A couple of days ago we showed you a leaked image out of China which claimed to depict the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 in all its glory. And now we have yet another purported render of this smartphone.

As you can see, this one’s blurrier, and the device it shows is a little bit different than the one in the previous leak. If you look closely, the design of the Home button is a little rounder this time around, while the button itself occupies almost the entire height of the bottom bezel (which wasn’t the case in the other leaked image).

There are similarities too, for example when it comes to the almost non-existent side bezels. The new render also seems to confirm the use of so-called 2.5D glass on top of the display panel. What’s iffy about this shot is that the Mi logo isn’t visible in the top left of the phone, which is its normal placement. So hopefully you’ve taken what you’ve seen with a hefty dose of salt.

The Mi 5 is supposed to arrive in early 2016 rocking Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 820 chipset, a fingerprint scanner integrated into that Home button, and other high-end specs to match these. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun recently said the Mi 5 is “worth waiting for”.

Source (in Chinese) |…

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Among many of the new features of Google products that were announced at Google I/O this year, Shared Albums was one of them.

This feature was demoed at Google I/O. Photos were shared to another user via a link. You can open the link directly in the browser or on the photos app. You can then add these photos directly to your own Google Photos library.

You can add photos to a shared album where multiple users can contribute to the same album. The photos app will also notify you when someone adds photos to a new album.

Google Photos focuses on improving photo organization, keeping and remembering the best memories and sharing these memories with those we love.

A new intro video was also posted to Youtube, demonstrating the sharing process with a Nexus 6P and an iPhone, always showing that Google also cares about iOS users. The user selects the photos and adds them to a new shared album, then she shares the link to the album with an iPhone user.

Then the iPhone user adds more pictures through the Photos app and the original sharer is notified of new photos added to the shared album.

Source |…

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Alongside the second generation Chromecast dongle for your TV, Google also unveiled the Chromecast Audio this September. Whereas the ‘normal’ Chromecast is simply put a way to smarten up your TV, the Audio does the same for speakers. It can connect to your existing speakers that don’t have any type of network connection either via a 3.5mm analog stereo cable, or via RCA connectors or an optical cable.

You then give it access to your Wi-Fi network, and from that point on you ‘cast’ music to it through apps on your mobile devices, just like you do with the Chromecast for TV.

Starting today, the Chromecast Audio is set to receive an automatic software update, and this is pretty important because it will enable two neat features. First off, you get high-resolution audio support, which means up to 96KHz/24bit lossless playback is now possible through the dongle.

Multi-room support is in too, which lets you listen to the same synchronized music in all of the places you have a Chromecast Audio connected, all at the same time. So if you have one hooked up to your speakers in the living room, and another in the bedroom, and another one in the kitchen – you’ll hear the exact same music wherever you go.

This works if you first create a group of speakers via the Chromecast app. You can then cast to the group in the exact same way you cast to a single…

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Xiaomi could already be preparing the upcoming Redmi 3 smartphone. A new Xiaomi device has surfaced courtesy of Geekbench. The benchmark has been run on a handset codenamed Kenzo, which sports 2GB of RAM and runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.

Based on the motherboard name being MSM8952, it looks like this Xiaomi is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 chipset (because MSM8952 is its model designation). However, the SoC in question features a 1.5 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU, whereas the device that ran Geekbench only had six cores active and they were capped at 1.4 GHz.

This is contradictory information, but device makers have been known to turn off cores when developing phones in order to test different scenarios. And benchmarks have also at times erroneously reported such details.

No other information has been leaked about the Kenzo, but it stands to reason that this could be the Redmi 3. The RAM amount and SoC used fit a mid-range offering, and the Redmi Note line has recently been updated – that leaves only the smaller Redmi in need of a hardware refresh.

Source |…

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Apple has been designing its processors since the Apple A6 chip (iPhone 5), which introduced the first custom processor to the series, followed by the first 64-bit CPU inside Apple A7 (iPhone 5s).

But Apple isn’t working only on its own CPU design, it has been developing in-house solutions for motion coprocessors and some sensors.

The latest rumor is that the company has been developing a proprietary GPU for a couple of years in order to drop the dependency on the PowerVR graphic units. The iPhones usually topped the GPU benchmarks throughout the years exactly because the powerful Imagination Technologies GPUs, but it seems Apple will be going a different way in the future.

The Apple’s purported graphics solution is still not ready for presentation and it may as well take another few years, but the ultimate goal is to design as many components as possible in-house.

Samsung has been following suit lately as it is expected to announce its first custom processor with the upcoming Exynos 8 chips early next year and the Galaxy S7 is expected to be the first device to show it off.

We don’t really expect to see the Apple’s custom GPU, if real, in the next iPhone 7, as if that was the case we should have already heard about its first samples. You never know, though – perhaps Apple simply managed to keep this secret very…

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GoPro is now compatible with the Apple Watch and allows you to preview what the camera sees, start and stop recording, add Hi-Light tags, and toggle settings.

GoPro released a new promo video with the updated support for Apple Watch featuring pro-skateboarder Mikey Taylor. The Apple Watch functions are demonstrated while Taylor pops over a ramp doing a kickflip.

The video also shows GoPro’s Trim and Share feature which lets you create 5, 15, or 30 second clips for social media.

Newer features include a faster way to filter between videos, photos, and Hi-Light shots, and the ability to take frames from video clips and save them as still images.

Source |…

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A few days ago we published purported 3D renderings of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Plus – the upcoming 5.1″ and 6″ flagships from Samsung. Now OnLeaks and uSwitch have cooked up a more realistic render and made a short video of it.

The phone largely looks like a Galaxy S6. The sides seem more rounded, which plays nice with the 2.5D glass on the front and the back.

Unfortunately, there’s also no microSD slot visible (just a SIM slot) and no USB Type-C either – if the renders are accurate, it’s a bog standard microSD. The failure of microUSB 3.0 may still be fresh in Samsung’s mind.

Anyway, it’s the Samsung Galaxy S7 Plus in the video, which measures 163.32 x 82.01 x 7.82mm (9.05mm if you count the camera hump).

Samsung Galaxy S7 Plus rendered from leaked 3D models

A subtle change makes the Home button/fingerprint reader is wider but narrower – it goes from 16 x 6.7mm on the S6 to 18 x 5mm on the S7. The front-facing camera has been moved all the way to the right.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 duo may get unveiled on February 21, about a week before the MWC. It may mark Samsung’s return to Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets (at least for some SKUs) and bring a big BRITECELL…

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Apple announced its top apps for 2015 and the iPhone App of the Year award went to livestreaming service Periscope. On the iPad it is the game The Robot Factory, though Game of the Year went to Prune. On the Apple Watch the “hyperlocal weather” app Dark Sky took home the big prize.

Here are the rest:

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App of the Year

Winner oniPhone Periscope
Runners up:
Enlight Robinhood

Winner oniPad The Robot Factory
Runners up:
HBO Now Patterning

Winner onApple Watch Dark Sky

Game of the Year

Winner oniPhone Lara Croft GO
Runners up:
Fallout Shelter Mr Jump

Winner oniPad Prune
Runners up:
Rayman Adventures Implosion

Winner onApple Watch Rules!

Most Innovative

Winner oniPhone Workflow

Winner on iPad LiquidText

Best on iPhone 6s

Best app Instagram
Best game Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade
Most innovative Dark Echo

Best on iPad Pro

Best app uMake
Best game Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey
Most innovative Her Story

Apple TV & Mac

HBO Now scored another win as Apple TV Apple TV of the Year, Rayman Adventures got Game of the Year on the TV platform. For Mac Affinity Photo won the app award and Pillars of Eternity got the game…

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Samsung has been patenting some interesting technology – from foldable phones to a modular camera for phones. The patents also detail a phone with a dual-xenon flash (!).

The modular design shows several options – a regular looking camera, one with a camera bump that looks like it houses optical zoom and one with an exchangeable lens. The host phone is drawn in a couple of different shapes, suggesting the idea is to have a line of such devices that can pick and choose their camera.

Base camera module • dual xenon flash • optical zoom module * exchangeable lens module

Then there’s this thing… it’s thin like a phone, but has a big camera module and a thicker, a camera-like grip on one end, plus a hardware shutter key and a dial with another button.

A thin phone/camera hybrid

Now, patents are no guarantee that such a device will ever see the light of day, but they do give an insight into what Samsung’s R&D department is working on.

Source 1 2 3 • Via (in Dutch)…

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YouTube has introduced a new Trending tab, that appears on the website and in the mobile apps next to your Subscriptions tab. The tab had previously appeared for some users on a trial basis but it’s now permanently included.

The Trending tab shows videos that are, well, currently Trending on YouTube. The tab shows international as well as regional trends, so you will see a lot of popular local videos along with international favorites.

Unfortunately, people aren’t taking too kindly to this feature as in the app you now have to swipe twice to go to your subscriptions, which was previously just one swipe away, but your mileage may vary. It’s not something that can be disabled, though, so you’re stuck with it whether you like it or…

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