Lenovo is quickly becoming part of the long list of legendary brands struggling for profits in today’s vast tech branch. The Chinese giant is far from sinking, but both its PC and smartphone businesses haven’t been doing well recently and the latest fiscal report from Q1 2015 paints a gloomy picture.

The company’s revenue has a 3% percent year over year increase, but the $10.7 billion are still short of the $11.29 billion forecast. Worse still – Lenovo’s net income is down by 50%, compared to the same period last year. This has caused the company to do major restructuring to restore its profitability.

One of these measures involves laying off about 10% of the company’s employees from non-manufacturing sectors. That amounts to about 3200 people and a total of 5% of Lenovo’s 60,000 staff. This should theoretically bring savings of up to $640 million by the end of the year.

But Lenovo doesn’t really plan on sitting on that money, quite the opposite. It should go toward a major restructure in the mobile business. The manufacturer plans to rethink its handset portfolio and bring it down to just a few signature models. Also, international sales are going to play a much bigger role in Lenovo’s future strategy.

But perhaps most interesting of all is the decision to put Motorola’s expertise in charge of the mobile division. A Lenovo’s CEO letter to employees urges the company’s Mobile Business Group to better leverage on the complimenting strengths of Lenovo and Motorola, suggesting that Moto will be focusing on smartphones and Lenovo on PCs.

We can’t wait to see what new goodies emerge from the new arrangement.

Source |…

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Xiaomi has announced the newest version of MIUI alongside the new Redmi Note 2. MIUI 7 is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop and comes with a bunch of new features.

One of the features is face detection mode in the Gallery app, that can recognize faces and sort images according to the people in it in the People tab. The software is even able to identify and differentiate pets.

MIUI 7 also has a handful of new themes, including a pink ‘Goddess’ theme targeted at women and as usual you can download more from the store.

MIUI also has a new feature called Mi Roaming, which acts as a virtual SIM for when you go out of your country, allowing users to purchase data packages from Xiaomi and use them instead of getting a new SIM. This feature is only available in China for now.

MIUI 7 can also let you set videos for contacts, which play when the person calls you. Lastly, there is also a Kids Mode, which restricts what content kids can access on the device.

MIUI 7 will start rolling out for Mi 2, Mi 2S, Mi 2A, Mi 3, Mi 4, Mi Note, Redmi, and Redmi Note tomorrow in China. Xiaomi will be officially announcing MIUI 7 in India on August…

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UMI ZERO 2 is back with big promises. This time it takes aim at Vertu with genuine leather back (though the LG G4 seems like a more realistic target). “So no surprise even UMI want to design ZERO 2 is a true art and look-luxury, like Vertu,” says UMI PR.

If you’re thinking “but what about the e-Ink back?” well it turns out this may be a different phone, UMI ZERO PRO. Even though the company’s Facebook page is touting the UMI ZERO 2 with an image of a phone with an e-Ink back.

It seems that the company itself isn’t 100% sure what the ZERO 2 is going to be, but they seem pretty sure it will have a reversible USB Type C port with fast-charging support. Asking about price and launch date is asking to reveal too…

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