Apple Pay is shaping up to be a top priority for Cupertino. Ever since it first saw the light of day, about a year ago, the US giant has been going through hoops to spread the platform and enforce it, along with its steep commissions on to banks and often distrustful retailers alike.

And if there is one thing Apple is undoubtedly brilliant at, it is pushing products, so quite naturally, after a lot of hard work and grinding Apple Pay is now growing in popularity in the US, as well as abroad. But, while getting support in the UK and Canada hasn’t really proven to be such a major challenge, China has remained tightly sealed off to the payment service, at least up until now that is.

A new report suggests that Apple might have finally managed to permeate the vast Chinese market and is now closer to releasing Apple Pay there than ever. Apparently Cupertino has already registered an entity within the Shanghai free-trade zone that will be charged with coordinating Apple Pay. It is called Apple Technology Service Shanghai Ltd. and was registered on June 10, as the Shanghai government’s company-registration database confirms.

Its official business operations description includes – “consulting, services and system integration in the field of payments”, which is all the evidence we need to prove that Apple is making progress. To give you a little backstory on the matter – operating a payment service within China must be sanctioned by the government and approved by the central bank. Apple had initially planned to push a partnership with UnionPay – which governs all NFC payments within the country, but negotiations between the two sides have been slow and unfruitful and government regulations and security concerns prevented Apple from reaching the final deal, initially planned for March 2015.

Since then, Apple has also been trying to forge a partnership with China’s own Alibaba. This was viewed as a potential path to introducing Apple Pay in China, through an integration with the company’s own Alipay system. This however does not solve the problem as UnionPay controls the NFC payment system in the country so there is no going around the regulations.

The founding of this new $13.4 million capital subsidiary, however, is a clear indication that Apple has managed to somehow move things along, meaning that it might finally have access to China’s vast market, with over 400 million digital payment users on Alipay alone. Recently, Alibaba rival Tencent Holdings Ltd has also been gaining ground in the e-payment niche with its vastly popular WeChat messenger, which is another viable path that Cupertino could be using to expand.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long for an official statement from Apple to clear the air.

Source |…

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Microsoft’s Insider Program for Windows 10 has proven to be a great success so far. Not only has it become an invaluable source of feedback to power the company’s new open development cycle, but it allows the tech community to get the inside track on the latest changes and developments inside the OS.

The new Insider release is now out (Build 10547) and it brings a number of improvements, most of which in response to user-request.

App updates

A number of core Windows 10 apps have received improvements in the latest build. These include Groove, Maps, Calendar and Mail, but also the Windows Xbox app. The latter is now even more engaging with the addition of ‘game progress comparison’. Overall, we are really starting to see Microsoft’s vision of cross-platform gaming and a game-centric community taking shape and we can’t wait for the project to evolve even further.

A spacious Start Menu

It turns out a lot of Windows users were feeling slightly constrained by the 512 elements limitation in the Start area. Microsoft has raised that to a whopping 2048 with a new forth column in the latest build, so you can now horde apps to your heart’s content.

Cortana is now untethered

This is an issues we did actually have here at the office. Cortana is undoubtedly great and is perhaps the most lively and personality-rich assistant out of the bunch we currently have and keeping her around is quite fun. Sadly, if you happen to be on a Windows 10 PC that you wish to use with an offline account, instead of your Microsoft one, Cortana is left dead in the water. And if you try to tell her your credentials, Windows just assumes you no longer want to be so disconnected and requires you to switch to your online account.

Well, apparently a lot of users weren’t all too happy about this and Microsoft has indeed delivered a solution in the latest version, where Cortana can work without logging you in. However, bear in mind that she does still need internet to look things up for you and won’t nearly be that personal if she doesn’t get access to your shared online “Notebook”.

Improved gestures in tablet mode

The task view in Windows 10 tablet mode is now a lot easier to operate. From it you can snap apps to left and right and replace a previously snapped app with another. Also a simple swipe down will now closes an app.

New diverse emojis

Adding more diverse emoji color options has already been discussed quite a few times within the Windows 10 community and they are also making a debut in Build 10547. Now the default keyboard has a color selection button in the bottom left corner that toggles all compatible emote icons. This does, in fact look to be quite convenient, perhaps even more so than Apple’s approach, which involves selecting a variation for each typed emoji.

Just like with any other Windows build, there are also a lot more fixes and improvements under the hood, but the above few is what definitely meets the eye upon first inspection. Furthermore, we are truly happy to see Microsoft’s newly adopted open development process working out so productively and unlike most previous Windows version, this time around the platform is truly alive and evolving.

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Over a month after Maxis announced that it will soon start selling the OnePlus 2 smartphone in Malaysia, it has been revealed that the carrier will launch the device on September 22, i.e. coming Tuesday.

As for the price, the 64 GB Sandstone Black variant will carry a price tag of RM1,788 or $423 (tax included). Those on the carrier’s Zerolution plan will be able to purchase it for RM104 ($25) per month.

It’s worth mentioning that the handset, which was made official back in July this year and is currently available in limited quantities, will only be made available to those who have received a special invite from its website.

In addition to the carrier’s brick-and-mortar stores, you’ll also be able to place orders for the device on the Maxis Online Store, something which you can do starting 10:00 AM on September 22, with deliveries beginning on September…

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Chinese security researchers have found that Apple’s App Store in the country is currently home to several malware-infected apps, a revelation that has been subsequently verified by US-based Palo Alto Networks.

Researchers say hackers infected some versions of development tool Xcode hosted on third-party websites – for those who aren’t in the know, the tool, which is also directly available from Apple for free, is used by developers to create iOS and OS X apps. These malicious versions have now been labeled as XcodeGhost.

Examples of infected apps – which are more than 20 in number, and collect information like phone’s name, UUID, language and country, current time. and network type when launched – include NetEase Cloud Music which has nearly 500 ratings, with an average of 4.5 stars.

“Some of them are very popular and have tens of millions of installations,” according to a researcher with Palo Alto Networks.

Source | Via 1…

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Apple Pay is shaping up to be a top priority for Cupertino. Ever since it first saw the light of day, about a year ago, the US giant has been going through hoops to spread the platform and enforce it, along with its steep commissions on to banks and often distrustful retailers alike.

And if there is one thing Apple is undoubtedly brilliant at, it is pushing products, so quite naturally, after a lot of hard work and grinding Apple Pay is now growing in popularity in the US, as well as abroad. But, while getting support in the UK and Canada hasn’t really proven to be such a major challenge, China has remained tightly sealed off to the payment service, at least up until now that is.

A new report suggests that Apple might have finally managed to permeate the vast Chinese market and is now closer to releasing Apple Pay there than ever. Apparently Cupertino has already registered an entity within the Shanghai free-trade zone that will be charged with coordinating Apple Pay. It is called Apple Technology Service Shanghai Ltd. and was registered on June 10, as the Shanghai government’s company-registration database confirms.

Its official business operations description includes – “consulting, services and system integration in the field of payments”, which is all the evidence we need to prove that Apple is making progress. To give you a little backstory on the matter – operating a payment service within China must be sanctioned by the government and approved by the central bank. Apple had initially planned to push a partnership with UnionPay – which governs all NFC payments within the country, but negotiations between the two sides have been slow and unfruitful and government regulations and security concerns prevented Apple from reaching the final deal, initially planned for March 2015.

Since then, Apple has also been trying to forge a partnership with China’s own Alibaba. This was viewed as a potential path to introducing Apple Pay in China, through an integration with the company’s own Alipay system. This however does not solve the problem as UnionPay controls the NFC payment system in the country so there is no going around the regulations.

The founding of this new $13.4 million capital subsidiary, however, is a clear indication that Apple has managed to somehow move things along, meaning that it might finally have access to China’s vast market, with over 400 million digital payment users on Alipay alone. Recently, Alibaba rival Tencent Holdings Ltd has also been gaining ground in the e-payment niche with its vastly popular WeChat messenger, which is another viable path that Cupertino could be using to expand.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long for an official statement from Apple to clear the air.

Source |…

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Popular iOS ad-blocker Peace, which has been the number one paid app in the US since iOS 9’s debut, has been pulled from the App Store. It was developed by Marco Arment, who is also the brain behind the popular read-it-later app Instapaper and podcast app Overcast.

As per Arment, Peace was designed in a way that it treated all ads the same, an approach which he now labels as “too blunt.” Apparently, the main issue he was facing was that the app was blocking ads from The Deck, the same publisher which serves ads to Arment’s own website as well as those of some of his close friends.

“Ad-blocking is a kind of war — a first-world, low-stakes, both-sides-are-fortunate-to-have-this-kind-of-problem war, but a war nonetheless, with damage hitting both sides.” he said in a blog post. “Even though I’m “winning”, I’ve enjoyed none of it. That’s why I’m withdrawing from the market.”

Those who’ve already bought the app can ask for a refund.

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Sony has a long history of going all out at the annual IFA announcements, but this year it might have just set a new personal record with the Z5 family. After the messy overheating fiasco, involving its last line of flagships, the Japanese tech giant was eager to move on and direct fan attention away from the incident.

Naturally, the Z5 Premium, with its world-first 4K display in a smartphone did the trick. But only a few days after the phone was made official the first accusations started coming in that the flagship isn’t exactly 100 percent sincere about its 4K resolution. We looked thoroughly into the issue ASAP and confirmed that all the 8 million or so pixels are indeed there, but still the device’s UI was using them only when displaying appropriate UHD media and otherwise running at 1080p.

Sony has finally issues an official statement on the matter, confirming our findings and explaining why the odd behavior was necessary. In the OEM’s own words:

Xperia Z5 Premium features a 4K display with a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels based on SID Standard and enables all video and image content to be enjoyed in 4K resolution. All other content is displayed at 1080P or lower resolution in order to optimise the performance and battery stamina for this device, ensuring you can enjoy the 4K resolution when you need it most.

Well, there’s that mystery solved and when you think about it, a per-need 4K was probably the best way to go. A 5.5 inch UHD display is a wild concept on Sony’s part, but the OEM had to be careful not to go overboard with it. The pixels might be there, but the Snapdragon 810 chip inside the device and particularly its Adreno 430 GPU aren’t really designed to constantly work to push out such a huge resolution. While the silicon is capable enough of rendering the content, doing it all the time will undoubtedly lead to overheating and a major strain on the battery.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

Sony can’t really afford either for obvious reasons and the Z5 Premium is marketed as having up to 2 days of battery life, just like its siblings – the Z5 and Z5 Compact. At the end of the day, this development doesn’t take away Sony’s achievement of being first in delivering 4K to the mobile realm, but it is a necessary clarification to put all the allegations at rest.

Also, for a more in-depth analysis on the Z5 Premium, check out our hands-on…

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Google sent out invites for an Android Marshmallow themed event in San Francisco on September 29. The occasion will all but certainly mark the debut Android 6.0, as well as new Google hardware.

We are likely to see a duo of new Nexus smartphones made by LG and Huawei. The devices are expected to debut as Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P respectively.

The LG-made Nexus 5X has already leaked on a number of occasions. Its rumored specs include Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 5.2″ 1080p display, 12.3MP main camera, and a fingerprint sensor.

Nexus 6P on the other hand, is rumored to pack Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset, 3GB of RAM, and 5.7″ QHD display. The Handset will be Huawei’s first Nexus device.

An updated Chromecast is also expected to make an appearance at the event. An image of the device leaked out earlier today….

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In its quest to make the S Health app more accessible to more people, Samsung first published it on the Play Store a few months ago. And today the company has made it available for all devices running Android 4.4 KitKat or above.

So S Health is no longer limited to Samsung smartphones. Anyone can use its health tracking options now, get coaching to reach certain goals, and improve fitness with various training programs.

This rather surprising move of opening up S Health to everybody, not just Samsung handset owners, comes after the similarly interesting announcement that the Gear S2 smartwatch will work with non-Samsung Android devices too. Since S Health can use data from a smartwatch’s sensors, these things can in fact be related. If you’re going to use the Gear S2 with a non-Samsung phone, then you might as well use it with S Health, the company’s thinking seems to be.

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A new rumor out of Samsung’s home country of South Korea claims to give us an idea of the material that will be used in the upcoming Galaxy S7. This is based on samples that are already in development.

Unlike the Galaxy S6, which uses an aluminum frame, the company’s next flagship will allegedly be coming with a magnesium alloy construction.

This will be a unibody design, marking a departure from the Galaxy S6, in which only the frame is metallic, with the back being made of glass. The S7 would thus be Samsung’s first fully metal flagship device ever.

The magnesium alloy was apparently chosen because of how light it is while still remaining strong and durable. Magnesium is said to be 2.8 times stronger than aluminum while weighing 65% less. Magnesium also gets less hot than aluminum, which is a feature that’s of great use in the mobile world, where chipsets and displays generate quite a lot of heat.

The Galaxy S7 will reportedly come out in the first half of 2016, though a less vague time frame isn’t known at the moment.

Source (in Korean) |…

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