is now ready to roll it out again, as some users are now seeing the feature back in the latest v7.14.0 of the app. For those not aware, the Peek feature is lifted from...

Microsoft joins other tech giants in warning users about suspected state-sponsored hacking attacks

Microsoft has joined the list of companies that claim to warn users they suspect may have been targeted by a state-sponsored attack. Quite recently, Yahoo jumped on the bandwagon, and other tech giants including Google and Facebook are also in the list. "We're taking this additional step of specifically letting you know if we have evidence that the...

Microsoft CEO says company's smartphone market share is 'unsustainable'

In a recent interview, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that the company's current smartphone market share is "unsustainable." He, however, argued that their aim is to create a world where a device is of lesser importance compared to the services it can access. "I think we do ourselves a disservice if we measure our success by just looking at:...

Oculus Touch controller delayed, will now ship in H2 2016

Oculus has announced that the Touch controller for its Rift VR headset will be delayed. According to the company, the controller will now be shipping in the second half of 2016 - it was earlier scheduled to be shipped in H1. "On the path to perfecting Touch, we've decided that we need more time before release," the company said in a blog post. "On...

Windows 10 now claims nearly 10% of desktop OS market share

Launched around five months ago, Windows 10 now claims nearly 10% (9.96% to be exact) of the desktop OS market share, according to latest data from market research firm Net Applications. That's an increase of just under 1% from November, when the share was exact 9%. Given the fact that the OS' market share rose 1.06% in the October-November period,...

Samsung Galaxy Note5 starts receiving December security update in India

After the United States, the Samsung Galaxy Note5 has started receiving the December security update in India, too. Weighing in at 71.15 MB, the update bumps the firmware version to N920GDDU2AOL1, and also brings along improved voice call stability. Over in the US, the T-Mobile and Verizon variants of the smartphone have already received the December...

Microsoft Lumia 640 XL gets $50 price cut in US

The Microsoft Lumia 640 XL has received an official price cut in the US. The device (unlocked, white variant) is now listed on Microsoft Store website for $249.00, which is $50 down from its usual price of $299.00. Specs-wise, the handset is powered by a Snapdragon 400 chipset, and sports a 5.7-inch (720 x 1280 pixel resolution) IPS display. It comes...

Android 6.0 Marshmallow rolling out to Moto G (3rd gen) in India

Motorola has started pushing out the Android 6.0 update to its third-generation Moto G smartphone in India. This was announced by the Indian arm of the company on Twitter. Here is something new and amazing for your Moto G (3rd Gen.), the Android 6.0 Marshmallow! pic.twitter.com/0etB1IncHi— Motorola India (@MotorolaIndia) December 30, 2015 The update...

Most interesting news stories of 2015: Q4

Getting closer to the present, Q4 2015 was focused mostly on the upcoming Galaxy S7. Display sizes and shapes, dimensions and specs - most of these remain to be established for certain, though obviously they have long been settled upon by Samsung. That said, the top read over the last quarter was the list of confirmed smartphones to receive Marshmallow....

Verizon is giving you 50% off the LG Tone Pro Bluetooth headset if you buy a V10 smartphone

Verizon's latest deal concerns the V10, LG's latest high-end smartphone. If you decide to purchase the device from the carrier, you get $100 in instant savings, but also 50% off the LG Tone Pro Bluetooth headset. The accessory normally retails for $69.99, yet you can pick one up for just $35 if you also get the V10. You do however need to pay $23.83...

Most interesting news stories of 2015: Q3

The third quarter of the year was perhaps the most action-packed. And not just because Apple's launch events customarily take place in this period, as do Samsung's Note series releases. No, there was plenty of other stuff going on. It was the Nokia C1 that made headlines again with two of the top three stories depicting the alleged Finnish (or Finnish-Chinese)...

Netflix said to launch its service in India soon

One of the world's largest online video streaming company - Netflix - could soon be bringing its service to India. According to the sources at The Hindu, Netflix is expected to announce its India plans at CES this year. The Hindu further reports that Netflix will be partnering with one of the 4G service providers in India. For now, only Bharti Airtel...

Most interesting news stories of 2015: Q2

With both major events on the calendar falling in the first quarter, the April to June period was a quieter time. The most read story was the announcement of the Lenovo K80 - an Intel Atom-powered 5.5-inch phablet with 4GB of RAM and a 4,000mAh battery. Oddly enough, it was also the last time we heard of the K80. Nokia made the news despite not being...

Poll results: Samsung Galaxy Note5 is the Phablet of the year 2015

First phones, now phablets - Samsung made it a clean sweep in our devices of the year polls. Last week, we asked you to pick your favorite phone of the year, which turned out to be the Galaxy S6 and this week in the Phablet category the Galaxy Note5 received the same resounding support. There is no denying it, with a total score just shy of 40%,...

Most interesting news stories of 2015: Q1

We greeted the New Year with fanfare and it's time for a recap of the one we sent off. And because we're all about order, we'll do it chronologically, starting with the most interesting stories from the first quarter of 2015. The top-read article, by a long stretch, was the market launch of the Yu Yureka. Micromax' subsidiary was a prominent player...

Happy New Year 2016 from our team, best wishes to all

'tis the season to be jolly! Time truly flies when you are doing the things you love and with another year behind us, we can't help but feel a little nostalgic and look back at what the past twelve months have brought us. . First things first - we would like to use this opportunity to wish you happiness and peace. Thank you for being with us and...

Asus Pegasus X005 is revealed through Chinese certification

Asus is almost ready to launch a new member in its Pegasus line of affordable smartphones, the X005. Before the official unveiling happens, the device has been certified for sale in China by TENAA, the country's relevant regulatory authority. As usual, this process has resulted both in images of the phone becoming available, as well as a pretty extensive...

Alleged OnePlus 2 Mini gets approved by TENAA

The upcoming OnePlus 2 Mini just got a bit more real. The phone was just approved by TENAA, which is the telecommunications equipment certification center in China. According to the certification page, the phone, model number One E1000, has 4.99-inch 1920x1080 AMOLED display, 2.0GHz octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB storage with...

Valve comes clean, admits Christmas day Steam glitch was due to DoS attack

We reported earlier that a weird glitch took over Steam on Christmas morning, as several users reported seeing other users' account information instead of their own. The issue was sorted out in a few hours, and later Valve confirmed that it was due to a caching issue. While that may have been the direct cause of the glitch, it was caused due to another...

Pink Sony Xperia Z5 coming in January, rumor says

Sony is apparently looking to add a new color version to its Xperia Z5 lineup, if a new rumor out of Taiwan is to be believed. The company will allegedly launch the pink Z5 in Taiwan first, where it will land at some point in late January. Over there this hue will be exclusive to Chunghwa Telecom, which is one of the carriers you can pick from if...

Xiaomi launching 70-inch Mi TV 3 variant

Over a couple of months after announcing the 60-inch 4K Mi TV 3, Xiaomi is launching a 70-inch variant of the smart TV. As with the former, the new model is also expected to be only available for purchase in China. The 70-inch variant is powered by an MStar 6A928 chipset with a quad-core Cortex-A17 CPU and Mali-T760 GPU, and sports an ultra-sharp...

Microsoft says Lumia 950 XL out of stock at some UK retailers due to strong demand, refutes hardware problem reports

A day after there were reports that some retailers in the UK - including Carphone Warehouse (CPW) - have halted Lumia 950 XL shipments due to unknown hardware issues, Microsoft has issued a statement refuting the reports. "Demand for L950XL has been strong. CPW has listed L950XL as a pre-order purchase for more than a week as it has run out of stock...

Following ban in India, Free Basics from Facebook suspended in Egypt

A week after it was banned in India, Facebook's Free Basics service - which aims to bring affordable Internet to the 5 billion people in the world who otherwise can't access it - has been suspended in Egypt. The service was suspended following the expiry of a mandatory permit that the Egyptian government issues. Free Basics was launched in the country...

OnePlus X Champagne Edition now available for purchase in India

The OnePlus X Champagne Edition is now available for purchase in India, where Amazon has it listed for INR 16,999, which translates into $255 at current exchange rates. FYI, It is the same price at which the standard Onyx variant can be purchased. The model made its debut in China, and is already available for purchase in several other countries....

Twitter for Mac update brings what you've been asking for

Twitter has released a major update to its Mac client, bumping it to version 4.0.0 and bringing features like inline video playback, GIFs support, and group direct messages. With the update, Twitter for Mac users will be able to see videos play directly in their feed, see animations without leaving their timeline, as well as create and receive private...

LG G5 to reportedly come with V10-like secondary display, Magic Slot

LG's upcoming flagship smarphone - the G5 - will come with a secondary display similar to the one that the V10 sports, according to a report from VentureBeat. The 160 x 1040 pixel resolution display will also be there on several other LG phones coming next year. As per the report, the smartphone will also come with a dual rear camera set-up - something...

Surface Pro 4 landing in India on January 7; Microsoft sends press invites

Last month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the Surface Pro 4 will land in India in January. And just last week, Microsoft's India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik revealed that the device will be launched in the country in the "first week" of the month. And now, we have the exact launch date. The Redmond, Washington-based company has sent out...

BlackBerry Priv reportedly coming to T-Mobile in January

As of now, the only US carrier that sells the BlackBerry Priv is AT&T. This might change, however, next month when T-Mobile (reportedly) launches the BlackBerry "Venice". One of Phone Arena's readers revealed T-Mobile's internal work calendar, with the launch of the BlackBerry Venice (The codename for the BlackBerry Priv) on January 26. Right...

T-Mobile's reply to YouTube's throttling accusations: "we are optimizing it"

Remember last week when YouTube accused T-Mobile of throttling video traffic? T-Mobile's reply: it wasn't throttling the video traffic but simply optimizing content for mobile consumption. The FCC will be keeping a close eye on T-Mobile with Binge-On's controversial nature against Net Neutrality since the service technically puts a kind of preference...

Alcatel One Touch Fierce XL with Windows 10 is headed to T-Mobile

The Android-powered iteration of the Alcatel One Touch Fierce XL has already been announced by T-Mobile and MetroPCS, but we're still waiting for the Windows 10 running version of the same device to become official. That's probably going to happen soon, however, as a new rumor today claims T-Mobile will launch the Windows variant too. This will be...

ZTE teases a January 5 event, Nubia Z11 might get unveiled

Today on its official Weibo account ZTE's Nubia sub-brand is teasing something that will happen on January 5. It's probably going to be big, hence the need for the teaser, but it's unclear exactly what we are to expect. This may be when the Nubia Z11 becomes official as the company's next flagship smartphone. The Z11 has so far been rumored to sport...

The LG G3 Marshmallow update officially available

Well, it is indeed official now - Android 6.0 has been released for the LG G3. And it is happening in Poland as we speak, but just so we're clear, it has started today, not yesterday. From what we gather, the firmware has to be installed via a PC, and an OTA update is not available for the time being though it could happen eventually. Both 16GB/32GB...

Lenovo said to release an Exynos 8870 device next year

Word travels fast in the mobile realm and once the cat is out of the bag on a topic, follow-up rumors seem to pile up almost instantly. It was only mere hours ago that we first heard of the Exynos 8870 SoC - a Samsung chip that will allegedly offer a toned-down version of the flagship Exynos 8890. That means it will probably feature the same in-house...

Report: Apple considering LG and Samsung as flexible OLED suppliers

Earlier this month a report came out of Japan that JDI will build up capacity to manufacture OLED displays for an upcoming iPhone. Now a report out of Korea states that Samsung Display and LG Display will be mass producing displays for the iPhones. Like the JDI plans, this is a long-term investment for the Korean giants and the displays will ship...

Apple agrees to pay €318 million as settlement in Italian tax fraud case

Apple has agreed to pay a sum of €318 million (around $350 million) to settle an Italian tax fraud case, according to a report from the country's daily newspaper La Repubblica. The Cupertino-based company has been accused of tax evasion between 2008 and 2013. It is alleged that the iPhone maker failed to pay €880 million in corporate taxes during...

Lumia 950 and 950 XL software update starts rolling out in UK and Ireland

Microsoft has started rolling out a new update for the Lumia 950 and the 950 XL, starting in UK and Ireland. The update brings the version number to 01078.00027.15506.020xx. The update includes the following changes: Stability and performance improvements. Improvements for SD memory card support. Improvements for automatic display brightness settings....

Sony Xperia Z6 Lite with Snapdragon 620 SoC to come in 2016

The Xperia Z5 family definitely brought a new and very overdue spark of life to the OEM's presence in the mobile realm and naturally got fans excited about the future of the brand. Consequently, rumors of a 2016 Xperia Z6 lineup have been flying all over the pace, but there are often conflicting and seem to raise more questions than they answer....

Samsung's entire 2016 smart TV line-up will feature IoT support

Samsung has announced that all the TVs in its 2016 line-up will feature Internet of Things (IoT) support as well as SmartThings platform integration. For those wondering, SmartThings is an open platform that lets users connect, manage and control smart devices and IoT services, something which they can do directly from their smartphone and SUHD TV....

Teaser says Lenovo K4 Note has 'killer display'

The upcoming Lenovo K4 Note smartphone has a "killer display". This was revealed by the Chinese company in a recent teaser that was posted by Lenovo India on its Twitter account. The message accompanying the teaser says, "When is a display more than just a sum of its pixels?" When is a display more than just a sum of its pixels?Get ready to thrill...

Over 300 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) this year

Adobe Flash was in news for all the wrong reasons this year - as you might know, a lot of Flash vulnerabilities were discovered this year. If you're wondering exactly how many, here the number: 316. Yes, a total of 316 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) in 2015. For those doing the maths, that's around 6.1 fixes per week. The last quarter of...

Sidecar as we know it is shutting down

San Francisco-based ride-sharing service Sidecar is shutting down on December 31 (at 2PM Pacific Time). This was announced by the company's co-founder and CEO Sunil Paul in a blog post on Medium. Image credit: Hayne Palmour IV U-T San Diego "Today is a turning point for Sidecar as we prepare to end our ride and delivery service so we can work on...

New Samsung Gear S2 update is aimed at improving battery life

Samsung has started rolling out a new update to its Gear S2 smartwatch that is primarily aimed at improving the battery life of the device. Weighing in at 4.85MB, the update bumps the software version to R730TUVU1AOL3. A quick look at the change-log (see image below) suggests that the What's new section only lists "Battery life has been optimized"....

iPhone 7c mass production expected to start next month, report says

Earlier this month, there were reports that the rumored Apple iPhone 7c will be launched in September 2016. However, a recent China Mobile roadmap revealed an April launch. While there's still no confirmation on the launch time frame, a new report is suggesting that the device will go into mass production soon. As per the report, Apple is already...

New lawsuit claims Apple slows down older iPhones on iOS 9

A new lawsuit is demanding $5M in damages from Apple for intentionally slowing down performance of legacy iPhones. The plaintiff claims that Apple has been engaging in deceptive business practices of purposely slowing down 100 members' iPhone 4S's. After performing the upgrade in software, these iPhone 4S's have apparently become so bogged down that...

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 (64GB variant) sells out within a minute on launch day

Announced last month in China, the all-metal Mi Pad 2 tablet from Xiaomi comes in both 16GB and 64GB memory configurations. While the former has been available for purchase, the latter was launched in the country this week, only to be sold out in just 60 seconds. That's right. According to a report out of China, the device was out of stock within...

Chinese company FiresVR launches a new VR headset JiDome-1

While virtual reality is still somewhat of a novelty, it hasn't stopped companies like FiresVR from making new VR hardware. The headset is going to be called the JiDome-1 and is among the first VR products directly comparable to Samsung's Gear VR. The company calls itself "the Xiaomi of China's VR industry". While other products like the Samsung...

AT&T finally testing cross-VoLTE between US carriers

VoLTE is such a great way to hear callers with crystal-clear quality. While this feature is such a great advancement in the telecommunications industry, the problem with it is that they haven't enabled this feature for calls made between callers of different service providers. As of right now, if an AT&T caller dials a Verizon subscriber, both...

Lenovo Vibe Shot review: Shoot to thrill

The Vibe series often breathes fresh air into the stale smartphone design segment and the Lenovo Vibe Shot wants to serve double duty by trying to break into the difficult high-end smartphone photography market as well. Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_vibe_shot-review-1357.p...

iPhone 7 rumored to get rid of the antenna stripes, waterproofing confirmed

We've already heard that one of the defining features of the upcoming iPhone 7 is set to be its waterproofing. This has been 'confirmed' today by a new rumor out of China. Both sizes of the iPhone 7 are expected to be waterproof. They will also apparently employ some "new compound materials" which will be used to hide their antennas and do away with...

Windows 10 reaches 200 million installs

As 2015 draws to a close, Microsoft's latest operating system is reaching a new milestone in terms of device installations. Windows 10 has now been installed over 200 million times. That's up from 14 million in the first day since it became available, 50 million in less than three weeks after that, and 110 million at the beginning of October. 200...