OnePlus One pre-orders start today, for an hour

If the OnePlus One is on your wishlist but you haven't been able to get that all-important invite, you have your golden opportunity now. The OnePlus team is opening up its pre-orders for the span of just one hour in little over one hour, just as promised a week ago. The pre-orders start at 15:00 (3 pm) GMT or 8 am PST, or 11 am EST or 4 pm CET. OnePlus has a neat timer over at the source link below. To celebrate its new pre-order system OnePlus will offer accessories at lower prices - the special-edition JBL E1+ earphones will go for $24.99, down from $39.99. Invites are still, technically, an option to get the OnePlus One but it looks like the company will aim to make the pre-orders the main means of getting the One. We do hope the OnePlus Two will be made available to...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_one_preorders_start_today_for_an_hour-news-10054.php

HTC Sense 7 screenshots leak with Material Design in tow

Now that Android 5.0 Lollipop is on the verge of being released by Google, device makers are understandably working on tweaking their own UI overlays to better fit the latest iteration of the mobile OS. We've already seen what the Lollipop update for the Samsung Galaxy S5 might end up looking like, and now it's HTC's turn. Specifically, what you see below are claimed to be the first ever leaked screenshots showing the Taiwanese company's upcoming Sense 7. These have allegedly been captured on an HTC One (M8) running the new software, which may come alongside its upgrade to Lollipop - or at a later point. Since HTC has promised that the One (M8) would get Android 5.0 within three months of when Google finalizes the bits, the company could opt for issuing an OS update still working with the current Sense 6, then followed by a Sense update later on. Anyway, the new version of Sense seems very much inspired by Google's Material Design paradigm, which is definitely good news. Hopefully more manufacturers will adopt traces of the new design philosophy, bringing some fresh-looking new UIs to the table. As a final word of caution, do keep in mind that these images might have been faked - that's not hard to do, so they could simply represent what someone out there would like Sense 7 to look like. Or they may of course be the real thing, in which case we expect some more Sense 7 related leaks to pour in soon. Thanks for sending this in, Joe...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_sense_7_screenshots_leak_show_traces_of_material_design-news-10053.php

MediaTek outs MT6753 chipset with a 64-bit octa-core processor

Back in August, MediaTek announced its flagship chip - the MT6795. It has an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor clocked at 2.2GHz and PowerVR G6200 GPU. The latest lineup of chipsets also has the MT6735 (octa-core 1.7GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T760MP2), MT6732 (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T760MP2) and MT6735 (quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53, Mali-T720). Indeed MediaTek prepared very well with a variety of platforms, all of them targeting specific devices and all of them featuring rich connectivity options including LTE. Today MediaTek is adding a new member to this rich lineup - the MT6753. The new SoC offers octa-core Cortex-A53 processor ticking at up to 1.7GHz and Mali-T760 GPU. The new chipsets supports LTE Cat.4 and covers more LTE bands than ever. It also features CDMA 2000 1x and EVDO Rev.A. MediaTek is capable of supporting 1080p displays and up to 16MP cameras with 1080p@30fps video recording. The mass production of the MT6753 chips will kick off in the second quarter of 2015. Source |...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/mediatek_outs_mt6753_chipset_with_an_octacore_processor-news-10051.php

Apple and Android fans on reddit join forces to boycott CurrentC

In a shocking turn of events, Apple and Android fans on reddit have joined forces to collectively boycott the unethical blocking of NFC payment system by certain retailers, which affects both Apple Pay and Google Wallet users. If you're not aware, some of the retailers in the US have started disabling their NFC systems in their stores to prevent people from using Apple Pay or any other NFC based payment system. The reason for this is that these retailers are part of an organization called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, which has its own payment system Called CurrentC. Instead of a secure, wireless system, CurrentC requires users to download an app and fill in their debit card information in that. Then every time you have to purchase something you have to scan a QR code with the app, and then pay for it. The app is also used to shove promotional content and coupons to users, which they may or may not want. Other than being inconvenient and annoying, CurrentC is nowhere as secure as either Apple Pay or Google Wallet. But having an alternate payment system is one thing. Blocking out competitive services entirely so that users have to either pay cash, card, or use CurrentC is another, entirely unethical and anti-competitive business strategy. While the law would eventually come into the picture, people are now starting to boycott this practice. /r/Apple and /r/Android are fairly popular subreddits and if the two can actually come together and manage to get this done it will for the good of...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_and_android_fans_on_reddit_join_forces_to_boycott_currentc-news-10052.php

ASUS announces cheap MeMO Pad 10 (ME103K)

ASUS has made its latest 10-inch slate official - it's called MeMO Pad 10 (Me103K) and packs modest specs but also an attractive $199/€199 price tag. Hardware-wise there's a 10.1" 1280x800px IPS display (149ppi), a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset with a quad-core 1.5GHz Krait processor and 1GB of RAM. The 8GB of storage is expandable via the microSD card slot and you get 5GB ASUS Life Time webstorage. A rare feature in this price range are the stereo speakers with SonicMaster tech. The MeMO Pad 10 (Me103K) ships with Android 4.4 KitKat and has a 0.3MP front-facing camera and a 2MP camera on the back (select models will offer a 5MP back-mounted snapper). ASUS promises 9.5 hours of battery life for the new MeMO Pad 10, which will tip the scales at 525g. The unit will retail in either black or white. Source |...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/asus_announces_cheap_memo_pad_10_me103k-news-10050.php

Xiaomi releases statement regarding Indian privacy concerns

After gaining immense popularity in India in a short time, Xiaomi has come under fire regarding security issues and concerns over user data being sent to China. The relations between the two countries aren't 100% peachy, so it's no wonder organizations such as the IAF or the Indian Air Force are concerned about the data being used to spy upon Indians. Moreover, the claim of the data being sent to Chinese servers was recently confirmed by F-Secure, especially concerning the budget Redmi 1S that was recently launched in India for around $98, causing the IAF to outright ask its personnel and their families to stop buying and using the phone. Xiaomi has now come out and released a statement regarding the privacy concerns surrounding its phones. The statement makes five key points. First, the Xiaomi services are opt-in and won't activate without the user permission. Second, Xiaomi does not collect user data without the explicit permission of the user. The users can choose to disable these services later if they want, which deletes their data. Third, all data is heavily encrypted and securely stored. Not even Xiaomi employees can decrypt the data even if they get access to the hard drives. Fourth, Xiaomi is moving data of Indian users outside of Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in Singapore and the USA. The migration was started earlier this year, parts of which will be finished by the end of October and all of it by the end of 2014. In 2015, Xiaomi will set up a data center in India for its Indian users. Fifth, Xiaomi claims to have addressed the concerns raised by F-Secure regarding the Redmi 1S, which F-Secure has directly acknowledged four days later. Hugo Barra also posted about the matter on Google+ and talked about the migration of data from servers outside of China and eventually to India. Xiaomi hopes this should put all the concerns to rest. Other than the government authorities, most consumers weren't really concerned anyway, but this should take care of the remaining...

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_releases_statement_regarding_privacy_concerns_in_india-news-10049.php