Facebook is now testing a dedicated Videos section

Today Facebook has announced a few new features that it will start testing soon. The most important of those is a new dedicated Videos section. This will appear on the website in the Favorites section on the left of the News Feed. In the iOS app, the Videos icon will replace the Messages icon at the bottom, being placed to the left of the Notifications icon.

The Videos section will house videos, obviously. Videos from friends, pages you follow, and other video publishers will all show up here, as well as videos you’ve saved for later (which, by the way, is another new feature that Facebook is testing).

The new section will only be tested for “a small number of people”, the company says, so you probably shouldn’t expect to see this right away. Aside from this, it’s also going to be testing “a way for people to watch a video in a floating screen while simultaneously multitasking on Facebook”, which sounds a lot like what YouTube for Android has been doing for the past few years.

Facebook has also revealed that suggested videos have been rolled out to most users of the Facebook iOS app, and now this will be tested on the Web, with Android getting there “in the coming months”. Suggested videos is a feature that does just that – suggest videos to watch – after you tap on a video in News…

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Blocks modular smartwatch hits Kickstarter, passes financing goal in a few hours

Right on time, the Blocks modular smartwatch has arrived on Kickstarter today. And in just a few hours, it’s already reached and passed its financing goal of $250,000. Right now people have pledged more than $300,000 for the project, with 37 days to go in the campaign. So it’s safe to assume that this has the potential to be a very successful Kickstarter.

And that’s understandable, because Blocks is pretty unique. It’s the world’s first modular smartwatch, coming with a core and several modules, each having its own function. These modules actually make up the strap of the watch, they are its links effectively.

As you’d expect, you can pick and choose which modules you want to have on your smartwatch, tailoring the hardware to your needs as much as possible. The people behind Blocks promise that they’ll continuously release new modules in the future, so conceivably once a new hardware feature is possible, you’ll be able to get it in this way and update your existing wearable – thus not needing to buy a new one each year.

If you’re interested, you’ll need to pledge at least $195 to get the Blocks watch. For that amount of cash, you’ll receive the core and a strap. You can then add a modular strap in the future. For $275, you get the core and 4 modules of your own choosing. There are many other, more expensive options too.

The biggest caveat is that shipping is only estimated to start in May 2016, so it will be many months before you’ll actually use your fancy modular smartwatch.

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OnePlus Mini gets listed by Amazon India, specs outed once more

Over the past few days we’ve seen the upcoming OnePlus Mini stopping by the FCC as well as getting certified in China by TENAA. And earlier today the handset has been inadvertently listed by Amazon’s Indian arm. The retailer has since taken down the listing, realizing its mistake, but some enterprising individuals were able to capture a screenshot of the product page thankfully.

Although this doesn’t give us a new picture of the OnePlus Mini, it does first of all confirm that name – so it’s not going to be called OnePlus X after all. Next up, Amazon also helpfully lists the phone’s specs, most of which have been rumored before at one time or another. Still, it’s good to get one more confirmation for these.

So, the OnePlus Mini will apparently come with a 5-inch 1080p touchscreen, one that will feature Synaptics’ ClearForce technology (basically making the display pressure-sensitive – think Apple’s 3D Touch). The panel will be covered with Gorilla Glass 3.

The MediaTek MT6795 chipset will run things, better known as the Helio X10, and it comes with a 2.2 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU and a PowerVR G6200 GPU. Some past leaks talked about the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 replacing it, keep that in mind.

Moving on, 2GB of RAM is in tow, and a 2,450 mAh battery keeps the phone juiced up. Interestingly, the OnePlus Mini is said to be launching with Android 6.0 Marshmallow on board, courtesy of the Chinese company’s own Oxygen OS 3.0. Depending on when exactly this handset gets released that could make it one of the first non-Nexus devices to run the latest version of Android from day one.

The metal frame that we’ve seen in the leaked pictures is confirmed too, and it’s said to come with Side Touch functionality, which sounds intriguing. Sadly, there’s a mention of “invite-only” on the product page, so it looks like OnePlus isn’t ready to give up on its much-hated device release system.

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iPhone 6s has only the tenth best mobile camera tested by DxOMark

Over the past few weeks, DxOMark has added quite a few new Android devices to its database rating mobile cameras. We’ve seen the Moto X Style and the Huawei Nexus 6P perform admirably, and then there was the Sony Xperia Z5 – actually climbing to the top of the experts’ charts.

However, all of that happened without the iPhone 6s having been tested. So naturally you may have assumed Apple’s latest would turn out to be a solid competitor for the best of the Android world. It turns out it’s not even close.

The camera in the iPhone 6s got a DxOMark score of 82. That puts it in tenth place in the database created by DxO Labs, so it’s nowhere near the top dogs. Furthermore, it’s received the exact same score as its predecessor, the iPhone 6. So while Apple’s camera quality pretty much remained unchanged over the past year, some Android handset makers improved their games a lot and got ahead.

The pictures the iPhone 6s camera takes have very good exposure, pleasant white balance, and good detail preservation in bright light. What’s more, the autofocus is fast and accurate. On the flip side, luminance noise is visible in low light, color shading is there when shooting indoor, a slightly yellow cast is visible for outdoor shots, and you also get occasional ghosting and other artifacts.

For videos, the autofocus remains fast and accurate, and it’s also smooth. Exposure and white balance are once again good, and stabilization is effective in good lighting conditions. Yet noise is present in low light, especially in image corners, and color shading is visible in low light too.

Compared to the cameras of the phones that are higher up in the rankings, the one in the iPhone 6s simply can’t keep noise at decent levels. And while detail preservation in bright light is slightly better than in the iPhone 6, it’s still far from the leaders in the…

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Meizu MX5 review: Amaze U

Another Fall, another flagship season. Unlike Samsung or Apple, Meizu was the first to announce its next major smartphone – the MX5 and while we may be a bit late with this review it was certainly something we were looking forward to as Meizu devices tend to always be nicer than expected…

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Samsung Galaxy S7 to get 3D Touch-like features, rumor says

As you probably know, one of the big new features of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is called 3D Touch. This pairs a pressure-sensitive touchscreen with software that can take advantage of how hard you press down on it. Hence, among other things, a quick actions menu can show up when you press hard on the icon of an app (as seen in the image below).

3D Touch has left most of Apple’s competitors behind, but at least one of them is reportedly thinking of using it in its next flagship. And yes, it’s Samsung.

According to a rumor out of China, the Korean company is one of the “core partners” for Synaptics’ new ClearForce technology, which is basically going to offer 3D Touch to non-Apple device makers. Obviously this partnership between Samsung and Synaptics should result in the ClearForce tech being used on the Galaxy S7 that will be out next year.

While it will put in the pressure-sensitive hardware, it’s still unclear how Samsung plans on developing the software aspect of the feature, but if this is true then those details are probably going to be outed soon.

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Sony’s Open Device program now offers Android Marshmallow binaries for a number of devices

It appears Sony is still dedicated on empowering developers running the latest Android code on Xperia devices as the company has just uploaded a new batch of binaries on its developer portal, this time for the latest Marshmallow version.

If you are an Android enthusiast or simply a developer who likes to thinker with the latest and greatest Google’s mobile OS has to offer, then the Nexus devices are definitely a prime choice. However, in recent years, a few other OEM’s have jumped on the AOSP wagon and are now offering users the ability to play around with current open source Android builds shortly after Google puts them out.

Sony has been showing some great promise in this respect. Back in June, when Android 6.0 was still just announced an even lacking an official name, the Japanese giant was quick to release necessary binaries and other resources, essentially empowering developers to run the M Developer preview on quite a few Xperia devices. It appears that Sony is still working hard at this new initiative, dubbed the Open Device program, as it recently uploaded a new batch of binaries on its developer portal, this time for the latest Marshmallow version.

The aforementioned binaries package various configuration and driver files and are required to build AOSP ROMs for a specific Sony device. Currently, the list of supported models includes:

Xperia Z5

Xperia Z5 Compact

Xperia Z3+

Xperia Z4 Tablet

Xperia Z4 Tablet WiFi

Xperia Z3

Xperia Z3 Compact

Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact

Xperia Z2

Xperia Z2 Tablet

Xperia Z1

Xperia Z1 Compact

Xperia Z Ultra

Xperia Z

Xperia ZL

Xperia Tablet Z

Xperia E3

Xperia M2

Xperia T2 Ultra

Xperia T3

Besides the said resources, Sony has also set up GitHub repositories for each eligible model, so you can even contribute to AOSP for your device of choice. And if you are not a developer and wondering how all this relates to your end user experience, we need to get a few things straight. Having the ability to build AOSP ROMS is in invaluable resource for the dev community, but doesn’t necessarily mean that the aforementioned devices will get a proper, full-featured Marshmallow OTA from Sony.

The Japanese giant has already released a considerably shorter list of devices that should receive an Android 6.0 update at some point in the future.

On a more positive note, however, this could spark third party development and potentially lead to more third-party, custom Marshmallow builds, but that all depends on Sony community and its level of involvement.

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Apple introduces new Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, and Magic Mouse 2

Alongside the new iMacs, Apple also introduced three new peripherals – the Magic Keyboard, the Magic Trackpad 2, and the Magic Mouse 2.

The Magic Keyboard is an updated version of Apple’s previous wireless keyboard. The main feature here is that it now has built-in battery, which is rechargeable. The keyboard recharges via a Lightning connector on the back. Apple claims the battery will last for a month or more between charges. The keyboard also uses a new scissor mechanism for keys for increased stability. Apple has also altered the key travel and made it lower profile, although hopefully it’s not like the new MacBook keyboard, which a lot of people aren’t comfortable with. The new Magic Keyboard is priced at $99.

The Magic Trackpad 2 also has an internal rechargeable battery unlike the original. But that’s not the main feature here. The new trackpad supports Force Touch like the ones on the new Macbook and MacBook Pro. There are four sensors underneath the trackpad that sense pressure and you can use the new gestures in OS X to take full advantage of the pressure sensitivity. The Magic Trackpad 2 is also 30 percent larger than the previous one and has an edge to edge glass surface that can be clicked anywhere. The Magic Trackpad 2 is priced at $129.

Lastly, there is the new Magic Mouse 2. It also has an internal rechargeable battery. Unlike the Lightning port on the keyboard and the trackpad, the one on the Magic Mouse 2 is placed underneath, so you can’t actually use it while it’s charging, which is pretty dumb. It’s also lighter now and moves with less resistance across the surface, which is great because the previous one was pretty rough. It’s still pretty flat though to use the multitouch gestures on the surface, which means it’s still not going to be comfortable to use for those who like to use palm grip. The Magic Mouse 2 is priced at…

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Apple refreshes iMac lineup, introduces new 21.5-inch 4K iMac

Apple has just refreshed the entire iMac lineup. The company has replaced all the previous 27-inch models with the 5K models and the 21.5-inch range gets a new 4K model.

The 21.5-inch range now consists of three models. The base 1.6GHz (Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz) dual-core Core i5 model and middle 2.8GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz) quad-core Core i5 model still have the 1080p IPS display. The top of the line 3.1GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) quad-core Core i5 model however now gets a 4K IPS display. All three models have 8GB 1867MHz LPDDR3 RAM and 1TB 5400-rpm hard drives. The base model has Intel HD Graphics 6000 whereas the middle and 4K models have Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200. The rest is similar to the previous generation models. The prices are $1099, $1299, and $1499, respectively.

Apple also updated the 27-inch range. Instead of keeping the older QHD displays and having a separate 5K range, Apple instead replaced the older models with 5K range. There are now three 27-inch iMacs with 5K display. The base and middle models have a 3.2GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) quad-core Core i5 and the top of the line model has a 3.3GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz) quad-core Core i5. All three models have 8GB 1867MHz LPDDR3 RAM. The base model has 1TB 7200-rpm drive, the middle model has 1TB Fusion Drive, and the top of the line model has 2TB Fusion Drive. They also have AMD Radeon R9 M380, M390, and M395 graphics, respectively, with 2GB GDDR5 memory each. They are priced at $1799, $1999, $2299, respectively.

Apple offers configuration options for almost all models, where you can upgrade the processor, RAM, storage or GPU while ordering. All models also come with the new Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse 2 and a Lightning to USB cable to charge…

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LG Nexus 5X, Huawei Nexus 6P now up for pre-order in India

Google held a press event today in India to officially launch its latest smartphones in the country. Listed for pre-order starting today, the LG Nexus 5X and the Huawei Nexus 6P have been split between Amazon and Flipkat respectively, and they’ll start shipping on October 21.

Pricing is the same as originally shown on the Google Store India website, meaning quite a bit more expensive than in the US, but that’s also the case in Europe. In India, the high-end Nexus 6P costs INR 39,999 ($613) for the 32GB version or INR 42,999 ($659) for double the storage. Compare that to the $500 and $550 figures in the States. The 128GB version is not available for the time being.

Meanwhile, over on Amazon you can pre-order a 16GB Nexus 5X for INR 31,990 ($490) and we’re sure you won’t mind the 90-rupee difference from the initially listed INR 31,900 price. The 32GB version will set you back an additional INR 4,000, for an equivalent to $552. For comparison, US prices start at $380.

Google is throwing in a few freebies to sweeten the deal, though. With the Nexus 5X you’re looking at a Plantronics M70 Bluetooth headset, free screen replacement and a few gift cards. Pre-ordering a Nexus 6P on Flipkart will net you a free Chromecast, while signing up for one offline means a Bluetooth speaker. So there is a silver lining of sorts to the 20-30% price difference versus the US market.

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